Lee - The gentlemans guide to getting lucky: Montague Siblings Series, Book 1.5

D o you mean to tell me that you have not actually fornicated yet?

Dear God, Felicity. I lunge across the beach in an attempt to clap a hand over her mouth, and miss entirely. She is farther down the beach than I thought. The heavy copy of Don Quixote she dug up from a bookstore in Oia thats sitting on my chest tumbles to the ground with a dull flump. Felicity, unimpressed by my pounce, retrieves my book, shakes the sand out from between its pages, then returns it to me with a disapproving scowl, as if I am the one behaving inappropriately by dropping a book, when its she who is shouting about my sex life.

Oh please. Theyre too far out to hear. Her eyes flit across the bay, where two dark heads are poking up from the surfEbrahim and Percy, treading water while they wait for Georgie to finish his scramble up the side of the cliff, then leap off and join them in the ocean. She leans back against a piece of driftwood, letting her copy of Paradise Lost fall closed on one finger. Youre certainly taking your time.

Its only been a month.

Only? She arches an eyebrow. My regret that I even toed this subject with her intensifies. I expected that once you and Percy were in agreement about living in sin, you would lean hard into it.

Over the waves, I hear a loud whoop of delight, and Felicity and I both look up as Georgie leaps with his knees pulled up to his chest. The water throws the suns reflection into my eyes before I can see his splash, and I hold Don Quixote up as a shield. In spite of our month in Santorini, as a lad raised beneath the dishwater-gray skies of England, I was not prepared for just how hot the weather can be, nor how quickly the bastard sun burns me. Im also still adjusting to sand perpetually in my shoes and the hems of my trousers, and the murderous havoc these rough, hilly streets have wreaked on my calvestheres not yet been a day I havent risen from my bed stiff as an old man. Though I could live happily forever on this diet of Cyclades beaches and domed roofs bluer than the sky and grapefruits picked from our courtyard for breakfast, halved and salted and spraying sticky juice that stays on my fingers all day. With the scheduled departure of the Eleftheria delayed, first by a buyer for their cargo in Crete, then by a repair to the mizzenmast after a storm on the return journey cracked it, Felicity, Percy, and I have been treated to far more of a holiday here than originally anticipated.

Though a single addition to this Paradise could vastly improve it.

Well, I was certainly ready to shake sheets straightaway, I say, falling backward onto the beach again and letting the book rest open over my eyes. But Percys a bit of a proper young lady, turns out.

What do you mean by that? Felicity asks. If thats meant to be an insult, its in poor taste.

I laugh. To whom? Youre hardly a proper young lady.

There are many ways to be proper, you know. And dont do that. She snatches the book off my eyes, and I recoil with a caw of surprise. Youll break the spine. Youre supposed to be reading it, not using it as a visor.

It keeps the sun from my eyes.

If the sun is in your eyes, move into the shade.

I squint at her. But I like the sun.

Fine. She sets Don Quixote carefully upon the log behind her, then brushes her hands off on her skirt. See if Percy loves you when youre red as a cherry.

Percy would love me if I were green and purple. I have to resist the urge to reach up and scratch the space where my right ear used to be. The burns there have begun to heal into scars, so Ive started experimenting with a variety of increasingly creative ways to hide this uninvited alteration to my face. Though short of adopting some sort of masked vigilante persona, its beginning to feel futile to do anything other than simply learn to live with the way I now look. It has been a not insignificant adjustment. Im still shy around mirrorseven very polished cutlery can be disarming. Still catch myself wondering why noise in a crowd is so hard to pick apart. Still go to push my hair behind my ear and get an unpleasant lurch over finding it absent, nothing left but raised marks in furious red.

Dear God, in spite of the grapefruits, this deaf, sexless month has been an eternity.

So whats Percy done thats got your breeches twisted? Felicity asks, Paradise Lost once again open as though to prove just how little she cares about this conversation, but its her dragging it out again, not me.

Nothingthats the problem. I flip over onto my stomach, elbows buried in the sand. Hes never done anything. With anyone. And hes more tentative about it now than he was when he was tipsy in Venice. Should have seized that opportunity.

A soft wind snakes off the water, and Felicity claps a hand to the back of her floppy hat to keep it from blowing away. Now, that makes you sound like a pig.

He wasnt very tipsyjust enough to feel brave about getting a hand down my breeches and taking me by the

Stop. She bats a handful of sand at me. I dont need details.

And Im fairly certain hes ready now, but I dont know how to bring it up anymore. How do you mention sex like it doesnt matter?

Does it? she asks. Given your history, I would have thought youd be quite cavalier about it.

It matters to Percy. And because of my history, as you so generously termed it, I dont want him to think Im rushing him into it. And theres never a good moment! Weve got that flat stuffed full of pirates, and youre always lurking

I resent that choice of words.

And its not the most romantic placeI stepped on a cockroach this morning when I got out of bed; did I tell you that?

I know, I heard you scream. The pitch was remarkable.

And this whole island is only about eight feet square. I roll over again, my head falling backward in the most champagne-colored despair. I hate this.

Felicity licks her finger to turn a page. Hate what? Chastity?

Emphatically yes. I have a reputation.

For getting trousers off in a timely fashion? Not sure thats one worth defending in order to prove your fidelity to Percy.

I mean Ive got a reputation for running around a lot, and Percy thinks I know what Im doing.

Well, you do. Dont you? She actually looks up at me for the first time, overtop of her spectacles. Dear Lord, you havent been a virgin all this while, have you?

No, but Im a bit concerned my virginity is starting to grow back.

That is not how any of this works.

Perhaps Im a miracle of science. And if we are to be casting off as soon as Scipio expects, we need to do it before we leave, or I will well and truly begin to gnaw my own fingers off over the course of two months at sea with no privacy. And also I just really, really want to blow him.