The wine was good. Jean’s wine tasting had been equal parts blind tasting and a ‘let’s see how drunk we can get the troops’event.
I’m buzzed.
I know better than to be here when my blood alcohol level is nowhere near legal.
But here I am, holding a tiny bouquet of rosemary sprigs I stole from a kitchen herb garden because…flowers?
When Ember opens the door, her expression flickers—from surprise to amusement to weariness.
Her hair is pulled back. Her face is scrubbed clean. She’s wearing a navy-blue sleep shirt with tiny white stars on it, and nothing else. Her legs are long, and I want to run my hands up them, find hersoft and wet and….
Fuck!She looks like home. Like safety. Like everything I’ve missed.
“Ransom.”
“I was trying to go to bed,” I say as I walk her back into her room.
Her eyes narrow. “Your room’s in the other wing.”
Her door closes behind me with a soft hush.
“Right.” I hold up the herbs. “Gift?”
She takes them, her lips twitching into a small smile. “You stole garnishes from the kitchen?”
“Valiantly.”
She nods slowly. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m…disoriented.”
“Are you now?” She leans against the antique desk in her room as she watches me sway in the middle of her room.
This suite is done differently than mine. More feminine. It’s probablyherroom, the one she stays in whenever she’s here.
It’s warmer, softer. The wallpaper is a pale sage with delicate vines winding across it. There’s a velvet chaise in the corner, in a deep emerald that looks almost black in the low light, draped with a throw.
The bed is large, dressed in layers—ivory linen, a quilt with tiny, embroidered stars. There’s a stack of books on the nightstand. Thrillers mixed in with romances mixed in with astrophysics books.
Everything in this room feels lived-in, thought-out.A ceramic tray holds a scattering of her earrings, and next to it is a tiny copper-framed photograph of Ember with Freja and Anika, all grinning and windblown at the top of a ski lift.
A vase of fresh flowers sits by the window—simple, elegant, local.
This room, like her, is beautiful without trying too hard. Thoughtful. Intimate. And standing here, just a little drunk, a lot overwhelmed, I feel like a Viking trespassing into the fair maiden’s chamber to ravish her.
Fuck! I need to sit down.
“Ransom?”
I give her a lopsided smile. “I’m so in love with you, Sweet Em.”
She frowns. “You’re emotionally volatile, romantically delusional, and three glasses of Papa’s best French reds past charming.”
I grin. “You always did know me best.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I miss you,” I say simply. “All of you. The way you chew on pen caps. The way you read, like you’re absorbing light. The way you make everyone feel like they matter.”
