For a heartbeat, it was like slipping into an old, beloved coat. The shape of them still fit.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Erin’s gaze snagged on her mouth. “Hey,” she echoed.
Alex rose onto the balls of her feet and kissed her.
She hadn’t meant for it to be much at first—a test, a touch, a reminder. Just lips meeting, pressure and warmth and the shared exhale of two people who used to do this without thinking.
But Erin made a sound, low in her throat, that short-circuited her intentions. Her hands came up, gripping Alex’s hips, pulling her closer. The cold air around them seemed to vanish, replaced by an immediate, enveloping heat.
Alex opened to her, the kiss deepening, years of muscle memory guiding them. Erin’s mouth was familiar and new all at once; the same shape, the same taste of tea and winter air, but there was a kind of hunger there now, threaded through with hesitation.
She’d missed this. God, she’d missed this.
Not just the physical—the slide of Erin’s tongue against hers, the way their bodies slotted together—but the way the rest of the world fell away when they did it properly. Notitles. No cameras. No staff. Just Erin and Alex and the solid reassurance of stone at her back.
Alex pressed closer, fingers curling into the wool at Erin’s shoulder, nails scraping lightly through the jumper. Erin’s breath hitched. One hand slid up to cup the back of Alexandra’s head, thumb stroking the tiny hairs at her nape, the way she knew Alex liked.
Heat coiled low in Alex’s abdomen, a slow-burning ache that had been banked for months.
Six years of love, she thought. And recently we’ve been living on scraps.
She kissed her harder, chasing that feeling, that connection. Erin responded, but there was still that faint, maddening sense of restraint, like a car with the handbrake half on.
Alex wanted to fling it off. To remind her: You’re allowed to be here with me. You’re allowed to let go.
She started to angle her hips, a subtle, instinctive movement to align them more closely, to press the length of her thigh between Erin’s. Erin’s fingers tightened on her waist?—
—and the lights went out.
Properly, this time.
The sconces died. The faint glow from the nursery under the door behind them disappeared.
The corridor was plunged into darkness.
For one suspended second, they stayed exactly as they were, lips still touching, breath mingling, the world narrowed to the warmth between their bodies and the sudden, shocking black.
Then Erin froze.
Alex felt it—every muscle going taut at once, like an animal catching a scent.
“Shit,” Erin breathed against her mouth.
Alex swallowed a groan that had nothing to do with desire. “Really?” she whispered. “Right now?”
“Power’s gone,” Erin said, already pulling back. Her hands shifted from Alex’s hips to her arms, gently but firmly creating space. “The backup didn’t kick in. I need to check?—”
“You need,” Alex said, trying very hard to keep the edge out of her voice, “to remember that there are at least three highly qualified people dealing with this already who are not you.”
“Four,” Erin corrected automatically. “If you count Patel. And the electricians. But I’m the lead on?—”
“On most things,” Alex cut in. “Yes. I know. It’s one of your many, many charms. But for the next five minutes, I think the castle can survive without you poking at its fuses.”
She heard Erin inhale. In the dark, she couldn’t see her expression, but she could feel the tension thrumming through her.
“It’s not just fuses,” Erin said quietly. “It’s emergency lighting. It’s the gates. It’s the heating for the elderly staff in the back wing. It’s… my job.”
