We enter the building and climb the staircase past the closed doors of the other units until we reach the third floor. Like Daphne, I live on the top floor. I don’t have access to the roof, or a balcony, or really anything interesting, and my living space is about a quarter of the size of hers?—
I shake my head, realizing I’ve frozen outside my door, key in hand. Daphne looks up at me with an encouraging smile. I heave a sigh and return the grin, though mine probably looks only somewhat convincing. Then I unlock the door and welcome the woman I love into my home.
I tug a dangling chain just inside the doorway and several hanging bulbs illuminate, one at a time, until the meager space glows under full light. Daphne steps ahead of me, and I watch her, bracing myself for her reaction. Her eyes are wide and curious as they flick from one thing to the next. Easy to do when everything I own and use is in a single room.
I pull my gaze away from her and try to see my apartment through her eyes. The walls are rich oak, and the ceiling is crossed with exposed beams from which the lightbulbs hang. The nearest piece of furniture is a narrow settee, and beside it is a small table built straight from the wall with two chairs. Beside that is a countertop that comprises my kitchen as well as a sink and stove. The far wall boasts a pair of sliding doors. One opens to reveal the narrow washroom while the other hides my closet. Above that is the loft where my bed resides, accessible via a wooden ladder. The wall opposite the kitchen is covered entirely with bookshelves burdened with more books than can possibly fit. Edwina Danforth has several shelves dedicated to her. I own multiple copies of her books, many of which are out of print until Fletcher-Wilson publishes the new editions with Daphne’s covers. There are also books from every other author I worked with during my time at Fletcher-Wilson, as well as an abundance of titles for recreational reading.
It’s cluttered. It’s incredibly small. But it’s also…
“It’s lovely,” Daphne says, her voice rich with awe.
I shift from foot to foot. “You don’t think it’s too cramped?”
She gives me a withering look. “Too cramped? I spent the first couple hundred years of my life living in a tree burrow. This is incredible. Don’t you feel comforted being able to see every wall of your home from one place? It’s like a den.”
When she puts it like that, I suppose it does feel comforting. I know my shame over my small apartment is a matter of ego. I was raised in grand residences, both a country estate and a city manor. I was waited on by servants and had dozens of rooms at my disposal, each bearing a different purpose yet never utilized all at once. There was so much empty space. Towering walls papered in elegant damask. Halls upon halls adorned with strategically spaced portraits bearing gilded frames.
But now, reflecting back, everything did feel too large. I often felt too alone. Especially after I discovered the truth about my mother. I never quite fit in, always fighting an itch to run and play in the fields instead of attending my studies, and after I learned of my heritage, it made sense. The understanding festered into bitterness when I discovered my father only took me from my mother—convinced her it was for the best—because I was male. Not because he loved me.
After that, I resented luxury. Resented my unearned privilege.
Yet what did I do the moment I gained freedom from my family? I took out a shady loan, paid a year’s rent for a luxury apartment, and spent a small fortune on my wardrobe. I lost job after job that first year and used up all the funds I’d borrowed. By the time I finally gained stable employment at Fletcher-Wilson, I could no longer afford my lifestyle. That was when I really learned what it meant to be surrounded in luxury I hadn’t earned.
I’d been overconfident in my ability to make an impressive wage despite having no experience in the workforce. It was a humbling lesson, and my ego took quite the hit. I thought my ego had died back then, but I was wrong.
I huff a laugh. “I’ve been a fool for so long.”
Daphne pulls her gaze away from my rafters—probably wishing she could shift into unseelie form and climb them, like she used to do whenever she discovered a nice set of beams to scale during The Heartbeats Tour—and gives me a curious look.
“I was so ashamed of this place,” I say. “So embarrassed to admit just how much I’d had to downsize after I gave up my apartment downtown. I didn’t realize I’d come to like it here. That I chose this place. Out of necessity, yes, but also out of comfort. My inner fennec fox…likes this den.” Tension rolls off my shoulders to admit it. That this suits me. That I’m not ashamed and have no reason to be.
Daphne gives me a consoling pat on the shoulder. “You may be a fool, but you’re my fool.”
My heart flutters like I’m a fucking schoolboy. “I’m yours?”
She dips her chin in a proud nod, but her expression quickly falters. “Oh, wait. Can you be mine? I mean, I want you to be mine, and I want to be yours, but I know you can’t publicly court?—”
I silence her with a press of my lips. She softens against me, her anxiety melting away.
“Yes, you’re fucking mine,” I growl against her lips. That’s all it takes to reignite our passion. Her tongue sweeps into my mouth and, goddamn, I want to devour her. To taste every inch of her a thousand times over. We undress each other with eager hands, and the only thing that stops us from fucking right there in the middle of my living room-kitchen-dining room floor is the sensible side of me that knows our still-damp clothes are going to smell like a whore’s handbag by morning if we don’t wash and hang them to dry now. And I am not sending my ladylove home tomorrow doing the walk of shame in cum-soaked undershorts and a blouse splattered with blood. So I do laundry with a raging hard-on, which is quite nice when the love of my life plants teasing kisses up my spine and gropes my ass like the lecherous little minx she is.
Once our clothes are hanging to dry over the warm stove, I turn to Daphne and waggle my brows. “Want to fuck me in my bunk bed?”
She snorts a laugh. “Never thought I’d hear that from a lover’s lips.”
“My accommodations aren’t the most mature, I know, but I promise I’m of legal age.”
“You know, I live in a treehouse, and I’m three centuries older than you.” With that, she gives me a daring look and saunters toward my ladder. I’m hypnotized as she climbs, giving me the most tantalizing view of her rear. The sight of her bare ass shifting side to side before me nearly has me undone right then and there. I grip her hips before she can climb too far. She lets out a delighted squeak as I bury my tongue in her sex from behind while she grips the rungs of my ladder. By the time we finally manage to make it all the way up to my bed, we’re a tangle of sweaty limbs all over again. She rides my cock, setting our pace, working all the places she likes, and teaching me more about what gets her off. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing her soft sounds, watching the expressions she makes when she’s in the throes of pleasure. I want to memorize the feel of my fingers sinking into the soft flesh of her hips as I unravel inside her, her walls squeezing every last drop from my cock.
After we’re spent once more, we recline in bed, her body nestled against mine.
“I’ve changed my mind about that painting,” I say into her hair, breathing in the scent of her.
She looks up at me from where her cheek is propped on my chest, her eyelids as heavy as her voice. “What painting?”
“The one I said I wanted to hang in my bedroom. I said I’d rather have a painting than the real thing, because the real thing is too pretty for my shabby apartment. But I’ve changed my mind. You’re too pretty for any space indeed, but I prefer you over a painting.”
“What a charmer,” she says with a smirk. She angles her body to lift herself slightly on my chest and props her chin on her hands. “Speaking of painting…is our bargain fulfilled?”
