My shoulders rise with a laugh. “Probably.”
Jude nods. “Good. I think I’d get dreadfully bored otherwise.” He goes back to examining my messy stitchwork, leaving me to sit with the thought, harmonizing with his earlier words.You can be a great many things, dear heart. But you cannot be fewer.
I almost wish hewouldsay something unkind. Jude never flinches away from the jagged edges I can’t seem to saw down, certainly doesn’t bother trying to soften them himself. Half the time, he seems outright entertained by them.
But I haven’t been as kind, slicing at him with my words without hesitation, like I have to put up a shield before the blow comes. Jude has plenty of sharp edges, too. And I don’t think I’d change any of them, either.
“You know, I’m still miffed at you for all this.” He twirls a finger broadly at our surroundings, breaking me from the thought. “My clothes are in damned ruin”—they are—“my hair is a mess”—it is—“you’ve turned my arm into your personal quilting project”—I snort, ignoring him and getting to my feet—“and frankly, I’m not sure why this room bothered with walls for how cold it is in here.”
“Done complaining?”
“Almost.” He says it all like a joke, but sincerity creeps into the punch line as he blurts, “I just wish we were home.”
For a moment, it’s dead quiet. The words linger like a third party to our conversation, demanding to be addressed. My throat goes dry. And when I can’t take the silence any longer, I mutter, “The Playhouse is not my—”
“Please.” And Jude, for once in his life, seems short on words. “Please, Alistaire.”
I pause. “What is it?” It’s something else that’s bothering him. Something other than the cold room, beyond the dangers trailing us, beyond the ones we left behind. And whatever it is, even Jude isn’t a good enough actor to hide it.
“Can we just pretend—just this once?” There’s a note of weakness in his tone that catches me off guard, his teasing comments gone and forgotten. “Just pretend this ends happily.”
This.
My chest tightens. He knows something I don’t. “The Great Dionysia.”
“I can’t stop what’s coming,” he utters in a breath, too quick, like he didn’t mean to say it. “I would.” He looks up, and there’s something I’ve never seen in Jude’s eyes before, alight but dimmer than usual.
Fear.
“So can we please—” A hand in the dark reaches for mine but stills in the air like he’s thought better of it. I think he tries to smile, but it looks more like a wince as his eyes dart back to the floor. “Can we just laugh and argue and pretend everything will be fine.”
Pretend.I almost laugh at the idea. If there’s one thing we’re both good at, I suppose it’s pretending. But before he can drop the hand between us, I reach for it as if a string on my wrist has been pulled. The brush of his skin is warm in contrast to the brittle draft of the room, but it seems to send a shiver up my arms anyway.
And I think I’m past pretending to myself about Jude.
My fingers wrap around his, and he watches me closely as I step into the space between his knees where he’s seated on the mattress, bend slightly to study the gilded edges of his eyes, like I’ll be able to retrieve every secret he’s buried within them. I don’t see any secrets, though.
However, the mischief has certainly returned by the time he reaches his other hand to my jaw. I’m not sure it’s a question in his eyes so much as a brazen dare as his gaze flickers to my lips, but I do know a smarter woman would run for the door right about now at that look.
Unfortunately, I am not her.
“We can pretend,” I agree, and press my mouth to his.
My hesitations are, apparently, not shared. As if this is all the permission he’s been waiting for, the hand at my jaw slides readily into my hair, cupping the back of my neck, tugging me closer so abruptly, he almost throws me off-balance. I laugh softly against his lips, steady myself with a hand to his chest and, at the touch, almost think Jude seems to pull his next breath like he’s been underwater until now, deepening the kiss.
In spite of all our time away from the Playhouse and the absurd collection of perfume bottles on his vanity, the scent of hyacinth still lingers on his skin. It wraps around me, lingers in my hair as he drops my hand to loop an arm around my hips and reel me closer to him, until I can feel the heat of his skin, the race of his pulse. Half of me is horrified at my reckless self. The other half declares this isn’t enough.
I lean into his hands, allowing the invisible current that whirs around Jude to draw me in, probably the same current his countless obsessive fans feel.
The thought makes me tense.
“Get out of your head.” His words are a brush against my ear as he pauses, pulls back to look at me, searching my face like he can read the thought written across it and chase it away before it can take root. “Whatever it is.”
I glare back. “I’m not—” I search for words. “I’m notone of your mindless adoring worshippers,” I say, insistent. Before he gets any wild ideas.
“Heart, I know,” he answers with a laugh and reaches for my chin to angle his gaze back on mine. “But I’m starting to think I may be one of yours.”
Whatever doubt was still lingering in the air splinters, then is crushed entirely, the space where it hovered closed by the ravenous kiss he pulls me into. Everything blurs to the heat of the hand dragging through my hair, to the soft laugh between us when his rings get tangled in it. I let the tips of my fingers play at the thin chain clasped at his neck, noticing him shiver under the touch as his hands drift down my hips, pausing at my thighs, before he uses them to pull me into his lap.
