“You’re so generous to think I would be put together enough to make a list in the first place.”
Her eyebrows rise, and her head turns fully toward me so that our noses are but inches apart. “No lists?” she asks. “Not even a planner?”
I shake my head, then boop our noses together. “No list. No planner. I keep track of what needs done in my head.”
Hazel eyes widen. “In yourhead?”
I nod. “A lot of my work really shouldn’t be written down, and the stuff that could be… well, it’s so much more fun to takethe risk of forgetting, don’t you think? There’s nothing like the rush of an approaching deadline that you only just remembered, when it’s nearly too late to hit it. Or when itistoo late to hit it, and you have to piece together a viable solution with no time, no forethought, and no guarantee it will work.” My heart lurches just thinking about it.
Sarelia blinks. “This explains a lot, actually.”
I’m positive that it does.
“This has been good, yes? Our first step in getting to know each other, accomplished. You may now check it off a list.”
Her eyes shine and—slowly, tentatively—she leans in until our lips brush.
My hands fist as I fight for the control to stay still until she moves away. I bask in the temptation to take, take, take, and revel in the awful that isnot.
“Thank you,” she says. “For being so perfect. For rescuing me from my loneliness. For being a knight when I so dearly needed one.”
I tsk and pretend to be a person who has willpower and knows how to use it. “You thank me for such basic things.”
“The basic ones are usually the ones taken for granted,” she retorts. “And I don’t want to take a second of being with you for granted. I want to recognize the gift you give to me in every moment we have together.”
As an expert on torture, I believe I have been outgunned.
“No more talking,” I decide, letting go of my loosely-held control. I roll over my bride. “Kissing only.”
Her giggle is honey on my tongue as her words replay in my head, twisting my organs until they’re nothing but goo in my stomach.
Recognition. Appreciation. Care.
FromSarelia, my princess.
How am I ever going to bear the exquisite unsettle such things evoke?
Perhaps with kisses, one could suggest.
An excellent suggestion, I think.
And then I spend a nice, long time testing it out.
Chapter Eleven
?
Sarelia
Lying on my pretty princess bed in my pretty princess room, I gulp.
Archie left me here last night with firm instructions to do my homework in the morning and be prepared for family meeting at eleven o’clock sharp. So, obviously, I awoke at five with a deep, bone-chilling desire to absolutely not do any such thing becausewow, look how large and looming that task is.
A soft pink clock ticks on the wall, mocking me.
Ugh.
Ughhhh.
