Adam felt her shift again, and then a bundle of blankets brushed his arm. That distance he meant to maintain was disappearing quickly.
“Thank you, Adam,” she said once more. “I know you don’t like it when I thank you for the things that you do, but I really am grateful.”
Persephone seemed to settle in after that—the only problem being that she settled right beside him.
At what point had Persephone begun to smell like lavender? At what point had Adam learned what lavender smelled like?
Soon, Persephone began making those noises that meant she was sleeping. Adam opened his eyes. She couldn’t have been more than inches from him.
Lavender.Adam shook his head. He would never have thought he would notice something like that. Or notice that a lock of Persephone’s hair had fallen across her face. That had to be driving her absolutely mad.
What was he thinking? Persephone was asleep. She wouldn’t even notice her hair.
Adam, however, couldn’t seem to notice anything else. Even in the dim glow cast by the embers in his fireplace, her hair seemed to shimmer. Cautiously, slowly, he reached out and touched a wisp of it.Soft.Adam brushed her hair back from her face.
She really was too pretty to be married to him. Did she regret accepting him? He hoped she didn’t.
She’d said she had enjoyed kissing him. Those hadn’t been her exact words, he acknowledged. She’d said he kissed well.Verywell, Adam amended.
Deuce take it, he wanted to kiss her again.
Adam flipped abruptly on to his other side, shifting as he did to the very edge of the bed. Distance, he reminded himself. That was vital.
Persephone had the uncanny ability, he was discovering, to leave him thinking and doing things he would otherwise never think or do. And his thoughts had begun to dwell on her more than could possibly be healthy.
He vowed, as he lay there uncomfortably on his side, to keep a room’s length between them from that moment on. During the daytime, at least, he corrected. The wolves frightened her, after all. He’d simply hang off the end of the bed until the pack learned to keep quiet.
Part of him hoped they never did.
* * *
For a moment, Persephone felt nothing but shock. She’d been riding, that much she remembered.
“Persephone?” Adam’s voice came at her from what felt like miles away.
She blinked a few times. The world around her would not come into focus.
“Persephone?” Adam sounded rather urgent.
“Adam?” A few more blinks and she could make him out. He knelt beside her, which meant she was lying on the ground. And he looked worried. “What happened?”
“Honeycake threw you,” Adam said. “Are you hurt? Can you sit up?”
“I don’t know.” Persephone felt extremely confused. She couldn’t decide if her bewilderment came from the fall she only vaguely remembered, or the fact that Adam was touching her face and looking at her as though he were genuinely worried.
“Let me help you,” Adam said.
He’d never offered to do anything for her before. He’d brought her a coat once, and more or less threw it at her. Adam slipped a hand underneath her and lifted her with no visible effort to a seated position, still not releasing her.
“Does anything hurt?”
Persephone shook her head, unable to look away from him. She’d never seen him like this: fretting and nervous.
“Why were you on Honeycake?” Adam ran a hand down her arm, as if checking for breaks. “Honeycake is less docile than Atlas. You aren’t ready for a challenging mount.”
“Atlas twisted a knee.” John had told her as much when she’d arrived for her daily ride.
“And you? Did you twist or hurt anything?”
