Riley’s heart ached for her. What would it feel like if she’d lost James for decades only to watch him die when they finally had a chance to be together? “Do you want me to help you sleep?” Riley asked. “I have a valerian root and lavender tincture in my room if you’d like it?”
“I’d like to stay awake for a while. I want to be here.” Elizabeth settled a cool hand on Riley’s wrist. “Thank you. I can’t express….” Elizabeth swallowed heavily.
“I understand,” Riley replied quietly. “If you or David need me, please call me.”
Her eyes met James’s across the room. Their Shadows still twisted together slowly, ebbing and flowing between them. He held out his hand, and she moved to take it.
Behind her, Kay murmured to Elizabeth, but Riley let their voices fade as she stepped into the corridor and quietly closed the door.
James cupped her face with his free hand, his thumb gently tracing the line of her cheekbone, and she leaned into his warmth.
His gaze never left hers as he murmured, “Your place or mine?”
She paused uncertainly for a moment. They’d always gone to her suite in the past, and she’d thought that was because her room was on a different floor to his friends and he could hide their relationship more easily that way. But now she realized she’d made a lot of assumptions.
“Where would you like to go?” she asked curiously.
“I love your room,” James admitted, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as he smiled tiredly down at her. “It’s just like you.”
Riley threaded her fingers through his as they started walking. His big, calloused hand was so familiar. So real. “What do you mean?”
“Your room is always full of the things you love. Pictures of your family. Marigolds in pots, flowering on your windowsill even in winter when they should be sleeping. Books held open with other books. You like to keep the window cracked open so you can hear the birds and the rain. Whenever you go somewhere that you love, you tack the picture to the board behind your desk.” He chuckled. “When you came back from the Chelsea Physic Gardens, all full of ideas from a talk on medicinal plants, you stuck the map on the board and told me you’d take me there one day.” They reached her corridor and turned into the quiet space. “Even though you’ve only been in London a few months, you made it into a space full of peace and joy. And you made it sound like I could be a part of that.”
Her back was toward him as she took out her key and slid it into the lock, but his soft words reached all the way to her heart as he murmured, “I love you, Riley. All I ever wanted was to be part of your future.”
She looked back at him over her shoulder, blinking against the mist in her eyes. He’d said it before, but this timeshewas different. This time, she wasn’t holding back. This time she trusted him completely…. And she trusted herself.
She wanted to say it back. She’d told Gordon that James was hers, and it was utterly, irrevocably true. She could feel the shape of the words, sitting on her tongue. It had been her one regret, earlier, that she hadn’t told him how she felt. But before she could, he leaned down and kissed her. His lips pressed against hers, firm and warm, and she opened for him immediately.
He would have sacrificed himself—without hesitation—to save the people he loved. To save her. And she needed to feel him around her, needed to touch his body, smell his skin, and know that he was safe. That he was with her.
James pressed a line of kisses over her cheek, down her throat, pausing over the thrumming point of her pulse. “We should go inside,” he murmured, his voice strained, as he twisted the doorknob and let them in.
Her room was quiet, the air slightly stale as they stumbled inside. She locked the door behind James and dropped her keys on her cluttered desk.
James leaned against the door and watched her, his eyes hot and utterly focused on her. His lips twitched as she cracked open a window, filling the air with the fresh scent of clematis. He was right. She did love to hear the birds singing.
Riley leaned back on the windowsill and looked around, seeing her room anew. Like him, she had a spacious room with an alcove that was set up as an office. A side door led to her ensuite bathroom. But, unlike James, who had bought a sturdy set of utilitarian furniture—a desk, a double bed, and several packs of identical bedding—and then considered his decorating complete, her space was full of things that brought her joy.
A comfy armchair sat beside the window so she could look out at the garden from time to time when she was reading. The sprawling watercolor over the back wall was an original painting of the ancient hay meadows of Northumberland National Park under a stormy gray sky, a flock of swifts catching the last ray of light as the sun set. And an array of family photographs were proudly displayed on her desk.
She had seen the photos of her parents so many times, she didn’t really notice them anymore. But James didn’t have that luxury. He had no experience of being a beloved son.
He’d told her, many times, that she was his home. And, because she’d always had one to go back to, she hadn’t understood just how profound that was. How much it meant to him.
God. She ached for him. But they had a chance now. She wanted to be his home—and for him to be hers.
James stalked across to where she perched. His steps were slow and deliberate, and he didn’t stop until he was standing right in front of her, his thighs touching hers, his breath warm against her skin.
She lifted a hand to his cheek and whispered, “You’re not alone.”
His Shadows had stayed entangled with hers since before the battle, and now they surged forward. Stronger and brighter than she’d ever seen them. “Neither are you,” he murmured. “I’ll never leave you again.”
He would fight to stay beside her. She knew it, deep in her soul. But she had also just lived through seeing him freely offer up his life to save everyone else’s. He was human, in the end. Fragile, like everyone else. And she’d nearly lost him too many times.
“Promise?”
His eyes darkened, tension creeping into his voice. “I never wanted….”
