Page 89 of The Trick of It

“You are mine,” she repeated.

“Again,” he begged, his eyes locking on to hers, hooded and dark.

“Mine,” she said once more. “I love you.”

He cried out, his voice just as lost as her own had been as his body gave a jolt. Seph leaned forward, pressing her fingers into his lips, shushing him urgently as she rocked against his own pleasure, as she let him stay with her through it, as she felt the dam in him give.

“I love you,” she whispered again, just as the wave began to ebb.

And then she held him, still against her, still inside her. She held him against her body until he caught his breath and his face came up to look into hers.

He kissed her. He kissed her like it would save his life.

And she kissed him back.

Because having him here, in her arms, had finally restored hers.

Chapter Thirty

“You should have told me you couldn’t sleep,” Rhys said, tucking the heavy blanket up and around Seph’s shoulders as she slid into a comfortable place on his chest, her hands folded under her chin.

She looked up at him, admiring the angles of his face from this vantage, lashes tilted up and feathery.

Absurdly, it made him blush. He cleared his throat, averting his eyes for a moment as the butterflies settled in his chest. “I know what that’s like not sleeping. I could have kept you company.”

“I could never steal sleep from you,” she said with a wry smile, reaching up with a single finger to tilt his chin back toward her. “Exactly because you know what it’s like.”

“Hm,” he said, catching her fingers and pressing his lips to them, resolving just to blush if he needed to, and to let her see it besides. “Decent, if inconvenient. Can I tell you a secret?”

“Only if I can sell it later,” she quipped, making him grin.

He reached an arm out, pulling the drawer open from the table that sat at their bedside and reaching inside, withdrawing a fat, shiny taper candle in light-blue wax. It had a few thumbprints in it and a wobbly exterior rather than a smooth cylinder.

“I asked the priest for help sleeping,” he confessed, blushing a little. “He helped.”

She was already sitting up, those glorious breasts on display as the blanket fell around her shoulders like a cape. She took the candle from him and inspected it, her thumbs tracing the grooves in it, turning it this way and that, and finally, giving it a suspicious sniff. “Ah,” she said, blinking. “Calming herbs.”

“It’s not just the candle,” Rhys informed her, scooting back so he could sit up against the headboard. “He bade me to keep a devoted stack of papers. I was to light the candle and say, ‘Saint Peter Damian, I offer you my restless mind.’ And then I was supposed to write without lifting my pen until every thought in my mind had gone on the paper. I was to write until no more words could pass between my head and my pen.”

“Mhm,” she said, squinting at him as he talked, her thumbs continuing to rub the candle.

“Then douse the thing and put the papers under it, like an offering,” he said, shrugging. “I haven’t had to do it yet, so I don’t know if it works.”

“Is there paper and ink in there?” she asked. “For the other part of the ritual?”

“What do you mean, ‘Is there paper and ink’?” he snapped. “Of course not. Are you confusing me with your other husband?”

She grinned at him. “I don’t have even one husband.”

“You will very soon,” he informed her. “And for the rest of the week.”

“Is that so?” She watched him, her expression more curious than scrutinizing. “Will it be you or that other gent?”

He gasped theatrically, slapping a hand over her mouth. “It’ll be me, wench,” he exclaimed. “I’ve a mind to start the banns before we even get back.”

“Well, do it if you’re going to do it,” she quipped. “And stop quacking about it.”

“‘Stop qua’—” he repeated, shrill and breathless. “Now I need twice the paper for Saint Peter Damian!”