Page 109
“Obviously.”
His fingers comb through my hair, gentler now. The heat shifts. I press a kiss to his wrist. He watches me do it, then I kiss the inside of his palm, his knuckles, then the scar near his thumb.
“Lazarus,” he says, and this time my name is almost a plea.
I look up. “Yes?”
His throat works. “Do not make me feel breakable.”
I still. Then I understand. “I will not.”
“You are.”
“No.” I hold his hand against my mouth. “I am making you feel held. You are unfamiliar to the difference.”
His expression wavers. For a moment, I think he may retreat, but then he lowers his forehead to mine. “I hate when you are right.”
“I am very brave to endure how often it happens.”
His soft laugh becomes a sigh when I kiss him again. What follows is not the angry collision we have known before. Not Darkness grinning through blood, nor grief clawing at desire because neither of us knows where else to put our hands. This is slower, a deliberate unfastening. Buttons undone with patience and occasional light mockery, shirts slipping over shoulders.
A pause when his breath catches, a question answered with a nod. Another when my hand stills at his waist and he covers it with his own, guiding, choosing, trusting. We make an intimate sanctuary of the sofa, the rug, the firelit dark.
There is laughter when his elbow knocks the discarded book from the cushion. There is a muttered curse when I edge him closer to pleasure. Promising tempting release with every stroke of my tongue on his dick. Then he brings me back with fingers along my jaw and my name spoken without demand. There are gasps of my name falling from his tongue, as I release inside of him with every languid movement within his body.
By the time the fire burns low, we are tangled beneath a blanket dragged from the back of the sofa, skin warm, breath slowing, the room smelling of smoke, brandy, and us. Alcott lies half across my chest, one hand resting over my heart as though checking that it continues its work.
I run my fingers through his hair.
“Do you think Olive is sleeping?” he asks.
“I hope so.”
“And Edward?”
“Absolutely not.”
We are quiet a moment, Alcott smiles against my chest. “Our household is absurd.”
“Yes.”
“But it is ours.” I press a kiss to his hair. His body relaxes further. For a while, I think he has fallen asleep, then he whispers, “Do you ever wonder what we would have become if we had been loved properly from the beginning?”
The question enters the room softly and wounds everything it touches. I stare at the ceiling. “Yes.”
His hand shifts over my heart. “And?”
“And I think we might have become less interesting.”
He huffs. I smile faintly, “less violent, certainly.”
“Mm.”
“Less traumatized.”
“Preferable.”
Then I take his hand and hold it. Alcott lowers his head back to my chest. I feel the breath leave him. Relief, perhaps. Or something near enough.
