“My handsome husband!” She petted his cheek.
“Thanks.”
“Who will leave me.”
“Shhhhh.” He glanced around. Even though he didn’t see any eavesdroppers, it wasn’t safe to talk in public like this.
“I don’t want you to go away.” She burrowed into his side. “Don’t want you to disappear.” She kept whispering it like a nursery rhyme.
They reached her room and he managed to get the door open, then kicked it shut behind him and staggered to the bed, where he aimed to deposit her to sleep it off. She had much to learn in the morning. His head was still reeling from the conversation with Zeke.
He rested her head on a pillow and started to pull back, stopped by her hand on his cheek.
“Don’t go.” Her voice was soft.
“You are drunk.”
“Very.”
“Babe. I’m not going to take advantage. Nothing is going to happen tonight. You need to go to sleep and hopefully not feel too bad in the morning.”
“Stay. Won’t ravage you. Hold me.”
He could do that.
First, he removed her shoes and the pearls pinned into her hair. Then he pulled the covers up over her until they reached her chin. She looked young then, all big blue eyes and dreamy innocence.
He removed his shoes and the cravat that threatened to strangle him. He stripped down until he was shirtless and crawled in next to her.
“Yes, yes. Hold me.” She burrowed against him, the soft warm roundness of her ass against his dick. He gritted his teeth. It wasn’t hard to know there were lines you just didn’t cross in life, and messing around with a drunk woman was one of them. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t acknowledge this was nice. That he liked it. That he liked it too damn much. He took a deep breath, only to be flooded by her perfume—lavender and other herbal plants, as if she were a secret garden.
“Why can’t we do this forever?” she whispered, with less slurring and more clarity.
“You know why.”
“What if you stay here?”
He closed his eyes. Tried to imagine that. No more Regals. No more goalie. No more cars. Lights. Toilets. Grocery stores. Airplanes. Modern medicine. No sister. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“Not for me?”
Fuck. Because the truth was... maybe. Maybe he could. Maybe he could spend the rest of his life here in 1812 with the balls and the cravats and the rules and Lizzy. He’d make her believe she was good enough, brew pots of tea, watch her become the writer she dreamed to be.
“Or you could come with me?” He planted a soft kiss on the back of her head. To hell with them all—they could escape.
“To the future.”
“Yeah.” Dangerous. He was stepping onto thin ice.
“The future you won’t even tell me about.”
“What do you want to know?” Even riskier. He needed to exercise caution, yet he wanted a deeper connection.
“Let me see... What are the top three most useful items you possess that are not present here?”
He mulled it over quickly. “Electricity. It’s a game-changer, ensuring there’s always light at the flick of a switch. It’s not just about brightening up a room; in the cities, it practically banishes the darkness altogether, making nighttime feel like daytime.”
“If it’s too bright, you can’t see the stars.” She frowned at him. “I wouldn’t like that.”
