I rest my head on his thigh, and he strokes my hair. I smile, feeling wicked. “I think I’ve decided what my very favorite meal is,” I say.
He makes a short, masculine sound in the back of his throat. “Sparrow…”
“It’s you. So, you can stop asking me now.”
I kiss the top of his thigh, and he grips my hair and tilts my face up so that I’m looking at him. “You are reckless, and dangerous.”
“Because of you,” I say.
He lifts me up from the floor and bundles me onto his lap, stroking my hair.
“Did you really miss me?”
His words are almost soft. They make my throat ache.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s actually quite miserable. Here I am in this place that I’ve always wanted to be. This place that I’ve always wanted to live. And I can’t stop thinking about you.”
I stand up, still completely clothed, while he’s entirely naked. I move around the room, humming happily to myself.
“I think we shall stay here during your term break,” he says.
“Here?”
“In England. There’s no need for us to return to the palace. We can do more sightseeing. Whatever it is you want.”
“I don’t really care,” I say. “I want to be with you.”
“Do you want to go to nightclubs? Do you want…to spend time with your friends? You do have friends. You mentioned that in your texts.”
“Oh, you read my texts.”
“Yes, dammit. I read your texts. I’m… Is that what you would like?”
I shake my head. “No. I’ll see my friends during the term. What I would like is to spend time with you. I was afraid that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Well, maybe we should change what that time looks like.”
I touch his chest, and look at him in the eye. “I would like to not leave our bed.”
I am resolute in this. I’m a little bit surprised. Or at least, some distant version of myself is surprised. Why don’t I want to take this opportunity to travel the world? To see more things? Things that I’ve always dreamed of.
I’m being given this extraordinary, exquisite opportunity, and I am not taking it. I don’t know what that is. Except that it just feels like the whole world will always be there, and Lucian is what I want. Living, breathing. Everything.
“I would like to meet your friends,” he says.
“All right,” I say. “I think everyone is still here. I can see if they’d like to have dinner?”
“Yes. I will take everyone out to dinner.”
I’m somewhat amused at the very idea of this, but Lucian, this reclusive, strange creature that he is, is offering to have a dinner that has nothing to do with diplomacy, or anything really but me. And I want to take him up on it.
Of course, he has to arrange private dining; he is a king.
My group text is a flurry of activity, and everyone is thrilled to meet my husband, but also slightly terrified of him.
I’ve told them, repeatedly, that he’s not actually scary. But the truth is, his mere presence is intimidating, whether or not I feel it still. So, I can’t really blame them for feeling as if there’s something intimidating about him.
I’m used to Lucian. Sort of.Used tois a really difficult descriptor for a man like him. But I suppose I’m used to him in context. In his castle, in a diplomatic setting, where his presence feels larger-than-life, and the setting around him is as well.
