“Some privacy would be appreciated,” she sniffed.
“The queen’s guests are guardedmostcarefully,” he said, lip twitching with a stifled smirk. “For your own safety, of course. You may find your privacy on the other side of your bedroom door, Your Highness.”
Bollocks.That wouldn’t do at all. Adeline stilled, fighting her own eyes as they strained to glance at her mantelpiece with its array of trinkets, now shimmering with frost.Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks, think for fuck’s sake.The gard quirked one sparse brow, and Adeline jolted herself to life with a derisive scoff. Alright. She’d be a petulant royal prisoner.
“And I’m to believeyou’rea Queen’s Gard?” she sneered.
The gard outright grinned. “Not yet, but Her Majesty rewards loyalty, Your Highness.”
The glow in his eye told her she didnotwant to know what loyalty meant to this boyorhis queen, and when Adeline tooka decisive step away, Ger was already at her back, apparently having decided the very same thing.
“Can you stand guard without sitting on her lap, or are you as incompetent as you are stupid?”
The gard flushed a blotchy red, and his fellows in the doorway snorted and sneered when he turned and slunk back to them.
Better, thought Adeline, but they could plainly hear every word Ger had spoken. How was she supposed totellhim what she needed without actually telling him anything? He was her best friend, but he couldn’t read her bloody mind. Except—
Except when he could.
The answer came to her with a bittersweet burst of nostalgia that made her stomach sink and swirl. She turned to Ger, breath tight, and watched confusion flicker over his features at whatever he found on hers. She reached up and cupped his face—then let her hand slide to his shoulder and come to rest on his upper arm, fingers stiff with anticipation.
“I was so scared, Ger,” she whispered. “Soworried. I missed you every day.”
The confusion fell away, relief in its place, sloping at his brows. He wrapped an arm around her waist easily, drawing her into a hug without a second thought.
“We’re together now, Ade.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “We are.”
And then, hand still taut and tense on his arm, her fingertips tapped out an old and deliberate rhythm. Ger stiffened in her embrace—but when he pulled back just a moment later, his expression was suddenly charged with a heat she hadn’t seenin years. Its warmth felt a little indecent now, like she’d walked in on him changing and glimpsed something she shouldn’t. Something private, no longer meant for her. It made her stomach clench guiltily. But Ger’s voice, when he spoke, was as low and rough as she remembered.
“I missed you, too,” he rasped. “You have no idea how much.”
Adeline bit her lip. “Then show me.”
And with a short, relieved groan, Ger bent his head and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Gerard
What the fuck, Adeline?
Her arms slid over his shoulders, jolting free a shower of memories that seeped into his muscles and guided his every move. Fingers in her hair, tongue sliding past her lips, hand tugging her closer by the waist. She moaned into his mouth.Moaned.All the Damned daughters.
What the fuckingfuck, Adeline?!
It had been years since either of them had tapped out the little message on the other’s arm. The code that was all their own, that had once meantI need you to pretend for a moment.They’d used it to ward off unwanted advances back in themurky, tender months that followed the end of their romance—and, Ger suspected, sometimes just as a flimsy excuse to revisit what they’d once had. That had been true for him, at least, for a long time. Too long, probably. Which was why his skin had recognised the pattern at once, moments before his brain caught on. It seemed to remember other touches too—the way her bottom lip fit in the curve between his own, the warmth of her hands on his shoulders. It was not unpleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but it was also not—
Right.Not right. Not anymore.
Ger pulled back, arms still around his best friend’s waist as she stared up at him with thatlookon her face that he didn’t think he’d ever see again, and actuallyreallydid not want to see.What the fuck, he thought, again and again and again. His heart was thundering, but it lent him a sort of urgency that was pretty bloody useful for once, when he finally found his voice.
“Get out,” he intoned, without looking around—though he could tell that the other gards still stood frozen by the door. Likely as shocked as he was, though he certainly hoped he was hiding it better. He shot them a withering glare, and found them staring slack-jawed right back at him. “She’s not going anywhere right now. Get the fuck out.”
With a soft gasp, Adeline reached up to draw him back to her kiss, and finally, fuckingfinally, he heard the shuffle and grumble and eventual catch of a lock that told him they were alone. Ger broke away with one swift backward stride and a wild look thrown at the door. When he turned around, Adeline wasn’t there; she’d hurried over to the mantelpiece and picked up a decorative rock the size of her fist. Ger followed her, his strides long and panicked.
“What,” he whisper-shouted as he drew even with her, “thefuck, Adeline?”
