Her hands slid down the bare shape of his chest, pushing down below his waistband. Her eyes studied his face, flattened to silvers and rich, charcoal gray in the dark embrace of the room. She listened to the way she made his breath catch when she touched him, when she opened herself to him.
He kicked his trousers away, rolling onto his back with her astride him, her hands braced on his shoulders, her hair escaping the silver wrap in coils and curls.
She shushed him, her fingers pressed over his lips like latticework, their gasps colliding as he found his way inside her. It was slow and careful and quieter than it would have been if they had been anywhere else.
Quieter, but still real.
Still happening.
She pulsed slowly, she filled herself with him, and she closed her eyes as though her earlier attestations of a desire to memorize every fiber of him were true. They must have been, she realized, because that was exactly what she was doing.
“You love me,” she said to him, her breath caught in her throat, pleasure gripping her fast and hot and without preamble. “You love me.”
“Yes,” he agreed, watching her like a penitent at a shrine. “I love you.”
She lost herself to the sound of it. To the confirmation of it.
She collapsed forward onto him, her knees locked around his thighs, and felt him lose himself too, pushing up into her collapsed, surrendered body with a rush of devotion.
And for a while, they just clung to each other. Warm and a little sticky, battling yawns.
“You love me too,” he whispered, his breath hot in her ear.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I love you too.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The chandelier sparkledagainst the firelight, swinging into place at the last possible minute, like all things theatrical and of beauty.
Jasper was watching from the mezzanine, one hand in his hair and the other mostly in his mouth as the entire, crystal-dripping fixture swung significantly harder than he would have liked and tinkled like an anxious wind chime before settling, grudgingly, into place.
“Good thing it wasn’t lit yet!” called the foreman from the orchestra level. “That would’ve put all the candles out for certain!”
“Or lit some new ones,” Malcolm observed dryly. “Is it level, Jasper?”
“It looks to be,” Jasper called back, still half-convinced the whole affair was about to crash to the ground.
The three men stood in silence for a solid minute, listening to every second that ticked past. And then, together, they exhaled.
“Shall we bring it back down and light it?” the foreman asked, looping the rope around his arm like a mooring cable. “Or secure her for the night?”
“Secure,” Malcolm and Jasper announced in unison.
Even from up here, he could feel Mal’s expression of relief. He knew without hearing it spoken that his oldest friend wasthinking that the hanging and the lighting were events for two different turns of the sun.
Jasper turned and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time as Mal and the foreman secured the ropes into their permanent places. There were a couple of Libba’s troupe members who functioned as handymen and fixers, but Jasper had reasoned with her that a man from the docks was going to tie the most secure knot possible, and no offense to her vagabonds.
“You’re going to be one of those vagabonds tonight, Townsend,” she’d told him dryly. “I need you to make sure all the chaotic parties attending tonight are seated well away from one another and in the best places. Now come here and let me show you the floorplan.”
“Doors will be open soon,” Jasper called as he reached the orchestra, watching the foreman secure the final rope. “We barely skirted that.”
“But skirt it we did,” said Malcolm with a sigh, adjusting his cravat and smoothing the lay of his tails. “Are you staying for the show, sir?”
The foreman startled, blinking at Mal. “Am I invited?”
“Of course,” said Mal. “Jasper here will find you a seat.”
“Indeed,” Jasper agreed, tossing a tiny, withering glance at his friend. “I am tonight’s… erm… shepherd.”
