Page 56 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

“Oh, like you care what people say about you!”

“I don’t mean me. I care what they’ll say about you.”

Verda did not hear him, so focused was she on his face, from his heavy set of brows to his lips. Those lips, constantly ribbing her for one thing or another, had always looked so soft. Enticing. What would it be like to kiss them? She’d never kissed anyone before. She was swaying slightly now. Her joints felt loose, her head unwieldy. One hand curled around his nape while the other traced his jaw, her thumb tingling over the feel of his stubble. “I like your face.”

Lin must’ve been the stillest thing in the room. “What?”

“And your hair,” Verda added, her thumb now tangling itself in one of the wavy locks hanging by his collarbone. “Your lashes are really long,” she said, watching them half-lid his eyes – but it was a toss-up on whether it was in consternation or desire. “You’re such a distraction.”

“A distraction?” A small smile played on his lips, akin to a ray of light breaking across his stormy expression.

“Yes, and I don’t have time for those.” Verda frowned. She could feel every word tumble out of her mouth but was disinclined to stop them. “Stupid Lin. Why’d you have to be so handsome?”

“You find me handsome, do you?”

“For once in your life, shut up.”

Verda’s mouth fell upon his. His lips were even softer than she’d imagined, which made her kiss him with a fervor bordering on greed.

Lin broke the kiss, seemingly with great difficulty, and to Verda’s confusion. His eyes roamed her face, searching – for what, she was unsure.

“Maybe I’m drunker than I thought,” he murmured.

Then he pulled her flush against him, hand fisting her hair, as his mouth crashed against hers. He drank more deeply of her than he ever had of the wine.

* * *

The plan was simple. With some coaching from Lin, Verda would draw the spell on the floor of their hideout. Then she would lure the golem into the room and right over the freezing spell, which would activate once one of its feet touched the central symbol. Then she would take its tongue.

Verda was no slouch when it came to running – her daily exercise consisted of jogging along the beach – but Lin did that as well, and he was much faster due to the sheer length of his legs. He also, despite his injury, refused to stay put.

Even if she had still felt just a little of the animosity she’d felt toward him before, Verda would have protested anyway. She couldn’t let an injured person take further risks. Not to mention, she hadn’t yet calculated the possibility of diplomatic fallout raining on the Library if anything happened to Lin.

And it would tear her heart in two if he were hurt any more.

“But you’re injured!” Verda said, slapping the table they had commandeered for strategizing. The ink in the bottle leapt up with the force of the gesture.

“My hand is injured, not my legs,” Lin replied with a smirk as he tenderly stroked her head.

Verda knew his reasons were sound. That didn’t mean she had to like it. She glared down at the open notebook, pages tainted with a spill of red ink and her shaky scrawl over that. “I could use a speed spell on myself. Then—”

“You should save the ink for the freezing spell, you know that. Plus, even if you had enough, a speed spell would be put to better use on me.”

Silence. Lin tenderly tilted her chin toward him.

“Are you worried about me, Verda?”

She closed the gap between their mouths with a hard, quick kiss.

“Someone has to, you idiot,” she said sullenly. In response, Lin pulled her toward him in a one-armed embrace. Her head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck; she breathed in his scent and closed her eyes, wishing they could stay like that.

“I appreciate it,” Lin mumbled into her hair.

* * *

After her initial shock and dismay over her own impropriety, Verda realized she’d really enjoyed the kiss. It helped that Lin was very good at it – but she would rather be buried under Mount Elhas’ ashfall than admit it to him. Still, when he asked her – in complete sobriety, after days of clawing back a sense of professionalism from over whelming awkwardness on both their parts – if she wanted a more informed opinion on kissing minus the haze of alcohol, she didn’t refuse him. And they’d been periodically recreating the fiery kisses from that night in Lin’s quarters in between meetings to discuss ink ingredients and spell layouts – wine optional. (It was hard to say whether Agreha would have approved if she’d known, but Verda wasn’t willing to find out.)

On one such evening, Lin was busy in his study concentrating on the third of Verda’s spells, one that would help the caster determine the physical locations of writings containing a specific symbol of their choosing. She’d been wandering his quarters, admiring his taste, when she sighted a stack of letters atop a lone chair that seemed to function as a table.