Page 63 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

She’d been sworn to secrecy. And how was it different from keeping Cas a secret from Edith? It wasn’t, not really.

He already knew she lived two lives. This was no more duplicitous than what she was already doing.

“It’ll be easier, someday,” he said.

She found a cut on his jaw, scabbed over, the bruise only just unhealed. “What’s this?” she asked.

He caught her hand. “Hurt myself practicing,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.”

She kissed him all the same. “I’m sorry,” she said, breaking away.

“What for?”

“How much I’ve been working. But you’re right. It will be easier. It will get better.”

“I have no doubt of that,” Cas said. He reached up, one hand cupping Nore’s throat, his thumb turning her jaw to face him so he could kiss her full on the mouth. Nore gave in to it desperately, hungrily, until he broke away with a quiet laugh. “You’ve come back with some intent, haven’t you?”

She looked away.

He raised an eyebrow. “What is it, Finch?”

She felt the flush creeping up her skin. She tried to avoid meeting his eye, but that required looking at his body, which led to other thoughts. She focused on a spot past his shoulder instead. “I quite… like this look. I think.”

Cas looked confused for the barest moment before that self-satisfied smirk crept back across his lips. He turned them back to the mirror, framing her with his hands on either side of her on the vanity as he leaned forward over her shoulder.

“This is what does it for you?” he asked, resting his chin on her shoulder. Her cheeks burned even hotter. “Playacting at knighthood?”

Her teeth dug deeper into her lower lip.

Cas watched her for a moment more before something serious came over his face. He turned his head, his lips grazing her ear. “Lady Elinore,” he said, and the tone of his voice sent a shiver down her spine.

Her gaze flicked to his in the mirror. He reached across her body to take her braid in his hand, unknotting and then unraveling the leather cord that held it secure.

“Or perhaps,” he said quietly, “a rogue knight, maybe.” He shifted, taking one wrist in hand, then the other—she gasped sharply as he pulled both behind her back and held her wrists loosely in his grasp at the small of her back.

“You’re not often speechless,” Cas said. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

“I fear to say,” Nore admitted.

He pressed back against her, her wrists still in one hand, the leather cord in the other. She saw how she looked in the mirror, the flush darkening over her chest and throat and face. She was in her travel clothes, yes, but they were travel clothes selected with the idea she’d be coming straight here: a utilitarian dress in his favorite shade of green, simply laced in the front over her shift. But like most of her work clothes, a costume in another sense, it was cut to show her figure to the greatest advantage, and she could see the way her husband’s gaze lingered.

Cas pressed a kiss to her temple, then leaned back down to nip her ear. “Is this working for you?”

“Gods yes,” Nore said, arching against him, welcoming the firm hold he had on her wrists. They were not usually like this—if anything, Nore gave more direction and demands than she took in their intimate life—but there was something about his firm hold on her that scratched an itch she didn’t know she’d felt.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that, when Cas was directing her, she didn’t have to care if she was Nore Arlowe or Elinore Gordon or some other tired invention, some version of a woman who was nameless, who did not carry the responsibilities of a business and the secrets of a nation. Maybe that was the only time she belonged to herself fully—or, at least, enough to give the fullest version of herself to Cas.

“You can—you can bind my wrists, if you’d like.”

His eyebrows shot up. Caspian took the leather cord, and Nore closed her eyes in the silence as he used it to tie her hands together—not too tight, like she would tie a prisoner on Celestine’s order, but enough to feel the pull.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her voice a barest whisper.

He looped an arm around her front, his forearm a vise against her stomach. “Do you want me to take you like this?” he murmured into her ear.

Nore drew a sharp breath. She didn’t know why her heart was racing in her chest, why she ached so desperately. “Please,” she begged.