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“You have no way to defend yourself if he uses you as a catch-fire!”
“Even fire mages have to sleep. Of course I will be prudent.”
“It would be the first time,” he muttered. “I would feel better if you took Rory with you to watch your back.”
“I will. Vai, you must promise me you will not become the mage the mansa wants you to be.”
“I will not become that man. No matter how it may seem, I have had no change of heart. It always has been Kofi and the radicals of Expedition I stand with, since the day I met him. Just as it has always and only been you for me, Catherine, from the moment I saw you. But above everything, you and I must trust each other.”
Let kisses fall where they may: Desire may flourish or wither in the space of a breath. Trust is a rock that will withstand every storm.
I extended a hand. He took it between his. “I give you my trust, Vai.”
“Always,” he echoed. Releasing my hand, he rose to begin unbuttoning his waistcoat. “But next time, love, warn me beforehand so I can be prepared, or we can work out some better scheme.”
The practiced way his fingers worked the rounded pearl buttons distracted me.
“Catherine? Had you something to say?”
“Oh! Yes. Why not tell the mansa I escaped so as to prove what a valuable spy I can be?”
“Why would they believe such a story?” He tossed his waistcoat on top of the jacket.
“They won’t know for sure, will they? If the mansa truly means you to be his heir, then he must allow you to prove yourself. As an explanation, it may serve to put them on the defensive…”
As he pulled off his shirt, I forgot what I was going to say.
“Go on,” he said.
At the dressing table he poured water into the basin and set in on his evening ablutions, washing his face and teeth and then using a damp cloth to wipe down his bare torso. In the midst of this he paused, wrinkling his brow as he pretended to be puzzled by my silence.
“Catherine? Had you more to say?”
A wave of aggravation swept me. Curse the man for being so attractive. “Andevai, those are gorgeous clothes and you look very handsome in them… or out of them… but if you do not hang them on the clothes rack they will get creased and rumpled.”
He pulled me up off the bed and into his arms with such strength that my toes briefly left the ground. He was not minded to be subtle or coaxing or patient. I floated, the heady pleasure of his kiss like ambrosia, as it always was.
When we paused he spoke in a murmur against my cheek as his hands began to wander their familiar paths. “What makes you think I care?”
I slapped his hand. “Of course you care! Anyway, I can’t bear to see such expensive clothes treated so carelessly. I shall do it, if you will not.”
He sat us on the bed and undid the double row of buttons on my cuirassier’s jacket. “Very well. Did you repair this, love? This is what you were wearing when you were shot. I would have thought it must have been cut off you.”
“I did not want to throw away what they had almost ruined. It felt too much like defeat.”
“It’s beautiful work, making something new out of what was torn.”
“They always think they are about to defeat us. For so long we have been at their mercy.” I grinned. “But now we are going to fight back.”
“Truly, now we can.” He slipped me out of the jacket. “Only your bodice beneath! I see you have not forgotten the Expedition style of dressing, for I must say that you in a simple bodice and wrapped skirt waiting tables on a hot night is what I love best, however beautiful you look in your other clothes. Or out of them.”
He undid the lacing on my bodice. The white pucker of scars on my shoulder he kissed as he began on the fastenings of my skirt.
I reveled in the caress of his lips on my neck and the playful wandering of his hands. “Vai, this is no time for me to risk becoming pregnant. Do you have…?”
“No need, love. Rory gave me the sign that you’re not fertile right now.”
I pulled out of his arms. “You and Rory have a signal arranged?”
