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“Maybe in 1902,” she told him. “In my own time? People don’t just run off and get married at seventeen. I can’t even vote.”
“Women can vote?” he asked.
She blinked, as though thrown off by his question. “Yes, but that’s beside the point. You don’t have to marry me, Harte. I don’t need you to make an honest woman of me.”
“I know I don’t have to marry you, Esta.” He suddenly felt a sinking sense of dread. “And I don’t think anyone could make an honest woman of you.”
She smacked him playfully. “I mean it. We can be together without all of that. Marriage is so… permanent.”
“What if I want to marry you?” he asked. “What if I want permanent?”
Esta stared at him without speaking. Her silence was unreadable. He’d just assumed… After all they’d been through, he thought she felt the same.
“Unless that isn’t what you want?” he asked. “I would never want you to feel any pressure—”
The corner of her mouth had twitched in amusement at that sentiment, as though to say Good luck trying to make me do anything I don’t want to do. Some of his fear eased at the sight of it.
She was close enough that he could smell the soap from her hair, the mint on her breath. The entire world had narrowed to Esta. “I’m just saying that maybe that was a really shitty proposal, Darrigan.”
He felt almost dizzy. “You’ll marry me, then?”
She did smile then, satisfied like a cat who’d managed to drink all the cream. “One day. When this is all over.” She leaned in and kissed him, softly at first and then more deeply, until he thought he’d never be able to come up for air. She was pushing down his robe now.
He pulled back. “We shouldn’t, Esta. You’re injured, and there’s still the risk of a child. We can’t do this.”
She let out a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, Harte, we can.” She climbed off the bed to go sort through the basket they’d taken from the pharmacy. When she found what she was looking for, she tossed him a package.
It took him a second to figure out what he was looking at, and then he realized. Prophylactics.
“I’m not going to pressure you,” she told him. “But if you don’t want this, I’m going to need you to tell me right now.”
He looked up at her, afraid to say yes. Unwilling to say no. Knowing he wasn’t anywhere near worthy of her, he felt himself nodding.
She smiled and untied her belt, and then she dropped her robe to the floor.
BOUND
1902—Uptown
Cela Johnson had barely stepped into the room before she found herself wrapped in Jianyu’s ironlike embrace. She was aware of Theo closing the door behind them, of Viola’s rapid spurt of Italian, but only barely. She’d been awake for nearly two days now and had already started to feel that slightly off-kilter dizziness that comes from exhaustion mixed with fear, but the second Jianyu’s arms were around her, everything fell away. The fear. The worry. The room itself. For a moment it was only the strength of him, solid and secure, towering over her and the scent of him, cedar and sage, wrapping around her. Blocking out all that had happened.
But before she could register how easily they fit together, how perfectly his body aligned with the softness of hers, and how much returning to him felt like coming home, Jianyu was releasing her. Stepping back. He looked as shocked by his actions as she felt. Adorably, color pinkened the sharp lines of his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“Cela,” he said, his voice rough. “Where—” He shook his head, looking between her and Theo as though he could not believe either of them were real.
“Where have you been?” Viola demanded, cutting off Jianyu’s attempt to form questions. “We thought you’d been taken.”
“I nearly was,” Cela told them. “But Theo found me first.”
Viola turned on him, her eyes flashing. “You? Abel found her room torn to pieces. He is beside himself with worry. We all were! We thought Nibsy had gotten to you, or worse.”
Shame flashed through Cela. “I’m sorry. I told Theo we should send word, but he thought it was too dangerous.” She glanced at Theo, silently willing him to explain.
“We couldn’t contact anyone,” Theo told them. “Not until I was sure it was safe.”
“Until you were sure?” Viola asked, stepping toward Theo, her finger jabbing in his direction as violently as any blade she’d ever held. “What are you even doing here? After all we did to get you out of that building, away from the Order’s suspicions? You should still be in France.”
“I was, but—”
