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She hesitates, glancing at my laptop screen. I open the document and show her my compiled notes. She frowns and gives me a dismayed look.
“What—when on earth did you manage to do all this?”
“At the weekend—probably while you were recovering from what I can only assume must have been one spectacular hangover.”
She glares at me and then sighs. “It was the worst I ever felt.”
“It’s what you get for drinking Iakov’s vodka.”
“Jealous?” she asks with a smirk.
“You might’ve drank his vodka, but it’smytongue you came on.” I smile, relishing the sudden flush of colour in her cheeks. “So no, Theo. I’m not jealous.”
For a second, she’s speechless, and then she collects herself, smoothing her sleeves and tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Maybe I need to sleep with somebody else,” she says primly. “To keep you humble.”
“You might do so, but I might poison whoever you choose for that purpose.”
She gasps. “You wouldn’t.”
“Not to death, of course. Only just enough to make them spend a few very uncomfortable weeks. Luca’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Youwouldn’t.” This time, her voice is barely above a whisper. “Youdidn’t.”
I laugh and point at my laptop once more. “How about I give you five minutes—and only five minutes—to look at my notes? After that, you’re on your own.”
She hesitates, but as soon as I set the timer on my phone, she scrambles to grab my laptop and reads so fast her eyes fly across the screen like she’s gone mad.
After that, we settle into our work.
Theodora wasn’t exaggerating the difficulty of Mr Ambrose’s latest assignment. Even my head start doesn’t give me much of an advantage when the subject matter is so dense. The complexity of the ideas we are forced to absorb and synthesise requires complete silence, and neither of us speaks for the next few hours.
Now and again, though, Theodora’s head rests against my shoulder as she concentrates on one of her books, or I find myself resting my hand on the low of her back, caressing it with a thumb while I re-read through whatever paragraph I’ve just written.
When we finish our essays, I make a trip down to the coffee machine to get us both drinks—a black coffee for me, a tea for Theodora.
I get back upstairs to find her resting her head against her pile of books, and she looks up with a sleepy smile when I hand her the cup of tea. I sit down next to her, and before either of us can take a sip of our drinks, I lean down to press a kiss to the soft flower of her lips.
“What was that for?” she asks.
“Because you’ve a mouth made for kissing.”
She presses her fingers to her lips. “I do?”
“Mm.” I brush the hair back from her shoulders with one hand. “And a body made for pleasuring and a mind made for admiring and a soul made for worshipping. You’re a creature of love, Theodora, and I want nothing more than to give you that love forever, for as long as we live.”
“You love me?” she says in a tone of surprise. “You’ve never mentioned it before.”
I shake my head in a forlorn gesture. “It takes a cruel goddess to mock her worshippers.”
She grabs me by my tie and yanks me to her imperiously.
“I love you too,” she murmurs against my mouth, and then she kisses me in a long, hungry kiss, a kiss that luxuriates and lingers and fills the golden silence of the library with soft wet sounds.
Thatnight,somethingstrangehappens. I wake up in the middle of a deep and dreamless sleep, my heart pounding in my chest. I sit up and turn on the lamp on my bedside table, half-expecting to see a dark shadow looming at the foot of my bed.
There’s nothing there.
