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“Hey.” She smiled at me. A shy, happy-to-see-you smile that sent a stab of want straight to my lower belly.
I took a deep breath, reminding myself that to Zoe, this was an adventure, nothing more. A chance to escape her gilded cage for a few days.
The princess might want to fuck me, but that was it. If I tried to make it anything more than that, I’d get my heart stomped, just like last time. She had too much to lose by mating with me.
“Some birthday, huh?” I draped an arm around her shoulders. “You didn’t even get to eat your birthday chocolate. When we get to Paris, I’ll buy you a big box of salted caramel truffles.”
Her shoulders tensed. I started to lift my arm, but she didn’t appear upset. More stunned, like nobody had ever put an arm around her. I settled the arm back onto her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she told her folded hands. “I love truffles, and salted caramel is my favorite.”
“I know.” I nudged her chin so that she had to meet my eyes. “I remember.”
“Oh.” No smile this time. Even her eyes were cool.
But I was starting to see beneath the mask. She was feeling uncertain.
Because I had my arm around her? Or because I’d bothered to notice her favorite candy?
I made a mental note to buy her a big box in Paris and feed them to her, one by one, until she was satiated, those soft, full lips smeared with the sweet confection.
And then I’d paint her body with melted chocolate and take my time licking it off…
I caressed her nape. The tension drained out of her in slow increments. She turned into me, laid her head against my chest. She smelled clean and lemony from her shower earlier.
Her hand fluttered a few inches above my abdomen.
I held my breath, waiting to see what she’d do. The hand came to rest on my stomach. She spread her fingers out, a light, tentative touch that I somehow felt everywhere.
Something in me loosened, softened. The anger and hurt that for two years had fisted my gut every time I thought of her eased.
I placed my hand over hers and pressed a kiss to her shiny black hair.
15
ZOE
We had another two-seat row for the flight to France. Dinner was served soon after lift-off. Rafe ate both meals while I stuck with wine. We hunched down, shoulders touching, drinking cheap red wine from plastic cups and talking, low-voiced. Around us, sleepy-eyed humans watched movies or dozed.
Rafe nuzzled my hair. I turned my face and kissed him.
He’d warmed toward me, become more like the fun-loving, easy-going man I remembered. The kind of man who makes you believe in fairy tales and happily-ever-after.
And I was eating it up, that needy part of me that Victorine said was too human craving his smiles, his kisses, his heat.
I hadn’t been forgiven. I didn’t expect it. I’d let him take the fall for something we’d both planned, both wanted. Gods, what a coward I’d been.
But maybe he’d decided to put what had happened behind us?
I hoped so. I was pathetically eager for even a few crumbs of affection. To a starving woman, a mouthful can mean as much as a meal.
“Mm,” Rafe said against my mouth. He ran a hand up my thigh. “I can’t wait until I get you alone.”
“Yeah? And what will you do then?”
He still wore a light glamour, but his expressions were all Rafe. His lopsided smile made my inner thighs tighten. “You’ll see.”
I leaned closer, licked his jaw. Letting myself tease him.
