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CHAPTER 28
Thomas
Clara goes oddly still once I lead her over the threshold of my room and close the door behind us. I release her- every inch of me that touches her is far too warm- and cross to my closet.
This is probably my worst idea yet, and after such a long string of mistakes, that’s saying quite a bit. Having Clara in my line of sight at all times has been distraction enough. Keeping her with me in my own room? Expecting to get any sleep at all with her in my bed? It’s a hilariously bad move.
Iris’s words float back to me. Her accusation that I’m falling in love with Clara jarred me this morning, and it jars me again. I’ve been wrapped up in my father’s war, his mistakes, my entire life. I’ve never considered love as useful to me at any point.
In fact, if I were falling in love with Clara Speare of all people, it would be a goddamn detriment. I’ve manipulated her so spectacularly that now she thinks she needs to take down her uncle single-handedly. And then there’s the fact that all she had to do was paint a picture on her window to summon me to her bedroom. If she’d called me there just to finish what we started at the party, I wouldn’t have refused her.
And now she’s in my room, and I have no plans to let her leave anytime soon.
This isn’t sustainable. What is the endgame? I’m making no sense, even to myself. I’m slipping up so badly that my most trusted advisor is calling me on it, my greatest adversary is ready to blow down my doors, and a woman who is supposed to be my prisoner is the one thing I can think about.
Discipline is the only thing that is going to get me through tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day, until this war is definitively over. It’s almost eight p.m. now, it’s been a long day, and I’ll be up before sunrise again. I should start preparing for bed now. War or no war, Clara or no Clara, I should stick to my routine as closely as possible.
Except that Clara follows me into my closet. And she’s still talking.
“Thomas, please listen to me!” she begs. “I can make this work. You need time to solidify your plans with Derrick Lindman, right?”
“The plans are solidified,” I tell her, pulling folded clothes out of my dresser without looking at her. “I dealt with that just a few hours ago.”
That stops her. When I turn to see why she’s suddenly gone still and quiet, I see naked hurt in her eyes.
She had been a part of my plans last night, and despite how fantastically wrong they went- because of me, not her- she still wanted to be.
Fuck.
Clara visibly rallies, and I’ve never in my life had cause to feel guilt like I do now. “Well, it’ll still take time to get the raids organized. Until then, I can-”
“You’re not going back to Morgan’s estate,” I say, with the finality of a bill being passed into law. “Not now, not ever.”
There’s a spark of anger in her eyes, which I prefer to her sadness any day. Even if it tends to cause me more trouble. “That’s not for you to say!”
“As the head of the Warwick family, it is,” I tell her, stepping closer. She doesn’t back down, and she’s in the doorway of my closet. Unless I physically move her, I can’t leave. Since laying hands on her right now is going to end in only one thing, I need to end this argument first.
I grip the frame of the door with both hands, looming over her. “Here are the facts. You sought asylum with a member of the Warwick family. I am the Warwick family. Therefore, you are my ward, and I have determined that, for your own safety, you cannot leave the estate for the duration of my war with the Speares.”
Clara actually puffs up at that. “By that same logic,” she throws back, mocking my every word, “I am the Speare family. Which means your war is actually with me!”
Absolutely inaccurate, because she’s not the head of the Speare family, or even its recognized heir. But damn me to hell, something stirs in me at her declaration. How different would all of this be if she were the head of the Speare family, and I reunited with her across a negotiation table instead of across a smoky room? Would I still consider fucking her a mistake?
Then again, we are who we are, and we met how we met, and that still doesn’t stop me from leaning down and crushing my mouth against hers.
I hear her gasp. She inhales me, and I wrap my arms around her waist, pressing her ever closer. I expect stiffness, uncertainty. But Clara’s arms wind around my neck without hesitation. Her mouth opens for me, and I sweep my tongue inside to claim her. Her pouty lower lip tastes like vanilla bean, and it’s as soft as I am firm as we find our rhythm together. My hands wander, flat and hot up her back and then back down to her ass. Everywhere I touch makes her arch into me more.
There’ll be time for more kissing. But first, I’m putting Clara flat on her back, where she should’ve been the first time I put myself inside her.
I guide her backwards out of the closet doorway, refusing to leave her mouth for air even though the room is starting to spin. Her moans of pleasure are becoming pants. Her fingers grip my hair. She wants me as badly as I need her, and that should be dangerous, but right now it just feels right.
We make stumbling, shuffling progress across the bedroom until the backs of Clara’s legs bump into the edge of my bed. I reach down to lift her up and onto the mattress, but she suddenly stiffens under my hands. She doesn’t stop kissing me, but she does resist being laid down. Fine, this will be the third time I’ve fucked her and it’s only the first time we’ve kissed. If she doesn’t want to move on so quickly, I can oblige.
But I’m wrong about Clara’s intentions. Her hands slide down from my hair to grip my shirt. She pulls, as if trying to turn us. When I don’t respond she reaches further down and presses down on my erection through my pants. I hiss into her mouth and kiss her harder, and her hands get to work on my clothing.
We teeter like that on the edge of the bed, in a wordless stalemate of breathless kisses and tugging on clothes. I’m wearing several layers she has to unbutton and unzip, while I take her shorts and shirt off almost too quickly. Her skin is fever hot and petal soft under my palms. While she tugs my pants and briefs down together, I worship her shoulder blades, her ribs, her ass with my touch.
She starts pulling at one of my shoulders and pushing on the other, trying to turn us around. Bemused, I hike one knee up on the bed, forcing her to sit beneath me. She huffs dissatisfaction against my lips, and I trace a line with my knuckles down her sternum, her stomach, her abdomen, soothing her. She turns her body, hooking one of her legs between mine, and finally I relent. Our kiss breaks, and we fall into bed side by side.
