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His chuckle rolls across his chest, sending warm vibrations into the cheek I rest there. And that’s it. Whatever lies beyond addiction, I’m there. I’d sign away my rights to every vice on the planet just to keep this one. The refuge of his body. The strength in his touch. The connection to his heart, and even deeper places.
“You know I don’t need to resort to that,” he murmurs into my forehead. “Exhaustion is just going to dull our blades. If we’re going to unravel this knot, rest will be our best sharpening stone.”
I drum light fingers across his chest. “Says the guy who’s done nothing but catnap since we got here?”
He taps at his book while tucking me closer. “Rejuvenation comes in many forms.”
He feeds my soul without trying. And gets even sexier when lowering his finger to stroke the book’s spine as gently as he would an open rose. I glance over, trying to discern the title, but that part is blocked to perfection by the angle of his arm.
“What’s been your literary recharge today?” I grin, basking in the adoring look he’s already sending back.
I get it from his spirit before I see it across his face. He scoops up his book and pokes in a finger at his bookmarked place. Smooth move, but not near the enthralling grace once he shifts his hand to easily brace the tome, exposing one of my favorite sights in the whole world. Words on pages. Perfect gateways to a different world.
Maximus gets it. I knew it before, but the new sparks in his energy are impossible to ignore. My spirit is drawn to them like a child to fireflies, only with deeper wonder. Expanded awe.
Feelings that only get better after he clears his throat and begins to read.
“‘It was much pleasanter at home,’ thought poor Alice, ‘when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole—and yet—and yet—it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life!’”
“Well. Curious indeed,” I murmur into his next respite. “Just like me, wondering how you possibly picked Alice Liddell’s adventures as the afternoon read.”
“And just like me, marveling again at your ocean of literary trivia.”
My laugh is brief. “Not an ocean. More like a big pond, especially when the book is one I’m passionate about.”
His hum is thick with contemplation. “This one? About Alice’s crazy tumble into Wonderland? So how many times have you castigated your younger self forthatpick of a prophecy?”
I answer with a fast shrug. “The story itself is relevant for a lot, if not most, young women. The symbols themselves are filled with pastel romanticism, yet express greater meanings with safe prose.”
Maximus beams a broad smile. “Don’t tell me you were developing all these insights at the age of ten or eleven.”
“No. Those were developed for a sophomore-year paper—for which I got an A, thank you very much. But when I first read the books as a girl, I was less captivated by the story than the real-life Alice who inspired them.”
“The reason her name rolled out of you so easily.”
I get more comfortable in his hold. It exposes my form to newer parts of his, and the fresh warmth spreads into my very marrow. He’s the cocoon I always need. My embrace of spirit as well as body.
“Alice Liddell was an interesting person before being channeled into the famous Wonderland girl by Charles Dodgson.”
“Who published as Lewis Carroll by translating his first and middle name into Latin and then back into English and then reversing them.”
I pat his chest playfully. “Now look who’s making waves in the trivia ocean.”
“Not my first ride down the rabbit hole either. If I remember right, Liddell grew up in…Oxford. That’s where her father was the dean at Christ Church, right?”
“And her mother was the prototype of type A overplanners,” I supply as dryly as I can.
“Something you can’t relate to at all,” he deadpans.
“Even more so when I was little. Reading Alice’s biography was more captivating than the story she inspired. To escape her mother’s obsession about social skills and refined arts, she and her sisters would elude their governess by hiding in the garden.”
“A lot like you did with going to Gio’s place.”
“You catch on fast.”
“So was Alice also promised to a pretentious incubus?”
I allow a smile to underline my ready answer. “Not directly, though she grew up to be a beautiful and refined woman and was expected to marry well. Consequently, she almost became a princess.”
