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“This is behavior unbecoming of a gentleman.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not one.” I skimmed my hands up his chest from behind his back and kissed his slim neck. He tasted salty, like Devere but with a masculine depth I hadn’t noticed before. I mouthed his neck below his ear. His breath raced, his body primed. I dropped my hand and grasped his erection through his trousers and learned exactly how much he wanted this.
“Take me upstairs to bed,” he urged.
I grasped his hand and led him through the store, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. The fire already blazed in the small grate, and it seemed impossible that this room had been a hollow, roofless shell the day before. Itwasn’tpossible. But I no longer cared. Reality, dream, it did not matter. I was here with Devere, kissing him, tasting him, making him moan and whimper and demand all the ways I would pleasure him.
He shrugged his jacket off his shoulders, and I went to work on his shirt ties, unlacing each one. Once it was loose, I stroked up his warm bare chest, relishing the smooth muscle. He’d always been a marvel. Now he was remarkable.
He caught my face, and his expression turned serious. “Love me in all the ways you would a normal man.”
“There is nothing normal about you, my dear.” I kissed him and nipped his lip, unleashing his passionate growl.
His hands dropped to my trousers, and his quick fingers made effortless work of my ties. He plunged inside, grasped my hardness, and stroked its length, sparking electric shivers down my spine.
It seemed too much, too brilliant. Was this really us? Could we have a life, travel to Massalia, be together?
“Stop thinking.” Devere grasped my face and slammed a kiss onto my lips, then swept his tongue in and emptied all the thoughts from my head. When he peeled out from under me, he sauntered to the bed, loosened his trousers, and turned. Shirtless, with his tousled hair fallen to his shoulders and his chest gleaming in the firelight, I’d never seen anyone more beautiful.
“What is it?” he asked, his face falling.
I laughed, rushed to him, and tackled him onto the bed. Devere’s laugh erupted in a deep, satisfying rumble, and now that I had him under me, and with the way he looked up through his lashes, my heart swelled. It seemed impossible, after everything we’d been through, every trial, every time we’d danced this dance, that we had finally won each other. We’d survived the dream and found our happy ending.
I fell forward and lost myself in his dark eyes. “I love you, Devere. I always have.”
He reached up and stroked my cheek. “And I you, Valentine.” He opened his mouth, likely to apologize, but I kissed the words away. The time for talk evaporated under his hungry gaze, and there was nothing between us but unrestrained passion and racing hearts, his skin against mine, his kisses like hopes, each one real.
This was the life I wanted, this exact one, with him and only him, in a world that could never hurt us.
ChapterForty-Nine
Devere
Val was tucked close, breathing softly. I stroked his hip, sleepily aroused with him spooned alongside me. His shift in breathing suggested he was awake, but neither of us cared to move. Minerva’s noises went on outside the windows, but here, we drifted, untouched by the world.
He was happy, happier than he’d ever been. I could feel his contentment radiating off him like the warmth from a fire. This was how we were always meant to be. He and I together without a care.
But I wasn’t entirely sure all was as it seemed.
When the grandfather clock had fallen, I’d been lost somewhere cold and quiet and empty. I’d woken with the tingle of his kiss on my lips.
This had all begun with a kiss, so it seemed fitting that it should end with one. I knew my heart beat and that my body was flesh and blood and feeling, but something else was askew.
“Why that kiss and not the others?” he asked, his thoughts clearly dwelling on the same topics as mine.
“Because it was real.”
“It was always real.”
“You were, yes, but the world around you was not. You cannot love what you do not know. You kissed a thing, a doll, and you brought me to life.”
He fell silent for a while, and still I swirled my fingers over his hip, hoping to make this moment last forever.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he said.
“I will always be with you.”
He turned his head and smiled over his shoulder.
