“I didn’t know that you knew my father,” Elias says. “I’ve been obsessing over the proper order of things. And that’s important, but I …” He looks at me then. Finally. Tears shining within the blue of his eyes. “I didn’t know you knew my father. He took his position very seriously, and I suppose any contactwith you and the prince would have felt … sacred to him. Sacred enough to not tell anyone else.”
I can feel him again. Whatever barrier he placed between us in the office is gone, stripped away.
I turn my head. I raise my chin. I look Elias in the eye; then I wait. I wait to see what he wants. Because I already know I want him in my life. It doesn’t have to be sexual. It doesn’t have to be some possibly mystical connection — like what Bolan and Sully believe exists between us. But I want his friendship.
“Someone has to keep us all organized, focused,” I say. It’s a challenge, not a tease.
Elias reaches up and smooths his thumb across my cheek, wiping an errant tear away. “I agree. You’re all terribly prone to disorganization.”
I laugh involuntarily. Then I turn back to the urn, remove the lid, and reach in for a handful of ashes. This time, my fingers brush the bottom of the urn, and I try to settle within that feeling, that looming end. Spreading Armin’s ashes was the point, after all.
Elias steps slightly away, giving me a bit of room but not completely withdrawing.
The chill wind catches the ashes the moment I pull my hand free.
I open my palm, not thinking about anything in particular.
The little songbird of light lands on my open thumb, perched on my knuckle for the entire time it takes for the wind to spread Armin’s ashes over the balustrade and beyond.
Until only a dusting across my skin remains.
I place the lid back on the urn, sealing it.
I turn my head toward Elias and raise my chin. It’s not a challenge this time, though. It’s a request.
The bird takes flight. The essence fueling it and the other light-constructed animals dissipates as Elias moves close enough to hover his lips over mine.
I lift up on my toes to close the kiss, brushing my lips against his, just once. Then again.
We hover in that moment, not otherwise touching. Just lips smoothing over lips, breathing in each other’s essence.
Until Elias sighs, lightly pressing his forehead to mine. “You’re cold, Mirth.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he grabs my backpack and tucks the urn safely within it. Then, with a hand firmly pressed to the small of my back, he coaxes me toward the stairs.
And maybe — just in this moment — I don’t mind his controlling tendencies. I don’t mind giving up the lead. It’s possible it’s a bit of a relief. No matter that I also liked the gentle kisses.
7
ELIAS
I settleMirth on the couch. She curls her legs under her, carefully keeping the soles of her boots off the sleek brown leather. She raises an eyebrow and offers me a tiny smirk when I retrieve a hand-knit afghan blanket from the lower cupboard of the side table. But she doesn’t ask why I have a blanket in my office, simply allowing me to tuck it over her legs.
Mirth brushes her fingers across mine as I’m withdrawing my hand — the touch and the tingle of her power as intimate as kissing, even as intense as having someone else’s mouth wrapped around my cock. But I’m hovering on the precipice of being overwhelmed by the soul-encompassing intimacy I found with her on the balcony, and … I’m not certain she feels it all as intensely as I do. So I don’t reach back for her.
“You inherited your father’s power,” Mirth murmurs, her breath tickling my neck.
“Yes.”
I could turn my head and kiss her again. Except even I understand that the kisses on the balcony weren’t meant to besexual. Not carnally, at least. That’s not what Mirth needed from me at that moment. And closing my mouth over hers now would be carnal.
But I want it to be, more sharply than I’ve ever wanted anything. More than I’ve wanted anyone. I already know, I can already sense, that even the moment Armin stole in the back room of the nightclub all those months ago, kissing me without warning, and as shocking as that was, is a barest hint of the desire I already feel for Mirth.
We haven’t had that discussion.
I’ve barely started formally courting her.
Now that the thought has flitted through my mind — the comparison of the touch of both of them, their power against my skin, and the simple fact that the last carnal kiss I participated in was with Armin— well, I don’t want to be thinking of her brother while kissing Mirth.
