Page 55 of The Child of Rue Royale
I visit with Cassius and Bastian for a short while but decide to go to bed once Aven cries to be nursed. I feed the baby and change him into his jammies, his little legs kicking, his mouth yawning, eyelids fighting sleep. We fall asleep together because there’s no better feeling, one I’ve become addicted to—sleeping with him in my arms.
Deep in the night, I awaken to Bastian writhing in our bed.
“No! No,” he cries, eyes glued shut, yet his mouth twists in agony. His knuckles are clenched around the sheet, this nightmare taking him somewhere dark, somewhere treacherous. I press my hands over his clammy forehead, commanding the nightmare to stop. In moments, he’s turning on his side, his breaths softening, his eyes going from pinched shut to gently closed. I watch peace take over and wonder what he was just battling.
I eventually drift back to sleep but wake to a note on the pillow.
Getting air
One of the baby monitors is gone, which means he can see us both sleeping. I grab the other one and pull on a robe. Aven sleeps soundly and will do so for another thirty minutes at least.
I knock on Chantal’s door, and she automatically reaches for the baby monitor, us both so used to baby duty.
It’s still dark outside, the sun rays barely peeking over the horizon as my gaze darts around, looking for Bastian on the beach, on the deck, but he’s nowhere I can see.
“Down here,” he calls from under the deck, so my bare feet pad down the steps to find him sitting in a beach chair, his bronze chest bare, with only his gray sweatpants on.
“Aren’t you freezing?” I ask as he looks up, but that’s not what I should be asking.
“There’re still traces of vampire in here, I think.”
I shiver, sliding onto the table in front of him, pushing aside the baby monitor, and dangling my legs over the edge.
He shifts his head, his jaw resting on his thumb, looking me up and down.
“Are you okay?”
He tilts his head up, biting the inside of his cheek while he contemplates. My heart races, scared of the answer. Scared to hear that he is not okay, that he is crumbling.
“I’m…adjusting.”
“You had a nightmare,” I say.
“I had a nightmare.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I absolutely do not want to talk about it.”
I lean back on my arms, swinging my legs between us, and he stares at them, and when he looks up at me, I can hardly swallow.
Yearning seizes his eyes, his tongue wetting his bottom lip as he places his hand on the back of my ankle.
“What I do want to talk about…what I can’t stop thinking about, is being inside you.” His jaw tightens, his roguish hair sensually out of place. “I tell myself, the first time in so long should be special, but there’s the baby, and we are in so much trouble, and I’m such a wreck that planning a romantic experience is not very easy at the moment.” His hand slides up from the back of my ankle, stopping behind my knee. “But I don’t think I can take any more waiting. How about you?”
My thighs clench together, jarringly turned on by him, by the look in his eye, the way his finger caresses behind my knee, and the warmth of his breath between my legs.
So I open them wider, exposing my panties to his line of vision, and use one hand to slowly untie my robe.
His lip curls up, lids heavy with the sight before him. “So you agree? Waiting is stupid?”
I lift a foot, place it on his knee, and raise my eyebrows, desire humming through every limb. “Fuck waiting,” I whisper.
He laughs at that, licking his lips, and pulls the knee he’s been caressing onto his other leg, his hand winding up the inside of my thigh. “Are you sure? I can’t be slow and gentle right now, and that’s what you deserve. You deserve something special.” His hand stops when his thumb ever so softly presses against my panties but doesn’t move. Just sits still between my legs. My body tenses, the power that thumb has, awakening every cell in my body. It had been asleep for so long, as long as he was gone, and now I feel alive again.
I slide the robe from my shoulders, the breeze dancing across my bare skin, my nightie making me feel exposed in the open air, under the deck. He bites into his lip, his restraint close to snapping. “Fuck me now and make love to me later. We have the rest of our lives for special.” I grind myself against his thumb.
“Right here? Outside?” His words are tense, like he’s about to crack, and I grind harder against his thumb because it’s not even light out, there’s no one here, and I need him right now.
