Page 114 of One Secret

'Because we never really got to the get-to-know-you stage?' I finish for her.

She smiles.

'Right.'

There's a softness in Darcy that was missing an hour ago. An openness. Perhaps she's simply exhausted from her ordeal but it doesn't feel that way. She seems… relaxed. The fresh, clean sense of self you find after a workout.

'I would really like to do that, now,' I confess.

'Do what?' she blinks.

'Get to know you.'

Darcy shifts her weight onto her forearm. Her body lays along mine and she reaches to trace the shape of my temple, my cheekbone. Her touch leaves a trail of heat in its wake, and I snatch up her fingers. I press a kiss to her palm.

'Are you going to trust what I have to say, this time?' she asks, resting her head on my shoulder and snuggling into my neck.

'Yeah,' I promise her. 'I'm going to choose to trust it.'

I can hear the smile in Darcy's voice as she asks:

'What brought this change about?'

Thinking, even for a minute, that you were gone.

'There are worse things in this world than you double crossing me. After calculating the risk, I'd rather be betrayed than heartbroken.'

Darcy sniggers against my collarbone. The sound shudders through my bones and makes me tingle.

'"Calculating the risk"?' she repeats, highly amused. 'That's the most prosaic bit of romance I've ever heard,' she accuses.

'You're welcome,' I smile.

Lifting herself back up, Darcy brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. When the gesture fails to hook and the dark lengths fall forward again, I reach up to do it for her.

'I think,' I murmur, drinking in every angle of her face, every facet of her eyes, 'I need you to kiss me, now.'

Darcy smiles, her nose wrinkling. Instead of cooperating with that plan, however, she quirks her eyebrow at me.

'Don't you think we should get rid of the unconscious henchman in our bathroom first?'

I groan, my limbs falling lifeless on the bed.

'Fine,' I agree, 'but I'm doing it.'

'I can help—'

'No.' My tone is final, as I transfer her gently from my torso to the bedspread. 'You're going to stay here and move as few muscles as is humanly possible.'

Darcy pulls a face.

'Um, excuse me,' she waves a hand towards the bathroom door as I stand up, 'I think I've proven this evening that I'm hardly fragile.'

I pause to brace a hand on either side of her hips and lean low to steal my coveted kiss.

'Not fragile,' I promise against her lips. 'Precious.'

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