Chapter Thirty-One
Hannah scrolled past another lackluster job posting. It turned out finding a decent-paying theater teacher job was harder than she’d thought, especially since she was limited to private and parochial schools until she completed an alternative teacher certification program. Apparently her Broadway credits didn’t override the minimum qualifications.
Of course, the posting for the perfect position had been forwarded to her two weeks ago. A decent salary, a beautiful location close enough to the City she could visit on weekends, and a friend already on the staff. But she couldn’t apply for the job at St. Anthony’s High School, not when Ethan hadn’t even texted her in days…could she?
Ever since his first message, he’d taken to sending her photos every few days of things that reminded him of her—Terrence McFancyCock, the sunset over the vineyard, a tattered copy of an old school romance novel. She wanted to believe it meant something, but days at a time would pass without a new message and they still hadn’t talked about what happened, or where they went from here.
As much as she missed him—and she did, so much that she felt like an actual part of her had been severed and left behind in Aster Bay—and as much as she loved him, she couldn’t sit around and wait for him to decide to pull his head out of his ass.
And if he never gets his shit together?
She should give that part time job on Long Island another look. Or she could take her parents up on their offer to move back to Philadelphia, even if the idea of moving home at thirty-two made her sick to her stomach.
Her phone dinged with a new email and Hannah thumbed it open. The familiar header of AK Wild’s newsletter filled her screen and she skimmed the email quickly. A surprise sneak peek at AK Wild’s upcoming dragon shifter’s romance audiobook available to newsletter subscribers only. Hannah’s finger hovered over the download link, the name Slade Hardcastle seeming to dare her to do it.
As if there was ever a chance she wasn’t going to listen.
She watched impatiently as the story downloaded, shoving her earbuds into her ears. She could go back to doomscrolling the job postings after she listened. The audio was only a few minutes long anyway.
“The Dragon Duke by AK Wild, narrated by Slade Hardcastle.”
Ethan’s voice filled her ears and she leaned back, sinking into the deep timbre of it. This was the only time she felt close to him lately, when she listened to one of his books. Someday, she told herself, she wouldn’t need to listen to them anymore, wouldn’t keep torturing herself with the reminder of the way his chest vibrated when he talked low like that or the memory of the heat in his eyes when he got all growly. Someday she’d move on.
But not today.
“You will submit to me, mea dulcis, on your knees, on your back. Any way I desire you. Every way,”
Ethan rumbled through her earbuds. “You will know what it is to be mated to the dragon duke, to surrender your body and heart to my keeping. And when you have done that, little one, oh how I shall reward you.”
There was a crackling in the audio, an almost imperceptible shift in the white noise, and then—
“Hi, city girl.”
She sat bolt upright, looking around her apartment, but the words—in Ethan’s own voice and not the British accept of Slade Hardcastle—had come from her earbuds.
“Two months ago, I recorded those words, and I had an idea. What if, like the dragon duke, I could convince you to surrender your body and heart to my keeping? How I would reward you,”
he groaned, the sound conjuring memories of his lips and hands on her skin.
Her breath caught in her chest, lungs burning, her nose stinging.
“But, like the dragon duke, I miscalculated. I didn’t realize I would also be surrendering my heart to you. I have lent my voice to some of the greatest love stories, but I didn’t know how to love you the way you deserved, how to stand in the storm without trying to stop it. For so long that is what I’ve been good at—putting up barriers, being in control. And this storm…it made me feel out of control like I never have before.”
A tear slid down Hannah’s cheek and she dashed it away, focused on the ragged exhale on the recording.
“It’s no excuse for hurting you. You once said you wanted to know all the parts of me, even the messy, sordid parts. This is the messiest part, sweetheart, but it’s a part of me you never should have had to know.
“Six weeks, two days, seven hours, and ten minutes ago I made the worst mistake of my life when I let you go. You gave me your heart and I didn’t protect it, and I will regret it every day for as long as I live. I regretted it before the door even closed behind you. But I was so deep in the mess, I couldn’t see a way out.
“I’m sorry, Hannah. I am so sorry for all the ways I’ve hurt you. For all the ways I let you down. I have spent the last six weeks cleaning up the mess and building a stronger foundation so the next time we are caught in a storm, I will know how to stand in it with you. If you’ll let me.”
Hannah got to her feet and ran to her bedroom, still listening as she tugged the suitcase out of her closet and began throwing things in. She had to go back. Her throat burned with all the things she needed to say to him, things she wanted to say in person.
In the living room, someone knocked on her door, but she didn’t have time to tell another delivery driver he had the wrong apartment, not when she had a life to start.
The recording continued playing. “I promise, this time, I’ll keep your heart safe. I’m sure I will make mistakes, but I promise I will never again run or give up or hide from you. Or from myself. I surrender my heart to your keeping, Hannah. I love you.”
“I love you too,”
she said, as though he could hear her.
Another knock. “Hannah?”
She ripped the earbuds from her ears and then froze, listening.
Was that…?
“Hannah, please.”
It was.
She tore through her apartment and flung open her front door. Ethan stood in her hallway, his hair a mess and his clothing rumpled. One corner of his mouth quirked up despite the sadness in his eyes. “Hey, city girl.”
She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of him as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Hey, now, don’t cry,”
he murmured, cradling her against him and pressing his lips to her hair. “Fuck, Hannah, I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you,”
she choked out.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“I know. I got your message.”
He slid a knuckle beneath her chin and tilted her face up towards him so she could see the brief happiness flash across his face before it was replaced by the tortured look in his eyes. “I meant every word. Please give me another chance. I know I don’t deserve it but—”
She kissed him, her hands tangling in his shirt, as she pulled him closer. A groan rumbled in his throat as she deepened the kiss, licking into his mouth. When they broke apart, he dragged his lips over her cheekbones, settling on her temple.
“I love you,”
he said, the words deep and jagged, roughened by everything that came before.
“I love you.”
Some of the pain melted from his eyes, replaced by a fragile hope. She smoothed her thumb over the crease between his brows. “You’re making your worried face.”
He caught her wrist and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin on the inside. “How can you forgive me so easily?”
“Did you not want me to?”
He huffed out a laugh. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
He trailed his lips higher on her forearm. “I want to earn you.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, her heart so full it hardly felt like she could keep it in her chest. “Haven’t you learned yet? Love isn’t something you earn—it’s something you receive, something you do. Something you choose.”
“I choose you. I should have chosen you every day before now, but I will choose you every day from now on.”
“Even when things are chaotic?”
He snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, hip to hip. “Even then. Always.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, their noses sliding against each other. “I choose you. I choose us.”
“There’s something I should tell you.”
His shoulders tensed, and his eyes fell closed, but he nodded. “Tell me.”
“I’m done with Broadway.”
His eyes flew open and he pulled back to look at her. “You told me I should choose myself. You were right.”
“Are you okay?”
he asked, his fingers stroking her spine.
Her whole body glowed with the possibilities in front of her. “I am. It was like I was wearing a weighted vest and didn’t realize it, and when the vest finally came off, I felt…free.”
“What will you do now?”
“I think I’d like to teach. And figure out what life looks like when my job doesn’t dictate every part of it.”
His lips grazed hers. “I’m so damn proud of you.”
She grinned against his kiss. “I was thinking, maybe this new life looks a little less like Manhattan and a little more like Aster Bay.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He slid a hand into her hair, his mouth spreading into a grin that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “You want to come home with me, sweetheart?”
From The Lady’s Knights by A K Wild, narrated by Slade Hardcastle
Their horse’s hooves raced over the baked earth in the early morning mist, dirt kicking up behind them as they took their flight. Sir Llewellyn snapped the reins, urging the horse faster towards the horizon, his lady at his back, her arms around his waist and thighs bracketing his. The court would be scandalized to see Lady Windtorn riding astride, and with a knight of her husband’s guard no less, but for once, Sir Llewellyn cared nothing of the scandal.
Beyond the horizon, the wide world waited for them, a ship in the harbor ready to take them overseas where she would not be lady of the keep and he would not be required to maintain his distance.
With one hand, he gripped her thigh, tugging her more snugly against him. Let there be no more distance between them.
“Almost there, my lady,”
he said, his gloved fingertips digging into the soft flesh beneath her layers of skirts.
“I am not a lady any longer, Sir. But I am yours.”