3. Part III #3
“Good luck,” she prompted, reminding him it was his turn.
Their hands brushed as she transferred the teetotum to his palm, and he suddenly found himself much more interested in the creamy valley of flesh exposed above her modest bodice than the game.
Blindly, he gave the teetotum a hard spin and it ricocheted across the board before landing on the side displaying four even spaced dots.
“Oh dear,” his little fiancée said solemnly. “That will take you to passion.”
His gaze drifted a smidge lower. Yes, yes it certainly will.
“What does that mean? That can’t be a vice.” He raised his game piece and started to move it up but stopped when Persephone clucked her tongue. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m afraid it is a vice and the penalty is a trip straight to the pond.” She pointed at the lower edge of the board where water had been drawn in strokes of blue. “Sorry.”
Alec held his game piece in defiance. “I want to see the rules.”
“We lost them ages ago.”
“How convenient.”
“If you’d like to give up–”
“I’m not giving up,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m debating Mr. Fox’s credibility. Who is he to decide what a virtue is and what is a vice?”
“He designed the game,” Persephone provided quite unhelpfully. “You could always make your own and write in whatever rules you’d like. But until then, you have to go the pond.”
Grumbling under his breath, he plopped his game piece unceremoniously into the blue and watched, arms crossed, as Persephone spun a six which took her straight into the Manor of Happiness. She clapped her hands together.
“I won! I never win. Oh, this is very exciting. Wait until I tell my sisters.” Her cheeks, flushed a pleasing pink, paled slightly when she glanced across the board at Alec. “Why…” Her voice faltered. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Like what?” he asked huskily as all thoughts of the game and his dismal performance in it were replaced with the slow, crackling burn of desire.
It seeped through his veins, a slippery pool of widening need that threatened to consume him before he’d even placed a single finger upon Persephone’s fair skin.
“Like…” Her tongue slipped between her lips, wetting them. “Like I’m a hedgehog and you’re a hawk.”
Pieces clattered across the board and rolled onto the carpet as he shoved the game aside.
He rose up on his knees, towering over her, but when he touched her face, cupping her delicate jaw between his hands, his touch was achingly gentle.
And when he angled his head to kiss her, he claimed her mouth with the tenderness of a man savoring his final breath.
Persephone was light itself. Beaming, brilliant light.
Shining from the inside out, she was everything he’d never permitted himself to have and all that he didn’t deserve…
but he wanted her anyway. Because after a life spent being told he wasn’t worthy of loving by the people who should have loved him the most, he’d found someone who loved him for who he was, shadows and all.
Maybe the words hadn’t been exchanged, but the sentiment was there. In every smile. In every laugh. In every kiss.
He’d come here to fulfill an obligation.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Except Persephone was everything more.
More than he’d ever expected. More than the sum of his inheritance. More than the abuse he’d suffered.
“You would make an adorable hedgehog,” he murmured as he pulled back while a grin, the feel of it now familiar, stretching wide across his face. “I’d keep you in my pocket and carry you with me everywhere I went.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly. Everyone knows hedgehogs sleep best in drawers.”
Chuckling, he nudged a loose curl behind her ear, the edge of his thumb lingering on the velvet shell.
“I will differ to your expertise on hedgehogs, but not on game play. Tomorrow morning, after breakfast, I demand a rematch.” He was tempted to pick up the pieces and play again now, but it was already late, and if he kept her up any longer, he sincerely doubted his ability to keep his hands to himself.
“I didn’t think you liked the game,” she said, frowning slightly.
“I don’t, but I like losing even less.”
“Well…what if you lose again?”
“I won’t,” he said with supreme confidence.
“Yes, but what if you do?”
He looked at her. His not-at-all-plain fiancée. And he knew, with absolutely certainty, that he couldn’t lose even if he ended up in the pond a thousand times…because as long as he had her, he’d already won. “You should head up to bed. I’ll clean up here.”
“Are you sure? I can help–”
“Go, before I kiss you again.” A wicked gleam entered his eye. “And this time, I won’t stop.”
With a breathless squeal, Persephone shot to her feet and scampered out of the library.
She paused in the dim hallway, glancing back at him over her shoulder.
“Goodnight,” she ventured softly, bringing her fingertips to her lips to blow him a kiss and Alec’s heart, that once hard piece of charcoal, melted.
“Goodnight,” he said hoarsely.
My love.