10. Cleaning House #4
“You’re an angel, Trata,” Gabriel said, turning towards the kitchen before she could change her mind.
The swinging door of the kitchen muffled the roar of the common room. It smelled of rendered fat, rosemary, and a bit of woodsmoke. The fires in the massive iron range had died down to glowing embers, but the residual heat kept the chill at bay.
Gabriel leaned back against a prep table, watching Miles shed his coat.
There was something undeniably erotic about Miles in domestic mode.
The man could dismantle complex wards and summon fire from the Aether with nothing but the right component, a whispered word, and the power of his will, but watching him roll up his sleeves to reveal those forearms, scanning the shelves with the intense tactical focus of a general planning a siege, did things to Gabriel’s insides.
Watching Miles wield a knife with such competence was almost enough to scrub the day from Gabriel’s mind. Almost. But the image of piece after piece of heavy furniture sliding out of the way, trembling with eagerness to please all day long, stuck in his throat like a fishbone.
He possibly preferred the manor when it was trying to kill them.
Malice he understood; this cringing, desperate fawning felt too much like looking into a funhouse mirror of his past. He needed to get out of his head immediately. And since he couldn’t fight Rookgate tonight, he’d just have to make some trouble here.
“I’m going to find us a drink.”
“We negotiated for food, not the cellar,” Miles noted, though he was already filling a pot with water.
“Details, darling. A light, if you please.”
Miles groaned but obliged. He fetched the cold light out of a coat pocket, activated it, and handed it off to Gabriel before returning to the stove to stoke the fire .
Gabriel went to the back of the kitchen and descended the narrow stone steps into the darkness of the cellar. The air here was cooler, smelling of dry earth and oak barrels. At the bottom, a heavy iron-bound door guarded the inn’s wine cellar. A formidable-looking padlock hung from the latch.
Gabriel smiled. Finally. A problem he could solve with his hands. A lock didn’t have feelings. A lock didn’t cower. A lock was a binary state: closed or open, and he was the arbiter of the transition.
He knelt and slid the picks from his boot. The metal was cold against his fingertips. He closed his eyes, listening to the mechanism. Click. A pin set. Click. Another.
There was a profound, soothing rhythm to it.
In a world where legal papers trapped him in a title he hated, where houses had moods, and where the man he loved was legally barred from marrying him, this small act of defiance felt like reclaiming oxygen.
He wasn’t Lord Fairfield down here. He wasn’t Madaze’s heir.
He was just Gabriel, taking what he wanted because he was skilled enough to take it.
The lock sprang open with a heavy thunk .
Gabriel pushed into the cellar. He ignored the racks of cheap swill near the front and headed for the cobwebbed recesses in the back where they’d store good stuff.
“Let’s see,” he whispered, running his fingers over the dust-coated glass. “Too young. Too sweet. Ah...”
He pulled a dusty red, a heavy velvet blend from Sunmere.
It was a varietal they’d enjoyed several times during their happy time in Briarleigh, although an older vintage.
Perfect for brooding about their forced separation from their little cottage and the life they had been building.
Then, unsure of what Miles would cook, he also snagged a crisp, pale white.
He tucked one bottle under each arm, relocking the door with a satisfying snap before heading back up.
Miles would probably add the cost of the bottles to the pile of coins he left on the counter later. But that didn’t matter. The transaction wasn’t the point. Ideally, Gabriel would have preferred to steal it outright, just to prove the universe owed him, but he’d settle for the illusion of larceny.
When he emerged back into the kitchen, the atmosphere had shifted.
The smell of garlic and browning butter had chased away the scent of stale grease.
Steam rose from the pot on the stove, curling into the rafters.
Miles stood at the center island, a rhythmic chop-chop-chop echoing as he worked through a pile of vegetables.
He looked at ease. He had pulled all his hair up to keep it out of the food, but some of the hair had escaped its tie, a few strands falling over his face.
Gabriel paused, the bottles heavy in his hands. This was it. This was the life they were fighting for. Just this. A kitchen, a meal, the two of them together.
Gabriel set the bottles on the counter and moved up behind Miles, sliding his arms around his waist. He pressed his chest against Miles’s back, burying his face in the crook of his neck. “I stole wine for you. Praise me.”
Miles leaned back into the embrace. He set down the knife to cover Gabriel’s hands with his own, his thumbs rubbing over Gabriel’s knuckles. “You pillaged Trata’s private stock, didn’t you.”
“I liberated it. The red was dying of boredom in the dark.”
“I’m going to have to leave a fortune on the counter,” Miles sighed, but there was a smile in his voice. He turned in Gabriel’s arms. The kitchen light was soft, casting shadows that made Miles’s eyes look darker, deeper. “What did you get?”
“A heavy red for my existential dread and a nice white, your choice for whatever that is.” Gabriel gestured at the stove.
“Pasta.” Miles leaned in to brush a kiss against Gabriel’s jaw, just below his ear. “Garlic, butter, herbs, and vegetables. Simple. We need simple tonight.”
The stubble on Miles’s chin grazed Gabriel’s sensitive skin. “White, then,” Gabriel whispered, tilting his head to allow better access. “The red is too heavy for... simple.”
Miles pulled back, just an inch, his eyes searching Gabriel’s face. He was looking for the cracks, for the panic Gabriel had painted over with wit and theft. “Are you alright? We made substantial progress today, but you seem—”
“I’m hungry,” Gabriel interrupted, “and I have a very attractive wizard cooking for me in a borrowed kitchen.”
Miles held his gaze for a second longer, then conceded with a small nod. Gabriel released Miles to dig through the drawers until he found the corkscrews.
Gabriel took the bottle of white, the glass cool and damp with condensation. He drove the corkscrew in with a savage little twist—imagining it was Palthor Quillmane’s eye socket—and pulled the cork with a soft pop . He grabbed two glasses from the drying rack.
The liquid poured pale gold. It looked clean. Uncomplicated .
“To simple things,” Gabriel said, sliding a glass across the wooden countertop toward Miles.
“To simple things,” Miles echoed, the glass clinking against Gabriel’s with a clear, sharp note.
They sipped. The wine was crisp, cutting through the lingering taste of dust and old magic that had coated Gabriel’s tongue all day. It tasted like sunlight on green grapes, a memory of the south that made his chest ache before the alcohol began its warm, unraveling work.
Miles turned back to the stove, taking the pot to the sink to drain the water with a hiss of steam.
Gabriel moved to the large, battered trestle table pushed against the back wall.
It was scarred from a thousand knives and stained with the ghosts of a thousand meals.
He laid out silverware and napkins from the table service shelves.
“Sit.” Miles plated two bowls of pasta that glistened with butter and herbs. He tossed the dirty pot into the deep stone sink with a clang, then joined him at the table.
Instead of taking the seat across, Miles pulled a chair right next to Gabriel’s and angled it a little toward him. Their knees pressed together under the table.
They ate in a comfortable silence, broken only by the muffled roar of the common room beyond the swinging door and the scrape of forks against ceramic.
The food was simple, rich, and perfect. But as Gabriel ate, the frantic energy that had been buzzing under his skin all day didn’t dissipate; it just changed frequency.
The fear of and pity for Rookgate, the rage at Vellast, and dread at seeing him tomorrow.
..it all swirled into a tight, hot knot in his belly.
He recognized the impulse. It was a coping mechanism he knew he called on too often: when the world feels like it’s ending, get as close to Miles’s skin as possible and let the pleasure distract him.
But looking at Miles—watching the strong line of his jaw as he chewed, the way his throat moved when he swallowed wine—it wasn’t just the ghost of his past prodding him for the comfort Miles represented.
It was hunger. It was the genuine desire he had for his man, nearly always.
He wasn’t sure it was possible to be near Miles and not feel a longing for him.
He wouldn’t allow the likes of Vellast to take this from him.
Gabriel let his knee drift, pressing harder against Miles’s leg. He let his hand drop from the table to rest on Miles’s thigh .
“Good?” Miles asked, glancing over. His eyes were dark, tired, and unguarded.
“Delicious,” Gabriel purred, pitching his voice low enough to slide under the noise of the tavern. He wasn’t talking about the pasta.
He leaned in, his gaze dropping to Miles’s lips. There was a tiny smudge of butter and herb sauce at the corner of his mouth. A target.
“You have a bit of sauce...” Gabriel murmured.
Before Miles could reach for a napkin, Gabriel leaned in. He licked the corner of Miles’s mouth, delicately, before pressing a kiss there. He hummed against Miles’s skin, tasting garlic and salt and man.