10. Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Jessica
Ander didn’t go back to his family’s estate last night.
Just before midnight, he sent me two messages.
I told them no.
Dinner tomorrow?
I told him I was glad. Then I said yes to dinner.
Sophia is sitting on my desk, eating an apple, watching me struggle with the clasp at the back of my neck.
"I can't fasten it one-handed, and the left won't go up that far."
"So either be naked at dinner or let me help."
"Sophia."
She hops down and fastens it immediately, then straightens my collar with the seriousness of a woman preparing somebody for an inspection.
"You're nervous."
"I am not nervous."
"You've done your hair."
"I always do my hair."
“You’ve done it differently, which is how I know.” She steps back and looks me over. “I approve of him, by the way.”
“Nobody asked you.”
“He has fabulous shoes, and he gave Renzo his potatoes without making him beg. I’ve seen enough.”
“That’s your standard?”
“Good shoes and generosity under pressure? Absolutely.”
Torres is on the couch when I come out, and he looks up from his laptop and does a genuinely offensive slow whistle.
"Looking good, mama."
"Stop it."
"I'm not doing anything. I'm sitting here having a completely respectful reaction to my girlfriend leaving the house." He grins. "Have a good night."
The knock comes exactly when Ander said it would, because of course it does.
He's in a coat I haven't seen before and no tie, which for him is practically undressed, and when I open the door he stops a beat too long before he says anything.
"You look—" He stops. Starts again. "I've thought about this all afternoon and I had something prepared, and it's gone."
"What was it?"
"Something extremely elegant."
"Well, now we'll never know."
"That's what I'll be thinking about all evening," Ander says, and offers me his arm, and I take it.
He doesn’t take me into town.
He takes me to his room.
"You're having dinner in your room?"
"We are."
"You made dinner?"
"I considered it."
"And?"
"I wanted the evening to end well." He stops at his door and doesn't open it yet. "And I didn't know how far you'd want to go in a car. You haven't been down that hill since the kidnapping, and I wasn't going to make you on my account."
I hadn't thought about the car. I hadn't thought about it once, all afternoon, and he had.
"Open the door, Ander."
A woman in a black catering jacket is setting the last covered dish on a small table by the window.
She tells him when to uncover the second dish, points out the dessert, and leaves with the empty cart.
I look at the table. "You had dinner catered to your academy room."
"I wanted privacy."
"You own three forks."
"I don't know what all of them are for either."
It's warmer in here than I expected, and untidier.
Books stacked in the places where somebody's actually reading them.
A chair by the window that's worth more than everything in my suite put together, sitting next to an academy desk with a wobble in it.
His tie is on the back of the door, where he clearly threw it.
And on the desk, an old radio sits open, its wooden case removed and its insides spread over a folded towel.
"Does that work?"
"Not currently."
"Did it work before you touched it?"
Ander looks offended. "That is not relevant."
"Ander."
"It worked intermittently, which is worse than not working, and anybody who understands these things would agree with me.
" He pulls my chair out and then looks faintly embarrassed about having done it.
"It came last week. I asked for them to be sent.
Somebody in my father's house packed them without comment, which is the only correspondence I've had from that address I've actually enjoyed. "
"You had them sent."
"You were extremely insistent."
"I was extremely right."
"Those are frequently the same thing with you," Ander says, and uncovers the first dish.
The bread is still warm, the salad is sharp with vinegar, and there is enough food for twice as many people. Ander has planned all of it.
"You've got—" I gesture at my own chin.
"Where?"
"There."
"That's not—"
I reach across and wipe it off with my thumb, and he goes still, and then catches my wrist and holds it and puts his mouth against my palm.
"Oh," I say, intelligently.
"Yes." He lets go. "Eat your fish."
He asks about my mother. Not about the line or the ledger or Emil — about my mother, what she does, whether she's funny, what she'd make of him.
"She'd think you were a snob at first," I tell him, "and then she'd like you."
"That's better than I usually manage. What changes her mind?"
"You'd help with something without being asked. She notices that more than anything anybody says."
"Then I'll find something to carry," Ander says, and nods as though he's memorizing the instructions.
That's when his phone goes.
His smile disappears when he sees the screen.
"Take it."
"It can wait."
"Ander, take it. You'll be somewhere else all evening if you don't."
He takes it, and stands up, and goes as far as the window with his back to me.
He keeps his voice low enough that I can’t make out the words. I watch his shoulders tighten while he listens.
He comes back, puts the phone face down on the table, and pushes it away from himself with one finger.
"That was my father's office. He wants me at the house for what they're describing as a conversation about my conduct."
"And?"
"And I've said I'll meet him with a secretary present, on a date I choose, which they'll find insulting, which is rather the point." He takes his glass back. "They want it in his study because in his study it isn't a meeting, it's a summons. He's had his way in that room since I was a boy."
"What happens now?"
"He'll threaten my committee seats first. Then the delegation."
"Can he take them?"
"Some of them."
"And you're still saying no."
Ander meets my eyes. "Yes."
"Then tell me what happens."
"I will."
Then he uncovers the dessert, and we argue about whether it counts as a pudding or a sauce until there's none of it left.
When the dessert is gone, I stand and hold out my hand.
Ander looks at it, then at me.
“Come here.”
He takes my hand and stands. I catch a handful of his shirt before I lose the ability to make complete sentences.
"I want you. Not the mark. Not Prince Ardent. You.”
I tighten my hand in his shirt.
"I know this will seal the bond. I'm choosing it."
"So am I." His hand comes up and his thumb moves along my jaw. "I'm not doing it because it's expected or because the mark exists. I want you, Jessica."
"Good," I say, and pull him toward the bed.
Ander undresses me slowly, pausing when he reaches my injured shoulder. He eases the sleeve down my left arm without pulling it.
"You're unbearable."
"So you keep saying." He drops the shirt on the chair. "And yet."
Then he looks at me and forgets whatever he was about to say.
"Say something."
"I'm having trouble," he says, "with the fact that this is allowed."
Then his mouth twitches. "I believe mental rehearsal improves performance. I've practiced this often enough that I expect exceptional results."
I stare at him. "You mentally rehearsed having sex with me?"
"Extensively."
"I love that," I laugh. "Show me what you practiced."
He kisses me before I can say anything else, one hand at my waist and the other careful of my injured shoulder.
We get onto the bed and he props a pillow under my left shoulder without being asked, and then puts his mouth on me and stops talking for a long time.
He takes his time, his hands braced beneath my thighs, holding me open while his mouth works between my legs, taking so long that I start swearing at him.
When I'm close, he pulls back and looks up at me, his mouth wet.
"Ask me properly."
"You cannot be serious—"
"Complete sentence, please."
"I am going to murder you—"
"Afterwards," he agrees, and waits.
So I tell him exactly what I want him to do, in a complete sentence, and he says "Thank you," and does it, and I come with both hands tangled in his hair.
Getting him out of his clothes is the fastest I've ever seen him move.
"Up," I tell him. "On your back."
He raises an eyebrow.
"I want to be able to move, and you’ll have to help me." I push him flat with my good hand, which works only because he lets it. "And I want you underneath me for once in your life."
"That," Ander says, "is the most persuasive argument you have ever made."
I take him in my hand and line him up and sink down onto him slowly, and the sound he makes is worth every minute of the waiting.
After that, I set the pace, adjusting until the angle makes both of us gasp. He lies beneath me with his hands spanning my hips and helps me move just how I want to. He watches everything, and I love it. He tells me exactly what he wants in complete, precise sentences — until he can't.
"You're—" He stops. Tries again. "I had a — there was a thought—"
"Go on."
"It's gone." His head goes back. "You've taken it."
"Faster," he says, after a while.
"No."
"Jessica—"
"Ask properly."
"You are the worst person I have ever—"
I stop moving entirely.
“Please,” Ander says.
“More words.”
His hands tighten on my hips. “Please go faster.”
“Much better.”
Then I give him what he asked for.
After that he loses it properly. His hands go tight on my hips, his head goes back, and he says my name over and over until it stops being a word. He gets a hand between us and finds me with his thumb. I come again with his eyes fixed on mine. He doesn't look away.
I fold down onto him, careful of the shoulder.
He wraps both arms around me and drives up into me from underneath.
I press my hand against his sternum.
“Now.”
He comes with my name against my throat.
The fourth arc burns.
I gasp and grab my wrist as heat races up my arm and strikes the center of my chest.
Ander jerks beneath me.
Then I feel him through the new bond. His surprise hits me first, followed by a rush of emotion as he reaches for me. He is separate from Luke, Torres, and Soren, but just as real.
My other three bonds flare in answer.
Ander wraps both arms around me. "I can feel you."
"Yeah."
"Not just where you are." His hand tightens in my hair. "You."
"Welcome to the bond."
"Is it always—"
"Ask Torres," I tell him. "He's been insufferable about it since the day his turned up."
He laughs into my shoulder and doesn't let go for a long time.
He keeps checking.
While he's getting water, and sorting the blankets out, and putting my shirt back on me one sleeve at a time, he keeps stopping. Going still, eyes unfocused. Every time, he catches my eye and smiles.
It's exactly what Torres does. I decide to tell him that later.
"You did it again."
"I did not."
"You went away and came back with your mouth open."
"I was checking you were still there."
"I'm right here. I'm touching you."
"I know. But feeling you through the bond is different. Apparently my brain needs to check both." He puts the glass in my right hand and makes me drink some before he drinks any himself. "I'd like to formally apologize to Torres for something I thought about him in October."
"He'll want the details."
"He will not be getting them."
He gets in beside me, arranges the pillows around my left side with his usual attention, and then lies down and pulls me against him.
"They felt it," he says after a while.
"I know."
"Can you feel all of us?"
"Yes."
"Separately?"
"Of course. You're separate people."
"Breakfast," Ander says into my hair.
“You better come to breakfast with me.”
“With everyone?”
“Yes. Renzo will say something. There’s no avoiding it.”
Ander sighs. "Then I'll prepare myself."
He turns down the lamp and pulls me closer.