CHAPTER 91
The Signal Again
They remained in the private library after the pause, not rushing to turn the pause into another permission. Daniel had learned that the space after a boundary mattered as much as the boundary itself. It was where the body discovered whether it had been honored or merely tolerated.
Elise stood in front of him with both of her hands still caught in his. Marcus had stepped back to the tall window, near enough to remain part of the room, far enough that Daniel could feel the marriage return to its own temperature.
'Report,' Daniel said, but this time his voice was softer. It was not command. It was invitation.
Elise looked down at their joined hands, then back into his face. 'Shaken. In a good way. Proud of us. A little embarrassed by how much I liked that you asked me to stay with you.'
'Why embarrassed?'
'Because I wanted to be wanted by him and still anchored by you. That sounds selfish when I say it out loud.'
Daniel almost answered too fast. He caught himself. Their best truths had started arriving only when he let the uncomfortable ones breathe.
'It sounds human,' he said at last.
Her eyes softened. 'And you?'
Daniel glanced toward Marcus, then did not. He refused to make Marcus the center of every answer. 'Jealous. Aroused. Afraid. More certain than I expected.'
'Certain of what?'
'That I want us to decide the next part at home.'
The sentence surprised him with its own authority. Elise heard it too. It did not close the night like a punishment. It closed it like a door he had finally chosen to own.
Marcus turned from the window. 'Then this is a good place to stop.'
Daniel looked at him, grateful and irritated by the precision. 'You never push.'
'Pushing would make the wrong thing happen.'
'And the right thing?' Elise asked.
Marcus's gaze moved to her, then immediately to Daniel and back, a small act of respect that had become its own kind of provocation. 'The right thing keeps asking who it belongs to.'
Daniel absorbed that. Who it belonged to. Not Marcus. Not fantasy. Not fear. Them.
Elise squeezed his hands twice.
For one terrible second Daniel thought she was asking for a pause, and then he saw her smile.
'Practice,' she whispered.
He laughed despite himself, the sound uneven and relieved. 'That is not fair.'
'It worked.'
Marcus crossed to the table and retrieved Elise's wrap from the chair without making a ceremony of it. He offered it to Daniel instead of putting it over her shoulders himself.
Daniel noticed. Elise noticed him noticing.
That was the danger of Marcus. Not what he took. What he refused to take until the refusal itself became intimate.
Daniel placed the wrap around Elise's shoulders. His fingers brushed the same place Marcus's hand had touched, and she closed her eyes. He felt the echo move through her and through him. It was not less because it was second. It was theirs because it came last.
'Ready?' he asked.
Elise nodded. 'Take me home.'
Marcus opened the library door and stood aside.
Daniel led his wife out first.