Chapter Twenty-One #3
“Get in, and stop whingeing,” she said, her tone brooking no refusals, and he was alarmed to learn the degree to which he (or, more accurately, his cock) liked that tone of voice coming from her.
Rather than pondering that, he clambered into the cupboard, and was grudgingly forced to admit that it was roomier than it looked from outside—the doorway was low, but there was more headspace than had been implied.
Vesper climbed in behind him and shut the door, plunging them into darkness.
“This is cozy,” Max said, settling onto the floor, stretching his legs out before him and leaning his back against the wall. He had to keep his knees slightly bent, but it was considerably more comfortable than he’d been expecting thirty seconds ago.
He heard the rustling of fabric, then Vesper settled herself next to him.
She was pressed up against him, the softness of her breast pushing against his arm; he inhaled deeply, which was a mistake.
In these close confines, her scent filled his nose—bluebells, even in October.
It was an oddly innocent scent for someone who seemed determined to be perceived as anything but.
He didn’t think he’d ever be able to smell it again without thinking of her.
“How long until they close?” he asked quietly, after the silence had stretched between them for several seconds.
“Another half hour, I think,” she said. “And then we’ll need to give it another half hour after that, probably, to give the staff time to leave.
” She sighed, and there was the sound of rustling fabric as she settled herself more comfortably against him.
Here, in the dark, unable to see her, he immediately forgot the disguise of her temporary face; it was just her voice, her scent, the press of her body next to him.
It was just… Vesper. As simple, and as complicated, as that. He tilted his head back against the wall, staring unseeingly up into the darkness.
After another several seconds, she said conversationally, “Your father’s quite an ass, isn’t he?”
Max huffed out a laugh, surprised, and rubbed a hand along his jaw. “Quite,” he agreed.
She was silent for another few moments, and he could practically hear her thinking.
He didn’t speak, curious to see what she was puzzling over.
“It makes more sense to me—the way you feel about magic,” she said at last. Her voice was quiet, serious.
“If a man like that had been my first exposure to magic, I expect I’d have a prejudice against it, too. ”
He frowned into the dark, thinking about it. “Perhaps,” he said finally. “But perhaps…” He trailed off, still trying to work out what it was he wanted to say—how he felt. It was uncomfortable, questioning an assumption that had underpinned so much of his life for so long.
Vesper, however, was not as patient as he was. “Perhaps…?” she prompted after only a few seconds of silence had elapsed.
“Perhaps I was simply determined to be pigheaded about it. And I wonder if it’s been blinding me to the truth of the world.”
“Meaning?”
He sighed. “I still don’t love the amount of money and power that’s concentrated in the old magical families, but I suppose they’re no different in that regard than any of the mundane aristocrats. And I’m not out there campaigning to abolish the monarchy and throw the toffs in prison, am I?”
“I don’t know, are you?” she asked, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “How on earth am I to know what you get up to in your free time? You might have all manner of strange hobbies.”
“Vesper.” It was meant to sound stern, but even he could hear that he hadn’t come anywhere close to managing it. It was difficult to sound stern when he was fighting against the urge to smile.
“Ashbridge.” She made a decent attempt at mimicking his tone, and now he was smiling in earnest.
“Another impression to add to your repertoire. Should I worry you’re going to fetch a brown wig and start impersonating me next?”
“Every time you make a joke, I feel as if I’m having a stroke. Or perhaps as if you are.”
He felt her shift against him again, and then the coolness of her hand against his forehead. “Are you feverish?”
“Possibly,” he said, and then caught her hand in his, and—without pausing for even the briefest of moments to ponder what he was doing—pressed it to his mouth.
He heard her breath catch in her throat.
“Ashbridge.” Her voice was low.
He drew back to inhale a deep, shuddering breath. “I wish you’d say my name.”
A pause. “Why?”
This was the moment at which he could still stop this. He could laugh it off, make a joke or a flip remark, or come over stern, anything to make the space between them feel less loaded with promise.
Another pause, longer this time, and then—instead of doing any of those things—he said quietly, “You know why.”
She didn’t respond for a moment, the silence stretching between them, growing heavy, and then, finally, she said, so softly, “Max.”
And then, in a single, smooth moment, as if he’d been planning it all along, he turned and took her in his arms, and kissed her again.