Chapter 30 #3
“It’s nothing, just . . .” He blew out a heavy sigh through his lips. “Ward helped me to find you, you know.”
She blinked, drawing her head back in surprise. “He did?”
“I . . .” He gritted his teeth as though what he was about to say was the worst thing he’d ever spoken in his life. “I couldn’t have done it without him.”
“Really? You two were like a . . . a team?”
“No!”
“Associates?”
“Barely.”
“Wow.” Luna frowned, studying the side of his face quizzically. “So, where is he then?”
“I had to leave him behind. He took a Dire bolt and—”
“He what?”
“No, no! He’s fine.” Nigel made a soothing gesture with one hand. “At least, I assume he is. He was fine when I left him, and all the sorcerers were clearing out by then, so I imagine he stayed that way. We haven’t exactly been in touch.”
Luna listened, uncomprehending. It would seem she and her employer had a great deal more to discuss that was not as agreeable as the current state of their feelings. But just in this moment, all she could manage was another small, “Wow.” Then she added, “You must really love me, Mr. Grimm.”
“Erm. Yes. Yes, I do. Very much.” He paused and looked at her. “Utterly and completely, with my whole being, in fact.” He was quiet another moment, before adding, “But what makes you say so?”
“Well, I don’t think anything but the deepest love could induce you to partner up with John Ward.”
“We were not partners!”
“Associates, then.”
“Whatever!”
Luna laughed as he turned away from her, running a hand through his hair and making it stand on end. There was very little trace of pomade left by now. “You know,” she said soothingly, “the two of you have more in common than you think.”
“We have absolutely nothing in common.”
“Taste in women?”
“Beyond that.”
“I will say, though, I liked your proposal a lot better than his.”
His spine straightened abruptly. “You what?”
“Yes, you definitely brought the passionate-swain romanticism, which, I’ll admit, I am partial to.”
“Ward proposed?”
“His was more of a rugged, strong-man, ‘How about you ’n me gettin’ hitched,’ sort of vibe. Works for some girls, but—”
“John-rutting Ward?”
“You had the advantage of desperate circumstances. It does bring a certain poetry to the moment—”
“When did Ward the Damned Wardsman propose to you?”
Luna giggled and poked him in the ribs. “You’re jealous.”
“I am not.”
“You’re positively seething!”
“I am . . . perturbed.”
“Something tells me I wasn’t the only one weeping into my pillow every night this last month.”
“I’ve never wept into my pillow in all my life.”
“If I asked Debbie, would she corroborate that claim?”
Nigel was silent for a moment. Then shook his head roughly and growled, “Never mind.”
Luna laughed again and laughed even harder watching Nigel roll his jaw and grumble. But he didn’t pull away when she leaned her head against his shoulder, instead turning to kiss her brow sulkily. His lips lingered, and she thought she felt them twitch in an effort not to smile.
“Your proposal did have another advantage over Ward’s,” she said after a little while.
“Oh, yes? Do elaborate.”
“I turned his down.” She lifted her head slowly, turning to look him in the eye. “But yours . . .”
His breath caught. “Say yes, Luna,” he said, catching hold of her hand and squeezing it. “Say it, my dear. Let me hear those words on your lips.”
“You’re such a sop.” She giggled, leaning forward and brushing her nose against his. “Yes, Nigel,” she murmured. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Then she was kissing him again. And again and again.
And the kisses transformed from gentle to ardent, and from ardent to fiery.
He pressed her back down onto the bed, his weight on top of hers but carefully balanced so as not to squish her.
She sank into the feather mattress even as he sank into her kisses, his lips plying, his breath hot, his tongue pillaging greedily.
When he pulled away, leaving her gasping, it was only to let his mouth rediscover all the delightfully sensitive places on her jaw and neck which he seemed instinctively to know would make her shiver, would make her fingers grasp at his shoulders, twisting up fistfuls of his shirt.
His own fingers smoothed up and down her bare arm, ran down to her waist, glided across the silky fabric on her stomach, but never strayed into ungentlemanly territory. Drat him.
But though his hands remained restrained, his mouth explored more deliciously, forging a tantalizing path down her throat, down her breastbone, across every inch of exposed skin.
He licked and nibbled, and she clutched at his hair and wished and wondered and whimpered.
His touch glided back up her arm to the sleeve of her nightie, which had pulled down on its own, without any help from her, honest to gods!
He toyed with the strap, but this time didn’t tug it back into place.
Instead, he let his fingers trace along the delicate fabric to the lowered neckline of her gown, straying ever so dangerously across the upper swell of her heaving breasts.
And Luna thought, For a man so remarkably dense about women, he certainly knows a thing or two. About kissing. About petting. Presumably about other things as well . . .
He drew back rather abruptly, panting hard. “I have to stop now, my dear.”
“You don’t,” she replied at once, the words gasping through her own quickened breaths.
Her chest rose and fell swiftly, warm in all the places he’d touched, warmer still in all the places he hadn’t.
She slid her knee up, pressing her thigh against his side, little caring where her nightgown hem had fallen.
“I mean it, Nigel,” she said. “You don’t have to stop. ”
He closed his eyes, bowed his head. Planted one last, lingering kiss above her heart. Then, with a little shake, he lifted his face once more. “But I will, nonetheless. You’ll be my wife soon. I want . . . I want to do right by you. In every particular.”
Luna bit her lip, her brow wrinkling. She ran her fingers through his floppy hair, pushing it back from his forehead. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage it,” she said sadly.
“Manage what?”
“Getting married. We’re likely to be on the lam for quite a while. We can’t stay here, you know. We can’t endanger the aunties.”
Nigel nodded, his expression earnest. She noted with some irritation that he had surreptitiously repositioned her nightie strap. But when he cupped her cheek and stroked her so sweetly with his thumb, she forgave him.
“Do you remember what you said to me last Sunday?” he asked.
“When?”
“Under the table. At the wedding banquet.”
“Oh. Yes? What did I say?”
“You said the only wedding you ever envisioned for yourself would take place in your aunties’ tea garden. With the old vicar of Greater Snoring officiating and just a few close friends gathered round.”
Luna blushed, lowering her lashes. “That, um, yes. That does sound about right, actually.”
“So . . . what do you think?”
She knew what he was asking. She knew what he was hoping. She looked up into his eyes, holding his gaze long and hard.
And suddenly, despite everything—despite her fear, despite her anxiety, despite the looming shadow of her fate—she could not stop herself any longer. Her face broke into a beaming smile.