14. Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Jessica
Soren's in one of the study rooms on the second floor when I find him, which took signing out at the residence desk and a man walking me as far as the stairs.
He's sitting at the table with a form in front of him and two letters beside it.
“You're early,” he says without looking up.
“You've been in here for three hours.”
“Two and a half.”
"Did they finish in your room?"
"This morning."
"And you've got copies of everything."
"Yep."
He nods once and doesn't ask me anything else.
I come around the table and read the form over his shoulder.
“This is about your placement.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you already had one.”
His pen stops.
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“My father withdrew the House's support after the hearing.”
Oh.
“And this?” I tap the form.
“The academy has alternatives.”
“Like what?”
“Treaty administration. There's a placement in Bern. Four days a week. It's a perfectly sound use of the qualifications I have.”
“Do you want Bern?”
“Bern is fine.”
“That's not what I asked.”
He looks at the form for a long moment.
“I wanted the Geneva placement.”
“Why?”
“International treaty negotiations. House treaties, territorial agreements, succession disputes.” He pauses.
“I've spent years learning how those rooms work, and I'm good at it.
It's a narrow, unglamorous, extremely specific competence that almost nobody has, and there are about four places in Europe where I could use it properly. Geneva was one of them.”
“I'd have been useful there for forty years.”
“And Bern?”
“I'd be bored inside two.”
“Do you regret standing up?”
"No." Immediately, flatly, no gap at all. "I'd do it again this afternoon. I knew the price when I stood."
"Then—"
"Not regretting it isn't the same as enjoying it," he says.
I don't tell him something better will come along. He wanted Geneva. Losing it fucking sucks.
"You know you can come see me without bringing something I need to read."
He looks at me.
"I'm serious. You can just come over."
“And do what?” Soren asks, looking at me.
"Nothing."
That gets the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth.
"You're very bad at nothing," I tell him.
"So are you."
"We can practice."
Soren reaches over and takes my hand off the arm of the chair. He holds it in both of his and looks down at it instead of at me.
“I love you,” he says.
I don't say anything. I'm not sure I could describe what my face is doing.
“I love you,” he says again.
“I know.”
“That's not the response I was hoping for.”
“I love you too.”
He nods once, pushes the form away, and turns his chair toward me. Our knees touch.
I'm the one who moves.
I get my hand into the front of his shirt and pull him toward me. His mouth is on mine immediately, and after that there is no ambiguity about whether Evren Soren has been thinking about this.
“The door,” I say against his mouth.
He locks it and comes straight back.
He kisses me again, one hand at the back of my head. The other stays flat on the table until I get my fingers into his hair and pull. Then it's on my waist.
“Shoulder,” he says.
“It's stiff and tender and I don't want weight on it. That's all. I'll say if that changes and I won't be brave about it.”
“Good.” He straightens. “Sit up. Right hand on my shoulder, not the left. Don't help.”
“You're conducting.”
“Yes.”
Then he squares the letters into their folder, sets the form on top, and moves the whole lot to the far end of the table. He takes off his coat, folds it, and lays it on the edge of the table.
“What's the coat for?”
“The table is wood.”
“I'll survive.”
“I'm aware.”
He lifts me onto the folded coat and steps between my knees.
He undresses me one layer at a time. When my sweater comes off, he stops and looks at the mark across the top of my shoulder—the groove that's going to be there for life—and touches the skin beside it, very lightly, once.
“Don't,” I say.
He looks at me.
“I'm fine.”
“I know.” His thumb passes once over the skin beside the scar. “I'm still allowed to hate it.”
Before I can answer, his mouth is on my throat.
He gets my bra off one-handed, which is annoying and extremely effective. His mouth moves lower, and when I make a sound, he does exactly the same thing again, harder.
He takes off my jeans, then puts his hands on the insides of my thighs and opens them. He goes down onto one knee between them.
“Stay there,” he says.
“Wasn't planning on going anywhere.”
Then his mouth is on me.
It isn't fast. It's tongue and two fingers and a rhythm he finds early and doesn't change. One hand stays across my stomach when my hips start moving. When I get loud, he doesn't speed up or slow down. He just keeps going.
Just before I come, he lifts his head.
“Now.”
I hate him.
I come with my heels hooked behind his shoulders, his name coming out of me louder than I intended.
He stays where he is until I stop shaking. Then he stands, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and takes a breath.
Finally.
“Don't move,” I say.
“Jessica—”
“I said don't move.”
I get my right hand on his belt. He lets me. I have him out of his pants and in my fist before he can construct a counterargument. I stroke him once, slowly, watching his face.
His eyes close. His hand lands on the table beside my thigh, and not flat this time.
"Look at me."
He opens his eyes.
"What do you want?"
"You."
"That's not very specific."
For a second I think he's going to refuse on principle. Then his hand closes around my wrist, not to stop me, just to hold on.
“I want to be inside you,” Soren says, low. “I want you to stop being careful with me. And I want to hear that noise you made again.”
“Then come here.”
He kisses me hard enough that I brace my right hand on the table. He catches my hip with one hand and bands the other arm under my ribs, keeping the weight off my left side. Then he's pushing into me, slow and steady, until he's all the way inside.
He holds there, breathing against my temple.
“All right?”
“Move.”
He moves.
His arm stays under my ribs, keeping the weight off my left side. He stops instructing. He stops telling me what happens next. Somewhere in the middle of it, he presses his forehead to mine and says my name. Again and again.
The bond is wide open. Everything coming through it is Soren, completely unguarded, and I push everything I'm feeling back to him.
I feel the moment he gets close before I see it on his face.
“Say it,” I manage.
“I'm going to—”
“I know.”
“Jessica—”
My name breaks in the middle. His arm tightens around my ribs and his face goes into my neck. The rush of him through the bond pushes me over right behind him.
For a while all we do is breathe.
Then he lifts his head. “Don't stand up yet.”
He turns me carefully until I'm sitting square on the table, then gets the water bottle from his bag and hands it to me.
“Drink.”
“Still conducting.”
“Drink, Jessica.”
I drink.
He cleans us both up at the little sink in the corner, then helps me dress, taking care of the left sleeve without being asked.
He shakes out his coat, puts it around my shoulders, and sits on the table beside me with his hip against mine.
He stays.
Through the bond, underneath everything else, there's a long low note of relief.
"So," I say. "Bern."
"I'm not taking it."
I turn my head. "No?"
"No."
"What are you doing instead?"
"I don't know yet."
That might be the most surprising thing he's said all night.
"Okay."
"I'm going to speak to the academy adviser tomorrow."
"Also okay."
"You don't have an opinion?"
"Several. You didn't ask."
He drinks some more of the water and hands it back.
“Can we have dinner in your room this week?” I ask.
Soren looks at me. “Of course.”
“I mean just us. I can make pasta.”
“You can cook?”
“That's rude. Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you can.”
“Thursday?”
“Sounds great.”
Then he reaches down for his bag.
“There's one thing from my family's records I'd like you to have before the archive session—”
“Tomorrow.”
His hand stops on the strap.
Then he lets go of it and sits back up. He puts his arm around me, and I lean into his side.
“Tomorrow,” he says.
A minute passes.
Then another.
Soren doesn't reach for the bag again.