Chapter 8 Raoul #2
She dragged him toward the door, pausing long enough to mouth “you’re welcome” to me before pulling my cousin into the entryway and out into the corridor.
The outer door closed with a soft click.
Silence settled over the room, broken only by the faint sound of wind through the window opening and Fletcher’s snores from where he was napping on the sofa.
Adele remained at the table, her hands folded in her lap, her expression carefully neutral. But the temperature dropped noticeably, and frost crept across the windowpane behind her in jagged designs.
“So,” she said. “Have you finished reviewing your mental notes?”
The frost on the window thickened, the patterns swirling denser.
I moved toward her, trying to find words that wouldn’t reveal too much. “Adele—”
“Did I do something wrong?” She stood, meeting my gaze.
“I thought we agreed to maintain professional distance, but you’re taking it to extremes.
You’ve barely spoken to me in three days.
You sneak in late at night and leave before I wake.
And just now, you sat across the room glaring at Niles like he’d committed a crime by sitting next to me. ”
Wind picked up inside the chamber, fluttering papers on the table.
“So please, tell me. What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. You did nothing wrong.”
“Then why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not—”
Thunder rumbled overhead, and the first drops of rain began falling from a cloud forming directly over me.
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice shook. “I know I’m weird and I miss social cues, but I’m not blind.”
“You’re not weird. You're perfect.”
She held up a finger. “You’ve been avoiding me since the tour ended. Since—” She broke off, color rising in her cheeks. “Since you realized you were jealous of Niles.”
The rain increased, falling in earnest now, pattering on my shoulders.
“Since I realized I was jealous. Yes.”
“I don’t understand.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “We agreed this would be a friendly partnership. You said you had no interest in a real relationship. I accepted that. I thought that was what you wanted.”
“It is what I wanted.” I took another step closer. “It’s what I still want.”
“Then why—”
“Because wanting something and being capable of it are different things.” Frustration bled into my voice. “I’ve spent ten years building walls around myself. I don’t let people in. I don’t form attachments. I learned that lesson too well when my parents died.”
Lightning cracked above me, and she flinched. A flick of her finger, and the rain slowed overhead.
“But you—” I gestured randomly. “You walk into my life, two hours late to our wedding, apologizing by explaining thermodynamics. You treat marriage to a stranger like a mildly interesting administrative task. You cool my chambers without thinking because you sense I’m warm.
You talk to your dog like he’s a person.
You get excited about volcanic cave systems and historical weather records. ”
“Which you have yet to share with me.” Her shoulders sagged, and the rain slowed further, drops falling more gently now.
“You’re brilliant and scattered and you don’t perform for anyone. You exist, fully yourself, without apology.” My voice dropped. “And because of that, you terrify me.”
She stared at me, her lips parted in surprise. “Why?”
I closed the remaining distance between us. “Because I can’t seem to maintain professional distance from you. Because I think about you constantly. Because watching Niles sit too close and compliment you makes me want to shift and incinerate him on the spot, cousin or not.”
A snowflake drifted down, landing on her shoulder.
“You don’t understand what you do to me,” I said.
“Then explain it to me.” Her voice came out soft but steady. “I’m very good at understanding complex systems.” More snowflakes fell, drifting around her.
A rough laugh escaped me. “It’s not complex. It’s simple and primitive and completely inappropriate given our arrangement.” I reached out, unable to stop myself from touching her, and brushed a snowflake from her cheek. “I want you in a way I don’t even understand myself.”
Her breath caught. More snow began falling from the cloud overhead, gentle flakes that caught in her dark hair.
“I’ve been avoiding you because being near you and not touching you is torture,” I continued. “But I don’t know how to be what you need. I don’t know how to open myself up like that and survive if—when—it ends.”
“Who says it has to end?”
“Everything ends, Adele. People leave. They die. They disappoint you or you disappoint them.” I cupped her face, unable to resist anymore. “I can’t afford to care that deeply and lose again.”
She leaned into my touch, her cool skin a perfect contrast to my perpetual heat. “That’s not professional distance, Raoul. That’s cowardice.”
The word hit hard.
“You’re right.” I stroked my thumbs across her cheekbones. “It is cowardice. I’m terrified of you. Of this. Of whatever’s happening between us.”
“I’m terrified too,” she whispered. “I’ve never had anyone look at me the way you do.
Like I’m fascinating instead of frustrating.
Like my scattered nature is appealing instead of annoying.
” Her hands came up to cover mine. “I thought I’d accepted that romance wasn’t for someone like me.
That I was too focused on my work, too absent-minded, too much and not enough all at once. ”
Lightning flickered through the snow.
“I thought we were supposed to be partners,” she said. “But partners communicate. They work through problems together. They don’t hide for three days because they’re feeling something inconvenient.”
“You’re right.” I rested my forehead against hers, breathing her in. “I’ve been handling this badly.”
“Yes, you have.” But there was no anger in her voice now, just honesty. “So what are we going to do about it?”
I pulled back enough to meet her eyes, seeing my own uncertainty reflected there. “I don’t know how to want someone like this and not lose myself completely.”
“I think you should figure that out.”
“I think I should too. Before I lose all sense of reason.” Leaning close, I kissed her.
The moment my lips touched hers, the world exploded.
Not metaphorically. It actually exploded.
Lightning arced across the ceiling in brilliant white-hot streaks.
Snow swirled around us in a vortex of glittering flakes.
Thunder cracked so loudly the windows rattled, and the temperature fluctuated wildly, freezing one second, blazing hot the next.
But I didn’t care about any of it.
I’d wanted this for days. Since she’d climbed into the bath and talked about convection currents while water streamed down her naked body.
Since she’d worn my tunic and looked more at home in my chambers than I’d ever felt.
Since she’d smiled at me in that corridor and made my carefully constructed walls crumble to dust.
Her lips were soft and cool against mine, and she tasted like honeycakes and rain. I angled my head, deepening the kiss, and she made a small sound that shot straight through me like dragonfire.
She kissed me back. Not hesitantly or politely, but with the same wholehearted enthusiasm she brought to everything else. Her hands fisted my tunic, pulling me closer, and when I swept my tongue along the seam of her lips, she opened for me.
The kiss turned desperate.
I wrapped one arm around her, hauling her against me until there was no space between us. My other hand slid into her hair, tilting her head to give me better access. She was soft everywhere I was hard, cool where I burned hot, and the contrast made my dragon side rumble with satisfaction.
Mine, it growled.
Snow and lightning danced around us in a wild display.
The temperature couldn’t seem to settle, swinging between extremes as Adele’s magic responded to whatever she was feeling.
Static electricity crackled through her hair.
Frost formed on my skin where she touched me.
And none of it mattered because she was kissing me like she’d been thinking about this as much as I had.
I walked her backward until her back hit the wall beside the window.
She gasped against my mouth, and I took advantage, tasting her more deeply, memorizing every sound she made.
Her hands left my tunic to slide up my chest, over my shoulders, into my hair, and when her nails scraped against my scalp, I groaned.
“Raoul,” she breathed against my mouth.
I kissed along her jaw, down the column of her throat, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips.
She smelled like rain, and I wanted to drown in it.
Wanted to memorize every bit of her skin, learn what made her gasp, what made her moan, what made her weather magic spiral out of control like it was doing right now.
A loud crack of thunder made us both jump.
I pulled back, breathing hard, and looked around to find we were standing in the center of a localized storm. Snow fell in thick curtains. Lightning arced in branching patterns. Wind whipped through the chamber, scattering papers everywhere.
And Fletcher, still on the sofa, had covered his eyes with his paws.
“Oh,” Adele said, following my gaze upward. “That’s… I didn’t mean to do that.”
With a flick of her wrist, the storm began to dissipate. The snow melted. The lightning faded. The wind died down to nothing.
We stood pressed together against the wall, both of us breathing like we’d been running. Her lips were swollen from my kisses. Her hair was mussed where my hands had tangled in it. Her eyes were wide and dark and filled with emotions that made my chest ache.
“That was…”
“Incredible,” I said.
“I was going to say unexpected, but incredible works too.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Your hair is standing on end from the static.”
I ran a hand through it, feeling the strands crackle. “Worth it.”
Her smile widened, and she grabbed the front of my tunic, yanked me down to her level, and kissed me again.
This time, she took control, her tongue sliding against mine with a boldness that made heat pool low in my belly. When the weather started going wild around us again, we both ignored it.
I lost myself in the taste of her mouth, the feel of her curves pressed against me, and the small sounds she made when I kissed a spot below her ear. My hands roamed her back, her waist, everywhere I could reach without being completely inappropriate.
Though at this point, appropriate had left the cave.
She pulled back enough to gasp for air, her chest heaving.
“Every word out of your mouth makes me want to kiss you until you forget about convection currents,” I said.
“I never forget about convection currents. They’re fundamental to understanding atmospheric pressure systems.”
I kissed her again because I couldn’t help myself, and she melted against me with a soft sigh that made me want to carry her into the bedroom and spend the rest of the day discovering what other sounds I could coax from her mouth.
Fletcher groaned and hopped off the sofa, trotting into the bedroom.