Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Draco
Morning arrives with autumn sunlight and Charity's knock on the cottage door, earlier than expected, eyes bright with the kind of determination I'm learning means she's got plans. "Ready for today's lesson?" I ask. Her grin is answer enough.
The day will be full of errands disguised as adventures.
She learns coffee that isn’t delivered on a tray tastes better if you have to wait for it.
Learns the trick of nodding to the person handing it to you like they exist. Learns you can tell a lot from shoes: construction boots mean don’t block the sidewalk, stilettos mean the crosswalk will slow, white sneakers mean someone’s about to stop short for a photo.
We ride the Q over the river and sit in the front car so the tunnel becomes a mouth swallowing us whole and spitting us out into the light. She presses her palm to the window like a kid. I pretend not to notice the reflection of my grin.
On the way back, we detour through Chinatown and split ten dumplings for five bucks at a place with a menu taped to the wall and a cat that owns the stool by the register. Charity closes her eyes on the first bite like she’s listening to a secret.
"I had no idea," she says, which is becoming her anthem.
At a cross street, a guy bumps me hard enough to make a point and apologizes in a tone that isn’t. I turn my body, put her behind my shoulder, smile without showing teeth. He peels off. She exhales slowly.
"Assess, not assume," she says, echoing me.
"Proud of you," I say before I can stop it.
That earns me a look—unguarded, curious—and heat slides under my skin like a dare that knows my answer.
Lucky gets a short walk when we’re back, his limp more habit than hindrance, nose telling him more about the estate than I’ll ever learn. He pees on a hedge that probably has a pedigree and then looks smug about it. Charity laughs, open and unguarded, and my chest trips like it missed a step.
After we’re all inside, she goes into her bedroom for a minute while I stretch out on the rug with Lucky and scratch his chest until his back leg starts thumping the air like he’s pedaling an invisible bicycle.
"Good job," I tell him. "You picked us."
Charity slips back in and sets a manilla envelope on the floor next to me.
"Homework," she says, proud. "I did it."
"Let’s see." I flip it open.
Too much.
Crisp hundreds stacked in a tidy brick—banded, for Goddess sake. This isn’t emergency money. This is a target painted in green and ignorance. My spine goes cold with a memory: Roman heat and dust, a kid bragging about a stolen purse, the way men without conscience follow the scent of easy wealth.
"Charity." Her name comes out; a growl I didn’t mean. I lower my voice fast. "How much is this?"
She brightens as if she’s waiting for a gold star. "Ten thousand. You said to always have cash. I wanted to be prepared."
Lucky’s ears tip forward. The room gets very quiet.
"I said a hundred," I say carefully, each word a stone I place between us so we don’t fall into something we can’t climb out of. "Ten thousand gets you followed. Ten thousand gets someone hurt. Ten thousand is how you bleed in a city that smells blood."
Her face changes—the light flickers, shutters slam. She eases to the floor next to me. "I don’t understand. Money fixes things."
"In your world," I say, and it comes out harsher than I want. "In mine, money starts fights."
She looks at the envelope like it’s a bomb she assembled wrong. "What do I do?"
I slide the stack back into her hands, closing her fingers around it.
"You’re going to keep one hundred, then put this away where you found it.
Next time we go out together, we’ll break it into small bills and you’re going to listen to me when I tell you how not to get killed trying to be generous. "
Silence. Then she nods—once, sharp. "Okay."
"Okay," I echo, and the tension bleeds enough that I can breathe again.
"You got this from your room? Please tell me you at least have a safe."
She nods, looking down at the money as if it might bite her.
Her phone buzzes on the table. She glances, grimaces, flips it face-down. Probably her parents wondering where she is. Which means she really should go.
But neither of us moves.
The cottage feels smaller suddenly. More intimate. The lamplight throws soft shadows, and I'm acutely aware of how close we're standing. How her breath has gone slightly uneven. How my pulse is doing things it shouldn't be doing when we're just talking about money.
"I should go," she whispers, but her feet stay planted.
"You should," I agree, and step closer instead of back.
Her eyes go wide—those pale blue depths that catch light like winter ice. "Draco—"
I frame her face with my hands, giving her every chance to pull away. She doesn't. Just leans into my touch, her lips parting on a shaky exhale.
"One more thing," I say, voice rough.
"What?"
I kiss her.
Not gentle this time. Not testing. This is want made physical—days of building tension, of stolen glances and accidental touches and the constant awareness that simmers between us. Her mouth opens under mine with a sound that's half gasp, half surrender, and, Goddess help me, I'm lost.
She drops the envelope. It hits the floor with a dull thud, but neither of us cares because her hands are fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer, and I'm backing her up until her shoulders hit the wall beside the fireplace.
"We should—" she starts, but I swallow the words with another kiss, deeper this time, tasting the tea we shared earlier and something sweeter underneath. Something purely her.
Her fingers slide into my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp, and I nearly lose the thin thread of control I'm clinging to.
I press against her—not hard enough to trap, just enough that she can feel every line of my body against hers—and she makes that sound again.
That broken little gasp that makes me want to forget every reason this should stop.
My hands find her waist, slide under the hem of her sweater to bare skin, and she arches into the touch. Warm. Soft. Perfect.
"Draco," she breathes against my mouth, and I've never heard my name sound like that before. Like prayer and plea and promise all at once.
I break the kiss long enough to trail my mouth along her jaw, down the column of her throat, feeling her pulse hammer against my lips.
She tilts her head back, giving me access, and I take it greedily—learning the taste of her skin, the spots that make her shiver, the way she whispers my name when I find the place where her neck meets her shoulder.
Her hands slide under my shirt, fingertips skating across my ribs, and I have to press my forehead against her shoulder to catch my breath.
"We need to stop," I breathe, biting back the urge to drag her closer.
"Why?" Her fingers dig into my back, holding me close.
"Because if we don't stop now, I'm going to forget you need to sneak back to your parents' house before they send a search party. And I'm going to forget that Lucky is watching us with judgmental dog eyes. And I'm definitely going to forget that we're supposed to be taking this slow."
She laughs—breathless and beautiful. "Who said anything about slow?"
"Me. Just now." I force myself to step back, putting distance between us before I change my mind. "You should go. Before I lose what's left of my sanity."
She's gloriously disheveled—hair coming loose from her braid, lips swollen, cheeks flushed. The sight of her nearly undoes me all over again.
She scoops up the envelope, retreats to her room, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear the sound of metal on metal when the safe closes.
"Tomorrow," she says, when she emerges from her room. "See you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," I confirm. "And we'll work on the rest of your city education."
She moves toward the door, then turns back. "That kiss—"
"Was a promise," I finish. "Of what happens when we have time and privacy and no parents waiting."
Her smile could light the whole estate. "I'll hold you to that."
"I’ll count on it."
She blushes, then slips out into the night, leaving the air around me tasting like her. She looks back once—I can see her silhouette turn—and I lift my hand in a small wave.
When she disappears inside, I slump against the doorframe and scrub my hands over my face.
Lucky huffs from his spot on the rug, tail thumping in what I swear is amusement.
"Not a word," I tell him. "Not one word about my complete lack of self-control."
His tail thumps harder.
I lock up the cottage and try to settle on the couch, but sleep is impossible. I can still taste her. Still feel the ghost of her hands on my skin. Still hear that broken gasp when I kissed her throat.
Tomorrow, she'll come back with her hundred dollars, ready to learn proper city survival skills.
Tonight, I'm learning that wanting Charity Pembroke might be the most dangerous thing I've done since waking from a two-thousand-year sleep.
And I'm doing it anyway.