Chapter 15
BOGDAN
Tessa brings a crown to my house in a grocery bag.
Its black points show above the paper as she reaches the dressing-room door, with a garment cover over her other arm.
I take both before she can catch the crown on the frame, putting the bag beside the bench.
She looks past me at the full-length mirrors, the open wardrobe doors and the three shoe boxes waiting on its padded seat.
“Please tell me one of those is mine.”
“Open the one on the left.”
She turns toward me so quickly that the edge of the garment cover slips off my arm. I catch it before it touches the floor, enjoying the effort she makes to look interested in the dress she's brought.
The jeweler left ten minutes ago after checking the necklace clasp. A stylist brought the shoes in the size Peggy supplied and the two nearest alternatives. The necklace waits in its closed velvet case on the dressing table.
Tessa puts her handbag on the bench and lifts the first lid.
The shoes are black patent leather, narrow at the toe, with slender heels and bright red soles. She takes one out of the tissue and turns it over. For a moment she just holds it, her thumb resting beneath the arch.
“Oh, you beautiful bastard.”
I hang the dress on the wardrobe rail before I laugh. She's speaking to the shoe, though I intend to take some of the credit.
I wanted to see her pleased with something she didn't have to finish for another woman.
On Wednesday she told me about the costume order while her voice still carried the effort of getting through that meeting.
This morning, choosing what to put in this room, I thought about her looking at her own reflection with the same delight she'd described in Esther.
The shoe has done more than I expected.
Tessa sits on the bench and eases off her ankle boots. She lines them up beneath it before trying the heels, refusing my hand until both feet are in. Then she takes it and stands.
Her black skirt falls straight over her knees. She lifts one heel to inspect the red beneath it, using my arm to balance, and makes a small, pleased noise that I want to hear again.
“Walk for me,” I say.
She crosses the rug to the nearest mirror, then turns on the wooden floor beside it. The heels make two crisp taps. At the wardrobe she stops, testing the fit with another careful step before coming back.
“These are right.”
I lift the empty box onto the dressing table, leaving room for her to sit again. The other two pairs can go back with the stylist. This pair is already hers, including the little marks she's left on the tissue with her fingers.
She catches my sleeve as I turn.
“You asked Peggy?”
“Yesterday.”
“That explains why she kept looking at my feet.”
Her laugh fills the room. I've had people in here adjusting cuffs, checking seams, waiting for me to choose between two versions of the same dark suit. Nobody has ever made the mirrors seem useful in quite this way.
I reach for the velvet case.
She sees it and goes quiet.
Inside, the diamonds lie in a graduated curve, with a pear-shaped stone suspended at the center.
White gold almost disappears between them.
I chose the necklace because the drawing she'd shown me had bare shoulders and a dark neckline, leaving space for something that would catch the light when she turned her head.
Tessa touches the edge of the case instead of the necklace.
“Bogdan.”
I wait. For the first time since she arrived, I don't know what she wants to say. The room feels too still around the little open box.
Then she looks up at me.
“Put it on me.”
I take out the necklace, letting its weight settle across my fingers. She turns toward the dressing-table mirror and lifts her hair. The clasp is small against my hands. A faint yellow bruise remains across my left knuckles, but the fingers work without pain as I fasten it.
She lowers her hair and looks at herself.
The necklace lies above the round neck of her blouse, bright even against the plain fabric. She touches the central stone with one fingertip. Her smile starts slowly, then spreads until she has to bite her lower lip to contain it.
“I've never owned anything like this.”
“It suits you.”
She turns back and puts both arms around my neck. I hold her while she kisses me, feeling the hard little edges of the diamonds against my shirt. When she lets me breathe, I notice a bakery box beneath the crown in her paper bag.
“There's something else in there?”
“Chocolate skulls. I brought you a present too.”
She sets the crown beside my cuff links and hands me the box with such satisfaction that I open it at once. Two dark chocolate faces lie inside, each with a small curl of orange peel beside it.
I bite into one while she watches. The shell cracks between my teeth, and soft orange cream spreads over my tongue. Tessa takes the other, lifting it in a small salute before biting off its forehead.
“Very seasonal,” I tell her.
“I considered a pumpkin. This looked more like you.”
I take another bite to keep from laughing with my mouth full. She brushes a fleck of chocolate from her thumb and looks at the necklace again, still smiling.
I could get used to this with alarming speed. Her boots beneath my bench, something sweet she chose for me, the crown waiting among my cuff links. I want to leave it all where it is and bring her back tomorrow to find it untouched.
She finishes her chocolate and reaches for the garment cover.
“Now you get to see the whole thing.”
I hang my jacket on the hook beside the door.
Tessa takes the gown into the adjoining bathroom, leaving her blouse and skirt folded on the bench when she returns.
The velvet dress is black, fitted at the waist, with a skirt that opens along one side when she moves. The back fastening is still undone.
She turns and lifts her hair again.
I draw the zipper upward, keeping the lining clear with my finger. The velvet is warm from her hands where she held it against herself. At the top, a small hook closes beneath the edge of the fabric. She waits without moving while I fasten it, trusting me with something she's spent hours making.
The finished neckline curves beneath the diamonds.
For a few seconds I forget the rest of the room.
Tessa watches my face in the mirror. Then she lifts the front of the skirt just enough to show me the shoes, and I understand that she knows exactly how well this is going.
“Too much?” she asks.
“Turn around.”
She does, letting the skirt swing, then glances at me over her shoulder. The red sole appears beneath the black hem before she faces the mirror again.
I bring her the crown. It's light in my hands, shaped from black metal roses with narrow points between them. She settles it into place and tips her chin, judging the whole arrangement.
“I may have to be unbearable at the ball.”
“You have my permission.”
She looks at me in the glass. “I wasn't asking for it.”
I smile and move behind her. Her smile changes when I put my hands at her waist. There are plenty of things I could say about the gown, but she can see what I think. I let her look.
A knock comes at the door.
Klim tells me Kirill and the captains have arrived. I check my watch. They're early, which is their decision to make.
“The library,” I tell him. “I'll come down when I'm ready.”
His footsteps move away along the landing. Tessa's gaze follows the sound, then returns to mine in the mirror.
“Important?”
“Yes.”
“And you're staying here?”
I turn her gently to face me. “For a little while.”
She takes off the crown and sets it beside the open necklace case. I close the door. When I turn back, she's waiting by the dressing table, smiling.
I close the distance and kiss her properly this time, deep enough that her fingers tighten in my shirt. The diamonds dig small cold points into my chest through my shirt. I can still taste orange cream on her tongue.
“We don't have long,” she whispers against my mouth.
“Long enough.”
I turn her toward the dressing-table mirrors.
In the glass she's all black velvet and diamonds and those impossible shoes, flush already climbing her throat.
I gather the skirt carefully at her hips.
This dress is her work, and I'm not tearing what she spent hours making.
I release the little hook and draw the zipper down until the velvet loosens.
She steps out of it with my help. I hang it back on the wardrobe rail so it won't crease, leaving her in the necklace, the shoes, and nothing else.
She looks at herself like that and laughs, soft and stunned.
“You're staring.”
“Yes.”
I come up behind her and squeeze her tits in both hands, pinching her nipples until she gasps and tips her head back against my shoulder.
Her pussy is already wet when I slide my fingers between her thighs.
I work two into her, thumb rough over her clit, watching her face in the mirror while she tries not to make a sound.
“The house isn't empty,” I remind her.
“Then make me quiet.”
I don't. I drop to one knee behind her, spread her with my thumbs, and put my mouth on her pussy.
She braces on the dressing table. The open necklace case rattles.
I eat her from behind, slow first, then greedy, my tongue pushing into her, then higher over her ass until her thighs shake and those red soles rock against the wood.
She tastes like heat and the faint salt of her skin.
When she starts to moan I spank her once, sharp across one cheek, and she pushes back onto my face for more.
I give her more. Open-handed cracks that make her pussy clench around my tongue. Hair gathered in my fist so she has to watch herself take it. The perfume of her and the chocolate still on the air. The hard little glitter of diamonds against the glass.
“Bogdan, please...”