Chapter 29 #2
“Ah, fuck. I love—coming inside you.” He tensed at the near slip, at the emotions threatening to boil over in his heart. He slid out of her, his release dripping between them.
“That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.” She curled against his side, cheek on his chest, her leg draped across his.
“Is it romance you want?” Lazily, the tips of his fingers caressed her from knee to waist until her eyes drifted close in slumberous contentment. He felt her smile against his chest.
“I’ve heard it on good authority that romance is an unnecessarily elaborate mating ritual.”
“Oh, I’ll show you romance.”
And he did, working down her body, hiking her legs over his shoulders, pressing open-mouthed kisses to her wet core and wringing another orgasm out of her.
His fingers worked his release deep inside her as he lapped up the intoxicating taste of their shared arousal.
Those three little words bubbled up in him once more when her inner muscles rippled around him.
But to risk spoiling what they had now, when they had only just begun… Malachy could be patient.
In the panting aftermath, they laid on their sides facing each other. She brushed back a fallen lock of his hair, and he leaned into her touch, kissing her palm and holding her gaze. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, uncertainty clouding her features.
“What is it, love?”
“How… many other women are there?”
“There is no one else.”
She glanced away. “Well, if you tell me before you fuck someone else, I might forgive you. If you don’t, I won’t.”
“Why do I get the feeling my head would wind up on a pike either way?”
She flopped onto her back. “Fine. Thinking about you with another woman sends me into a homicidal rage. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yes. But you’re not hearing me, Cora.” He turned her back towards him. “There is no one else.” His own vulnerability was reflected in the mirrors of her pupils, blown wide to swallow the ring of hazel in an ocean of turquoise. Bending down, he kissed her deeply. “There will be no one else.”
“I don’t want to share with you anyone.” A breathless confession.
“I know that’s not realistic. A rich man like you could have any woman you wanted.
Someone more beautiful, less complicated.
I doubt I’ll hold your interest for long, especially when I meet with Master Lakwa in New Orleans.
And if I do agree to be his apprentice, I’ll be half a world away for months. ”
Malachy shifted them so that she sat astride his lap and held her close, hands low on her back. “I will make a Binding Agreement to be faithful to you.” His words carried the weight of an oath.
“You would?” she said quietly, as if afraid to wake from a dream.
“Aye. I lose nothing and gain everything.”
“Are you sure?” He held her gaze and nodded, and her bottom lip trembled. “I—I need some time to think about it.”
“Take all the time you need. I’m not going to cheat on the fuckin’ Unweaver. I saw you rot a Frenchman’s stones off. That inspires a certain fidelity.”
She laughed. “Good. That’s settled. What, no reciprocal demands for my faithfulness?”
“Did you think I would share you, Cora?” His lips curved. Tugging her closer, his hands skated up her back to tangle in her hair, kissing her senseless. “I want to show you something.”
“Good god, Malachy, again?”
“Something else. A surprise. I hope you like it.”
Malachy and Cora walked down the rain-glossed cobblestones, arm in arm with a bag of fresh pastries between them, bathed in buttery sunlight dappled under the canopy of bowering plane trees.
The summer breeze played lazily with her hair, still damp from their shared bath where very little bathing had been accomplished.
Distantly, Malachy registered the motor cars roaring past over the pounding of his heart. He felt nervous as a lad as he led her to his surprise.
Cora bit into the last soft croissant. Several had disappeared into her mouth over the course of a few blocks. Powdered sugar clung to the corner of her lips.
“You are a fuckin’ mess,” he said fondly. “Come here.” He dipped his head and licked sweetness from her lips.
“So kind of you to notice,” she said with a laugh. “What was it you wanted to show me?”
He gestured to the bustling construction across the street. The skeleton of a large building rose beam by beam. Her brows pinched in confusion until she saw the newly erected sign: The Teddy Walcott Orphanage.
The bag of pastries dropped to the ground. Color fled from her face.
Malachy rushed to explain. “The orphanage should be open by the end of the year. I hired a team of Sciomancers to track down young mages and offer them a home and a place to learn, a sanctuary, so that no mage born in London will have to survive what you did, Cora.”
The tears that had been shimmering in her eyes spilled down her cheeks.
Worried that he had committed a grave error, his explanation sped up.
“The Tribunal approved the orphanage, once I agreed to pay for all of it. This is only the pilot. The plan is to build a mage orphanage in major cities across the UK, then Europe, then across the pond and elsewhere.”
A bolt of concern shot through him when Cora began sobbing in earnest. He cupped her face, brushing tears away with his thumbs. “Are these sad tears or happy tears?”
“Happy,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck in a strangulating embrace.
His arms tightened around her. He lifted her off her feet, kissing her tears away.
“Teddy would love it. I love it. Mal, I love—Wait. You’re going to build how many of these?
” She pulled back, eyeing him. “How rich are you?”
Malachy laughed as he set her back on her feet.
It had taken her this long to ask the question that tumbled from other women’s mouths on the first night.
It was one of the many reasons he loved her.
“Very,” he said. He’d need to cultivate donors for long term funds, of course, but orphans weren’t a hard sell.
Her brows raised in consideration, then furrowed. “Why are you doing this? You hate people.”
“I do hate people. But there’s a person or two I don’t mind.
” A grin made its way across his face. Her returning smile lifted his hopes.
His hands were warm where they enclosed her waist as he kissed her breathless.
“I know I can’t change the past, all the things I’ve done, but I can try to make the future better.
Perhaps it’s merely to soothe my conscience. Though in truth, it’s all for you.”
She gazed up at him. Tears swam in her eyes and beaded along her lashes. The summer breeze stirring her hair carried the kiss of flowers. “I… I don’t know how to thank you, Malachy.”
“I don’t need thanks. I need—” The words that had been knocking against the walls of his heart rose to his lips in a fount of honesty he could not dam.
“I need you to know how I feel, before death or imprisonment comes between us again. I need you to know that every beat of my heart is an echo of yours. You are beautiful and maddening and the absolute end of my peace of mind. I love your wild, witch hair and cackling laugh and stubborn mouth. I love how your smile lights up your whole face. You would do anything for the rare few lucky enough to be in your heart, and I endeavor to deserve you. Cora, I… I love you. I love all of you.”
A smile crept over her face like the rising sun.
Lit from within by incandescent madness, he could not help his matching smile.
“Malachy, I…”
“You don’t have to say anything back. I know you’re not ready yet. I just don’t want another day to go by without you knowing that I love you.”
Her arms twined around his neck, and he lost himself in her kiss, heartbreaking in its tenderness. Inside where he had once been hollow was now a wellspring of love, of happiness. His heart overflowed.
“I want all of you, Malachy.” She smiled against his lips. “Just for me.”