He’s tempting me back to sleep as he lies on his back with my head on his chest, but I’m too busy looking between him and Cypress where he sits against the headboard with my legs resting across his lap, his eyes on the nearest window and his discarded book on his bedside table.
I’m about to ask him a question about it when I notice the expression on Aiden’s face, the deepening furrow in his brow as he also looks at Cypress, the worry that he tries to smooth away as soon as he catches me watching him.
What’s wrong?I ask him silently, and he frowns, glancing again at Cypress before his eyes fall to Cypress’s thumbtap, tap, tappingagainst my thigh. I watch it now, too, reminded of the way he’d been doing the same against his leg as he paced the firsttime I met him in that boarding house dining room. Feels like so long ago now. Feels like a different life.
I reach out and cover his hand with mine. “Cy?”
He jerks as if coming out of a trance. “Hm?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he says quickly, turning his hand over to interlace our fingers. “I’m fine, little bird.”
For the first time, I’m not sure if I believe him, and when I glance back at Aiden, it seems I’m not the only one.
“I’ve been thinking,” Cypress continues. “Maybe I could be the one to go into town tomorrow. If we need supplies.”
Aiden’s eyes narrow slightly, but he nods. “Sure, if that’s what you want. Perhaps one of us could go with—”
“No,” Cypress replies, dismissing the thought before it’s fully out of Aiden’s mouth. “I’ll go on my own.”
“Sure,” Aiden says again, but his frown deepens. “Just to supply and come back, right?”
“And to check for the posters,” Cypress says, a fainter version of his usual grin appearing. “Want to see what they’ve done with our Cora.”
I huff and roll my eyes. “Please don’t bring back their latest attempt. I look more fearsome every time while the two of you only look more gorgeous. They’re likely to give me fangs next.”
“Do you not have them?” Cypress reaches toward my face as if to check, and I swat his hand away. He mutters, “Could have sworn one of those bites you gave me felt sharper than usual.”
I sit up and press a soft kiss to his cheek before drifting down and scraping my teeth against his jaw. “You liked it,” I murmur.
He grins, and this time, it feels more genuine. “I did.”
He glances down at my hands and wrists, capturing them in his palm before brushing his thumb over each of the faint marks left by the rope. “Did you enjoy yourself, little bird?”
“Yes,” I reassure him. “Plus…” I stretch before falling backagainst Aiden again. “It’s so very attractive when Aiden gets to rescue me.”
“From yourself more often than not,” he grumbles, though there’s humor in his tone, too.
“He does give a very good rescue,” Cypress agrees. “Intensely commanding. Intensely…brooding.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Aiden mutters, and I don’t even have to look at him to know he’s rolling his eyes. “Next time he has you tied up, we’ll see if I save you.”
“You will,” I say, turning my head toward him, and he smiles affectionately at the warmth in my words before I add, “And you will look sodevastatinglyhandsome while doing it.”
“You know what?” Aiden grabs for me, and I let out a high-pitched peal of laughter as I try to fight him off before he drags me over him.
“I think Isavedyou too soon if you still have all that energy to make fun,” he says, effortlessly positioning me so that I’m kneeling with his head between my legs, his mouth already working its way up my inner thigh and his hands making quick work of pushing up my nightdress. “Not sure why you even bother with clothes, sweetheart,” he says when I start to muster a complaint at the distinctive sound of ripping fabric. “Fucking inconvenient.”
He swats my now bare ass, not enough to hurt, but enough to startle me forward as I grip the headboard with one hand and his disheveled wavy hair with the other. “How many times are you going to come for me, Cora?”
“Oh, God, Aiden, I don’t—I don’t think I can after—” I gasp, feeling the first brush of his nose against my center as he breathes me in. “Oh,God.”
“No God out here, baby, just us,” he murmurs, his fingertips digging into my hips as he leaves a gentle kiss on my clit. “Besides, this pretty little cunt needs me to look after her afterCy denied her for so long. Now be good for me and sit.”
I start to protest again, but it turns into a moan when he pulls me firmly down against his mouth, his tongue dragging slowly from my entrance to my clit. My head falls back, my gaze half-lidded when it falls to where Cypress is observing us, anything but contrite. “If you’re hoping to appeal to me for rescue now, little bird,” he says, “you should already know you have the wrong man.”
It’s midnight by the time I make it out on the porch, Cora fast asleep as I leave her to her dreams. Most nights, I stay up late just so I can watch her sleep, take comfort in the way she no longer cries, no longer runs from things I can’t see.