Page 49 of Bought By the Scorpius
They keep talking, but I stop following their conversation. Esme’s hand finds mine under the table, so I watch her instead: the way she pretends to eat while she tracks every glance that crosses between our guests, the way she keeps her face calm while missing nothing. She’s wearing the expression she wore when she welcomed Zen at the door, the innocent one, and it fools no one in this room except, possibly, Zen. She looks at me, I look at her, and we’re so happy we could burst.
Across from us, Darina asks Zen another question before he’s finished answering the last one.
Esme squeezes my hand. I squeeze back.
***
Esme
Later in the evening, Zen and Darina go for a walk in the garden, and I pull my husband up the stairs by the hand. Neither of them notices us leave, which tells me everything I need to know about how the garden walk is going.
I’m kissing him before our door is fully closed. He laughs against my mouth and pushes it shut behind us, and we fall onto the bed together, tangled and ridiculous. I start pulling at his clothes. We’ve done this almost every day since the mating ritual, and I still can’t get enough of him. I don’t expect that to change.
“Sting me,” I whisper against his jaw.
He pulls back far enough to look at me.
“No.”
“Osric.”
“We have a guest downstairs. And you, wife, need to learn patience.”
I prop myself up on my elbows.
“Do you truly think I need to learn patience?”
“Yes.” He’s laughing. “Though I know it’s impossible. My wife is never patient. I knew it when I married her, and I’ve made my peace with it.”
“You’ve made your peace with nothing,” I say, and I pull him back down.
He rolls me over, and I roll him right back. The bed creaks under us while we laugh far too loudly for two people who are supposed to be discreet hosts. His hands are in my hair and mine are under his shirt, and I’ve almost won the argument about patience without saying another word when Darina’s laugh comes up from the garden, high and easy.
We both go still and listen.
Zen’s laugh follows hers, low and unguarded, nothing like the polite one he used at dinner.
I turn my head toward the window. Osric turns his. Down in the garden, one of them says something too low to hear, and Darina laughs again.
“Do you think there’s something there?” I whisper.
“Definitely,” Osric says.
“You could sound more impressed. I arranged this entire evening.”
“You arranged a dinner. They’re doing the rest themselves.”
I settle against his chest and let myself grin at the ceiling.
“Maybe we should plan a trip to Maara. You and I. Give those two a few days here without us watching them. And when we come back, maybe they’ll be mated.”
He considers it the way he considers all my ideas. Seriously and knowing he will agree with me.
“That’s a very good idea.”
Predictable.
“I’m full of very good ideas.”
“You’re full of schemes.”
“And you married me anyway.”
“I did,” he says, and then he kisses me again, slow this time.
Just to prove him wrong, I don’t rush it.
THE END
