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“RAE?! COME BACK TO me, Rae! Wake up!”
Wake up? Rae felt the plush carpet beneath her, but she was lying on warm legs. Careful fingers stroked her hair out of her face as she struggled to comply with the simple request. With what seemed like an extraordinary amount of effort, she opened her eyes and gazed up into Devon’s frenzied face. It was as if she lay staring through a long tunnel. She blinked several times, and after a moment the edges around his face began to sharpen and her vision began to clear. “That was weird,” she croaked.
With a bark of nervous laughter, Devon shook his head and tightened his arms around her. “I tell you I love you...and you black out,” he muttered, shaking his head and trying to pull himself together.
Her eyebrows stitched together in a confused, impotent sort of rage. “Well, maybe next time you’d like to wear the corset,” she said defensively, pulling weakly on the complicated straps. “It’s almost impossible to breathe.”
His face softened into a radiant smile, his famous dimples shining through. “Here,” he said, his hands resting atop hers, “let me help you.” He worked in silence for a while, trying to make sense of the intricate design before he finally shook his head with a slight frown. “It’s a labyrinth. I think we need MacGyver.”
“Just rip it,” Rae gasped. She hadn’t realized how lightheaded she’d become. She had chalked it all up to the excitement of the evening and her rapid, shallow breathing.
Devon hesitated, his warm fingers hovering near her neck. “Are you sure? Won’t Molly be upset?”
Rae waved her hand dismissively. “She can order me another one. One that won’t kill me,” she added under her breath.
After an almost imperceptible pause, Devon wrapped his fingers around the lace and gently tore it apart. The straps were no match for his strength, tatù or not, and quickly fell in tattered ribbons down her sides. Without anything to hold it up the slip also began sliding off her body, but both she and Devon caught it with quick hands. Their eyes met in the middle.
“You love me?” Rae whispered. It was too good to be true. Too simple an explanation to make sense.
Devon’s breath hitched in his chest but he laced his fingers with hers, their closed hands resting on her pounding heart.
“With everything in me,” he answered, “I love you.”
Rae had no idea how long they sat there on the floor, gazing into each other’s eyes. But after a while, Devon’s face tightened and his hand twitched.
“Rae...a bit too tight.”
“What?” She looked down at their joined hands and quickly loosened her fingers. “Oh—sorry!” She rubbed his hand gently with her thumb and watched as the bluish tint slowly faded away.
“That’s okay,” he chuckled, lowering his head and coaxing her eyes back to his. “You know what, Rae...you really know how to leave a guy hanging.”
Rae’s cheeks flushed crimson as she ducked her head again and pushed stray curls from her face. Devon loved her. What was she supposed to do with that? It’s not like they could be together. Everyone, from the head of the Privy Council down to Devon’s own father, would absolutely forbid it. And while he loved her...it seemed like there were things he loved just as much if not more.
Devon lived for honor and duty. He lived for the mission. Just now outside, he’d stood between her and the possibility of finding her mother just for the sake of the Privy Council.
What did his love mean, if it could be derailed by all that?
“I love you, too, Devon.” The answer came easily to Rae; after all, it was true. She just didn’t know what kind of weight that carried. “I always have—you know that. But...”
He squeezed her hand. “But what, Kerrigan?”
For a moment, it was so simple. Devon loved her. She loved Devon. But then reality sent them both crashing back to earth. “But you broke up with me.” It was impossible to keep all the hurt and bitterness from her voice, and her eyes stung with unwelcome tears she refused to let fall. “If you love me so much...how could you do that? I would never have left you—not for anything.”
“I didn’t leave you, Rae,” Devon answered quickly. “I was always there watching, looking out for danger, protecting—”
“From a distance,” she cut him off abruptly. “And I didn’t ask you to do that, Devon. I wanted you, not your protection. If you haven’t noticed, I’m quite capable of protecting myself.”
“Rae, you don’t understand. To have the person you love threatened—I mean, there were people out there set on killing you. I couldn’t just...I had to take a step back. I had to let you figure out who you were as a person, fully come into your power. It seemed, well, prudent.”
Rae raised her eyebrows. “Prudent?” She had pulled off his lap by now and was sitting beside him, both of them leaning back against the bed. “Do you hear yourself right now? You’re saying you’re in love with me, I’m saying I’m in love with you. But...you want to do what’s prudent?”
His cheeks flushed. “Okay, dumb choice of word. I’m just saying, you’re the most important thing in the world to me. I felt like it was my responsibility to keep you safe.”
“So you took the choice away from me,” Rae answered quietly. “Imagine if the roles were reversed. If I decided that you needed time without me for your own good. How would that make you feel?”
There was a second’s pause before he hung his head. “It would make me feel betrayed.”
Rae punched him suddenly in the shoulder and he looked up in shock. “And a little pissed off, too, right?”
His shock morphed into a smile and he laughed, flashing his dimple and scooting closer to her on the floor. She smiled back, and when he opened his arms she slid into them willingly.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed into her hair. “I was trying to do what’s best, but I was an idiot. You just...you overwhelm me sometimes. It’s like I lose my head. Julian’s always telling me I’m an idiot.”
“He’s right.” She grinned into his chest, unable to believe the conversation they were having. Unable to process the words she had waited so very long to hear. But at the same time, she had a nagging suspicion that things wouldn’t be as easy the second time around. The stakes were as high as ever, and it was getting harder and harder to know who to trust. She had trusted Devon once, trusted him more than anyone else in the world. And he had left her. Could they ever really go back? Could it ever be the same?
But then he kissed her...and nothing else seemed to matter.
It started out tentative. Re-exploring familiar territory, slowly reopening a door that had been long closed. Then her hands slid up into his hair and everything else became a blur.
He shifted beneath her, and the next thing she knew she was back in his lap—straddling him as her arms wrapped around his neck. The kiss deepened and became frantic. His hands were everywhere. In her hair, down her back, fiddling tentatively with the straps that had fallen down her sides. She pressed herself up against him to keep her slip from sliding down, but in her haste to do so she inadvertently switched into his tatù and the force of it sent them both tumbling to the floor.
He gasped in surprise, then flipped them both over so he was lying on top of her, chuckling to himself as he smoothed back her hair. “No tatùs,” he teased. “With Jennifer’s, you could crush me in a second.”
She giggled breathlessly as he began kissing her neck. “What?” she teased him back with a confidence she didn’t know she possessed. “Afraid you wouldn’t be up for the challenge?”
“Miss Kerrigan!” He pulled back for a second, flushed and grinning. “And here I thought you were a lady.”
“I’m wearing a corset. It’s easy to get confused.”
They burst out laughing and pulled themselves together, kissing and laughing like no time at all had passed. It was sheer euphoria. Losing themselves in each other. Loving each other like there was nothing and no one in the world that could tear them apart.
Then all at once they were up on the bed.
A shiver ran down Rae’s spine as she tangled her fingers in Devon’s hair. Was this really happening? How far were they going to go? Was she...was she ready for this?
It was a testament to how far gone they both were that neither of them heard someone walking up to the room. In fact, it wasn’t until the door opened that either of them registered another person was there.
Both Rae and Devon shot away from each other at the speed of light, but Molly didn’t need her tatù to see sparks. Her mouth fell open as the door swung shut behind her.
“Holy hot tarts!”
