Page 58 of Once Charmed, Twice Cursed
Goddess, Weston smells like everything I thought I’d lost. Amber and warmth and...safety.
Without a word, he helps me up into the saddle. This time, I actually manage to swing my leg over, and then he’s behind me, his thighs bracketing mine as he wheels the horse around. His arm settles around my waist, pulling me against his layers of fabric.
When we reach the road again, Weston turns north. Pines sprawl in every direction, but even in the starlight, I recognize a few of the landmarks we passed the day he stole the duke’s carriage.
Three boulders, heaped together in a mimicry of a sleeping ogre. A tree, split down the middle by some long-ago lightning crack.
Two bushes that look like foraging chickens.
Weston guides the horse between them. On the other side, a dirt track awaits, which leads us to the same clearing he stopped the carriage in.
A light appears through the trees, beckoning.
As we draw nearer, Weston crushes me close, squeezing the breath from my body. Or maybe that’s just my own anticipation, because something is about to happen. I can feel it looming.
Once that door closes behind us, everything will change.
And I don’t ever want to go back, once it does.
Chapter Twenty
Inside the cabin, Weston sets gloved hands on my hips and steers me toward the fireplace. After my foray into the pool, we’re both cold and damp, and while he kneels to spark a fire, I yank at the hateful wedding dress. The moment the thing dries, I’m going to burn it, just like I did the last one.
By the time Weston gets a blaze going, the gown lies in a heap on the floor. I hesitate with my chemise, my fingers tangled in the hem, but something about being back here brings Helena’s words to bear.
Bold as brass.
I’m not bold in the slightest. Even less so now than before. But I tug the chemise over my head anyway, because faking it is probably better than nothing. It’s also all I have at the moment.
That done, I stand there in my bra and underwear, waiting for Weston to turn around.
I’m just...waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting. I think I’ve spent my whole life doing nothing else.
Goddess, please let all this waiting be at an end.
When he finishes with the fire and rises to face me, he startles. His gaze rakes over my bared body, his eyes darkening to russet gold. “Birdie? What’re you doing?”
An eternity stretches between us, so heavy with longing it threatens to drag me into the floor. I know I made him a vow, and yet I can’t help but ask this question, one last time.
I’m only saved by the fact that I’m not saying the words.
“Please,” I say.
“I don’t... I can’t...” He scrubs a hand through his hair and blows out a breath, conflict warring in his face. “I can’t take anything you’re not ready to give. Not after what you’ve just been through.”
A fresh sob wedges sideways in my chest. I want himbecauseof what I’ve just been through, not in spite of it. Because the duke stole something from me, inside that room. Alverton robbed me of some vital piece of myself when he hauled me in front of a mirror, kicked me down into a kneel, and forced me to confront my own frailty. When he proved how brittle I am, how easy to break.
Weston can’t give those pieces of me back. I know that. But I need to believe he still wants me. That he can look at me without seeing something Alverton smashed beyond repair.
“I need,” I say.
A shiver runs through him. “What, Birdie? What do you need? Name it.”
I shift my weight. “Just...you.”
Naked yearning slices across his features. He steps closer, and I tip my head back. Fortuna, I’m so in love with this man. I’m in love with the fact that he came for me, that he didn’t give up even though I did. I love that he walled these rooms off without meaning to, that he carved a hairbrush for me andfilled the coldbox with milk. I love that my first smile for him affected him so deeply. I love his stupidly beautiful face. I love every punch he’s ever thrown, and how his hair slides over his forehead when he peers down at me like this. How I only get this view of him up close.
“You’re sure?” His voice drops to little more than husk and smoke. “Absolutely, one hundred percent certain?”
