“So neither of us is angry at the other. Why are we being so careful?”
Leave it to Piper to simply say it out loud.
“Because this is the next step.”
The conveyance stopped. “We’re here.” He passed some credits to the driver and they got out.
His building was on the edge of the Second Circle of the capital city. The neighborhood was noisy and colorful. A riot of shops and restaurants.
“I like it here. Is there always music in the air?”
“Down here at street level, yes. There’s a music school just down that side street there.” He pointed. “And a social club on the other side of the tram just at the end of that block. They have music and dancing most every weekend.”
He let her look her fill, her hand in his. He nearly forgot they were at war until a tank moved into place near the tram stop.
“Even here?” She tipped her chin toward the tank.
“Especially here. If they attacked here, it would be a huge blow to Roman’s power base.”
She nodded. “Show me the flat, and let’s talk about this next step stuff.”
She tried not to gape as Andrei opened the door. It was spare. Not a lot of decoration or even a lot of furniture.
What it did have, she noted as she wandered around ignoring the way he watched her reactions, was a lot of books. From the floor to the ceiling on row after row of shelving. “I’m . . . totally overwhelmed. Andrei, this is amazing.” Those books told her more than pictures on the walls ever could.
He walked past, fingers tracing the spines of the books with the same sensuality he used on her. “I pick them up here and there. So many worlds and ideas. I like them here in my house.”
“Have you read them all?”
“Not all of them. Some of them are in languages I don’t speak, but for one reason or another I liked the book or the cover. Most of them I have. Yes.”
This was the secret part of him. She realized as she stood there in his flat he probably only rarely brought people to this place. His private place. “I like this place.”
“I’ll move to Asphodel.” He blurted it, startling her. Touching her.
“Why do you say that? To work or to . . . ?”
“To be with you. I don’t want to pull you away from your family. I can work from there.”
“As easily as here?” She toed her boots off, lining them up near the front door and headed back into the main room where he still stood.
“No. But that doesn’t matter. You have people there. A life. I can’t ask you to toss it all away.”
But it did matter, she knew. And that he’d do it anyway meant more to her than she could ever say. Instead, she went to him, making herself at home in his arms when they encircled her body.
“It does matter. And . . . I think I could do something here. I think I can do something with you. I like working with you, and now I can. With Kenner gone and me on this path, it’s high time Taryn got to make his own choices. To start living instead of just making it through every day.”
“And those in your compound?”
“Eiriq could easily take over the runs if he chose. They all know him and trust him.” She shrugged. “I used to fool myself into believing I was the key to why it all worked. That I had to stay there to make everything work. But I wonder, now that I’ve got some distance from it, if it wasn’t the other way around. I feel selfish about that. Maybe they all stayed for me.”
“You built something important there. They’re part of it. Maybe you all stayed there for each other. Don’t feel that you have to leave it to be with me. I’m telling you, you don’t.”
“I know that’s what you’re saying. And, well, it means a great deal to me. But I’ve lived the same way for all these years. My whole life it’s been that way. And now I find myself confronted with options for the first time in a long time.”
She sighed and moved to look out the windows at all of Ravena spreading out in every direction as far as the eye could see. He didn’t interrupt her, merely sitting down in a worn, comfortable looking chair nearby. He probably read in that chair in his free time.
“They can make it without me. I can send back credits from time to time, like you did. Visit when we can. After all this is over. And it will be, because I have you, and I’m not going to let Fardelle mess my future up.”
Turning from the view, she found him, and everything inside her clicked into place.
“There are other things to worry about just now. This war. All this death and destruction. The fact that we’ll be meeting Roman Lyons in a little while. We have other things to do, and I’ll be there with you every step. But after, when all is said and done and it’s just Piper and Andrei, I want to embrace that future fully. I want to do more than make it through each day. I want to live and build a life with you. Here. I’ve never lived in a city before. This is staggeringly massive. I want to explore every bit.”
“That’ll take a few years. We can work on it when this is all over. I have so many things to show you.”
“What changed your mind?” she asked.
“About what?”
“Being with me.”
He laughed and shrugged. “There was no mind changing. We were together before we went into that processing plant.”
“I know that. I mean, this is that next step, I suppose.” She smiled.
“I knew what I was doing when I chose your camp over any other. I knew what I was in for when I saw you again and everything rushed back. And more. I wanted you the moment I saw you, and I want you still. I shouldn’t. You’d have a far better life without me and what I do in it. But you’re stubborn and cranky when you don’t get your way.”
He had no idea what he did to her. She shook her head, coming to where he sat and kneeling, resting her head on his lap. A mirror of what he’d done only an hour before.
Gentle hands kneaded her shoulders and neck, leaving her totally relaxed.
“One more thing.”
“Hmm?”
“I have marital papers in my pocket.”
She jumped up and into his lap, wrapping herself around him.
“You’re going to marry me?”
“What kind of man do you think I am? Do you think I would go all the way to Asphodel to bring you back to just fuck you and say, hey, let’s take it day by day?”
She frowned, properly abashed.
“I don’t have a ring for you. I . . . haven’t had the opportunity. I only left you long enough to go to the municipal complex next door to the Corps Headquarters to get the papers. We can do that soon.”
“All right. I don’t need a ring anyway. I just need you.”
He kissed her. A gentle brush of lips, and she sighed.
“I know it’s too soon. I don’t want to pressure you.” He spoke as he kissed her temple and stroked his hands up and down her back.
“It’s not that. I need you. I need to feel alive after . . . Parron.” So much death. So much needless destruction.
“Let’s go to the bedroom then. I’ll run a bath. I should clean up before I settle in to ravish you.”
She scrambled off, knowing if she hadn’t, he’d have tried to carry her on his messed up leg.
A
ndrei ran the bath, anxious that she like his flat. Their flat. Whatever. He wanted her so fiercely his hands shook. So much had happened over the last few days. So much devastation. It seemed to have ramped up the need he had to reconnect with her.
She’d endured more than anyone should have to, and he wished with all his might that he could change things for her. He’d been terrified when they’d had to tranq her. She wouldn’t calm, and she kept waking up crying.
On the transport and then back to Corps HQ, he’d watched her. Anxious that she be all right. Hurting for her. He expected her to blame him. And it would have been all right, he would have borne that weight, because he’d held himself responsible anyway.
And then she hadn’t. Which had, he admitted, done something to him. Losing Kenner had been like losing a brother. But it did not compare to what Taryn and Piper had to go through. And neither had blamed him.
What a truly humbling experience that had been.
Daniel had come right away once they’d arrived back in Ravena. It was Daniel who’d encouraged him to go and get the papers. Daniel who’d told Andrei she wouldn’t blame him. Daniel who’d urged Andrei in no uncertain terms to marry and be the man Piper needed and deserved.
Daniel, newly married himself, had been right. Andrei owed him an ale now.
“I can’t believe what a secret hedonist you are.” She wandered in, naked, snagging his attention.
“How so? And does this mean you plan to walk around naked all the time to fulfill all my filthy urges?”
“I’m available for filthy urge fulfillment any time.” She stepped into the bath and sighed as she settled in. “This bathing suite is not at all what I expected.”
He pulled his clothes off, nearly preening when her gaze caught on him and she simply stared.
“I like a big tub.” He slipped in behind her, and she leaned back, her head on his chest, their fingers joined. His injured leg he propped up on the side of the tub.
“I do, too, apparently. I’ve never been in anything like this before.”
He wanted to shower her with experiences. With things she never had on Asphodel.
“It’s a good thing the tub and shower stall here are so big. We do seem to combine water and sex. Lots of room in here to get that done. How nice of you to think ahead.”
He poured the soap into his hands and began to wash her.
She turned to face him, on her knees. “No. You took care of me the last time we did this. Let me.” She took the soap. “Lean back and close your eyes.”
“If I close my eyes, I won’t see how pretty your nipples are as they play peekaboo at the waterline.”
He caressed her thigh, walking his fingers up toward her pussy.
“First things first.” She said it primly, but the next moment, her grin broke through and spoiled the attempt. “You’re always taking care of people. Let me take care of you for a change.”
To underline her point, she gripped his cock in a slippery fist. “Now, you see, you have this protective thing about you.” She pumped her fist up and down slowly. “It’s one of your finest qualities. By the way, when were you planning on telling me you paid all the debts we had at the compound?”
He growled when her pace changed, teasing him.
“Oh, a growl. Well, you do know what that does to me. I can’t be responsible for my own actions now.”
Gods, he loved her. It filled him up from head to toe. A sense of belonging to someone. Of being part of something bigger than himself in a wholly new way.
She accepted him. All of him.
“I know. It has to be difficult for you.” She leaned in to kiss him. “So gruff. Everywhere we go people scurry out of the way. Scary.” She kissed him again and then another time for good measure.
“You’re not afraid of me at all.”
She laughed, moving to sit astride him and press herself to his chest. “No. Because I know you, and I know you’d sooner do yourself harm before harming me. As we can see by the new scars you’ll have since I came back into your life.”
One of his brows rose, and she kissed it and the other one, too. She wanted to spoil him with love. Wanted him to know with every bit of himself that she adored him.
“I love you.” She kissed over his cheek, across the bridge of his nose and over to his ear.
He hummed his pleasure, and she snuggled closer.
“You keep squirming around up there, and I’ll give you something else to love.”
“Promise?”
She moved to her knees and slid herself against him.
“I do.” He paused and then forged ahead. “I love you, Piper.”
Her eyes widened, and she actually made a squeal of delight. Her reaction was perfect, and he knew it had been right to say it.
“You said it!”
“I must be insane.”
“You are. Which is why we fit together so well. Now that you’ve said the big, bad three words, let’s get to fucking.”
“Fucking in water isn’t comfortable. However, eating your pussy when it’s warm from the bath? I bet that’s just fine.” He lifted her, placing her on the ledge, her feet still in the tub.
“No. It’s my turn to make you feel good.” But when she looked down at him, she felt a little faint at the image of her man on his knees between her spread thighs. It made her heart skip a beat or two.
She’d tell him to stop again in a moment.
He nuzzled the space just behind her knee, and she went all gooey. “Stop that. You’re a rogue.”
“I am.” His tongue trailed up her inner thigh. “I have a little problem with being told what to do.”