BLYTHE SUPPOSED SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE FRUSTRATED BY HER current
circumstance than she was. She certainly would have preferred to be able to walk on her own, yet she gave no protest as Aris scooped her into his arms, her skirts nearly dragging on the floor as he tucked her against the warmth of his chest.
It was, admittedly, a very good chest. It helped that he smelled nice, too. Like spiced apples and wisteria, which was the only reason she did not demand he set her down. That, and the fact that climbing the stairs all the way to the top floor seemed exhausting.
Aris spared Life’s portrait a fleeting glance as they passed, his eyes darkening as they flitted toward the door to his study. The look was there and gone again within seconds as he continued onward, past the ballroom and down the left side of the hall. It was, she thought, the direction of Life’s room. Though this time the hall did not don its ivory paneling or patches of clover to pave their way. Instead, it was empty but for an imposing door of white oak that had a handle of pearl.
Aris set Blythe gently onto her feet before opening the door to a room that was infinitely larger inside than she’d expected. It was brighter, too. So bright that she had to squint, for everything from the floor to the ceiling was an unblemished, iridescent white.
“I don’t understand,” she said, hooding her eyes from the light. “What is this place?”
He took hold of her shoulders, positioning her in the center of the room. “It’s yours,” Aris whispered, as if anything louder might shatter such a
delicate space. He bent so that his lips were nearer to her ear, each word sending tiny pulses of electricity shooting up her spine. “I’m gifting you a room in Wisteria of your very own, of which your imagination may run free to create whatever you’d like.”
He lifted his hand, and from it the stark-white ceiling split as if being torn at a seam, spreading open into a clear summer sky.
Blythe’s heart leapt as she watched the sky restitch itself, shifting back to stark white seconds later. At once Blythe thought of Life’s room and how strikingly impossible it was. Then she remembered the first wonderscape Aris had shown her over dinner—a midnight lake where the water touched the stars. A dream given life.
Sensing that she finally understood what was being offered to her, Aris straightened and kept but one hand upon her midback. “I realize that you and I are doing this all backward, but consider this a peace offering. I want you to feel comfortable in Wisteria. In your home.” He gave her a gentle nudge forward, toward an easel and canvas that had appeared with a wide assortment of paints beside it. “Go on. Build the room of your dreams.”
Slowly, Blythe took a seat before the easel and picked up the bare paintbrush. As vivid as her imagination was—and as much as she prided herself on her cleverness—in the face of so much possibility Blythe found herself with a sudden lack of foresight. She could turn this place into her own personal beach if she wanted, a place where the sun was always shining and where she could lounge to her heart’s content. Or she could turn it into an identical version of what she remembered from her mother’s garden, though perhaps being surrounded by the very thing that had tried to overtake her body wasn’t her finest idea.
Blythe thought then of the fairy-tale books her father had gifted to her, tucked safely in her suite at Thorn Grove, and had a sudden idea of what the perfect addition to Wisteria would be.
She dipped her brush into the colors and began to paint the most fantastical library she could pull from her imagination. The moment something came to life on the canvas, the ground instantaneously trembled as Aris rolled up his sleeves and got to work on making it a reality.
“It should be warm!” she noted, clenching tight to her chair as the room split and built itself around her. “But not too bright,” she noted, dulling the colors in the corner with a haze of soft lights. “Cozy and always a little
dreary but with light enough to see the pages without squinting.”
Again the ground shifted, manifesting the dark wood floors and the ornate scarlet-and-gold rugs she painted. Blythe and Aris fell into a rhythm, losing themselves in the creation as they crafted bookcases that stretched several stories and wove latticed bridges between the rows, adorning each with glowing lanterns and arches of ivy and wisteria. Above, the highest shelves gave way to a starry sky that Blythe took a dry brush to splatter white paint upon, inspired by the first wonderscape Aris had ever shown her. A perfect harvest moon loomed over its center, and owls with glittering silver feathers perched atop the highest shelves.
“And where are you planning to read all these books?” Aris mused when Blythe leaned back, inspecting her work thus far. “You’re forgetting the furniture.”
She shushed him, threatening her husband with a wag of the paintbrush before she continued. “I’m not done.”
Tucked in the farthest corner was a green velvet settee placed before an arched window that displayed a false landscape of an eternally overcast garden. The cushions were deeply set with pillows that felt as plush as clouds, and flowering ivy hung from the bookshelves that surrounded her in all directions. The library smelled of salt water and tobacco. Of worn leather and musky flowers and the pages of old books—a special touch from Aris. Another one of his additions was the towering Christmas tree that stood in the room’s center, strung with tiny twinkling lights and pine cones, the tips of them frosted white as if they’d just been plucked from the snow. And on the shelves sat everything she could ever want and a million different stories she never thought she needed. It was a place where time meant nothing and a person could become forever lost. She could spend the rest of her life perusing these shelves and never grow bored. For it was dreamed up by her own mind, after all.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered as a star shot across her inky sky, leaving a trail of gossamer that she would have never thought of painting. There was such a swelling of emotion rising within Blythe’s chest that she spun to face Aris, beaming as brightly as the moon above. Despite everything on her mind and the ache in her bones, one look at Aris was all it took for a wash of calm to settle over her. It helped, too, that his eyes mirrored her delight.
“Should you want for anything else, paint it. The magic will listen.” He
stepped forward then, brushing his thumb down the length of her cheek. It came away blue. “Do try to get more of the paint on the canvas next time, though. You’re wearing half of it.”
Blythe could have blushed. She could have come up with some clever retort. But instead she reached behind her for the paint and dipped two fingers into the closest colors before dragging them quickly across Aris’s chin.
“Speak for yourself, ” she told him simply. “You’re wearing even more than I am.”
It took Aris only a second to overcome his surprise before he spun toward Blythe with a devious air. He lunged forward, reaching around her for the paints. Blythe squealed as Aris surrounded her, trying to wrangle a tube of paint from him as he managed a bright blue handprint along her dress.
“You brute!” She jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his body as she tried to wrestle the paint from his grip. “I liked this dress!”
Aris wrapped his free arm beneath her, brow quirking as he observed their positions—him with one hand up and holding a tube of paint, and the other below Blythe and propping her up as she’d pounced on him. Amusement brimming in his words, he whispered, “Take the dress off and I’ll fix it for you.”
The bluntness of his words surprised her. Blythe stilled as Aris backed her slowly against the nearest wall, step by languid step. He gave her plenty of time to unfold herself from him. To untangle herself and slip away from this situation. Instead, Blythe gave little thought to her actions as she pressed a kiss to his lips.
Aris froze, and at first Blythe tried to pull back, understanding what a fool she must have been to get so caught up in the moment, especially given all that had happened the last time. But before she could claw her way out of her own skin and disappear into the ether, Aris dropped the tube of paint to the floor and held her close.
Her body burned beneath his touch, new and familiar all at once. She’d tasted his lips only twice prior, yet they already felt achingly familiar, as if they’d been molded to fit hers. And though she and Aris hadn’t personally taken their relationship to the level of her visions, she craved the intimacy of his phantom touch. Blythe knew what his hands would feel like against
her bare skin. How he would handle her not like some fragile creature but with a fervent passion. His hand stroked the length of her hair, taking a fistful as he cupped her cheek in his palm. With every touch, Life’s memories bled together with her own, urging her forward. Confirming what Blythe had already known for a long while—in every sense of the word, she wanted him.
And she knew at that moment that he felt the same. She could feel it in the press of his body against hers. In his touch as his fingers curled around her jaw, thumb brushing across her bottom lip. Desire glazed his eyes, though there was sharpness to them, too. A pinch between his brows that made her wonder whether he might once again flee.
“You are the most infuriating creature.” As abrasive as he was, there was a tenderness in those words. A gentle laughter that was as soft as the bend of an owl’s wing. “You have been a thorn in my side since day one. There have been times when I’ve wanted nothing more than to have you out of my life, and I have imagined countless ways that I might be rid of you. Countless ways that I might quiet that filthy mouth of yours. Yet since the moment I saw you stalking the halls of my home, I’ve also felt something stirring that I do not understand, but that I’ve not felt in a very long time. And this time I will not run from it.”
Blythe sucked in a breath when she felt his hand slip along her thigh. “Tell me that this is all right, or tell me to leave and we can pretend that this never happened. But tell me something, Sweetbrier.”
Breath tight in her throat, it was all Blythe could do to whisper, “This is more than all right.” And then his lips were upon her, his hand moving farther up as the other braced her. Blythe was used to soft touches. Used to people treating her like a porcelain doll, always on the verge of breaking. What she wasn’t used to was fingers that curled against her skin and tore off her stockings. A mouth that drank her in as if she was the ambrosia of the gods.
She gasped as they stumbled back into one of the bookshelves, her back arching as Aris lowered himself to his knees. Her bustle disappeared beneath his fingertips as he kissed the delicate skin of her inner thigh and then up inch by inch, until her legs buckled and he drew a sharp breath from her lips.
“It seems that I’ve found a way to keep you quiet, after all,” he teased,
taunting her with languid kisses that she could no longer take. Blythe curled her fingers in Aris’s hair, eyes fluttering shut as she guided his lips higher. She bit back a cry when he willingly obliged.
None of her late-night trysts or solitary moments of curiosity could compare to the pleasure that surged through her as his tongue glided across her. She felt like a boat caught in a stormy sea, tossed by fierce waves that threatened to overwhelm her. Blythe surrendered to the sensation, one hand buried in his hair while the other clung to the shelf for support. Her breaths grew ragged, and though it was far from wise to indulge when she was already so dizzy, it was precisely what she needed. A few minutes to shut out the world and focus solely on the man between her thighs, to fully understand him.
The way Aris’s hands explored her body made Blythe feel like a masterpiece to be admired. As if she were the most enchanting sculpture and he was a patron appreciating every inch of the work. He tasted and teased her, lingering whenever he coaxed a moan from her lips, but never for too long.
He was prolonging it, savoring every taste of her skin and every ounce of pleasure he elicited. She tightened her grip on his hair as the pressure within her built, yearning for a release she only found when Aris’s eyes met hers, burning with a hunger that drove her over the edge. She arched into him as pleasure overwhelmed her in waves, leaving her breathless. Only when she could endure no more did Aris pull away, thoroughly satisfied with himself as he stood. He took her chin in his hand and leaned in to capture her lips in another kiss.
Seeing him so smug did things to Blythe’s body that she didn’t know were possible. Power thrummed through him, raw and ravenous, and she ached for more.
Aris took her hips in hand, a puff of amusement slipping through his lips when he caught her staring. “Do you like what you see, Sweetbrier?”
She turned from him, casting a tart expression at the wall. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction of an answer.”
Aris’s laughter flowed as freely as air. “Words are not the only form of answers, love.” He bent to ensnare her lips in his, and Blythe leaned closer, pressing against the hardness of his body. Slowly, however, Aris leaned away.
“Rest, Sweetbrier,” he said, peeling back with a willpower that Blythe simply did not have. “There will be opportunities for us once you’re feeling back to your spitfire self.”
He adjusted himself then, clearing his throat and smoothing out his clothing. It was as disheveled as she’d ever seen him, and everything about the sight set Blythe’s cravings for him ablaze.
She tried to tip her head back. To cool herself. But she just couldn’t stop staring even as he backed toward her door.
“Merry Christmas,” he whispered, a smile tugging his lips as he opened it. “Enjoy your library.”
