He noticed she seemed sad when she mentioned her sister, and wondered if it had something to do with being a twin. In every movie he’d seen, twins shared some weird bond. Or one was good and one was evil. He realized he shouldn’t base his knowledge of twins on movies; he’d miss Jamie if he were in another country, twin or no.
Portia glided a fingertip over the smooth center of the blade. “I always wanted to go to that room, and my parents assumed it was because I liked the armored horses on display. Really, it was because I liked the weapons. I used to imagine mounting up like Joan of Arc and riding into battle, being strong enough—good enough—to defend my family from anything.”
Tav could imagine it, too. Her thick curls resting about the bevor and pauldron, then flying out behind her after she raised her sword and charged. It was a magnificent fantasy, but then the real Portia’s smile twitched and collapsed, rising again but as if buttressed by sheer willpower.
“After Reggie got sick, I would go sit in that room for hours—I skipped school, went there on the weekends. I spent more time there than the hospital. It was easier . . . reading all the curated information, over and over again.”
Tav felt a sick embarrassment as he remembered doubting her knowledge of weaponry. Is that how she knew so much? Christ.
“Mostly I’d just sit and imagine being someone else, in another time, able to fight off the things that wanted to hurt the ones you loved. But a sword isn’t the most efficient tool against a brain virus.”
Her sadness resonated in Tav like a blow against the anvil. He’d been obsessive about Jamie’s safety, those early years when Bodotria hadn’t been studded with cafes and boutiques. And Portia was a twin. He couldn’t imagine the fear and pain that must have caused her, seeing a part of herself—a reflection of herself, really—on the brink of death.
She sighed. “Some sister I was, huh? Hiding in a museum while Reggie was trapped in a hospital bed.”
“Portia,” Tav said. He tugged at his gloves but his gaze was focused on her face.
“Sorry for the Dr. Phil shite.” She shook her head and gave him that forced smile again. “I’d just completely forgotten about that. And holding the sword I remembered it. Is this some kind of fairy magic you forgot to warn me about? Is that the real reason you kept putting off the training?”
She was trying to act like what she’d told him didn’t matter much, but her voice still shook. That was the thing with creating something; you put some bit of yourself into it, if you did it well, but fuck if you could control what bit of yourself that was.
“Sounds like something traumatic happened, you dealt with it as best you could, then blocked it out,” he said. That was when Tav realized that his hand was resting on her shoulder.
When had that happened?
She glanced down at his hand, then up to his face, then back down at the hand, clearly wondering what he was doing. Tav was wondering the same bloody thing.
“You were brilliant today,” he said. “You’re gonna make a fine swordsmith, aye?”
“Probably not, but at least we made this one nice thing,” she replied breezily, looking up at him with those wide brown eyes that skewered him with want.
“You don’t have to find a reason to get down on yourself after you do something grand, lass,” he said. He didn’t know where the words came from, but he was certain he was right. It wasn’t that Portia wasn’t proud of her accomplishments—she certainly knew her strengths—it was that she had a way of blowing her failures up like a shield to block anyone from getting at the successes.
“That isn’t what I was doing,” she said. Her tone was annoyed, but her breath was coming fast and when his hand slid up the side of her neck, he could feel her pulse racing. Her hand came up and that grip of hers wrapped around his forearm. “What are you doing?”
Tav had no idea.
“Making sure there are no cracks,” he murmured. Her throat worked beneath his palm.
She closed her eyes and her grip loosened on his arm. Tav’s hand smoothed up her neck, over the soft, warm skin, and cupped her cheek.
“You’re going to mess up my skin-care routine,” she said, nose scrunching in annoyance as she tilted her head away from his hand. Tav’s senses started coming back to him. What was he doing? With his apprentice? In the courtyard?
She was right to pull away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, yanking his hand back.
“You should be,” she said. “I have very sensitive skin.” Then she pressed up on her toes and kissed him.
The kiss was not what he’d imagined. Because of course he’d imagined kissing her already, and in his fantasy she had been aggressive and take-charge, pulling him down and wrapping her legs around him. But this kiss was hesitant, though she’d initiated it, soft and just a whisper of sensitive skin rubbing over sensitive skin, as if she was prepared to pull away and run off at any second.
Can’t be having that, can we?
Tav’s arms slipped around her waist and pulled her up flush against him, angling his neck so that his mouth fit more firmly against hers. She moaned, and his cock thickened in his jeans and pressed against her as if urging her on.
She shifted so that her hips pressed into him—there was nothing hesitant about that motion—and her tongue slicked against his, hot and wet and searching. His hand flattened against her lower back, holding her firmly in place as he kissed the ever-loving fuck out of her. That was the only way to describe the ungainly, raw thrust of his tongue into her mouth, the groan that escaped him.
Her fingers were curled in the damp cotton of his shirt, bringing him down to her because, as in every other part of life, Portia was not one to let him think he could strut in and show her a thing or two, no matter how vulnerable she was at first. Now her hand was at the back of his neck, both stroking and drawing him down closer to her, like she was as afraid as he was that something would come between their questing mouths.
Tav hadn’t kissed a woman in a while, and he wondered if he’d forgotten how good it was—or maybe it had just never been so good. Her tongue sparring with his, resisting his advances even as she pulled him closer, sent tingles up and down his spine. The hitch of her breath made his balls draw up tight because that might be the sound she made as he thrust into her for the first time. Her nipples were hard—Christ, she’s sensitive—pressing into his chest, and he could only imagine how they would feel in his mouth and against his palm.
His hand slid hard up her back, fingertips dragging against the soft fabric of her shirt before sliding into her thick hair and holding her even more firmly as his tongue pillaged her mouth. She trembled in his arms and then he shivered because if she reacted like that to a slight tug of her hair . . .
Fuck, he thought.
“Fuck,” she moaned, then her kissing began to slow, then stopped. She pulled away and rested her forehead against his chin. “Fuck.” This time, the tone let him know something had come between them—reality.
She released him and pushed away, pupils wide and lips swollen.
“Of course, you would be a fantastic kisser,” she said, and if he wasn’t mistaken she was stressed about it.
“I’m fantastic at everything,” he said, ducking his head back down toward hers. He’d sipped from the Holy Grail, and now he needed another taste.
She hopped lightly out of his grasp—out of his reach.
“Except at being a boss,” she said firmly. “We can’t do this.” She averted her gaze. “I can’t do this. It’s not part of the plan, okay?”
“Might I suggest an amendment to whatever plan this is?” He tried to keep the words light, but fuck if he wasn’t ready to drop to his knees and beg, which meant her words applied to him, too.
He couldn’t do this.
That didn’t stop him from really, really wanting to.