“We’ll figure it out,” I said, tears spilling down my cheeks. “We can figure that out.”
He kissed me. “We will. I know we will. But when I realized that you would die someday, like everyone has to—like everyone should—I got overwhelmed. I can protect you from my father, I can protect you from the Council, but I can’t do a damned thing about time. And I could never give you k-kids,” he whispered, voice breaking.
“Shh,” I murmured, holding him. “We don’t have to talk about this now.”
I kissed his hair and his arms tightened around me. We stayed locked in that embrace, and I was terrified. I was terrified that even if he loved me, even if there was no Council handing out laws and rules and restrictions, he was right—I would grow old, quickly. I would die.
And he wouldn’t.
“I don’t want to talk about this now,” I repeated, sliding off his lap and onto the bed. “Can you just…”
I looked at him and he somehow knew what I meant. He pulled back the covers and we crawled in. I curled up next to him as close as I could get, and he wrapped me up in his arms. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Adrian’s alarm was going off. I looked over blearily and saw that it was 10:50—and according to Julian’s note, Mariana and Dominic would be back in less than ten minutes.
Beside me, Adrian sat up to turn off the alarm. Despite the heaviness of our recent conversation, I smiled at him. I couldn’t help it—shirtless Adrian was such a nice view.
I could feel his gaze sweep over my face, down my shoulder, across my chest. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Adrian,” I warned. “If you keep staring at my breasts, we’re going to get into trouble.”
There was some sort of guttural grumble sound deep in his chest, and it immediately made me flush with goose bumps. He leaned toward me, eyes igniting into silver. As much as I wanted to kiss him, I really, really didn’t want his sister to walk in on us.
So I defense-tickled him.
He jerked away with a surprised laugh, arms crossed over his six-pack. “Did you just tickle me?”
I grinned at him. “Yes, I did.”
He tickled me back and I shrieked, trying to escape, but he grabbed me and rolled, pinning me beneath him.
Well, it was never a perfect plan.
He was propped up on his elbows, but other than that, we were flush together.
“I have coffee breath,” I warned.
“That’s nice,” he said, kissing the noninjured half of my jaw.
“My hair’s a mess.”
“Such a mess,” he agreed, twining his fingers in mine and stretching them slowly above my head.
And then a thought occurred to me. “Can Julian … feel, what we’re doing?”
Adrian stopped dead. “He can feel what you’re doing. Shit. Maybe he thinks you’re … y’know … entertaining yourself.”
I burst into laughter, then stopped. We looked at each other, both going red in the face, and I burst into laughter again. Then he sighed and kissed me anyway, mutual coffee breath and all, and nestled his face into my neck like a cat. “Caitlin,” he said, voice muffled in my hair a full minute later. “We’ll figure it out.”
My heart jumped in my chest, beating heavily. “Promise?”
He propped himself up to look at me. “I promise.”
I smiled, but it was a scared smile. He kissed my cheek, and my forehead, and my chin, and then my mouth. It could have turned into something more—I wanted it to turn into something more—but then he muttered, “Julian,” and pulled back.
He slid out of bed and walked to his dresser. I propped my chin on my hand to watch him, trying to keep the mood light even though my chest felt tight and heavy.
“Adrian?”
“Yeah?” he asked, looking for a pair of pants.
“I have the utmost admiration for your backside. It’s really nice.” He looked up at me, cocking an eyebrow, and I shrugged, smiling. “Just thought you should know.”
His jaw worked, fighting a smile. “Stop being cute, or I’m going to come back over there.”
He blushed, and I blushed, and then he threw a pillow at me and I laughed, wrapping his blanket around me and standing with a yawn. He was wrestling his way into a pair of pants, and I bit my lip to keep from smiling. We had a lot of shit to deal with, but he was here, and I was here, and it was something.
I got up and slipped into my room to get dressed. A few minutes later, Adrian knocked on my door. “Breakfast?”
I nodded and followed him into the hall. He paused a few doors down and knocked on Lucian’s door.
“Hey, bud, time to wake up! Breakfast!”
But there was no reply. Adrian frowned and knocked again. When there was no answer, he carefully opened the door, letting light spill into the room.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to tell that the bed was not only empty, it was still made; sheet tucked in, pillows in place.
I frowned. “Is he already downstairs with Julian?”