Page 54
The bed was made with clean sheets. The jar of roses, crimson as desire. The table was set with grapes, cheese, and wine. The old Gugelhupf mold gleaming on the counter was his quiet triumph after days of searching every market stall he could find.
Rosine’s hand flew to her lips.
Her whisper was raw, reverent. “Aryeh…” Outside the Lyon’s Den, she’d made it a habit of using his real name. “Where did you find my mother’s mold?”
“I don’t think it’s hers. But it’s yours. Did I get it right?”
She nodded, biting her lips and wiping another tear from her face.
It undid him. Because he heard it not as his name, but as the truth of her heart: Yes. We’re alone. I’m yours.
He swallowed hard, forcing steadiness into a body that trembled with want. He had rehearsed no words for this moment. Words were not his gift. But what was left of him was truer than anything he had ever spoken.
“This is next time,” he said softly. His voice carried the weight of a vow. “If you want it to be.”
Her gaze darted up, startled, luminous.
He moved closer, deliberate, every muscle taut as a bowstring. He stopped only when her breath mingled with his. His hand lifted, trembling despite himself, brushing her cheek with reverence.
“I won’t stop unless you tell me to,” he murmured.
The words hung in the air like smoke and fire together—promise, plea, and heat.
Aryeh was waiting for her. Her Aryeh.
By the time she climbed the narrow stairs above the pale-green-doored bakery, her pulse was already racing.
She paused at the landing, fingers tightening on the banister. The air smelled of beeswax and roses.
Roses.
When she pushed the door open, the room glowed with light. A small table had been set with cheese, grapes, and a bottle of dark wine. Fresh roses—deep red, their petals heavy with scent—stood in a simple glass jar. And on the counter, gleaming faintly as though it had waited a century just for her, lay a brass Gugelhupf mold.
Her breath caught.
Something inside her tightened, then melted. She set her shawl aside, her fingers suddenly clumsy. “You did all this… for me?”
“For us,” he corrected softly. He stepped forward, one slow pace, then another. “Because I want you to know—when I kiss you again, when I put my hands on you—I’m not thinking of shadows, or duty, or survival. I’m thinking only of you.”
Her knees weakened. She wanted to laugh, to deflect, to say something clever—but nothing came.
He made a sound—half groan, half prayer—and in the next breath, his mouth was on hers.
His lips claimed her with aching certainty, hot and soft and trembling with restraint. She gasped, parting for him, and he deepened the kiss, his tongue brushing hers, tasting, learning. Her fingers flew to his shirtfront, clutching at linen, needing something to hold before she dissolved into him entirely.
He kissed like a starving man. And yet—he kissed as though she were the only meal he would ever allow himself.
Her body leaned, pressed, yielded. When his hand slid to her hip, anchoring her, she felt fire race from the place his fingers pressed all the way through her.
She broke the kiss only long enough to breathe. “Aryeh—”
“Say it again,” he begged against her mouth.
“Aryeh.”
He shuddered, his forehead falling to hers. “You undo me when you speak my real name. And still—still you make me want more.”
She had no words, only heat.
