Delicate fingers unbuttoned my vest.

  Her hands were hungry, yet careful. I kissed her, and barely noticed anything else but her hands on me.

  Her hands unpinned my cape. I felt it rustle ay back as it hit the carpet. Then delicate fingers ran through my hair, ruining its careful pt.

  I stopped and stepped back to look at her. Her eyes were like a match that lit me up inside.

  “You sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  A tray with the things we’d need — a discrete bottle, an envelope with the traceptive, the tea leaves for after — were set for us already.

  “Ugh. Shush.”

  “That’s not a yes.”

  She did a little shimmy with her hands, then kicked a pair of white cotton undergarments off her bare foot from under her dress.

  She gestured to them casually.

  “That answer your question?” she asked.

  “I think I got it,” I answered, pulling my cotton shirt over my head. I was always a little self scious going shirtless, but I didn’t have time to be embarrassed.

  She ran her eyes over me, gave me an appreciative smile, then walked the several paces to me. I folded her in my arms, my haly massaging the skin of her back as we kissed. The fabric of her dress bunched as my other hand touched the small of her back through it.

  Her muscles had grown lean and corded from her time running through forests and across rooftops, and I was keen to feel ead every one of them.

  I could feel the ce of her corset, and just before I could think to u she said, “don’t bother with that.”

  She leapt on me, and I kissed her more fiercely. Then I ed my arms under her to keep her steady.

  I carried her to the bed.

  She mao climb off me backward, and up the bed to make room for me, holding my hand as she did. I followed where she led. And that her.

  We kissed more. I still had my pants on, and we were atop her skirts. She grabbed her skirts and hiked them up.

  Arousal was like a fire that burned every thought that wasn’t about the feel of her body under me right out of my mind all at onbsp; If you’d asked me then if I ever wanted someone more in my life, I would have called you crazy. Because suddenly it was just her, and the feeling of her against me, and the things I o do to her.

  Then she pulled back.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  I followed her eyes and looked up, and behind me.

  The cherubs smiled down on us.

  “Are those —” she started to say.

  “The cherubs, yeah.” “Cherubs?” we said simultaneously.

  We both ughed and I rolled off of her, taking a moment to breathe. I had hardly breathed since we walked in here.

  I stared up at the cherubs as my mind worked to fit back together. They all smiled down at me approvingly. Not that any expression made it okay, but that seemed to be the worst choice of the bunch.

  “They’re just smiling at us,” she said.

  “I know,” I said, still chug a bit.

  “Here,” she tinued, “I know what to do.”

  She started pulling my pants off. I helped her the st bit. Then she climbed atop me, and began kissing me again.

  Look. I know this is a published memoir, and you may or may not be reading this for the juitimate details of our private lives, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at talking about this kind of thing. I will say that at this point we’d not — um — that is to say. Look. No actual intercourse was happeni, but damn was it close.

  Just as I thought we were going to cross that line, she stopped. Her eyes looked straight ahead.

  “Is that —” she started to ask.

  “Is that what?” I asked back, barely able t two thoughts together.

  “Queen Cerelia?”

  I groaned and covered my face.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s fug weird,” she said.

  I looked at her, and she looked at me.

  She crawled off me. I sat up.

  “Didn’t you get dressed in here?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but I was so nervous, I couldn’t really look at anybody but Braelyn and Cerelia.”

  Her eyes looked down at me, then bay face.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “You’re just saying that, but it's always good to hear.”

  “It’s not a bad one,” she said.

  “Should we really do this?” I asked.

  “Fuck!” she cursed, and threw herself ba the bed. “I don’t know!”

  “I don’t kher. I mean, you’re really freaking hot.”

  “I’m so fug hot!”

  “Right. You really are. And I want to do this.”

  “There is nothing I want more in the world than that thing inside me,” she said, gesturing in my general dire.

  “Also good to hear,” I said, grabbing a pilloutting it in my p.

  “But…” she said.

  “But?”

  “I really don’t want to get pregnant. Not here.”

  “Me either,” I said. Her eyes cut to me, and I amended, “I don’t want you to get pregnaher.”

  We ughed.

  “I’m also not the kinda girl that just do a quick handy, and be doh it. I know myself too well. If we start something, I’m going to want to finish it.”

  “That’s dirty.”

  She ughed, and threillow at me. I smiled. Then I thought some more.

  “Also,” I said. “I’ve been w really hard to try ahis team together, to work well together. And what if, if we hook up, I start treating you different than the rest of the team? What if I’m forced to choose you over someone else I care about? That’d really subsp; It could get us all killed.”

  “I didn’t really think about that,” she said. “I was mostly worried that if we fucked, that was all you’d ever see me as. Just a hookup.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s messed up. I told you I needed you months ago in like a special song and everything. I thought it retty clear that this wouldn’t just be a hookup for me.”

  She let out a groan of frustration, and smoothed her skirts back over her legs. Theuro y sideways on the bed. She looked at me with rueful longing.

  “How is it you think so lowly of yourself,” I said, “that you ’t see I fug cherish you.”

  “Well,” she said. “I don’t know, Zach, maybe I’m crazy.”

  I took her hand, and looked her right in her eyes.

  “You’re not crazy,” I said. “But you aren’t seeing me clearly.”

  “What if this does fuck up the team?” she said.

  “Maybe it already has?”

  We looked at each other for a long time. I didn’t want to stop. I saw the way she gazed at me with longing, and it was good to be looked at like that, and it was good to see her.

  I felt my heart start to fray.

  She stood and walked to a chest, ope, then began attempting to uhe corset top of her dress.

  “Could you help?” she asked.

  I was there in an instant.

  “I should get ged into something more fortable.” We both ughed at that. “I mean,” she crified, “like actual clothes.”

  “This isn’t happening tonight,” I stated.

  “Not tonight.”

  “I think we’re putting too much pressure on ourselves,” I said.

  “I think so too.”

  She removed a fortable bck shirt from the chest, too big so probably Rachel’s, and a fresh set of underpants. I got the corset tied rather easily, and began loosening it. I’d never dohis before, but whoever had ced it, likely Braelyn, had made sure it’d e off with little effort.

  I didn’t think it ropriate to thank her for making it so easy, but I was grateful for it.

  Bere shimmied the dress off, and it fell to the carpet revealing, well, her.

  Now look, I don’t want to oetic about it too much, but I described G’nash naked, so it’s only fair that I describe a bit of her too.

  My first view of her body was from behind. Her shoulders had fantastic definition, but were still a woman’s, and her back was muscled all the way down. The burn scar was still there, but I didn’t mind it.

  She didn’t have a dancer’s body. She ate too well for that — she had to because of how active we were — but it was close: graceful and strong, but womanly. Her, um, her backside was like… well I’d been to museums. I’d seen the way the Romans had carved a goddess’s ass before. She put those bastards work to shame.

  Her thighs had the least amount of definition, were satisfyingly plump, but made a graceful ard her calves were no less appealing.

  “Like what you see?” she asked. It took several seds ling to get my mouth to produ answer.

  “You’re more beautiful than I thought.”

  She ughed, turned, and I saw the rest of her.

  Her breasts were slight. She almost had abs, and there was a little pouch where her belly stopped to bee her hips. I liked the way her hips looked. Again, she ate a lot, and had a healthy yer of fat and muscle for it. Maybe dancer ymnast wasn’t the right parison. Maybe a kickboxer before they had to cut? Maybe a rock climber?

  Maybe the reason I couldn’t find a parison is because it was her body, and unlike anyone else’s. She’d crafted her body into a mae that killed people, that was ideal for traveling long distahat could jump and fight, and love, and make me want her more than anyone else in the world.

  And seeing that id bare for me, just made me want her more.

  “Easy chief,” she warned.

  “I got it,” I said, raising my hands.

  Her eyes traveled up my naked body.

  “Damn, boy,” she said, “you should put some clothes on too.”

  We ughed, and I shrugged into my shirt. She got dressed also. We both caught each other casting gnces back, because if we didn’t, when else would we get the ce?

  As soon as I got underpants on, she grabbed me by the shirt, and kissed me again.

  My willpower crumbled, and I hugged her tight, pressing my lips to hers, aing my hands travel across her. I was not chaste. She pushed me babsp; I let her go.

  “Damn,” she said.

  “You say that again.”

  “Damn,” she said with a small chuckle. Her firailed down my chest. I stepped back.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  She put a fio her lips, much less red now, kind of a smudged pink, and she made a show thinking.

  “Now you’re just leering,” I said.

  “I get to leer a bit.”

  For some reason, now that the most of it was over, I was much less nervous. It was Bernie. She was my friend. I posed dramatically, putting an arm behind my head to pop a bicep, and flex my core.

  We ughed.

  I did some leering too.

  “So, what are we doing?” I asked.

  “Well,” she said. “I guess we get to actually talk?”

  “That sounds nice,” I said.

  “I’m gonna want to get drunk.

  “I could drink.”

  “I reserve the right to ask for a kiss goodnight. Then you should leave before either one of us makes a decision we regret.”

  I didn’t like hearing the word ‘regret,’ but it wasn’t untrue. I don’t think we are ready for this. If we hooked up after promising not to, I may have earned some plicated feelings about it.

  “Drinks and versation?” I asked. This p she got to sleep in a literal king’s size bed alone. Which sounded amazing. I was only a little jealous. And I was allowed to feel a little disappointed we didn’t actually have sex.

  But It was shaping up to be the best date I’d ever had. Aainly the best first date. And I’d already been blessed with memories I will hold dear for a long time.

  So, hell yeah. Mission already aplished. Drinks were just the ig on the cake.

  “I’ll grab the gsses,” she said.

  “I’ll see if I ’t rustle up some pying cards,” I said.