Page 54 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

I hold those blazing purple eyes — I swear I can feel their color radiating into my fucking soul — and more declarations threaten to tumble out of my unhinged mouth.

Mirth peers up at me through her lashes, bites her lip, and says, “Can I have your cock in me now?”

I laugh a little shakily. Play. That’s what we’re doing right now. That’s also what she needs from me. She needs joy and pleasure, not declarations that come with serious consequences. Impossible consequences.

Mirth pouts playfully when I pull my fingers from her pussy, then fumble to get her clothing buttoned up.

“Let me get a groom to take care of Perseus,” I say, wondering if I should untuck my shirt or if my pants are dark enough to disguise the wet stain surely spreading across my groin. “We can slip out the side door. I’ve taken one of the cottages.”

She grabs my wrist, grip firm and expression suddenly serious. “I’m not hiding you, Rian. You’re not some dirty little secret.”

I gently cup her face, desperately ignoring the I’m so fucking in love with you mantra running through my head. “Discretion is not the same as secrecy.”

She narrows her eyes at me, but then nods.

Still, I keep her hand in mine as I step out to call in a groom and direct him to see to Perseus. I use the side door, but I keep her hand in mine as we take the path to my assigned cottage.

Her grip is as firm as mine. And no matter how often I glance her way, she never loses the soft smile gracing her lips.

MIRTH

I drift, utterly relaxed, with my ear pressed to Rian’s chest. Just enjoying the sound of his heartbeat slowing as we come down after my third orgasm — his second.

The window of the tiny white-panel-walled bedroom is slightly open.

Yellowing lace-edged curtains lift in the cool breeze as the late-afternoon sun wanes into early evening.

Rian’s cottage is filled with basic furnishings that I presume come with all the staff housing at the castle. But the mattress is firm, and the sheets tangled around our lower limbs are soft, so I know they’re new.

Specially purchased? Possibly for me?

Rian smooths his fingertips down my spine, then back up to slip into the mess of my hair at the back of my neck. I shiver, remembering him making me sit still as he finger-combed out my long braid, then spread me and all my hair across the bed naked. Just to look at me.

As if I were a piece of art. As if I’m something, someone, worth examining? Worth adoring?

“Where’s your head?” Rian asks, running his fingers down my spine again.

I tilt my head just enough to see his face. He’s gazing up at the ceiling, his green eyes bright against his brown skin. Once again, the sheer shock of his beauty shudders through me, and I have to take a breath against it before I can answer.

“I’m here with you.”

He grunts a little doubtfully, but doesn’t press. “I should feed you, but I don’t want to move from the moment. Can you … stay?”

I smile against his chest. “I’m not hungry for food.”

He chuckles. “I’m going to need a couple more minutes. But if you need to come again, I could be persuaded to —”

I shift over him until I’m straddling his lower torso, then stretch back for the sheet and pull it up over my head.

He groans, almost pained, gripping my hips.

I meet his gaze, realizing that his reaction, that involuntary groan, is a response to the … sheer sight of me?

That warmth that I feel around Rian expands even further in my chest. I lean over him, pulling the sheet with me until my hair hangs all around his face and I have us cocooned in white cotton.

He threads his fingers through my hair, gathering it over one of my shoulders, then holding it slightly back from my face and cradling my head. Then he just gazes up at me, tracing my features as I know I trace his every time I allow myself to truly look at him.

“Hide away with me?” I ask, knowing I don’t just mean this moment, this evening. Even though I don’t yet know how to make the offer of more work.

“Anytime you want me,” he murmurs, “I’ll be yours.”

I swallow, dropping his gaze. A pinpoint of cool pain — regret? grief? — at the abrupt reminder of the inherent imbalance between us jabs through the warmth that has settled in my chest.

“Mirth?” His green eyes rake over my face now, concerned.

“My position …”

He nods, just a little stiffly. “But there can be times like these, though? Yes? Where you can belong to me as I would belong to you?”

The warmth in my chest twists as if strangling, smothering the icy pinpoint of pain. Then it expands so sharply that I have to press my hand to my chest, as if I might hold it within and help myself navigate the emotion.

It’s painful. Yet I know it’s not the grief that has been continually riding me since Armin’s death.

That warmth, that connection is … the first embers of love.

“Too soon?” Rian whispers. “I can wait, Mirth. I’ve just never wanted anyone like I want you. And I know … I know it might seem like it’s just sex. Just a sexual connection —”

“It’s not,” I gasp, not wanting him to misunderstand me. “It’s the … timing. The complication of being … me.”

I drop my hand from my chest, pressing it over his heart instead. His pulse has ramped up. Again. I shake my head, trying to mentally shift back to the playful, sated state of a moment ago .

“Tell me something.” Rian strokes his fingers around my ear, then down the exposed side of my neck, then back up. “Something no one else knows about you.”

I laugh a little ruefully. “I don’t get to have secrets like that … I never could keep much from Armin …”

A terrible realization flushes through me, followed by a crush of pure grief.

I lock my gaze to Rian’s green eyes, holding myself in the moment. I breathe, just breathe, and let him anchor me in the now. “I’m here … with you.”

“Yes.” He shifts until he’s seated against the pillows at the headboard, tugging me firmly into his lap.

The sheet pools around our hips. “You’re here with me.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t tell me anything.

I … I think talking about the things you feel like you need to ignore, or to shove away, might help. ”

I somehow find it within me — perhaps because of how Rian helps ground me, as inexplicable as that still is — to raise an eyebrow at him.

He snorts, offering me a blinding smile that transforms him from ridiculously pretty to epically gorgeous.

I’m not certain my heart can withstand the onslaught.

“My mother,” he says, “is a psychology professor.”

“At?”

“University College Dublin.” He laughs. “Can you blame me for graduating early and immediately fucking off to play with horses?”

The ‘play with horses’ sounds like a direct quote.

“You … ah … graduated early …?” His age feels like a sensitive topic. Which in turn feels ridiculous when we’re both completely naked, with Rian’s lips and tongue having now mapped out every bit of my body.

He flashes a quieter grin at me, letting me off the hook I’m dangling on. “Shall I give you the short version?”

I nod, grinning back at him almost shyly. This level of intimacy is intoxicating. And maybe I’m an utter idiot for allowing myself to trust it, but I need … I need to choose something for myself and to trust my own judgement. To trust Rian.

“I was mostly homeschooled. One of my mother’s mates works with horses …” He clears his throat, gaze flicking between my eyes for a moment, before continuing, “In a smaller way.”

“Oh?” I say archly. “He’s not the most coveted trainer and breeder in all of Europe and currently in charge of the breeding program of the chancellor of the United European Nation?”

Rian snorts, shaking his head at my flippant sarcasm. “We’ll get to that part. Be patient, Highness.”

I flick my fingers, playfully indicating that he has my permission to continue. “Enlighten me.”

“My stepfather is not a wolf shifter. It’s, ah, unusual for a predator shifter to work closely with animals. Not unheard of, of course. But our energy is usually … disturbing.”

“Not your energy,” I breathe, as if I’m confessing everything I feel for him as the three simple words tumble past my lips.

“No …” His gaze falls to my mouth. “Not mine.”

I really want him to kiss me. I really want to lean over and kiss him. But I also understand that we do need some words between us.

He clears his throat. “So I’ve worked part-time in stables since before it was actually legal to pay me to do so.”

“Child labor.” I press my hand to my chest as if aghast. The sarcasm would likely land better if I weren’t completely naked, because my gesture just draws Rian’s attention to my breasts .

He rallies— though it looks like it’s an effort for him to focus, and his hand does slide around to stroke my ass.

“I passed my final exams at fifteen. Which was also the year I debuted my first champion. Every cent I ever made went into that breeding. My mother was … displeased … that I didn’t immediately enroll in some university program.

And I … called in some favors and gained my emancipation a few months later. ”

“Your mother didn’t want you to follow your dreams?” I say quietly.

“It’s fear, I think. Even a mighty psychologist isn’t immune to … denial, I suppose. My birth father was killed before I was born. And they weren’t married or bonded. So she was left with me and no support. At least I thought that was the case for most of my life. She allowed me to believe it.”

I frown, growing confused. “Your father isn’t dead?”

“He is. I just didn’t know who he was until I had to fill out all the paperwork for the emancipation.”