Page 25 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

E LIAS

I settle Mirth on the couch. She curls her legs under her, carefully keeping the soles of her boots off the sleek brown leather.

She raises an eyebrow and offers me a tiny smirk when I retrieve a hand-knit afghan blanket from the lower cupboard of the side table.

But she doesn’t ask why I have a blanket in my office, simply allowing me to tuck it over her legs.

Mirth brushes her fingers across mine as I’m withdrawing my hand — the touch and the tingle of her power as intimate as kissing, even as intense as having someone else’s mouth wrapped around my cock.

But I’m hovering on the precipice of being overwhelmed by the soul-encompassing intimacy I found with her on the balcony, and …

I’m not certain she feels it all as intensely as I do. So I don’t reach back for her.

“You inherited your father’s power,” Mirth murmurs, her breath tickling my neck.

“Yes.”

I could turn my head and kiss her again. Except even I understand that the kisses on the balcony weren’t meant to be sexual. Not carnally, at least. That’s not what Mirth needed from me at that moment. And closing my mouth over hers now would be carnal.

But I want it to be, more sharply than I’ve ever wanted anything.

More than I’ve wanted anyone. I already know, I can already sense, that even the moment Armin stole in the back room of the nightclub all those months ago, kissing me without warning, and as shocking as that was, is a barest hint of the desire I already feel for Mirth.

We haven’t had that discussion.

I’ve barely started formally courting her.

Now that the thought has flitted through my mind — the comparison of the touch of both of them, their power against my skin, and the simple fact that the last carnal kiss I participated in was with Armin— well, I don’t want to be thinking of her brother while kissing Mirth.

Ironically, Armin hadn’t asked for consent. Though it wasn’t his rank or position that stopped me from pushing him away.

I want things crystal clear between Mirth and me.

Mirth smooths a hand over the blanket. The ostentatious emerald-and-platinum ring on the ring finger of her right hand catches a slice of the daylight filtering in through the half-shuttered windows.

“But your mother was a fabricator mage. Like Sully.”

I laugh quietly. “No one is like Sully.”

Lord Savoy is yet another subject I don’t feel at all ready to dissect, which just adds to my verging-on-being-overwhelmed state.

I gave him that ridiculous to-do list so I have an excuse to check in with him whenever I want.

A contract with his name on it is one of the many documents currently on my desk.

One I’m hoping Mirth’s keen eyes didn’t note before I can broach the subject with her.

Her first, then Sully.

Sully is not going to like anything contractual between us. Sully won’t be contained by any of the terms I would put on those pages.

I already know I can’t ask Mirth to abide by any of my regular rules around sexual contact.

Not only does she outrank me in society, in the bond group — and no doubt in sheer power.

I still don’t have a firm grasp on what her purple eyes denote, though I do know it’s more than mere empathy.

But also, I don’t want any rules etched across a page between Mirth and me.

And that mere thought, that mere desire, has shaken me as well.

“Fabricator mage is a broad classification.” Mirth grins up at me.

Her violet eyes are shockingly vibrant. I wonder if I could capture the light from within them — not diminishing it in the least by doing so — and harness it. What blade of power could I create with that mere glint? What shield?

Mirth blinks, her grin dimming.

I haven’t kept up my side of the conversation.

“The blanket is my mother’s work,” I say, forcing myself to stop tucking it in around her.

It’s perfectly tucked already, but doing so again is an excuse to hover around Mirth but not quite touch her.

As if another touch might send me to my knees, reaching to pull her down on top of me.

“Textiles were just a hobby for her, though. She always complained that my father’s office was too chilly. ”

Mirth casts a deliberate look around the room, freeing me from her gaze. “You haven’t redecorated. Just removed all the …”

“Clutter?” I say mockingly, straightening but now feeling a little unmoored. I had all these lists, plans, on how to properly court Mirth —

“I’m sure a councilor is always in need of … books,” Mirth says primly, defending my father though he has no need of it now.

I want to retreat behind my desk. To place a firm barrier between us.

To collect myself. But I’ve bungled this entire interaction.

Though Mirth did trigger all of my disconcertion by walking unannounced through my wards with only the barest whisper of her passage.

No one— not even my father, my earliest mentor, with whom I shared essence on a primary, DNA-encoded level— could do that.

Aware of Mirth watching me, I cast my gaze over the paperwork covering almost every centimeter of my desk.

None of it is for Mirth’s signature, though.

It’s up to me, to all of us, to establish a bond group worthy of her consideration.

The ties between her bonded must be unbreakable, unquestionable, so that she’ll never doubt us. So her father will never doubt us.

“Do you mind if I watch you work for a few more moments?” Mirth asks sweetly, nothing remotely demanding in the question.

I glance at her, too many responses whirling in my head to address at once.

I pluck up my phone and cross back to the seating area.

I want to sit on the couch, in the hopes that Mirth will cuddle into me like she did on the terrace at Lake Thun.

But it was Christoph, and Sully for that matter, who had smoothed that into a possibility.

So I take the matching leather chair, unbutton my suit jacket as I sit— and at the last moment, tug the chair just a little closer to Mirth.

I set my phone on the arm of the chair. “These I replaced.”

“Same color leather, though,” Mirth says teasingly.

I narrow my eyes at her, understanding that she wants to play for a bit, even though the touch of her grief is still heavy within my chest. And I’m no empath. I’m the opposite of empathic. A defense mechanism, I believe. From watching my father slowly die for over a decade.

“Am I interrupting?”

“I’m actually almost done,” I say, knowing that Sully, and maybe even Bolan, has already mentioned what all this planning is about. “There are a few lingering contracts, but the structure is in place for the formation of the bond group.”

“The Savoy bond group.”

“Yes.”

“And how did you get Sully to agree to that?”

“Why would you assume it was me?”

Mirth laughs. The heaviness in my chest eases a little. Her hold on her power has loosened, but I’m fairly certain that’s not why I can feel her in my chest. Christoph mentioned the same connection.

I can block it, though. Mirth is already distracting. In a way that I suddenly, continually, want to be distracted for the rest of my life. But rationally, it’s far too soon to be contemplating, or even requesting for that matter, a lifetime commitment. Not on an individual level, at least.

“I had no idea that Sully was Lord Savoy,” I say, addressing only one part of Mirth’s question. “The reveal was … a shock.”

“He wanted it that way.”

“But you knew.”

“Of course.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

I nod thoughtfully.

“Sully hasn’t been very forthcoming about the bond group you’ve decided to form,” Mirth says. “Other than you giving him a to-do list and that he literally loathes just about everything you’ve asked him to do.”

“If he’s going to claim his title,” I say mildly, “then Lord Savoy must establish a presence in the nation.”

“Sully already has a presence.”

Mirth is teasing. But doing this properly, all of us forming, establishing, the bond group properly, is exceedingly important to me.

Mirth needs us, and we need her. It’s more than just proving that we’re a fit for her — powerful enough, rich enough, skilled enough.

The world needs to know it too. There must be no question that we as a bond group can stand beside Mirth.

Too many conversations still need to be had, though, and Sully and Bolan have no time for conversations. Or contracts. Or proper protocol.

“You’re worried,” Mirth says gently. “About … me?”

“No. I’m simply tired. My apologies.”

“Maybe we should get some lunch ordered in?” She tilts her head playfully. “Then take a nap?”

I swallow. Then I find the strength deep within myself to relax enough to take the gift she’s so generously offering me, and I fucking flirt back.

“I don’t think I’m napping around you, Mirth.”

Her smile widens. “I’m sure there’s something I can do to help you sleep … I could read to you? That helps the twins. Though I suspect that with you, the book would need to be terribly boring.”

I laugh involuntarily.

Mirth looks momentarily startled. I feel her essence shift, tightening around her.

“What about some warm milk?” I tease back.

She smiles, though still slightly hesitant.

I’m not certain what startled her, but …

“I do think you can help me with some of the research I’ve been doing.” I get up and cross around my desk.

Mirth’s brow furrows, utterly becomingly. “With … contract law?”

I laugh quietly to myself, though I get that she’s a touch dismayed at the thought I might actually talk about contracts with her.

From a locked drawer, I retrieve three books — purloined from my father’s personal library, and which I’ve been combing through in between drafting contracts— along with my notebook.

I rarely set pen to paper these days. It’s too inefficient.

But it felt right for this particular area of research.