Page 47 of The Moon & His Tides

I wondered what it must be like to be so pure.

“We won’t be entering a happy home,” I warned him, explaining some of my own reticence to go inside. “First, I took you off for myself, and then we missed dinner and kept Savannah waiting for dessert. She won’t be pleased, to put it mildly.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, apparently unperturbed by the idea. “I’m sure we can find a way to earn her forgiveness.”

My laughter was a sharp bark in the close interior. “Well, yes, I’m sure we can. Shall we, then?”

He nodded, eyes glittering darkly in the shadows, smile a wedge of moonlit white. “Please.”

We walked in tandem across the pavers and up the stairs to the door. When I unlocked it and pulled the door open, the main floor was dark and cool, but light seeped down from the top of the staircase.

“Before we do this properly for the first time,” I said quietly, gripping his forearm before he could move deeper into the house. “I’ll have you pick a safe word, Sebastian. Something uncommon you can say to stop all play immediately if you’re uncomfortable for any reason.”

His grin was wicked. “Are you trying to scare me?”

“On the contrary, I’m trying to keep you safe.”

I watched warmth suffuse his features and felt the echo of it in my chest.

“Oh, well…” He cleared his throat and swallowed roughly. “Lunatic, then.”

I arched a brow at the bizarre choice and had the deep pleasure of watching him grin shyly.

“It means moonstruck,” he explained. “Driven crazy under the influence of the moon.”

I opened my mouth to agree that was a rather poetic and fitting safe word, when he stopped me by adding, “I think of you like that sometimes.”

Like his moon.

I blinked, stunned speechless by this eighteen-year-old romantic once again.

“Who the hell are you, Sebastian Lombardi?” I asked without really meaning to.

His smile widened, and he winked at me before pulling away. “Hurry up and find out.”

Silently, I hung up my coat beside his, and we put our shoes in the closet before padding softly up to the second floor and down the hall to the primary suite. The door was slightly ajar, the faint scent of lilac and murmur of music––“Prelude No. 4” by Chopin––a faintly ominous soundtrack to our homecoming.

When I pushed the door open, Savannah wasn’t lying in bed asleep or pouting.

It wasn’t her way.

Instead, she sat at her vanity as though we’d caught her getting ready for bed, antique glass perfume bottle opened, the stopper pressed to the delicate curve of her pale wrist. The window beyond the table looked over the front of the house, so she would have been watching for us to pull in, timing her erotic tableau perfectly for our entrance.

Her eyes raised in the mirror to watch us in the reflection, lashes still thick with make-up, mouth a perfect rosy red. Hair a pale cloud of brushed-out curls around her delicate face like an old-school Hollywood starlet, and her slim body clad in deep purple satin with black velvet trimmed lingerie, she had engineered herself to look as magnificent as possible.

It was a warning, though, as much as it was a promise.

If we didn’t earn her forgiveness, all that beauty would be high on a pedestal out of reach.

But if we were willing to work for it, the goddess that she was could be ours.

The problem was, of course, that I bent the knee for no person. I had two kingdoms, one before a camera and one before my wife.

So when I crossed the Aubusson carpet, it wasn’t on my knees, crawling to a woman who so clearly deserved such worship.

My act of adulation came in a different form.

I stopped directly beside Savannah and leaned against her vanity, arms crossed, legs crossed, gaze fixed not on her but on my gift.