Page 74 of Rapunzel Unchained
I pursed my lips in thought before pressing my lips to his brow. “Maybe.”
Forgiving Gage was easy. He’d been clear from the beginning about his thoughts and feelings on the council and me. Adam had not.
His heritage aside, it was difficult to forgive the lies he’d told me. But, with every passing moment laying there with Gage, it was becoming easier to push past his betrayal and my pride.
The only thing standing in our way were two mages who were still out for my blood.
Chapter 35
It almost felt like a lifetime ago when they had first brought me to their home, a quivering, innocent damsel, overwhelmed by this new world and the men who had saved her.
Now, I walked down the same hallways, a different person but still the same. Izzy barked and growled somewhere in the house, and the thudding of feet told me Blake was chasing her. I passed by the windowed doors of the chapel and saw Zane laying on a bench, his eyes closed.
The temptation to enter was strong. There were so many things that I needed to say to him. I knew he blamed himself for what happened, and I wasn’t sure anything I said would make him listen. Instead, I dropped my hand from the window and stepped back.
I needed to talk to him and yet someone else pulled at my mind. Someone else dragged me by my heart from the chapel and down the hallway until I could hear the clattering of dishes in the kitchen.
With a hand on the door frame, I watched the scene before me. My heart swelled, thinking back to the time it had been me trying to make a simple dish and failing on my own. Adam hadn’t hesitated to show me how, his body warm and hand wrapped around mine while my heart puttered in my throat.
Now, Adam stood alone in the kitchen, a pan on the stove, and yet his eyes weren’t watching the food he cooked. They stared off at nothing at all, his brows drawn together and a little frown on his lips. I wanted to kiss that expression away.
“It’s going to burn,” I said to announce my presence.
Adam flinched and glanced down at the pan, a curse slipping from his lips before he turned the stove off and sat the pan asidewith a long sigh. “I suppose I’m too distracted to cook right now.”
“Maybe,” I mused, sliding into the chair at the island.
My eyes tracked Adam as he moved around the kitchen, putting a cup beneath the machine for coffee and pushing a button. The scent of freshly brewed coffee filled the air, and I inhaled it. One of my favorite smells in this time outside of the men I loved so dearly.
“Coffee?”
I glanced away from the machine to where Adam held up a lavender colored mug, a pretty flower decorating the side of it. I smiled at the sight. “Yes, please.”
Silence spanned the room while Adam made coffee. He poured the milk cream into my cup before sliding it to me. Leaning his elbows on the island, he held his own cup and stared at me.
I matched his gaze, wondering what was on his mind. He didn’t give anything away. His face was like a puzzle I wanted to solve. For once, he wasn’t using his little red book to hide behind the awkwardness.
“I wanted to—”
“What happened—”
We both stopped talking, and I flushed, wiggling in my seat before nodding at him. “Go ahead.”
Adam placed his cup down and pulled at the nape of his neck. “Look, what happened with Gage, I don’t expect anything from you. I mean, I understand if it was just an ‘in the moment’ thing. You’re not ready to forgive me and I get it. I do. If there was something I could do to make it up to you, I would do it.”
I grinned over my cup. “Are you offering to be my toy like Gage?”
Adam’s throat bobbed deliciously, and the thought of having Adam at my mercy thrilled me more than it should have at that moment.
“If that’s what you want.”
I sipped from my cup and watched him over the rim. “I would love nothing more than to have you begging for me, Adam.”
His eyes darkened, and it took everything in me to stay still and not launch myself at him right then and there.
I couldn’t, not yet. There were things that still had to be said.
“But I don’t think a bit of bondage will fix what’s broken between us.” I arched a brow at him.
