Hell. He pushed through, and there she was, collapsed on the floor, her top half draped onto a large chair, her head resting on her folded arms, her body shaking.
He knelt beside her and rested his hand on her back. “What has happened? What is wrong? Are you hurt?”
She jerked upright, her face streaked with tears, her eyes red rimmed and watery but fierce. Glowing with the determination of a battle-ready goddess. “I’m going to destroy it. Don’t worry.” She dashed at a rolling tear with the back of her hand. “I have the courage to do it.” All practiced polish stripped clean of her voice. She was pure, raw Clara, and he could not love her more. No. Hardly true. He could always love her more. Every day showed him a new way to do so.
“Destroy what?” He cupped her face in his hands and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“This.” She pounded a fist into the blue cushion of the chair.
“Why would you do that? It’s a beautiful piece. Did you make it?” It was entirely perfect if slightly oddly shaped for a chair.Beautiful, golden wood, curved in elegant lines and blue velvet stuffing lovingly inset on the inside seat, back, and arms.
“I made it for you.” She tipped her chin up, defiant gesture. As if the gift were a Trojan horse, a weapon, and she’d just revealed her plans to betray him.
“For me?” The sun streamed through the window, hitting the chair perfectly, making the yellow wood glow. The blue he vaguely remembered from another piece of furniture at Briarcliff long abandoned and broken. And it was not oddly shaped so much as… hugely shaped.
“Go ahead,” she said, “sit.” She jumped to her feet, throwing an arm out toward the chair.
He rose slowly and sat slowly, his gaze trained on her the entire time. She seemed a wild animal about to bolt. He whistled as his arse hit a cloud of comfort. The chair was the best bloody thing he’d ever sat in. It didn’t squeeze him too tightly. It didn’t sit too low to the floor. His thigh could breathe here, relax.
“For you,” Clara said. “And only for you. I made every inch of it in consideration of your height, your weight, your bulk, your wounds. You're always so uncomfortable everywhere you go. Everywhere you sit, nothing fits you right.Thisone”—she shoved a finger toward the chair—“fits you perfectly. I made sure of it.”
The most wonderful thing anyone had ever done for him. Not just the chair and the giving of it and the making of it—all of that a bloody beautiful miracle—but more than that, impossible though it seemed… what mattered more was that she’d watched him. Observed him so well, come to know him so perfectly, that she could see past his calm, trained masks, see why he always stood and walked about rooms instead of sitting. He avoided the things that made his mask crack so he would not make those he loved uncomfortable.
And she’d seen it all when no one else had. And she’d done something about it. She’d made him a chair. And he’d never seen anything more beautiful.
Except for her.
He held his arms open to her, pulsed his fingers toward his wrists. “Come here, Clara.”
She rolled her eyes, but did as he asked, standing before him.
“Closer,” he ordered.
“There is no closer. I?—”
He patted his lap.
“Oh.”
He patted again. “Closer.”
She sat atop him, and he wrapped his arms around her, kissed her cheek. “You’re brilliant.” He rested his forehead against her, breathed in the scent of her. “Even with you up here there’s still room.” He placed his hand beneath her chin and turned her face to his. He kissed her, pouring all his gratitude into the embrace, letting his lips tell her without words how he felt. When he pulled away, their chests rose and fell in rapid harmony with each other. “In fact…” He raked her skirts up her legs, raked his fingertips up her stockings and then her bare skin.
“What are you doing, Atlas?”
“Find out.” He gripped her hips beneath her gown and shift and turned her, encouraged her to turn until she straddled him, her hands resting like light temptations on his shoulders as she looked down at him, her lips parted with heavy breaths. “I’m glad you’re wearing skirts today.” He slipped his hand between her legs and found what he wanted, circled and teased it.
She moaned, her head rolling on her neck, her eyes fluttering closed then open again, seeking the window. “Someone may see us.”
“They won’t.”
“There are no drapes.”
“There’s a garden. No one’s coming. They’re all too enamored of feathered Kate.”
Clara chuckled then gasped as he slipped a finger inside her. “Atlas.”
“You clever, beautiful woman.” He kissed her jaw, left a string of hot kisses down her neck, slipped another finger inside her. “To make a chair big enough for two.”
