It’s three in the morning before Nolan carries me from the deck in a whirl of applause raining down into the lower deck.
When we reach his bedroom, he practically kicks the door open, sweeps me across the threshold, then nudges the door closed behind him with his boot.
I’m not sure if he decorated it or if Charlie snuck down here at some point during the wedding, but the entire cabin is dimly lit with tiny faerie dust lanterns, casting a gentle and flickering glow over the rose petals lining the floor and the bed.
There’s something about the sight that has panic whirling in my chest. And all of a sudden, it’s not me and Nolan alone in the room, but the memory of Peter and every time I locked myself away in my mind to escape from the reality of what was happening in his bed. What was happening between me and my brother’s murderer. And then, it’s not just Peter, but every suitor who ever entered my father’s smoking parlor.
They’re all in the room with us, each taking his portion of my wedding night.
My panic must show on my face, because Nolan looks down at me and says, “It doesn’t have to be tonight, Darling. I can wait until you’re ready. I understand.”
And it hits me that of all people, Nolan truly does. Something about that knowledge slows my heart rate, calms me down. Reminds me that nothing that happens with Nolan will be like what’s happened before.
Still.
“You wouldn’t be mad if we just laid in bed and talked for a while?” I ask.
“Mad?” he says, anger flaring once again in his eyes, but he must decide it’s not worth thinking of whoever planted those doubts in my mind because he says, “I never thought I’d get the chance to lay in bed and talk with you, Darling. Why would I be mad?”
I nod, relieved, even if I still feel a little guilty. Nolan walks me to the bed and lays me gently atop it. Quickly, I scramble beneath the covers, suddenly aware of how cold it is in the room.
Nolan enters the bed from behind me, swallowing me in his arms as he tucks my back into his chest. His breath against my ear reminds me of something.
“You always smell like tobacco,” I say, “but I’ve never seen you smoke.”
It’s so long before Nolan answers, I wonder if he’s one of those people who actually does fall asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. But when he answers, he sounds cautious. “I do. I just don’t do it around you.”
“Why not?” I ask. “It’s not like I’m one to judge.” As soon as I say it, it hits me. I remember the jug of water on the table the first night I dined with him in the cabin. How at the Nomad’s ball, when Nolan broke the glass in his hand after he saw me kiss the Nomad, the puddle on the floor had been water, not wine.Even tonight at the wedding, there’d been no ale. “You don’t want me to have to be around anything addicting, do you?” I say.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Darling.”
“No,” I say, thinking of all the times Peter pushed faerie dust on me. All the times he drank in front of me, the wine calling to me the entire time. Nolan refusing to smoke tobacco in front of me might be a tad overkill.
But the refreshing kind of overkill.
“Thank you,” I whisper into the flickering lantern light.
Nolan just holds me closer, tucking his chin into my shoulder.
After a moment of quiet, I whisper again. “What are you thinking about?”
Nolan takes a moment to answer, then his voice drawls out, low and deep. “Nothing productive, I’m afraid.”
Warmth skitters across my skin, through my belly. After a moment’s hesitation, I whisper, my voice shaking, “You could tell me, you know.”
A pause, then Nolan presses his lips against my ear and whispers just what he’s been thinking.
“You know,” I say, voice trembling. “Maybe we could try that out tonight after all.”
And after Nolan lets out a relieved chuckle, we do.
The after withNolan is different than the after with Peter.
With Peter, in the after, there was always a chasm gaping in my chest. A hollowness in my belly I believed nothing would ever fill. And then there was that place in my mind I would escape to, that dark little hole where I could pretend what was happening wasn’t.
With Nolan, I find I don’t need that little dark corner anymore. With Nolan, I replay every touch, every whisper in my mind, long after he’s fallen asleep.
As my husband sleeps, I tuck my ear into his chest. Memorize the push and pull feel of his chest against my cheek. Tuck away the sound of his heartbeat into my mind, memorizing it like a poem I’ll be forced to recite one day.
