The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,115

thinking about you all day,” she said.

Kip’s exhaustion was vanishing by the moment.

As she opened the closet door, she said, “Have you been thinking about me?”

With one meeting after another, all day long, each demanding total focus? He’d barely thought about her at all. But that didn’t feel like the right thing to say at the moment, so he slid his hand up her cheek into her newly loosed blonde hair and pulled her head back to kiss her as he joined her in the little closet.

She snaked away from him after a moment to close the door behind them. It plunged them into darkness.

Kip’s heart suddenly leapt with fear, all desire forgotten.

Locked in a closet. Helpless. Rats swarming.

A mag torch snapped, and they were bathed in green light. He saw the look of brazen desire on his wife’s upturned face at the same time that she saw the terror on his.

Her hand paused from removing her belt, and she cringed. “Oh, shit! How’d I forget? Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined it, haven’t I?”

Kip took some deep breaths. He forced a grin. “Well, saying ‘Oh, shit’ that loudly is gonna make Cruxer wonder what I just did to you, but other than that? Nah.”

She flashed a grin, but then sobered. “You’re okay?”

“Not yet,” he said honestly. His throat was tight. “Help me forget the where and remember the with-whom?”

Her smiled broadened, and there was nothing in all the world that could quicken his pulse like a devious, confident grin on his beautiful bride’s face. “Draft a little green?” she asked.

“Green?!” he said, trying to keep his voice down. “The last time we tried some green in bed, do you remember what you did?”

“Just a little!” she whispered. The whites of her eyes were already swirling with green. More than a little, and she was shimmying her hips to remove her trousers.

But he didn’t use green. Green was all wildness—which could be wonderful if one was looking to overcome shyness in the bedchamber—but that which is wild hates being caged, and Kip already felt near panic.

It actually took Kip several bifurcated minutes to forget the close confines of the closet. Then, as they made love in the tight space, her head bent back, her hair filling his nostrils with her scent, his hands on her hips, then on her still-covered breasts, her body pushing eagerly against him, slowly, slowly, that old grimy rat-infested closet’s echo faded like bad music heading into the distance as blissful tones of a new song began close by.

And when they’d finished—as quietly as possible, for Cruxer’s sake—he held her still against him and marveled. In the postcoital clarity, he was filled with such love for his wife that fear had been cast out.

The closet had been transformed: no more a trap, no more an echo of the darkest moments of his childhood—it was just a little room. Hemmed in on three sides, he’d wanted to bolt for the exit, but if he had, he’d have missed out on this.

He spun Tisis around and kissed her passionately.

She squeaked, surprised, but then leaned into him, her hand reaching down between them as she made a little moue that asked, ‘Again?’

He pulled away from her lips. “I’d love to,” he said.

She’d tilted her hips, but didn’t press onto him now as she heard his hesitation.

Nor did he push forward. He’d meant to pull away from her hand as well, but didn’t. “Do . . . you want to?” he asked.

“I’m more than willing,” she said. “But I’m also certainly satisfied. I was trying to be quiet for Cruxer’s sake.” Her face went through several fast expressions. She said, “You’re confusing me.”

“You gave me a thought,” he said. “A breakthrough, maybe. But part of me is screaming that I’d be a damned fool to—”

He cut off as she pushed deep onto him, pushing him off balance until his back hit the wall. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment, and then her eyes cleared and she looked up at him sweetly. “My lord,” she said, “thank you for seeing to my needs. Now I believe you have others to attend to.”

She pulled away and threw her clothes into place before he could stop her.

“You are merciless,” he said. “And I adore you.”

“What was your breakthrough?” she asked, pulling her belt on.

“Huh? Oh, oh, right,” he said.

She sighed.

“What do you think is my greatest weakness?” Kip asked.

Tisis paused in pulling her hair back into its ponytail. “For real?”

“Yeah!”

“You’re really going