“So, we’re really discussing this, then?” I glanced over at him. “No longer avoiding it?”
Eli sighed. “The fae are not renowned for being direct without reason.”
“What’s your reason?”
“A bargain, love. I want to propose a deal with you.” His voice was somehow even more alluring here in the dark as we zipped through the city. “Are you clever enough to make a bargain with me, Geneviève?”
It would be wrong to throw caution away while he was driving, but his voice did things to my body that some men couldn’t accomplish with their mouths.
“I’m listening,” I said. It was the most I could offer without destroying the peace we were building.
Inside the car, this small bubble of safety where the monsters were unable to get to us, where our issues were tucked away as we rushed off to jobs or meetings, I felt like we could exist outside of time. I wanted that desperately, to ignore the reasons we couldn’t be more. I wanted a simple world. And I suspected I wasn’t alone in that.
The city was alive with too many decorations already. Oak trees draped in cheap balls and tinsel. Mardi Gras beads repurposed as Christmas beads. There was a defiance to the way the city approached festivity.
That defiance made sense to me.
Eli added, “We will go to Elphame. We will present ourselves to my family and world. . . unless you can tell me you don’t feel the same. Do you care for me?”
“Obviously.” I sighed loudly. “But some people are not meant to have children. I am n—”
“Did I ask that of you?”
“No but—”
“So, shall I tell His Majesty that we will be there for Yule? Or am I wrong about your regard for me? I can sever our tie, return there, and allow my uncle to select my future bride.” He sounded calm, but I heard the trickle of fear in his voice. “Or you can make a bargain with me.”
The thought of it, of Eli bedding and wedding another person, made my jaw clench. I couldn’t, wouldn’t send him away. “We are a terrible idea, Eli.”
“Do I go home alone or do you feel as I do?”
“You’re . . . not wrong about my feelings,” I admitted. I was the least romantic, least appropriate choice for a man like Eli, but for reasons that I didn’t understand, he liked that he had my heart. “A wiser man would leave me.”
“I’ve never claimed wisdom, my dear Devil’s Cake.” He reached out and took my hand, and I knew that he was relieved. He sounded happier as he added, “I like danger, passion, a foul temper, talent for violence, fierce loyalty. I prefer warriors.”
“My sword is yours,” I swore. “You have that. No matter the future, you will always have that.”
“Then I’ll wait for the rest. Your heart. Your body. All of you, love. I want all of you.”
I shivered again. We both knew he had a lot of my heart, and the only reason he didn’t have my body was this damned engagement. The trouble with faeries, I was discovering, is that they have the patience to go along with their longevity.
I twined my fingers through his, keeping hold of his hand, even though I felt like a child for wanting to hold hands. My reaction to this touch was far from childlike, though. Touching Eli made me flush and my heart race. We’d kissed and had the sort of heated admissions that ought to be headier. This, though, was about my heart. His heart. Admitting that we wanted to find a way to be . . . more. That was scarier than sex or lust ever could be.
“So”—I cleared my throat—“what’s this bargain?”
He laughed, and the sheer wickedness in that sound had my thighs clenching against the instinctive urge to yell, “Take me now.” Instead I took a steadying breath and said, “Eli . . .”
“Date me.”
“What?”
“Date me until Twelfth Night, and you will earn a favor,” he said. “Anything you ask of me. One request. Whatever you most desire on that day. I won’t say no.”
I rolled it over in my mind. Anything? I could end the engagement. It seemed so simple. I stared at him and said, “Faery bargains are never this simple.”
“Maybe this one is. All you need to do is truly date me,” he said. “Not think about forever. Just . . . date me as if the rest wasn’t a factor.”