Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1)(85)

“Come get me instead! And for heaven’s sake, Chass, stop trying to look up my skirt!”

“I am not trying to look up your skirt!”

I chuckled to myself and kept climbing, savoring the bite of cold air on my face. After the nightmarish incident at the smithy, it felt good to simply . . . let go. To laugh. I wished Reid would do the same. I rather enjoyed his laugh.

Glancing back at him, I allowed myself to ogle his powerful shoulders in action for only a second before pushing myself to climb faster. It wouldn’t do for him to beat me inside.

He gasped when I slipped through the broken window of the attic, hissing my name with increasing alarm. The next moment, he hauled himself in after me. “This is breaking and entering, Lou!”

Shrugging, I moved to the pile of costumes that had once been my bed. “You can’t break and enter into your own home.”

A beat of silence passed.

“This—this is where you lived?”

I nodded, inhaling deeply. It smelled exactly like I remembered: the perfume of old costumes mingled with cedar, dust, and just a hint of smoke from the oil lamps. Trailing my fingers along the trunk Coco and I had shared, I finally looked at him. “For two years.”

Stoic as ever, he said nothing. But I knew where to look to hear him—in the tension of his shoulders, the tautness of his jaw, the tightness of his mouth. He disapproved. Of course he did.

“Well,” I said, sweeping my arms open wide, “this is the secret. It’s no epic romance, but . . . welcome to my humble abode.”

“This isn’t your home anymore.”

I dropped to my bed, tucking my knees to my chin. “This attic will always be my home. It’s the first place I ever felt safe.” The words slipped out before I realized I’d said them, and I cursed silently.

His gaze sharpened on me. “What happened two years ago?”

Glaring at the blue velvet cloak I’d used as a pillow, I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He sank to a crouch beside me, lifting my chin gently. His eyes held mine with unexpected intensity. “I do.”

Never had two words sounded more odious. Or foreboding. Crushing the velvet in my fist, I forced a chuckle and wracked my brain for a deflection—any deflection. “I ran into the wrong end of another knife, that’s all. A bigger one.”

He sighed heavily and dropped my chin, but he didn’t move away. “You make it impossible to know you.”

“Ah, but you already know me so well.” I flashed what I hoped was a winning smile, still deflecting. “Foul-mouthed, manipulative, fantastic kisser—”

“I don’t know anything about your past. Your childhood. Why you became a thief. Who you were before . . . all of this.”

My smile slipped, but I forced my voice to remain light. “There’s nothing to know.”

“There’s always something to know.”

Damn him for using my own words against me. The conversation stalled as he stared at me expectantly, and I stared at the blue velvet. A moth had riddled the sumptuous fabric with holes, and I picked at them in feigned boredom.

Finally, he turned me to face him. “Well?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Lou, please. I just want to know more about you. Is that so terrible?”

“Yes, it is.” The words came out sharper than I would’ve liked, and I winced internally at the flicker of hurt on his face. If I had to bite and snap to discourage him from this wretched conversation, however, so be it. “That shit is in my past for a reason, and I said I don’t want to talk about it—not with anyone, especially you. Isn’t it enough I showed you my home? My secret?”

He recoiled, expelling a sharp breath. “I told you I was found in the garbage. Do you think that was easy to talk about?”

“So why did you?” I tore through a hole in the velvet viciously. “I didn’t force you.”

He tugged my chin up once more, eyes livid. “Because you asked. Because you’re my wife, and if anyone deserves to know the worst parts of me, it’s you.”

I jerked away from him. “Oh, don’t worry, I know them all right—”

“Likewise.”

“You asked me not to lie to you.” I set my jaw and lurched to my feet, folding my arms across my chest. “Don’t ask about my past, and I won’t have to.”

He slowly followed suit, towering over me with a black expression. His jaw clenched, unclenched, as he glanced to my throat. “What are you hiding, Lou?”

I stared at him, my heartbeat pounding suddenly violent in my ears. I couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t ask me. It would ruin everything.

And yet . . . I would have to tell him eventually. This game couldn’t last forever. Swallowing hard, I lifted my chin. Perhaps after everything we’d been through, he would be able to see past it. Perhaps he could change—for me. For us. Perhaps I could too.

“I’m not hiding anything, Reid. Ask me whatever you want.”

He sighed heavily at the tremble in my voice, pulling me close and lifting a hand to stroke my hair. “I won’t force you. If you aren’t comfortable enough to tell me, it’s my fault, not yours.”

Of course he would think that. Of course he would think the worst of himself instead of seeing the truth—that the worst was in me. I buried my face in his chest. Even in his frustration, Reid was kinder to me than anyone I’d ever known. I didn’t deserve it.