His lips didn’t move against mine at first, they just rested there in silence as if getting reacquainted, but it became too much for me. I released my anticipation with a tremble, shuddering harder when he responded by cinching his arms around me and lifting me off the floor. I wrapped my legs and arms around him, wanting everything else to be able to wrap around him as well, so I wouldn’t have to be without him again.
The burst of his heart shunned the two layers of cotton separating our bodies. It rattled its beat into my body, filling my soul with an intimacy I’d never known before William and I knew I never would with anyone else.
Despite the waist my legs were wrapped around and the neck my arms clutched to, his mouth distracted me from these other embraces and it wasn’t long before I was gasping in the parted spaces of our mouth—as if I’d drown from it.
“Alright, we’ve been patient enough.” I was vaguely aware of a voice interrupting our reunion from behind, but it wasn’t until I felt two sets of arms wrap around us that I took any notice of it.
He groaned with his lips still adhered to mine.
“You’re only delaying the inevitable, William,” Joseph warned, as Cora’s and his embraces tightened. It was a good thing I didn’t need to breathe anymore because it would have been impossible.
William sighed and squeezed me tighter to him for a moment before gripping his hands to my h*ps and hoisting me down from the position I would have spent the rest of my eternity in.
“I think I know why little brothers are generally classified as annoying,” he said, smiling between me and Cora before embracing Joseph.
“Thanks for taking care of her,” William said to Joseph. “You too, Cora.” He patted his brother on the back before grabbing up Cora, who barely reached the height of William’s armpit, in a hug. “She looks better than the last time I came back from an extended vacation.” He used the term we used for the endless missions the Council sent him on; partly because of his unparalleled skill in the medical field as a doctor with two centuries of experience, but mostly to keep us apart I guessed.
William had been doing his dutiful part as an Immortal this past summer in hopes he’d gain favor from the Council so they might consider granting us a Betrothal. He was doing this all for me, because I’d asked him to—it was ultimately my decision that tortured us both by the thousands of miles that separated us more days than we were together. Yet another thorn in my side senactually, this was more like a stake through my heart—was an Immortal stipulation that we were not allowed to choose who we wanted to spend our lives with.
The Council did that, by granting Betrothals they deemed satisfactory by plugging an equation into their dimwitted minds and shooting an answer out their butts. It was a bunch of bull to me, but Immortals were as merciless as they were dogmatic and I knew the penalty William and I would face if we broke the rules. I didn’t mind risking my neck to shun the Immortal way if it meant being with him every way possible, but I wouldn’t risk his. Not again.
“She did better this time, too,” Cora lied, looking at me with a knowing expression. “She got out of bed most mornings on her own”—another lie—“and even managed to kick Patrick’s butt a couple of times during her training.”
This was actually true. The Council had assigned my strength training to Patrick—William’s younger brother, Joseph’s older brother, and my biggest bother—who was as adept at martial arts as he was at running his mouth. Patrick was my age, the worst kind of good-looking because he was fully aware of it, and incorrigible in the non-charming kind of way, although there wasn’t a fiber of his make-up he didn’t see as charming. He’d classified himself as a lady’s man first and foremost, although I had yet to see him with an actual lady who wasn’t his sister-in-law. For the past few months, I’d spent a few hours every day learning how to spar, jab, block, and generally become a butt-kicking, bad-ass Immortal thanks to Patrick.
Despite my earlier view of Patrick being a carefree charmer who would rather smirk at responsibility than embrace it, he’d proven me wrong. But this was Patrick we were talking about, so he could always be counted on to add some infuriating comment or obscene gesture just when I’d let myself be impressed by him, and the past few times, I’d been angry enough to drop him, thanks to the moves he was teaching me.
William released his hold on Cora and slid back to me, eyeing me with pride. “Bryn’s a woman of many talents,” he said, his eyes flashing with a hidden meaning that made me blush. He drew me back to him and placed a kiss over my forehead. I felt a little self-conscious having Joseph and Cora as an audience to our intimacy, but William didn’t look the slightest bit uneasy.
He lowered his mouth to my ear. “I’m whole again,” he breathed. I didn’t need an explanation—I couldn’t have understood what he meant better.
I unhooked one of his hands from my waist and lifted it to my heart. “Me too.”
He closed his eyes and left his hand where I held it against me while his expression grew peaceful and the lines of exhaustion etched in his face (he always came back with the pain of his missions carved into it) melted away and he wore the face of William that was rare. It was a worry-free one.
“Why don’t we have a seat and catch up?” Joseph suggested, just in time too, because my heart was not the only thing acting erratically from the continued pressure of his hand. The only thing that kept me from wrapping myself around him again was Cora and Joseph’s proximity to us. I surely would have kicked or punched them as my limbs searched for their places to attach.