“Ah, she blushes.” La Roux chuckled and stroked her cheek. “Being a highborn is harder when your heart is turned on. Highborn like us are the lone wicks burning in darkened rooms. We’re what keeps the rest of our kind in the light. You’re not alone in that.”
“You’ve been in love too?”
“Far more in love than I should have been, and I’ve fallen out again after. I’m done staying out of the game because of my heart. Our lives demand certain sacrifices. Perhaps the more you care, the more you have to give up, but perhaps the more you care, the more good you can accomplish. It sucks, but that’s life.”
Lila breathed out a long sigh, finally understanding why La Roux had taken whole seasons off. He’d been in love, bending his career to the whims of his heart or someone else’s. He’d walked the path she might have gone down, and he’d regretted it.
She’d been right to turn away. If she’d left her family for Tristan, she would have been exiled with absolutely nothing to show for it, regretting it for the rest of her days after they inevitably fell apart.
She might not have wanted to be prime, but at least she still had her family.
She startled as La Roux jerked beside her. “Tristan? You don’t mean Tristan St. James of the Unity High House, do you?”
“What?”
“Lila, that man is nearly sixty years—”
“Oracle’s light, no, not him.” Lila groaned, turning to face him. “Yours isn’t Charlotte Weberly, is it?”
“Oracle’s light, no, not her,” he said, his chuckles infecting her. “It’s not any other member of the Weberly family. Or the Randolphs either,” he said, beginning another assault on her neck.
By accident or design, he hit the spot Tristan always found so easily.
Tristonia. Tristanopolis. Tristanville.
This time when he rose, neither of them were as serious as before. La Roux’s fingers twisted at her knee. When she giggled, he pushed into her at once.
Lila gasped at the surprise, moaned for fullness of it.
As he rocked into her, Lila spied an opening. She countered, tracing a spot on his ribs that induced him to fits.
Their night continued, paused and interrupted often by laughter.
Chapter 21
Fabric rustled.
Lila yawned in the dim bedroom and stretched under her soft cotton sheets. Though her muscles protested slightly at the movement, she relished the soreness and the lack of complications that came along with it.
She relished the restfulness, too. She’d not dreamt, not of oracles or the warehouse.
For the first time in ages, her sleep had been peaceful and deep.
She turned her head, anticipating Senator La Roux dozing next to her. Instead, she saw him standing in the middle of the room, chest bare, caught in the act of pulling on his breeches. She was quite fond of his breeches, having recently had her hands inside them, but she would rather his clothes remain off.
“You’re awake,” she said sleepily, propping her head on her arm.
“I apologize, Chief Randolph. I was trying not to wake you.”
“You shouldn’t have tried so hard before you put so many layers between us.”
La Roux froze while zipping his breeches, wrestling with a decision. Quite a hard one, from the look of it.
Her eyes dropped to the clock beside the bed. “It’s only half past seven, senator. Surely we could entertain one another a bit longer?”
La Roux shook his head. “I must apologize for leaving you so soon, but I brought a great deal of work back from Beaulac. I cannot neglect it today. I confess if I had known that I might wake up to such fine company this morning, I never would have left it so late.”
He leaned across the mattress and bent down to kiss her.