Work Text:
When Kate steps out of the restaurant, the night air greets her, fresh and cool. She doesn’t mind the walk home, even in heels; it’s a short one, and something about the click of her block heels on the pavement makes her feel young again.
At twenty-six, she already feels far older than she has any right to.
It’s dark, and in this side of their town, the streetlights are scarce. Even so, she could make this walk with her eyes closed—and blindfolded too, for good measure. She crosses the street with only a quick glance both ways—there’s never anyone driving this road anyway—and tucks into the small dirt path that snakes behind the row of houses. She grew up here, spent her teen years taking this path home in the wee hours of night, always staying up too late for her own good, even though she and Sophie never got up to anything. Not as teenagers, anyway.
Even on the packed dirt path, her heels feel good, and she savors the way her confidence rises with every step. She knows it’ll dissipate the moment she steps back into her childhood home, where Mary and Edwina will approach her with concerned eyes, prodding far too gently for details about her date. They’ve insisted she come home for the past five weekends and, as much as she loves them, she hates being coddled.
All they know is it has something to do with a boy. The rest, they divined on their own—a breakup, they think, with some guy she kept a secret from them. How disappointed they’d be to realize that she’s upset over something that was much less than that.
How disappointed they’d be to learn that, in trying to protect her, they’ve brought her even closer to the source of her recent misery.
Her heartbeat speeds up as she passes the house that once raised said source of current misery, who grew up just a few houses down from her. Her steps speed up too, eager to pass the backyard that hosts dozens of childhood memories, including the first time she ever felt her heart flutter near him. She reaches the edge of their property with a sigh of relief—until she spots a shadowy figure sitting on a bench cloaked in darkness, and freezes.
Anthony stands up, stubbing out his cigarette.
“Kate,” he says, then doesn’t say anything else for a while. Finally, “I didn’t know you were back home.”
How does she play it? Throw a lamp at him, in that cliched way that jilted women always seem to do in movies? There’s not a lamp in sight and she doesn’t believe in physical violence, but even so, she briefly considers it.
Then, reasonably, she decides to play it cool.
“Just visiting Mary and Edwina,” Kate replies. What are you doing here? she wants to ask, but it’s a holiday weekend, and the Bridgertons have always been holiday people. Plus, asking a question invites conversation. “They’re waiting for me, so I should probably…”
Her voice fades at the sight of his eyes trailing down her body.
Then his eyes catch hers and, even in the faded moonlight, she can see him blushing. “You, uh, just come back from a date?”
She’d love to deny it, just so she doesn’t have to go there with him, but the tight dress she’s wearing leaves no room for question. Unless she just happened to go clubbing with friends and leave before 9pm, which he, along with any other sane human on earth, would never believe.
“Yes,” she says, and nothing else.
Fury blooms in his eyes. “You went on a date, and he left you to walk home alone?”
Kate sighs. “It’s fine, Anthony.”
“No, it’s not—” Anthony protests.
“I wanted to walk home—”
“That doesn’t mean it’s safe—”
Kate snaps. “It’s not your place to be concerned, Anthony!”
He goes silent, but his eyes are dark, intense, filled with too much feeling for a man who vowed he’d never fall in love. A man who always seems to be fucking women, but never has time for a relationship. A man who fucked her in a single night of intense feeling, before even asking whether she wanted more than just one night, because he clearly didn’t see her as anything else but a night of fun.
The chirping of crickets swells, overtaking the quiet.
“Well, you look beautiful,” Anthony says at last.
“Thank you,” she says, and turns to walk away before she can say anything stupid like you do, too.
Her smooth exit is sabotaged by her heels and an inconvenient dropped branch, which takes her down like a shot.
Anthony is by her side in an instant, catching her before she can fall, arms winding around her tight. When he steadies her on her feet, her front is pressed to his, and she can feel the way his pulse has quickened. His feet frame hers and he doesn’t let her go, both arms around her waist, crushing her to him.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs gently, his breath warm on her cheek. “Don’t worry.”
By the way her heart speeds up, she should be plenty worried.
“I’m okay,” she says.
He pulls away slightly to study her face, checking for signs of injury, but she’s aware that they’re still far too close. She can see every detail of him. The curve of his lashes, the worry in his eyes, the bob of his Adam’s apple when he feels her attention.
Before she can help it, she presses her lips against his.
She wasn’t thinking when she did it, but if she had been, she would have rationalized it as a goodbye kiss. Just one last kiss, one for the memories before she finally gave herself a real shot at getting over him.
Except, he doesn’t let her get away.
He lifts one hand to her jaw and kisses her back furiously, with a heat that spreads down to her toes. He’s devouring her, and there’s nothing she can do but cling to his shoulders and kiss him back with equal fervor. She’s never felt this way kissing someone, except for the last time he kissed her, with a mix of passion and tenderness that brings tears to her eyes.
“You always look so beautiful,” he whispers as his mouth trails down her neck. “So damn beautiful, Kate. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than the way you looked that night.”
She jolts back, like she’s been doused in cold water.
What is she doing?
“Kate?” he asks, his pupils blown and lips beestung. He looks, she notes with a tug of pain in her chest, so similar to how he looked that night—hair mussed, disoriented, unable to think about anything but her.
The reminder of that night is too much to bear.
“I have to go,” she says, stepping back out of his arms, no matter how much she wants to stay. She looks back at him, hoping to say something cool, but the despair on his face hits her harder than she can take. What is he doing, looking like that, making her want to run back into his arms?
So she scurries off like the cowardly mouse she is, before either of them can say another word.
In the afterglow of their night together all those weeks ago, she’d been overtaken by the tingling disbelief. I can’t believe I finally kissed the boy I’ve had a crush on for a decade, and he kissed me back. I can’t believe we slept together, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. He’d been gentle with her in the aftermath, pressing kisses to her cheek and pulling her close before falling sound asleep.
It was only in the dim hours of the daylight when the elation faded and she realized her mistake. He’d always vowed that he’d never catch feelings for anyone, and he never told her any differently before their drunken pool game turned into tangled sheets. She could survive anything, she knew that, but rejection from him would sting in a way that would be difficult to recover. So she’d protected herself, letting herself out of his apartment before he woke up.
It was the right move. No matter how much temptation comes her way, she has to remember that.
—
Anthony takes the coward’s way back to his room. After leaving for university, he thought he’d never have to take this path again, and yet here he is, climbing the trellis up toward his room. It’s not that he needs to; it’s not that late, and with some effort, he could surely erase any signs of a recent tryst that would have his family suspicious. But after being definitively rejected by the girl he hasn’t been able to erase from his mind for more than ten years, he’s not exactly in the mood to step inside and smile cheerily at Hyacinth, play checkers with Gregory, or join whatever pointless conversation the rest of them are no doubt having.
He’s more in the mood to suffer up the climb to his room, heave himself in through the window, and lie in bed thinking bleak thoughts about life.
So that’s what he does.
It’s much more of a struggle than it was as a teenager. Sure, he’s gotten stronger, put in more hours at the gym and on the basketball court, but he’s not as bright-eyed and resilient as he used to be. Every time he lifts himself onto a higher rung of the trellis, it’s accompanied by a scrape as his forearms brush the brick walls of the house. For the first time in the history of his life, he’s wishing he’d accompanied Eloise and Colin to their stupid climbing gym.
By the time he makes it to his windowsill, he’s exhausted and worked into an even worse mood than before. He just wants some peace and quiet to take a shower, zone out staring at the wall, and think about all the ways he’s fucked it up with Kate.
But, looking through the closed window and seeing Benedict lying on Anthony’s own bed, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
Anthony knocks on the window.
“Clearly you know that Kate’s back,” is how Benedict greets him when he finally opens the godforsaken window.
Anthony hops in, ignoring him.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have lipstick all over your face, and your hair wouldn’t look like that,” Benedict adds helpfully.
“Shut up,” growls Anthony, but heads to the bathroom mirror to scrub furiously at his face.
Benedict laughs and flops back onto the bed.
No matter how hard Anthony scrubs, the lipstick refuses to disappear completely, almost as stubborn as Kate. It’s a sickening metaphor for the fact that he’ll never get rid of Kate, as much as he tries.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Anthony snaps, tired and desperate to flop on his bed the way Benedict has done.
“Just hanging out,” says Benedict. “You know, I heard from Edwina that she and Mary have been setting Kate up on dates for the past few weeks.”
His stomach drops.
‘They’re hoping she’ll find someone local who she likes, and agree to get married. You know, like an arranged-but-not-arranged marriage.”
Is it just him, or is the air getting thinner?
“Ant?” Benedict asks, after a few minutes of silence.
He finds Anthony sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around his knees, trying and failing to breathe deeply.
The playfulness in Benedict’s eyes disappears, and he joins Anthony on the floor.
“I fucked it up,” Anthony whispers. “I fucked it all up with her.”
“How?” Benedict asks.
So Anthony spills it all. How he always knew, from the disdain with which Kate always looked at him, that it would never happen. Despite the surprising similarities they share as oldest siblings. Despite their incomprehensible, undeniable chemistry. Despite the way she looks at him when she’s just a little drunk, her inhibitions lowered.
But then they ran into each other at a pub in London, something about the way she looked at him, combined with the energy of the pub and the buzz of the beers, had him thinking: let me try.
He couldn’t believe his luck that night. When they tucked into his bed to sleep, he couldn’t stop pressing kisses to her cheek, reminding himself it was real. He fell asleep with one arm wrapped around her, thinking, I’ve never been this happy.
Such poetic justice, for him to wake up in an empty bed, like he’d done to countless girls.
He’s not good enough for her. Never has been. He doesn’t know why he keeps trying, why he can’t just admit to himself that it’ll never happen. She’s attracted to him, but she’ll certainly never love him.
“And now she hates me,” Anthony finishes, straining to keep his voice even. He can feel his eyes grow glassy, but he won’t let the tears fall. He won’t. Benedict has never seen him cry—none of them have.
But Benedict, to his credit, takes it in his stride, as he takes everything. Rubbing Anthony gently on the back, he says, as nicely as possible, “I think you’re being an idiot.”
Anthony shoots him a glare.
“I mean,” says Benedict, “if you won’t listen to me say that you’ve both obviously been obsessed with each other for years, then just think about this. If she truly didn’t care about you, she wouldn’t be upset now. She would’ve fucked you and then gone on her merry way. She’d be acting totally normal. The fact that she’s upset with you—and kissed you—tells me she has more feelings than she’s admitting.”
Anthony presses his hands to his face. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
“It does,” Benedict says. “You’re just not emotionally intelligent enough to understand it.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” says Benedict. “I honestly think you just need to try again.”
Anthony scoffs. “Fuck off.”
Benedict presses on. “Don’t fuck her. Take her on a real date, be open about your feelings, and see what she says. If she rejects you, it’ll hurt, but at least you’ll know.”
Anthony thinks about it for a moment. The thought of sitting down at a table with her and spilling his feelings makes him want to vomit. He can feel his stomach churning at the thought. He’s positively sick with his feelings for her—it makes him feel worse than any illness ever has.
And yet, she deserves a chance to hear the unfiltered truth from him. If nothing else, it’s always nice to hear that someone loves you. The very worst she could do is throw a loaf of free bread at him on her way out, and she’s not the type to condone violence.
As much as he hates it, he can feel himself coming around to the idea. Judging by the hope in Benedict’s eyes, he can sense it too.
“She’d never agree to a date,” Anthony grumbles.
“Well, she’s been agreeing to blind dates for the past few weeks,” says Benedict. “Why don’t you sneak into the lineup?”
—
The next morning, Edwina is suspiciously cheerful. She enters the kitchen at ten o’clock, three hours earlier than usual, and she’s humming.
“What’s wrong with you?” asks Kate, who’s in a worse mood than usual.
“Oh, you know,” says Edwina. “It’s Saturday.”
But she smiles to herself deviously, in a way that tells Kate there’s much more to the story.
Edwina serves herself a couple pancakes from the stack Mary made earlier that morning, and slides into the seat next to Kate at the breakfast table. “So, I know you already went out with someone last night, but there’s actually a guy who wants to meet you tonight, if you’re free?”
Kate groans. “Are you serious?”
“Just this once!” Edwina pleads. “This can be your last one. If you go on this date, we won’t set you up on any more.”
Kate could unequivocally say no, and Edwina would likely cave. She usually does—Edwina knows better than to go against Kate when she’s in her stubborn mood. But Kate seems to have a problem with willpower lately, and anyway, she needs a reason to take Anthony off her mind.
Anthony, the man who, despite everything, reciprocated her kiss last night. More than reciprocated.
“Fine,” she says, perhaps more sharply than the situation requires. “But this is the last date.”
Edwina nods furiously. “Yes. I promise. Last date.”
—
When Kate pulls up to the restaurant, she has to double check the name and address. It’s correct, but it’s fancier than any other place she’s had one of these blind dates. Usually she suggests a place—affordable yet solid, so if all else fails, she gets a good meal and doesn’t break the bank.
But today, the guy has taken care of everything. And as she steps into the upscale Indian restaurant, she has to admit he has taste. She’s never not craving Indian food, and she’s heard this is one of the best.
The place is huge, with a blue-tiled backsplash behind the bar and warm lamps hanging from the ceiling at various heights. The dining area is outfitted more traditionally, with flickering candles atop smooth white tablecloths.
It’s fancy.
The kind of place a boyfriend would choose for his girlfriend. Or, she thinks, cursing the moment his name pops to mind, the kind of place Anthony Bridgerton would pick.
Now that she’s thought of him, he floods her brain. She even thinks she sees him sitting at the bar, beside an empty seat. Clearly she’s hallucinating.
“Hi,” she tells the hostess. “Party for two, under the name Kate Sharma?”
The hostess smiles warmly. “Great! You’ll be sitting at the bar. Your boyfriend is already seated.”
Kate looks over, and nearly has a heart attack.
It is Anthony, nervously meeting her eyes from across the room.
Her mouth goes dry.
She makes the long walk toward the bar, acutely aware of how awkward she feels. She’s wearing a tight, emerald green dress that reaches mid-calf, with a square neckline she loves. She fidgets with the gold bangles at her wrists, and the gold earrings that match, cursing Edwina. If she’d known, maybe she would’ve dressed differently—or at the very least, she would’ve thought more about it.
But judging by the look in Anthony’s eyes, he likes her exactly the way she is.
He stands up when she’s close, pulling out her barstool for her.
“I—” she says.
“Can pull out a chair by yourself,” he finishes, with a small smile, and she blushes. “I know. But please allow me.”
She takes the seat, catching a whiff of his cologne as she does. Usually she hates when other people do things for her, but he does it with such gentle care that it makes her feel treasured.
He too takes his seat, and then they’re offered a distraction from any potential awkwardness by the bartender, who swoops their way with two menus and an armful of jokes. By the time he finishes his spiel, they’re both smiling—out of politeness, nerves, or genuine humor, she’s not sure.
“Just let me know when you’re ready to order!” he says on his way out to help another customer.
They take their menus.
Now would be a good chance to speak, Kate thinks. To clear things up. Ask what he’s doing here, why he’s brought her here. But just as she opens her mouth to speak, he rests a hand gently on hers.
“Kate,” he says. “I know we have a lot to say to each other, and we will. But right now can we just have a good date?”
Date?
She shuts up before she can ruin it. “Okay.”
Kate resolves to be nice for once, to be a good date in thanks for his thoughtfully planned out night. Her resolution lasts approximately twenty seconds into their discussion about which appetizers to order.
“Too spicy?” she cries. “How can a samosa be too spicy?”
“It is!” he protests. “Not all of us have the spice tolerance of a…”
“A what?”
“A… I don’t know! Someone with high spice tolerance.”
“Samosas are made with dough. They have crusts, plain crusts. Therefore, it balances out the spice.”
Anthony rubs his forehead, pained. “You’re going to make me eat one, aren’t you?”
He eats the whole tray.
She doesn’t make him exactly… just strategically uses her knowledge that, like her, he’ll never back down from a challenge.
To save his mouth and balance out the cruelty, she orders him a bowl of curd rice too, which he quickly devours. Tears are still streaming down his face from the samosas, making her laugh at the sight, and he cries out when one tear drops into the rice.
“Kate!” he whines. “Look what you’ve done!”
She only laughs harder.
To distract him from his pain, she tells him stories about Edwina, who seems to have found her ultimate match in a scholarly but handsome young man named Matt.
“She’s so smug, Ant,” says Kate. His shoulder brushes hers when he reaches for a bite, and she hides a smile. “She’s all, ‘I’m in a happy and stable relationship, so I need to make everyone around me get into happy and stable relationships too.’ And she’s younger than me! I can’t have my younger sister setting me up.”
“Fran is the same way,” Anthony says. “She’s all, ‘I’m going to marry John.’ Marry? She’s nineteen!”
Kate tuts. “Kids these days.”
“They frighten me.”
Before she can even figure out how they got there, they’re going down memory lane.
“I did not like him!” Kate cries of her first boyfriend, at the mature age of twelve.
“You did too! You went on three dates with him!”
“Oh my God.” Kate buries her face in her hands. “Those were the worst dates of my life.”
‘They can’t possibly have been. He’s a nice guy—nothing like those thirty-year-old trolls in London.”
“They are trolls,” Kate agrees, “but I’ve learned not to tolerate it. If I don’t like them, I climb out the bathroom window. Once there was no bathroom window, so I walked out the front door. He even saw me do it.”
Anthony smiles, almost fondly. “Of course you did. If anyone could, it’s you.”
The tenderness with which he says this makes Kate’s heart twinge painfully. Unsure how to take it, she redirects with a joke. “Better for my ego to walk out the door. I can’t believe how old I’ve gotten—anything’s easier than climbing out a window these days.”
“I know,” Anthony admits. “I climbed into my bedroom window yesterday. Injured myself.”
For no reason at all, this endears her to him immensely. “You poor thing! Show me.”
He holds out his hands, palms up, revealing soft red scrapes.
“Anthony!” Kate scolds, pulling them closer so she can examine them carefully. “Why did you do that?”
They’ve been having a great evening, all traces of their earlier awkwardness forgotten, but oddly Anthony refuses to meet her eyes. “I didn’t want to see my family. I… wasn’t in the best mood.”
After she kissed and then abandoned him, Kate realizes.
Slowly, the entire weekend comes into clear focus. He’d kissed her last night, really kissed her, and she’d run away. Despite it all, here he was, having gone out of his way to coordinate a surprise with her sister, and take her to a place he knew she would like, all so they could have a perfect… date. He’s explicitly, insistently called it a date.
Has she been blind this entire time?
Before she can overthink it, she lifts his palm gently and kisses it. When she glances up, he’s giving her a look so intense her heart stutters in her chest.
It’s only when the check reaches their table that she realizes how quickly two hours passed, in a blur. He smoothly puts down his card and hands it off before she can even move.
“Anthony!” she protests.
He fixes her with a look. “No.”
Ignoring him, she turns to the waiter. “Can we please split the—”
“Nope.” He shakes his head at the waiter, who hides a smile. Then he snatches the card right out of her hand and reaches around her waist to tuck it back in her purse.
Kate shivers at his touch.
When the check returns, she finds she wants nothing more than to linger at the table, to find reasons to touch him, to let her leg skim his under the table. But it’s a clear social cue: when the bill is paid, you leave. So when he tucks the card back into his wallet and stands up, reluctantly so does she.
“Let me drive you home,” he says.
She shoots him a look. “And leave my car behind?”
“I’ll come back and pick it up.”
“And leave your car behind?”
He sighs, and takes her both her hands in his, making her stomach swoop. “Let me drop you off.”
Kate reaches up to cup his cheek. “It makes no sense.” She can tell by his pout that he knows it’s true. It’s the genuine disappointment in his eyes that pushes her to say, “Anthony, I had a great time. A really great time. Thank you.”
He tips his face ever so slightly, to kiss her palm, before taking both her hands in his again. A shiver rolls down her spine. “Listen, Kate.” He takes a deep breath and swallows. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I should’ve plucked up the courage to ask you out a long time ago—I didn’t even ask you out today, really—but I want to be your boyfriend, if you’ll let me.”
Kate stares, mouth agape.
He smiles a little, leaning forward to murmur in her ear. “I like it when you’re speechless.”
She’s overcome with emotion, but still finds it in her to roll her now-teary eyes at him.
“Think about it,” he says. “No rush. No pressure. It’s up to you.”
And then, gently, he kisses her.
It lasts all of five seconds, likely the shortest kiss they’ve ever shared, but when he pulls away and leaves her behind, she feels grief swallow her at his absence. She lifts her hand to touch her lips, like a teenager in a movie.
In this moment, overwhelmed by the romance with which he’s swept her away, she feels so young. Excited, tingling, like the world is full of possibilities.
She’s been yearning for this feeling a long time now.
—
His heart doesn’t slow its heart-attack pitter-patter rate until he pulls into the driveway at home.
He should have done something to make sure she got home okay. Followed her car home, maybe, although she’d hate that. Maybe he should walk three doors over and check she got home?
No. Now she needs space.
Because he finally confessed to her.
At the memory, his heart speeds up again, a panic-inducing and terribly uncomfortable rate. Really, maybe it would be for the better if she rejects him—this heart rate really can’t be healthy in the long-term.
He’s proud of how mature he was. Think about it. No pressure. Instead of saying what he really felt: I will probably die if you say no. But no pressure. Haha.
He trudges up to his room with a vague wave at the rest of his family, scattered across the living room laughing at some tv show about a clueless American woman gallivanting across Paris. If he looks tired enough—or perhaps as though he’s thinking about the family’s finances—they usually leave him alone, so he pretends he’s pondering a particularly difficult math sum as he beelines for the stairs.
Sure enough, they let him be. Works like a charm.
Unless Benedict told them about his date.
He hates how quickly they figured out about Kate. It took all of two interactions with her for Eloise — the most oblivious of all the Bridgertons — to say something about it. They’ve been impatient for him to just get it together and just ask her out. As if it’s that easy.
As he closes the door safely behind him and flops onto his thankfully unoccupied bed, he knows: they’ll be crushed if it doesn’t work out.
Even worse, he’ll be crushed if it doesn’t work out.
His mind quickly spirals to the worst—seeing Kate lead some other man into her family’s house, having to attend a Bridgerton-Sharma dinner in which Kate introduces them to her new boyfriend, watching them kiss—and he’s so wrapped up in his pessimism that he doesn’t hear the raps on his window, until someone outside says,
“Anthony, will you hurry up!”
Outside his window is Kate.
Speechless, he jumps off the bed to open it.
What are you doing here? the traitorously hopeful part of his brain wants to ask—but that seems like a risk, in case she’s snuck into his room just to… reject him. To be safe, he says instead, “This is the opposite of climbing out the bathroom window.”
Kate rolls her eyes. “Help me in, you idiot.”
He lifts her inside as if she’s weightless, and he’s feeling good about himself when he peeks out the window to check whether anything dropped—and promptly smacks his forehead on the ledge.
“Ow!” Now Anthony’s in pain and deeply embarrassed.
Kate, of course, starts laughing.
“This is not how I wanted to get you in my room,” he whines.
She takes his face in her hands and kisses his forehead gently, before pushing him back onto his bed. Every thought dissipates from his mind. “I’ll take care of you. You just need ice.”
“No.” he pulls her in by the wrist before she can head downstairs. “They’ll see you.”
Kate stills in his arms and, with panic, he realizes her humor has dissipated. “So?” she says, voice colder than it was a moment ago.
At the look on her face, he understands, with sudden clarity, exactly what’s been running through her mind all this time. He’s been frustratingly vocal all his life about how he’ll never love anyone—too afraid, though he’d never say that part, of love’s power to break him the way it broke her mother. Then he sleeps with her, after having vowed for years to never enter a serious relationship.
She doesn’t know how he feels. She doesn’t know how, even when he made those declarations a decade ago, he felt their wrongness when he thought of her.
He’s determined to make her understand.
Taking both of her hands in his, he pulls her in, and gently tips her chin up until she finally—reluctantly—meets her eyes.
“I very much want them to know about you,” he says, slowly and carefully. “If you’re here to say yes, I want them to know, preferably as soon as possible. Preferably minutes after the words leave your mouth. I just don’t want them to be in here at this very moment, because I’d like for us to be alone when I kiss you. Okay?”
A slow smile spreads across her face. “Okay.”
“Good.” He wraps his arms around her waist. She angles her face up for a kiss, but he holds back. “And promise me that, the next time I make you angry, you’ll tell me why?”
“I promise.”
“Good.” He presses a kiss to her forehead and settles into the hug.
“Anthony?”
“Mm?”
“You’re pissing me off right now by not kissing me.”
He laughs—probably harder than he needs to, so hard he can’t stay upright. He stumbles and suddenly they’re tumbling onto his bed, still entwined in each other’s arms. But Anthony finds he doesn’t mind, not when he sees the twinkle in her eyes as he cages her against his bed with her arms.
“I’m sorry, my love,” he says, kissing up her neck and pausing just above her lips. “Allow me to rectify that.”