He didn’t know how much time had passed in minutes but once she had completed twenty-seven pages she laid the attached ribbon bookmark in her stopping spot and closed the book with a soft sigh.

“I can’t believe how weary I feel already.” She whispered, clutching the book to her chest.

“Let’s take you to bed, you can always come back when you’re feeling up to it.” Elijah suggested softly.

Lucia nodded to the books in front of her and held out the book, “Would you mind?” she asked.

He squeezed it back into its place and made a note in his mind to read it while she slept tonight, it would be nice to be able to discuss books with her when she was awake. It would be nice to discuss anything that wasn’t her injury or his snooty family.

“Will you help me back down?”

“Of course, how do y-”

Lucia twisted her body one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to face him.

Their noses brushed tips and her lips parted by the tiniest crack. Dark eyes stared into his half-lidded but he wasn’t so sure it was fatigue any more. He leant closer and she dropped her backside onto the rung behind her and grabbed his shirt with her small hands, their eyes never disconnecting.

Elijah was never sure which of them crossed the last centimetres between them and sealed their lips but he knew his first kiss was nothing like he expected it to be. Soft passion flowing from her lips to his, slow but inviting and exploratory. Her mouth pulled at his with an unhurried rhythm until he dared to allow his tongue to push out, brushing her bottom lip and immediately being granted entry to play with hers.

He removed one hand from the wooden side beam and sunk his fingers into her heavy curls, tilting her head ever so slightly to gain a better angle into her hot mouth. A leg hitched itself around his waist and he pressed her tighter against the wood with his hips.

Elijah had never felt anything like the surge of heat and wanton desire that filled him when a delicate moan vibrated from her lips to his. If he could hear it another hundred times it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him.

He pulled back from the ladder, knocked his foot up against the rung above it to hold their weight and used the hand not tangled in her hair to lift her with him, keeping their lips locked. She wrapped her other leg around his torso and her arms around his neck.

From what he had heard and read, Elijah was under the impression that first kisses were supposed to be brief and chaste, but when his and Lucia’s mouths finally unsealed from each other’s she was panting for breath and her expression was dazed with pink-tinted cheeks. It seemed the Bronte sisters had not educated him as well as he had thought.

They stared into each other’s eyes, both seemingly equally shocked.

As Lucia’s breaths and heart rate evened out she slowly unhooked her arms from around his neck and slid her hands over his chest. For some reason she couldn’t meet his eyes any more once she had pulled away.

Elijah followed her lead and released her curls from his hand, returning it to the ladder and unhooking his foot to lower them to the ground. When he had both feet grounded Lucia dropped her own to the floor and stepped back, letting her head drop a little. Her cheeks were still as rosy as they had been when they first parted.

There was a long and rather awkward few minutes where neither of them moved or spoke. He knew he should be the one to reassure her and say something but unbeknownst to her, this was just as new for him and he felt very unprepared. As her fiancé this should be something he was comfortable with and he knew he should act as such so as not to make her feel self-conscious. That was very hard when it felt as though fireworks had been lit inside of him.

Finally, Elijah managed to think of something to break the tension.

“Has anything come back?” He asked, brushing the stray hairs from her face, “Anything at all?”

A little voice in his head congratulated him, that definitely sounded like something a non-arranged-marriage-fiancé would say! He definitely wasn’t hoping she’d say no so that he could keep the sweet and shy Lucia.

Absolutely not.

Maybe not.

Maybe.

“I’m sorry, Elijah.” She whispered, “Nothing.”

He managed to catch the sigh of relief before it tumbled past his tingling lips.