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Authors: Sophia Lynn
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"Hadn't you better get back to the green onions?"
For one brief and delicious moment, she wondered what he would do if she threw those green onions at his head. Would he come back and pin her against the kitchen island again? Would he growl her name and kiss her until she felt faint?
Instead, Berry took a deep breath to get herself back under control, and smiled a little. "Right away, chef," she said jauntily, and got to work.
One thing that she had realized was that it was simply better to step back and to see where Rasul went. At the moment, there was something intensely freeing about leaving the next twenty-four hours up to him. He was going to be the one who decided what they did, and she had a feeling that she was not going to be using her no very much at all …
CHAPTER SEVEN
There were one or two more antiquities that Rasul wanted her to take a look at. He led her through the manor, stopping to point out rare bits of his family's history.
"What is it like?" she asked finally, after seeing a lance that a distant ancestor had used in the cavalry.
He glanced at her. "What do you mean?"
"What's it like to have all of this history, all of this family? I barely knew my grandparents, and most of my friends in the United States, when we stand up, we only stand up for ourselves. No one I know has ever had to represent a family name, or anything like that."
Rasul thought for a moment, running his thumb along the rounded handle of the lance. Generations ago a man who perhaps looked a great deal like Rasul had mounted his horse and rode into battle with only a lance made of wood to ensure that he could defend himself and all he held dear. Now his descendent stood in designer clothes in a house high on an impassable mountain, a woman from halfway across the world at his side. If she thought about it too much, she could become overwhelmed.
"You may not believe me," he said finally, "but it sometimes feels very empty."
She blinked. That hadn't been what she thought he was going to say at all. "Lonely?"
"Yes. I can count my lineage back for generations, back to a time when people were defined by who they were related to and what their legacies were. My father, before he died, was always very stern about how I represented the people who came before me and who had died, so that I could stand where I stood that day."
Berry considered it for a moment. "That sounds like a great deal of pressure for a young child," she said cautiously, and he smiled at her. It was a brief and fleeting thing, but there was a bit of old pain there that she longed to soothe.
"It could be. But I think overall, I was grateful for it. It is … incredible to look back over the long list of people who made me who I am. It made some of my more awkward teen moments particularly embarrassing, but when I thought about it during my victories, it made me feel like a strong link in a chain that goes back centuries."
The moment passed, but as it did, Rasul reached out and squeezed her hand gently, a touch that was there and gone before they moved on. For some reason, that gentle touch stuck with her. Despite the physical intimacy that sprang up between them at a moment's notice, despite the power of the electricity between them, there was something almost shockingly personal about how that gentle squeeze had felt. It was something that was passed between people who knew each other well, and who cared about each other.
That day, she helped him calculate the value and history of a set of armor that had been in the family so long he didn't even know when it had appeared, and a small chair that had simply been left in the room of a long-deceased great-aunt. Seeing the chair had made Berry laugh until she cried.
"Only you," she said, when Rasul had looked alarmed. "Only you would have an old chair that belonged to a great-aunt that turned out to be worth some fifty thousand dollars."
He had looked at her skeptically. "That seems truly unlikely," he said. "Are
For one brief and delicious moment, she wondered what he would do if she threw those green onions at his head. Would he come back and pin her against the kitchen island again? Would he growl her name and kiss her until she felt faint?
Instead, Berry took a deep breath to get herself back under control, and smiled a little. "Right away, chef," she said jauntily, and got to work.
One thing that she had realized was that it was simply better to step back and to see where Rasul went. At the moment, there was something intensely freeing about leaving the next twenty-four hours up to him. He was going to be the one who decided what they did, and she had a feeling that she was not going to be using her no very much at all …
CHAPTER SEVEN
There were one or two more antiquities that Rasul wanted her to take a look at. He led her through the manor, stopping to point out rare bits of his family's history.
"What is it like?" she asked finally, after seeing a lance that a distant ancestor had used in the cavalry.
He glanced at her. "What do you mean?"
"What's it like to have all of this history, all of this family? I barely knew my grandparents, and most of my friends in the United States, when we stand up, we only stand up for ourselves. No one I know has ever had to represent a family name, or anything like that."
Rasul thought for a moment, running his thumb along the rounded handle of the lance. Generations ago a man who perhaps looked a great deal like Rasul had mounted his horse and rode into battle with only a lance made of wood to ensure that he could defend himself and all he held dear. Now his descendent stood in designer clothes in a house high on an impassable mountain, a woman from halfway across the world at his side. If she thought about it too much, she could become overwhelmed.
"You may not believe me," he said finally, "but it sometimes feels very empty."
She blinked. That hadn't been what she thought he was going to say at all. "Lonely?"
"Yes. I can count my lineage back for generations, back to a time when people were defined by who they were related to and what their legacies were. My father, before he died, was always very stern about how I represented the people who came before me and who had died, so that I could stand where I stood that day."
Berry considered it for a moment. "That sounds like a great deal of pressure for a young child," she said cautiously, and he smiled at her. It was a brief and fleeting thing, but there was a bit of old pain there that she longed to soothe.
"It could be. But I think overall, I was grateful for it. It is … incredible to look back over the long list of people who made me who I am. It made some of my more awkward teen moments particularly embarrassing, but when I thought about it during my victories, it made me feel like a strong link in a chain that goes back centuries."
The moment passed, but as it did, Rasul reached out and squeezed her hand gently, a touch that was there and gone before they moved on. For some reason, that gentle touch stuck with her. Despite the physical intimacy that sprang up between them at a moment's notice, despite the power of the electricity between them, there was something almost shockingly personal about how that gentle squeeze had felt. It was something that was passed between people who knew each other well, and who cared about each other.
That day, she helped him calculate the value and history of a set of armor that had been in the family so long he didn't even know when it had appeared, and a small chair that had simply been left in the room of a long-deceased great-aunt. Seeing the chair had made Berry laugh until she cried.
"Only you," she said, when Rasul had looked alarmed. "Only you would have an old chair that belonged to a great-aunt that turned out to be worth some fifty thousand dollars."
He had looked at her skeptically. "That seems truly unlikely," he said. "Are
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