Ch14. Accomplices

The sofa dipped slightly beneath Anna’s weight when she sat down.

Jeffery felt it. Felt the cushion sink beneath her and the distance between them narrow by just a little. She had not deliberately moved closer; it was simply the inevitable result of sharing the same sofa. Even so, his shoulder tightened faintly. Like a string plucked once by the tip of a finger and immediately released—before it could even make a sound, it had already gone still again.

Then she asked him:

“Then what other secrets do you know?”

Her body swayed lightly as she spoke. There was something in that movement Jeffery had never seen in anyone but her—the way she could see something perfectly clearly, then choose to wrap that knowledge in a smile and toss it lightly between them, like someone holding every card in her hand and still choosing to make a game of it.

Jeffery did not answer immediately.

He looked at her. At that smug little sway. At the light in her eyes that was becoming more and more familiar to him. Then, slowly, he moved his gaze away. Toward the wall in front of them.

There was no panic in the movement. It was simply instinct—the need, for one brief moment, to send his eyes somewhere safe so his mind could continue working.

His throat moved. The silence lasted perhaps four seconds. Nothing showed on his face during those four seconds, but the index finger of his right hand slowly curled once against his knee.

Once.

Then straightened. Afterward, he turned his entire hand over and left it resting on his knee, palm facing upward. It looked almost like surrender.

“The guards on the eastern side of the city,” he finally said, his voice low enough that it seemed meant only for the room. “The northern post changes shifts three quarters into the Hour of the Dog. For roughly the time it takes to drink a cup of tea before and after the change, that alley is empty.” He did not look at her as he spoke.

His gaze remained on the wall ahead, his expression still composed.

But the quality of that composure had changed. It was no longer the stillness of someone forcing something down. It was something else. The stillness of a man finally allowing what he had hidden beneath the water to rise to the surface—quietly, without a splash. He paused after speaking. Then he turned his head and looked at her.

It was the most direct gaze he had willingly given her all evening. There was no testing in it. No concealment. Only something heavy and smoldering, burning without smoke, settling directly on her face. On that triumphant smile.

On the light in her eyes—the light he recognized instantly because it matched something inside himself.

“If you head south, take the first fork after leaving the city and turn right,” he continued, his voice steady, every word clear, like a man finally speaking the answer to a problem he had spent a long time solving. “After forty paces, no one on the main road will be able to see you.”

The corner of his mouth shifted. Not quite a smile.

Something a little deeper than one.

The faintest curve left behind on the face of a man discussing something serious while some hidden part of him had finally begun to loosen. “Is that the kind of secret you meant?”

His voice did not rise at the end. It was not entirely a question.

More like the final confirmation of someone who already knew the answer. Anna’s eyes lit up when she heard him. It was the light of realizing that the answer truly was what she had hoped it would be. The delight and reassurance were too much to put into words, so they became light in her eyes instead.

She did not answer his question directly. Instead, she offered one of her own secrets in exchange.

“I know a secret that only members of the royal family know.” She lifted his hand from his knee and placed it on hers, holding his palm between both of her hands and gently kneading it, feeling the thick calluses beneath her fingers and the sense of safety they gave her.

“Near that fork you mentioned, there’s an unusually large tree.”

Her gaze lifted from his palm to his face. “There’s an emergency passage there. It leads directly to the right side of the palace.” She stopped there. She did not explain why she was telling him. She only thought that perhaps it might prove useful, or at least give him something else to consider.

“Well?” Her eyes curved into pleased little crescents. “You didn’t know that one, did you?”

The instant she moved his hand onto her knee, Jeffery’s entire body went faintly rigid. Not the rigidity of rejection. More like the jolt of a current completing a circuit. It began at the point where her fingertips touched the back of his hand, traveled through the bones of his palm and his wrist, climbed partway up his arm, and scattered somewhere in his forearm.

Only then did he fully realize what she had done.

His hand was resting on her knee.

Held between both of hers. Her fingers were gently kneading his palm. He did not pull away. He only lowered his gaze. Looked at the sight before him. His hand on her knee.

Her hands wrapped around his.

Hers were so much smaller than his—slender, pale, only partly able to enclose the hand that had spent seven years traveling and had grown thick with calluses from a sword.

Something dropped heavily inside his throat. Like a stone falling from a great height into deep water. Dull. Heavy. Its ripples spreading slowly. Then she mentioned the tree.

Jeffery’s gaze snapped upward from their joined hands.

He stared at her. The crease between his brows—the one he had been carrying for so long—disappeared completely. Not because he had relaxed. It was the startled release of a man who had been struggling with the same problem for days, only for someone else to casually hand him the final missing condition.

An emergency passage. Leading directly to the right side of the palace.

His mind ran through the information once.

Fast. So fast that within a second of her finishing, he had already connected the entire route again. The fork. The large tree. The right side of the palace. The gap created when the northern post changed shifts. The missing piece that had stopped him for seven days— suddenly slid into place like the final joint of a carefully fitted door.

Everything locked together. His hand moved inside hers. Not to withdraw.

His fingers simply curled slightly after the shock, catching lightly against the lower edge of her palm. He stayed that way. A hold he had not consciously chosen— and yet did not release. Jeffery looked at her. At the smug curve of her eyes. At that light. That light he could barely force himself to look away from. His throat moved. “I didn’t…” His voice was lower than before, nearly breath.

But those two words carried far too much to be only an admission of fact. They carried the weight of a man realizing, in a moment he had never expected, that someone had seen him with impossible accuracy. His gaze stayed on her face.

This time, he did not look away. “When did you…” He began, then stopped. He simply watched her.

The crease between his brows was entirely gone now, replaced by something rarely seen on his face. Something deep. Quiet.

Like a man who had endured a long drought finally hearing rain somewhere in the distance. The rain had not reached him yet. He had only heard it.

But even that was enough to make the fire he had kept pressed down inside his chest burn one degree hotter.

Anna watched his brows gradually ease. She knew what he had been holding back. Knew why that crease had been there. Perhaps he had been afraid all of this existed only in his own mind. Or perhaps he had been worried that his plan was not thorough enough. Her fingers stroked his palm again. When they reached the thick calluses, she deliberately slowed, savoring the faint tingling sensation where their skin touched.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you these things.”

She smiled again.

This time, shyly. Still wearing that smile, she slowly leaned closer and rested her forehead in the hollow of his shoulder. She said nothing. Only smiled. But she knew he understood what she meant. The moment her fingertip slowed over the callus in his palm, Jeffery’s breathing stopped for half a beat. Not held.

Simply suspended in the way a body sometimes stills before the mind can catch up, when a sensation is so real that it needs a second to confirm its own existence.

The touch of her fingertip tracing the hardened edge of his callus traveled through skin worn tough by years of swordsmanship.

Far deeper than he expected. As though those calluses had never grown to stop him from feeling— only to wait for someone gentle enough to touch them. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you these things.” She was smiling when she said it. Jeffery saw the shyness in that smile. Saw the thing hidden beneath it—the part of herself she rarely allowed anyone to see.

Something struck hard inside his chest.

Hard enough that for a moment he almost could not keep his face composed. But he did. He had always been good at that. This time, however, it took more effort than ever before. Then she leaned into him. The instant her forehead settled into the hollow of his shoulder, Jeffery became utterly still.

So still it felt as though even his blood had slowed.

As though every instinct worn into him by seven years of walking had been reduced, in that moment, to one thing: feeling her weight against him. Her forehead was light. Almost like a leaf settling there. Yet what Jeffery felt against his shoulder was heavier than anything he had carried.

It was something he had walked seven years for. Dreamed of for seven years.

Something whose outline he had searched for in every unfamiliar bed, in every strange town, every time that same dream returned. And now it rested against him— quietly. Shyly.

Smiling without words. His right hand—the one still held over her knee—slowly turned beneath hers.

His palm faced upward. Very gently, he supported her hand from below. As though holding something fragile. The pad of his thumb came to rest lightly against the back of her hand. He did not stroke it.

Only left it there.

Permission. An answer. He said nothing.

He lowered his chin slightly, just enough that the side of his face could feel the faint warmth rising from the top of her head. That warmth made the fire he had kept buried inside his chest for three months burn more steadily than ever. More quietly. Not extinguished.

It was the steadiness of a flame that had finally found enough air and no longer needed to struggle to survive.

There was no wind in the room.

No sound except the occasional distant movement of Mrs. Ge downstairs, filtering faintly through the floorboards before disappearing again. Jeffery stared at the blank wall in front of him. But he saw nothing. He was only feeling the fact that Anna’s forehead was resting against his shoulder.

Feeling that it was real. Feeling the warmth of her palm slowly passing into the hand supporting hers. Real. Feeling her shy smile hidden against his shoulder, sending heat in waves along the side of his neck.

Real. He had walked for seven years.

In those seven years, he had never counted time. Never counted distance. Never calculated anything for another person.

Not even for himself.

Only after her letter arrived at No. 3 Ceylan Street had he begun counting days. Counting the guard changes at the city gates.

Counting every detail between here and the border. Counting every piece of the problem whose solution he could now finally see.

Counting how much time remained before the day that solution would have to become real. Two months and eight days.

His thumb moved faintly against the back of her hand.

So faintly it could almost have been called stillness. But it moved. “Mm.” That was all he finally gave her.

A low sound rising from somewhere deep in his throat. Quiet. Almost weightless. A response. A confirmation spoken to the silent room, to the warmth of her forehead against his shoulder— something only the two of them needed to hear.

That soft “mm” landed heavily in Anna’s heart.

Not painfully. It felt solid. Reassuring. Some things did not need words.

Their actions had already said everything.

Twenty-three days would have been too little time for most people.

For Anna, it had been enough to prove many things. Including what she herself felt. She raised her head and gazed deeply at Jeffery’s profile. “Jeffery…” She spoke his name softly and slowly leaned toward him. “I want to kiss you…” She did not wait for his answer.

The instant he turned toward her at the sound of his name, she placed her lips directly over his.

Her heart immediately began to race.

So fast it felt ready to break free of her chest. When she spoke his name, Jeffery was still facing forward. The sound entered his ear so lightly that it was like a feather passing across the surface of water.

For an instant, he almost thought he had imagined it.

But he had not. He knew that voice too well. Well enough that he could have recognized it among a thousand others with his eyes closed. Well enough that a single quiet call of his name was enough to make his entire back tighten. He turned. Before the movement was even complete—

her lips were on his. Jeffery froze. He did not pull away. He simply went still from the inside out. His eyes had not even fully found her face before she was already there. Her lips were warm. Softer than he had expected.

Carrying the scent of her that had become familiar to him, though never from this close.

They rested lightly against his mouth. Like a bird settling into his palm. So light he was almost afraid that if he moved, it would fly away. His breathing stopped completely. Not for half a beat.

His lungs simply forgot what they were meant to do.

The hand supporting hers tightened suddenly. Too much. He realized it. Then slowly—very slowly—eased his grip until it became something gentler. Something that held rather than clutched.

For two full seconds, he did nothing. Did not answer the kiss. Did not retreat. He only remained there, stunned, letting the sensation sink through his lips. Into his blood. Into his chest. Into the place he had spent seven years walking toward.

Dreaming toward.

Into the place where he had begun counting days for her, yet had never dared ask himself: How much longer? His lashes moved during those two seconds. Lowered slightly. Almost closing. But not entirely. Like a man who had waited too long for something and, when it finally happened, needed time to make certain he had not fallen into that dream again. Then he breathed.

The breath entered slowly through his nose. Almost deliberately. Like someone relearning something he had forgotten how to do. His hand shifted beneath hers.

His fingers moved slowly between hers. Very gently— their fingers intertwined. Then Jeffery kissed her back.

Not deeply. Lightly. Like a question. Like confirmation.

Like a man who had spent seven years searching and had finally found the doorway, yet still intended to open it carefully. His lips met hers without haste.

Without demand.

He only moved closer. Stayed there. Like a lock finally meeting its key.

And even then, he wanted to turn it gently enough not to break a single part of the moment. He could feel her heartbeat. Not directly.

Through their joined hands. Through the small tremors in her palm that she could not hide. He knew how fast her heart was beating. Like a bird that had only just landed and had not yet found its balance. And his own heart— in the place where he had believed he still had it under control—

was striking his ribs hard enough that he wondered whether she could feel it too. His forehead moved forward. Rested lightly against hers. Closing the last trace of distance between them.

His lashes lowered. Something at the corners of his eyes softened.

Something that had never appeared on his face in all those seven years. Their first kiss ended. But Anna’s heartbeat did not slow when their foreheads came together. It only became faster. Her body gradually warming with it. Not enough. One kiss wasn’t enough. The thought echoed through her mind again and again, though she had no idea where it had come from. “I want more…”

Her voice was soft.

Sweeter than before, flowing through Jeffery like water.

Again, she did not wait for him to answer. She pressed her lips to his. She released his hand and instead brought both hands to his neck. “Mm… mh…” Small sounds escaped her as she deepened the kiss, her tongue pressing uncertainly against his lips, asking them to part.

No one had ever taught her how to do this. Her body simply wanted to. Then she shifted. Not breaking the kiss.

Still kissing him, she moved across his lap until she was straddling him.

The intimacy between them changed at once. The moment she said, “I want more,” Jeffery swallowed hard. The way those words slipped from her lips sent heat across the back of his neck.

It traveled down his spine. Into his shoulders.

His chest. Into the fire he had believed he was keeping under control. Like dry wood suddenly thrown beneath the flames. He felt them rise. Felt his restraint crack for the first time. Then she kissed him again.

This time was different. Her hands left his and moved upward, settling around his neck. Her palms against his skin made his jaw tighten.

Her hands were warm.

And there was something devastating in the way she held him, as though it had never occurred to her that he might pull away. Her tongue pressed lightly against his lips. Tentative. Yet carrying an insistence she herself might not even have recognized.

Jeffery parted his lips. Not because he consciously decided to. His body moved half a step ahead of his mind. He felt her warmth. Felt the soft sounds she made travel through the place where their mouths met and into his blood. At last, his hand moved.

One arm slowly—very slowly—circled her waist.

He did not tighten it. His palm merely rested against the curve of her side. As though confirming that she was there. And perhaps giving himself a boundary he was not supposed to cross.

His other hand braced against the wooden arm of the sofa. Hard enough for the grain to press into his skin. He did not notice. Then she moved. The moment she climbed onto his lap, Jeffery drew in a sharp breath. It caught in his throat before he could fully release it.

Hot. Heavy. Pressing downward through his chest. Her weight settled over his thighs. Her hands still held his neck.

Her lips were still against his. He was surrounded by her from every direction. Her warmth. Her scent. The presence he had known through so many wakeful nights, yet never from this close.

He could feel his own heartbeat. Its speed. The force with which it struck behind his ribs. Hard enough that he almost wondered whether she could feel it through the place where their bodies met. The fingertips resting at her waist tightened faintly.

Pressed unconsciously into the curve there. A movement he had not entirely controlled. Like the first thin crack appearing in a dam that still believed it could hold.

His forehead came against hers. Their noses touched. His lashes lowered. His eyes remained closed. But his lips stopped moving against hers. He did not continue. Did not retreat. His breathing became shallow and quick in the pause.

The breathing of a man using all his strength simply to stop. “Anna…” Her name came from low in his throat. Rough. Hoarse.

Like wood soaked too long in water and nearing the point where it could no longer bear the strain.

Her name carried everything he had suppressed that night. Everything boiling beneath the surface.

Everything threatening to make him lose hold of the boundary. He lifted his face slightly. Just enough to separate their lips by the thinnest space. Hardly anything. Yet that tiny distance had cost him nearly all his strength.

He opened his eyes. Looked at her from that impossible closeness.

At the color the kiss had brought into her face. At the light beneath her lowered lashes. Something struck violently inside his chest again. His jaw tightened. The line along his neck went taut.

“You know…” His voice was very low.

Every word seemed dragged upward from deep water. “If you keep doing this… I…” He stopped. His throat moved. He swallowed the rest.

But the unfinished words remained suspended in the thin air between them.

As clear as if he had said them aloud. Their lips were separated by barely anything. Even when they spoke, they brushed faintly against each other. Anna saw the movement in his throat.

Heard what he was trying to say. She lifted a hand and touched the corner of his mouth. The flush across her face deepened. “I know.” Her voice was soft. The end of it already carrying the faintest breathless sound. She knew what could happen.

She had never been in love before, but once, by accident, she had stumbled upon her eldest sister with one of her guards. She had heard the sounds.

Seen their bare bodies entwined together.

She knew what intimacy between a man and woman could become.

And the curiosity she had carried for years had finally been awakened by someone. She had never once imagined herself doing anything so intimate with a man. But Jeffery made it feel instinctive. Effortless. “I just… don’t know how to stop.” And before the words had fully settled, she kissed him again. Her body pressed closer.

The hands around his neck began to wander. Her fingertips traced his throat. When he swallowed, her tongue slipped deeper between his lips, awkwardly meeting his.

“Ah…”

She pulled in a breath between kisses, the cool air startling against the heat between them. “Mm… mm…” Her entire body was growing hotter. Especially where their bodies pressed together. Even through layers of fabric, she could feel Jeffery’s heat— and the desire he was struggling to contain. But the words—

“I just don’t know how to stop”— were what finally made something in Jeffery’s reason begin to break. Not because of what she was saying.

Because of the sound in her voice when she said it. That faint, involuntary breath at the end. The honest sound of someone who had never been touched this way before and whose body was responding before she knew how to hide it. That honesty was harder to resist than any deliberate seduction could have been. Because it was real.

Because she could not conceal it.

Because it told him something he already knew— but had been afraid to believe. She kissed him again. This time, Jeffery did not make her wait. He kissed her back. And this time, the kiss was no longer a question. No longer cautious confirmation. His hand slowly tightened around her waist and drew her closer to his chest. The movement was firm.

Certain.

The first decision he had allowed himself to make without restraint. When her tongue met his, a low sound nearly escaped from deep in his chest. He suppressed it. But only halfway.

The rest appeared in the way he answered her. In the way his tongue met hers. He could feel her uncertainty. Her exploration. The heat growing through her as she learned him by touch. It sent a heavy tension low through his body. Her fingertips traced his throat. The moment he swallowed, her kiss deepened. His breathing lost its rhythm.

For once, it became something he had never allowed anyone to see. His brows drew together as the breath caught in him. A low, muffled sound finally escaped his throat. He felt everything.

The heat of her body against his through their clothes. The pressure of her weight over him. The way his own desire was becoming increasingly impossible to ignore. Every small movement she made against him tested the control he was trying to maintain. His fingers tightened unconsciously at her waist.

Then Jeffery broke the kiss.

The movement carried the unmistakable force of someone making himself stop. His breathing was heavy now. No longer something he could conceal. His forehead rested against hers. His lashes lowered. Amber eyes watched her from beneath them. The flushed color across her face.

The faint moisture at the corners of her eyes. His heart struck harder. “Anna…” He said her name again. This time his voice was rougher. Lower. Like a man hanging the last fragment of his reason on the sound of his own voice simply to prove it was still there.

His hand remained at her waist. The other left the sofa arm and slowly moved along her arm. Carefully. Stopping at the bend of her elbow, where his fingers closed gently around it.

“You know what this means…” He spoke each word separately, as though saying them too quickly might carry him away with them.

“You know that afterward… we can’t pretend it never happened.” It was not a threat. Nor was he retreating. It was simply the way a man spoke when, before giving everything he had, he still needed to make certain the truth was clear. His eyes stayed on her.

The fire burning beneath the amber was completely exposed at this distance.

A look that said if she took one more step, he would give her everything.

And once he did— he would never take it back. His thumb moved once over the skin at her elbow. Light as breath. Waiting for her answer. Being made to stop did nothing to calm Anna.

If anything, the interruption only made her more restless. Her hand moved over his arm, settling against his bicep as her thumb stroked it lightly. “I know.” She answered him again. This time, her voice was more certain than before— and yet softer, more breathless.

“But I would rather have it happen than have nothing happen at all…” She knew his hand was still at her waist. So she boldly reached down and covered it with her own, guiding it along the curve of her side. Even through the fabric, the softness beneath it was unmistakable.

And she knew he would follow where she led.

But the moment she tried to guide his touch farther, Jeffery’s hand jolted beneath hers. Not because he did not want to. Precisely because he wanted to too much. The impulse burned like fire along his spine, disrupting his breathing.

Yet at the last moment, he caught her wrist. Not roughly. But firmly enough that there could be no mistaking the decision. Like a sword finally returning to its sheath. Jeffery lowered his head.

Loose strands of hair fell over his forehead. His throat still moved with his uneven breathing, his chest visibly tense. But when those amber eyes lifted to hers, there was no withdrawal in them. Only restraint so intense it almost burned.

Like molten iron forced into a mold—still glowing red, yet refusing to spill beyond its boundaries.

“Anna.”

Her name was painfully hoarse in his mouth. Low against the air. “Not like this.” Slowly, he brought the hand that had been guiding his back between them. Then enclosed it completely in his palm. Those hands, roughened by years of holding a sword, were almost reverent now.

As though he were protecting a lamp too bright and too easily disturbed by the wind. His other hand remained at her waist. It did not leave. But it did not move farther either. The position between them was intimate enough to feel like an unfinished confession, yet he stopped at the most dangerous step.

Stopped so completely that his shoulders and back had gone rigid.

Like a man who knew the abyss ahead was one he would willingly fall into— and still chose to make sure the ground beneath her feet was secure first. “One word from you,” he said, looking directly at her, his gaze deep as well water at night, “is not a temporary thing to me.”

He spoke slowly. Each word seemed pushed from the deepest part of his chest. “You’re breathing hard. Your heart is racing. You’re trembling even while you look at me.” His thumb moved gently over the back of her hand. Comforting. Almost tender.

“If I follow you now, it won’t be because I’m thinking more clearly than you are.” His voice lowered further. “It’ll be because I’m about to lose control with you.” After saying it, he seemed finally to have admitted something.

The faintest, most bittersweet smile touched his mouth. It lasted only a moment. But it was so real that it made the heart ache. A man who was always composed had finally allowed the woman he cared for to see a small piece of his own helplessness.

Jeffery turned his face slightly away. Closed his eyes once. When he opened them again, the fire was still there. But it burned more steadily now. “So…” His voice was low. “One more kiss is all right.” Then he raised his hand and cupped her face.

His palm supported the curve of her cheek. His thumb passed feather-light beneath the flushed corner of her eye.

And he leaned down and kissed her.

The kiss was deeper than before. But no longer uncontrolled. He kissed her slowly. As though teaching her. As though memorizing her.

His breath settled warm over her when their lips met, still carrying the heat he had not managed to extinguish.

Yet his rhythm remained steady. Steady like the man himself. No matter how violently everything inside him surged, everything he gave her remained careful. Precious. When he finally drew back, there was only the thinnest line of breath between them.

Jeffery did not release her. His forehead settled against hers again.

Their noses almost touching. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t give something this important to a moment of impulse.”

He looked at her. Quiet. Almost stubborn in his certainty.

“If you still want it next time—if you can look at me clearly and tell me the same thing again…” His gaze held hers. “Then I won’t stop.”