The Lost Book of Bonn by Brianna Labuskes

Author:Brianna Labuskes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Christina

March 2, 1943

Golden light poured in through the portrait window, announcing a new day. Christina and Lisbeth had lived through the night.

Sometime during the early hours of the morning, Lisbeth had curled around Christina, palm pressed to her belly, leg thrown over her thigh. The warmth of the quilt kept the chill at bay, and Christina barely breathed, not wanting to break the spell.

I don’t love him the way you think I do.

Surely that didn’t mean what Christina’s brain wanted her to think it meant.

There had to be another explanation. And one for how Lisbeth stilled but didn’t retreat when she woke. Maybe also one for the flex of Lisbeth’s fingers, the way they stretched just enough to brush the sensitive spot along Christina’s pelvic bone.

Terrified and exhilarated at once, Christina slowly brought her own hand up to cover Lisbeth’s. She traced a fingertip over one of Lisbeth’s knuckles then along soft skin up to the bone of her wrist.

In the next heartbeat, they’d shifted so Christina lay flat on her back. Lisbeth hovered over her, her lovely curls a riotous mass of fire-laced sunset around her face. This time when Christina reached out, she traced a constellation in the freckles splattered like paint over Lisbeth’s nose, her cheeks.

Lisbeth’s eyes dropped to Christina’s mouth and she chewed her own bottom lip.

Their hips pressed together. Heat pooled between Christina’s legs for the first time in as long as she could remember, and pressing them together did nothing but remind her Lisbeth’s thigh was now slotted between her own.

The world had gone silent and all Christina could hear was the rush of her own heart.

“Tea.”

With that one word, Lisbeth rolled away so quickly Christina was left blinking at the ceiling, her arm still outstretched. Lisbeth was on her feet adjusting her clothes, her back to Christina.

“I . . . I have some tea,” Lisbeth said, her voice remarkably steady, despite that initial hitch.

“Please,” Christina said, and of course it came out as an unattractive croak.

For a moment, all Lisbeth did was lean against the tiny stove, head bowed, and Christina wanted to go to her. She wanted to replicate the position they’d woken up in, to press a palm into Lisbeth’s belly, to press a kiss into the knob at the top of her spine.

But Christina stayed in the warm, rumpled bed that smelled of lemons and Lisbeth.

She touched the pillow beside her, and realized that’s where Lisbeth’s husband slept.

The knowledge had her sitting up, swinging her legs over the side of the mattress, all of a sudden wanting to be out of there as quickly as possible.

Christina glanced down at her rumpled clothing. She looked a mess, there was no doubt about it. Not only was she wearing the same clothes she’d dressed in to go to work on Saturday, she’d then stood out in icy rain, marched back and forth on mud-slicked cobblestones, sweated through her blouse in odd moments of exertion and fear. Surely, she did not smell of lemons.

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