It was a few hours later, and the house had gone warm with evening.
The panic of the ceremony, the shock of the abduction, the white silk on the floor, all of it had softened at the edges beneath lamplight, firelight, and the simple fact of time passing without anyone bursting through the door.
Outside, twilight had deepened into a blue so dark it was almost velvet. Inside, the little house glowed. The hearth crackled low.
A lamp burned over the table. The wildflowers in the vase by the window had begun to shadow at the edges, their colors richer now in the dim.
And Lara was shirtless in the kitchen.
Sarisa had discovered, to her great irritation, that this made concentration almost impossible.
She had tried. Truly. She had taken one of the armchairs near the hearth, tucked her legs beneath her, and told herself she would sit there calmly while Lara cooked.
She would appreciate the peace. The safety. The absurd domestic miracle of being kidnapped from her own wedding only to end the day in a pretty little house while the love of her life made dinner.
Instead she found herself watching Lara's back.
Watching it far too much.
Lara moved around the small kitchen with that infuriating confidence some people had in rooms they belonged to. She was barefoot, in dark trousers, her shirt apparently abandoned in favor of comfort or cruelty or both.
The fire from the stove gilded the lines of muscle in her shoulders and back, caught along the old scars that curved pale against brown skin, slid over the strength in her arms every time she reached for a pan or stirred something simmering on the stove.
She was, Sarisa thought darkly, more muscular than before.
Or perhaps Sarisa had simply not had enough opportunities lately to stare without interruption.
That seemed likely.
Every movement distracted her. The flex of Lara's forearm when she cut herbs. The shift of her waist when she turned to reach for a bowl.
The easy balance of her body, strong and relaxed at once, all power without performance. Lara in battle was one thing.
Lara in a kitchen, shirtless and half-lit and completely unaware or perhaps completely aware of what she was doing to Sarisa's peace of mind, was another problem entirely.
A much nicer problem.
Still a problem.
Sarisa told herself to look elsewhere. At the table. At the bookshelves. At the lamp. At literally anything but Lara's shoulders.
She failed almost immediately.
Lara did not turn, which meant she had noticed long ago and was enjoying herself in silence.
That only made Sarisa more determined not to say anything.
Then Lara reached for something on the high shelf, and the line of her side tightened, muscles shifting in smooth, warm definition under the light, and Sarisa's thoughts simply gave up and died.
Lara laughed under her breath.
Then, without looking back, she said, "Do you want to eat me or dinner?"
Sarisa froze.
It took one beat. Then two.
When Lara finally turned, there was a smirk on her mouth. Not a full grin. Worse. One of those lazy, wicked little expressions that said she knew exactly what she was doing and had chosen not to rescue Sarisa from it.
Sarisa straightened in the chair with as much dignity as she could gather from the ruins. "I have no idea what you mean."
"Liar."
"That is a very serious accusation."
"You've been staring at me for ten minutes."
"I have not."
Lara lifted one brow. "Twelve, then."
Sarisa crossed her arms. "Maybe I'm just impressed you haven't poisoned us."
Lara's mouth twitched. "Ouch."
"That was a perfectly reasonable concern."
"You wound me, princess."
"That would require effort. You seem quite healthy."
Lara laughed then, properly this time, and the sound went through Sarisa like warmth. Gods, she had missed that laugh.
Missed all of it. The teasing. The ease. The way Lara could fill a room with nothing more than a smirk and a bad line.
She should have felt guilty for enjoying this so much.
Instead she let herself enjoy it.
Lara turned back to the stove, but now the air between them had changed. It shimmered with the kind of playfulness that always made Sarisa think they were standing too close to a fire and neither of them intended to step back.
"What are you making?" Sarisa asked, mostly to prove she could still conduct a normal conversation despite Lara's bare back continuing to exist.
"Something edible."
"That is not an answer."
"It's stew."
Sarisa blinked. "Stew?"
Lara glanced over her shoulder. "You sound offended."
"No, I just…" Sarisa looked at the pot, then at the bread on the counter, the herbs, the bowl of cut vegetables. "I don't know. I expected something less domestic."
Lara smiled faintly at that. "You got abducted out of a royal wedding and spent most of the afternoon in a shirt of mine. I think we've moved past expectations."
Sarisa looked down at the oversized black shirt she still wore and felt warmth rise under her skin all over again.
The hem brushed her thighs every time she shifted. The sleeves swallowed half her hands. It smelled like Lara still. Like safety. Like trouble.
"It suits you," Lara said quietly.
Sarisa lifted her gaze at once.
Lara was looking at her now with that other expression, the one softer than teasing and somehow harder to bear.
There was still heat in it, yes, but also something deeper. Wonder, perhaps. Or simple gratitude that Sarisa was here at all, sitting in one of her chairs, wearing one of her shirts, alive and furious and no longer standing at an altar.
Sarisa swallowed once. "It's very large."
"You're very small."
"That is rude."
"That is affectionate."
"It can be both."
"True."
The room softened around the words.
Sarisa uncrossed her arms and let one sleeve fall farther over her wrist. "You really cook in situations like this?"
Lara turned back to the stove and stirred the pot, but her voice stayed easy. "In situations like what?"
"In situations where you have just exploded a royal wedding, beaten a prince half to death, and stolen a bride across realms."
Lara considered that. "When you list it like that, yes. Stew feels appropriate."
That startled a laugh out of Sarisa.
Lara looked pleased with herself.
"You're ridiculous," Sarisa said.
"I'm feeding you. That makes me noble."
"You are shirtless."
"That also makes me noble."
Sarisa rolled her eyes. "That's not how nobility works."
"It should."
The stew simmered. Lara moved around the kitchen with easy competence, tasting, adjusting, tearing fresh bread into pieces, setting out bowls.
Sarisa watched her and tried not to let the tenderness of the scene undo her. It was so ordinary. So absurdly ordinary that it felt almost more intimate than the kisses had. This woman, this impossible reckless woman, had dragged her out of a ceremony and then put a pot on the stove.
It was absurd.
It was perfect.
Lara turned with two bowls in hand and set them on the table. "Come here."
Sarisa rose and crossed the room slowly, aware all over again of the shirt on her body and the way Lara's gaze followed her. Not hurried. Not greedy. Just attentive. As if every step mattered.
They sat across from one another at the little table by the window. The lamp between them threw a soft pool of gold over the bowls, the bread, Lara's bare shoulders, the dark fall of Sarisa's hair.
Sarisa tasted the stew and blinked. "This is actually good."
Lara looked deeply offended. "Actually?"
"I don't know what to tell you. Your talents are suspiciously broad."
"Say something nice instead."
Sarisa tore off a piece of bread and dipped it slowly into the broth. "You're very pretty when you're being useful."
Lara laughed, head dropping for a moment, and Sarisa felt something unclench in her chest at the sight.
They ate like that for a while. Quietly. Not because there was nothing to say, but because the quiet itself had become good. Safe.
Every so often one of them would glance up and catch the other watching. Every time it happened, the room warmed by another degree.
At last Lara leaned back slightly in her chair and looked at Sarisa over the rim of her bowl. "So. Which is it?"
Sarisa narrowed her eyes. "Which is what?"
"Me or the stew."
Sarisa considered her. The dark hair, the split lip healing badly, the scar across one shoulder, the smug mouth trying and failing not to smile.
Then she looked down at the food.
Then back at Lara.
"The stew is very good," she said.
Lara's expression brightened in triumph.
Sarisa let the pause stretch one second longer before adding, "But it has no chance."