Gabriel stared at her open-mouthed, shock and awe warring for dominance inside him.
It was still so hard to reconcile. How could this sweet, incredible woman who brought so much life and beauty to the world be the same woman who’d resurrected the grays? Who’d been born in hell to a vicious demon? Who’d planned, however briefly, to kill him?
How could so much darkness thrive in a heart that shone with so much light?
Jacinda got to her feet and glanced at her palms, slowly rubbing at the dirt that’d gathered in the creases. Not to clear it away like most people would, but simply to feel it against her skin. To listen to it, perhaps, just as she’d listened to the lonely roses.
She closed her fingers over her palms and smiled, her eyes luminescent beneath the fairy lights. “Thank you for bringing me here. I really missed playing in the dirt.”
He took in the sight of her—the full spectacle of it—three white rose petals stuck in her hair, her bright eyes shining, dirt caked under her fingernails, more of it blackening her jeans and her bare toes—and a feeling welled up inside him with the force of a volcano, hot and explosive and ready to erupt.
“Jacinda, I… I need to tell you something. It’s important.”
“You okay, Prince?” She looped her arms around his neck and leaned in close, and Gabriel breathed her in again, her familiar scent nearly overpowered by the roses that surrounded them.
Cradling her face in his hands, he said, “The first night we were… together. Physically. Do you remember?”
She laughed, her eyes twinkling. “The night you spied on me like a perv through your cameras, then charged into my bedroom and ravaged me?”
“Ravaged, plundered, devoured, all of the above.” His cock stiffened at the memory, and he lowered his mouth to the hollow of her throat, dusting it with a soft kiss, then another, slowly working his way up to her ear. “You asked me if I remembered you from the Ravenswood fundraiser.”
Jacinda shivered at his every word. His every feather-light kiss. “You said you didn’t.”
“No, little moonflower. I merely asked if Ishould.” He dragged his lips along her jaw to her face, kissing one corner of her mouth, then the other, hovering close enough to taste her breath—cloves and cinnamon, a sweet and spicy mix that always drove him wild.
“Jacinda,” he said softly, his voice as ragged as his heartbeat, “from the first moment I saw you in my brother’s gardens, you’ve entranced me.Nothingcould’ve chased you from my thoughts. By day, I saw you in the face of every passing stranger on the street, and when darkness fell, I saw you in the light of every rising moon. I saw you in my dreams. In my shadows. Everywhere I looked, there you were. There youare. Haunting me still.”
Her eyes glazed with emotion, lips parting in silent surprise.
“I’ve tried a thousand different ways to not feel the things I feel for you,” he whispered. “To recall every terrible thing we’ve ever said to each other, to list all the reasons this can’t work, to give myself one more excuse to walk away. I’ve tried to forget you—begged the gods and the devil both to scrub you from my memories.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, her eyes searching his in the soft light. “If you wanted to forget me so badly, why are you still here? Why are you even telling me all this?”
“Because somewhere between those dark, stolen moments at Ravenswood and the first time I held you close enough to see the fire in your eyes… Somewhere between watching you mix your first cocktail behind the bar and watching you dive in front of a stake to protect Charlotte… Somewhere between picking you up off the pavement after you wasted those grays near the hospital and tonight, witnessing the miracle of you whispering roses back to life… I fell in love with you, Jacinda Colburn. Madly, terrifyingly, obsessively in love with you. You asked if Irememberedyou? Bloody hell, woman, you took up so much room in my head, I could scarcely remember anything else. And now you’ve so thoroughly invaded my heart, I’m afraid it won’t remember how to beat if I have to go another moment without kissing you.”
She blinked once, twice, then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her body quaking in his embrace.
But in the wake of his most terrifying confession, the woman said nothing.
She was silent for so long, Gabriel began to wonder if he’d only said it in his mind.
If she’d gone into a trance partway through.
If she was still listening to the roses, his spoken English words falling on deaf ears.
Not long ago, Jacinda had talked about carving out his heart, but in that moment, Gabriel felt as if he’d done it for her, handing it over on a silver platter in an offering she’d yet to accept.
He waited.
And he waited.
And he fuckingwaited, and it felt as if the night bled into the day and back to night again, and still, his woman hadn’t spoken.
“Jacinda,” he whispered, and she finally opened her eyes.
“All right, Prince,” she said, the sound of her voice nearly sending him to his knees. “You’ve said your piece. And now I’ve got something to say too.”
“Tell me,” he demanded, and there beneath the warm glow of the fairy lights, a smile broke across her beautiful face.
