“Next weekend,” he says. “We’ll go to the lake. I’ll pack a picnic. And then I shall take my time attempting to seduce you—to no avail. Understood?”
I nod, wondering who exactly is supposed to be in charge of the script anyway. “To no avail. Got it. I am a bastion of self-control.”
He scans me, judging my incurable case of wiggles. “Right. Exactly.” Capturing one last lightning bug and placing it in my hair, he says, “I’m very glad you understand the situation, my sweet lotus flower.” Tipping my chin up to reveal my throat, helays a final blazing kiss to my pulse. “Until then, dream solely of me.”
I feel his retreat toward my back door like a tug in the pit of my stomach. Before he can vanish completely inside, I stand, and the swing rocks into the back of my legs. “Dominic.”
Fingers latched around the handle of my back door, he pauses and looks at me.
I forget what I was trying to say. I forget everything. I get lost in his eyes. Their ocean-deep blue lures me in and entraps me. His head tilts, and that restarts my brain. I say, “Thank you.”
“Thank you?” he echoes.
“For…” I blink, lock my hands together behind my back. “I don’t know.”
A touch of humor warms his smile. “For…being me?”
I flush. “I…think so, actually. Yes.”
“I think, maybe, that’s something I should thank you for.” He releases the handle, turns, approaches again, and stops inches before me. “Not many people find my character as enticing as you seem to.”
Fools. The whole lot of them. “Not many people enable me like they should.”
“Tragic.”
“I know.” I jut my lip, then find his, and lose my theatrics. “I just…want to make sure you know who you are is appreciated. It’s rare to find a character as confident and calculating as yours. Many wouldn’t come to the conclusion you have about howyouwill lace any role you play, no matter what, because it’s impossible to dissect you completely from a script and the very act of choosing to play a role at all reveals who you are. I think…one of these days…perhaps when you’ve got me completely under your spell and I’m utterly hopeless, I wouldn’t mind seeing you plainly.”
He cups my cheek and runs his thumb along the curve. “Even if I’m someone quite plain?”
“Even then. At that point, I think it might just add yet another facet to all the things you are and all the things you have been and all the things you can be.”
His smile holds. “I adore the way your mind works. For all the chaos and unpredictabilities surrounding you, it makes sense to me. You’re passionate and confident and certain in a way I understand. I want to know everything about you, and I want you to learn everything about me. I want to entwine the unavoidable slice-of-life moments with the stories we’ll come up with. I want to fill every day with the magic you wield. Let me be your instrument. Let me be your everything.”
There’s so much book fodder here.Somuch.
If it dares to stand the test of time…if this level of devotion could possibly be sustainable…then that’s it.
The next love story I write just might be my own.
Chapter 12
?
This trope was absolutelynotin the binder…
Alister
Problem. Big, big problem.
And, yet, I’ve put it off nearly the entire week, for reasons utterly unknown to me.
Possibly because I’ve been feverishly catching up on all the work I’ve missed.
Possibly because I’ve been a bit addicted to the teasing August allows me.
Regardless, one way or another, I am now parking in the visitor section of Lynn’s neighborhood and walking to her house for the second time in a month to seek wisdom from what I am now callingThe Council.
Upon ringing Lynn’s doorbell and being invited into the parlor, I discover…The Council has grown.
