My hands gravitate to her waist, dragging her to me. Heat from her skin sinks into mine, thaws my heart, warms my blood. Her forehead presses to mine, and our lips are painfully close to touching.
“If this is a prank, it’s a cruel one,” she says, her voice barely audible over the water that laps around us.
“And if it’s reality?”
“Then it’s far more than I deserve.”
I grin, holding her face in both my hands with my mother’s words echoing around my mind. “We deserve each other.”
Water trickles over her bottom lip, sticks her brown eyelashes together. “You’re staying in the Nightshade mansion?”
My hands slide down her back, picking her up so her legs wrap around my hips. “Got us areallygood room. But we’ll keep your current one, too, in case you need time alone.”
“Thiscannotbe real.”
I see it in her eyes, the disbelief that she deserves a happy ending, the need to deny herself good things, to erect walls around her heart.
But that’s okay, because I am patient. I’ll disassemble those walls brick by brick if I need to. Let her add bricks, if it makes her feel safe. If it takes me two years, 730 midnights, to convince her she deserves joy, then it’ll be 730 midnights well spent.
“I love you,” I murmur, the words sitting on the tip of my tongue so frequently these days that they must’ve tattooed themselves there.
She peppers me with kisses, like she can’t get enough of me. Each one is like a hand reaching back in time, mending that child in me who wanted nothing more than to be accepted by his father.
Her hands roam over the wet white fabric of my shirt. “Fuck.I love you more.”
Her mouth turns hungrier, teeth sinking into my bottom lip. I swallow her moan, letting it sink lower and lower until it’s a hot ball of need at the bottom of my abdomen.
She pulls away, eyes swirling with desire. “Is it socially acceptable to fuck in a communal swimming pool?”
“How should I know?”
“You’re the one with … experience.”
“I forgot everything that came before you when you wore that backless dress on your date for Shawn.”
“Ah.How could I forget. The Great Cryptocurrency Lecture of First Year.”
“Say, Ophelia,” I say, doing my best Shawn impression, “I know you’re just trying to survive the day, but have you tried diversifying away from traditional financial assets?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Shawn,” she replies, batting her eyelashes at me. It’s sarcastic, but it still makes me hard. “Have you tried folding yourself in half and inserting yourself into the paper shredder?”
My laughter echoes around the huge glass structure, the quiet tinkling of rain starting somewhere above us.
“I think Belladonna would putmein the shredder if she knew we fucked in here,” I say to Ophelia’s great disappointment. “Changing rooms?”
“Tetanus sounds like a great way to start the year.” She drops her eyes to my wet shirt, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath. Her fingers skate over the fabric that covers my shoulder, and her forehead crumples into a frown at the unfamiliar shadow beneath. “What is this?”
“Take a look,” I whisper, watching her delicate fingers undo a few more buttons until she can peel the shirt from my skin. Her eyes widen at what she sees, but I can’t drag mine from her.
Her touch traces the robin on my left shoulder, wings spread wide as it takes flight with the other birds that sweep across my body. It’s the only one with any color: a streak of orange down its chest. “When?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“Alex.”
“You’ve painted the world in color, Ophelia. It’s the least I could do.”
“And you taught me to fly,” she mutters, under her breath. Her eyes return to mine, full of life. “You’ve got itbad, Corbeau.”
