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“I figured it would be much easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Now it looks like I might have been wrong about that.”
“Is that what you’ve done with me? Figured it would be easier to get forgiveness?”
“No.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t nearly that calculated, at least as far as you are concerned.”
“Why did you come here, Mercy? Is it just a pardon you are looking for? ’Cause I’ll give you that. I don’t understand all this magic, but I do know how much you love Maisie. If it’s just forgiveness you’re looking for, you got it. I understand that whatever you did, you did for your sister.”
“I did come here hoping you’d forgive me, but there’s much more than that.”
“Okay. I’m listening,” he said, still clasping my hand in his.
“I wanted to let you know Emmet’s gone. I’ve sent him away from Savannah.”
“Where to?” His grip tightened a little, and he tilted a bit more toward me.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I can understand if you can’t get past the sight of what you walked in on last night. I want you to know, though, that if you will still have me, I want to be your wife.”
“If I will still have you? If I will still have you?” He pushed out of the chair and knelt beside me, nearly crushing me in his embrace. “Oh, God. I thought I’d lost you.” Our eyes met, and then he kissed me. Any connection I had felt with Emmet was a fantasy; this here, the love I had with Peter, was real. His kiss changed, and the feeling of grateful relief melted under the heat of his growing passion. He stood and pulled me up with him, my flesh molding to the solid contours of his body.
“Wait,” I said, pushing away from him. His brow pinched as hurt and disappointment started to show in his eyes. He let go of me and took a step back. “No.” I reached out and grasped his arm. “I need help with my zipper.” His lips curved into the most delicious bad-boy smile that a good man’s face had ever shown. I turned my back to him, and his thick fingers found the delicate pull, his hands shaking. I shivered as he undid the zipper and slid the dress down. I kicked it out of my way, and he leaned in and placed a kiss on the nape of my neck. I slid off my panties and let them fall to the floor beside me, then reached behind my back and undid my bra, tossing it on the sofa. I turned toward him, standing naked before him. My breasts had grown much larger over the last several weeks, and the look in Peter’s eyes told me how much he appreciated the change. I leaned into him, my skin pressing against his T-shirt. He began kissing me, trying to pull off his own shirt using a single hand. He growled as he gave up and pulled hard at the collar, ripping it clean down the front. Without ever taking his lips from mine, he slid his second ruined shirt to the floor.
I pulled away to examine the place where my mother had stabbed him with her foul iron knife. The wound had closed over and pretty much healed, but it looked like there might always be a nearly crescent-shaped scar. I suspected that the wound would never fade completely since it had been made with iron. It would serve as a constant reminder of how close I’d come to losing him. I leaned forward and kissed the scar. He moaned and pulled me into his arms, his stiffness pressing into me, the difference in our heights such that I felt it against my stomach. He reached down and swept me off the floor, carrying me toward his bedroom. He kicked at the door to open it, and carried me to his bed, the same bed where we had first made love, where we had conceived our child. He must have been thinking about our baby too, because he laid me down as gently as if I were made of porcelain.
I watched as he removed his jeans and boxers. He laid down next to me, not talking, not moving, just looking at me with so much love, so much hunger. I straddled him and took him into me, leaning over and kissing him, his large rough hands encapsulating my own. This was the first time we had touched each other this way since my powers had been returned to me. I looked at his beautiful, strained face through a witch’s eyes, seeing evidence of his otherworldly traits. His eyes changed during his passion, no longer showing the mismatch of blue and green I’d come to love, but glowing silver instead. Pulling my hand from his, I pushed back his hair and saw the point of his ear. I leaned in and gently bit its tip. He groaned. As his passion grew, light began to shine from him, a mild luminescence. No, this was no normal man I had chosen, but I had chosen him all the same. My own pleasure overtook my senses. Everything melded together as my eyes closed. My head leaned backward, and his hand reached out and traced down my neck, my breasts. I shuddered once, twice, as he strained up into me, and then I fell forward into his waiting arms.
THIRTY-FIVE
I didn’t wake until late afternoon, nearly evening. Peter was already awake but had been lying there still, so as not to disturb me. I opened my eyes to see his eyes, which had returned to their mismatched blue and green color, trained on me, his gentle love and burning passion wrestling within them. I touched him in a way that would give his passion the upper hand, and once again we made love.
Spent, I laid my head on his chest and kissed his scar again. “Tomorrow,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll go get the marriage license. We’ll go to the justice of the peace.”
“The hell we will.” Peter sat up in the bed and took me in the crook of his arm. “That isn’t good enough for you.”
“It’s good enough. Nothing matters to me except that we’re together.”
He narrowed his eyes and leaned in to peck me on the lips. “Nope. It ain’t gonna happen that way. I’ve dreamed about seeing you come down the aisle to me for too long. You are not going to cheat me out of that.”
“You’ve dreamed about our wedding?”
“Well, honestly I’ve done a lot more dreaming about the honeymoon,” he said. I reached out and gave him a gentle smack. He squeezed me tighter. “But yeah, I’ve been dreaming about it since we were kids, pretty much since the day I met you. Remember that day in Forsyth, when I let you beat me climbing our tree?”
“I remember beating you; I don’t remember you letting me beat you.”
“Well, believe what you want, but I let you win all right. I wanted to see that red head of yours surrounded by patches of green and blue. You climbed higher than I did, and when I stopped, you looked down and stuck your tongue out at me. That’s when I first thought to myself, ‘I am gonna marry that girl someday.’ I’ve been dreaming about that day ever since. So yeah, we’ll go get the license tomorrow, but you gotta plan me a real wedding. One with a monkey suit and a white dress, flowers, and too much champagne. Well, for me at least,” he said and reached over to rub my stomach. “Oh, and cake.” His stomach growled. “I’m starving. You?”
I realized that I was. “Yes.”
“Let’s go out tonight. Somewhere nice. You can wear that pretty dress you left gathering wrinkles on my living room floor.”
“You didn’t seem too concerned about it at the time.”
“Oh, but I was,” he said and leaned in to kiss me. “I was so very concerned.” He kissed my lips again and began working his way down my neck.
“Food,” I said and pushed him away.
“All right, all right.” Another quick peck on my lips, then he pulled his arm out from under me, using his other hand to slide a pillow behind me. “I need to shower”—he ran his hand over his chin—“and shave.” He slid out of bed and stood. “Care to join me?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. I threw a pillow at him.
