She got to her feet, walked across the soft cushion of forest floor to him. “I don’t know how I can feel like this. I only know I do.”
He pulled her into his arms, and this time the kiss was hungry. Possessive. When she pressed her body to his, wound her arms around his neck, he deepened the kiss, took more. Filled himself with her.
Her head spun, and she reveled in the giddiness. No one had ever wanted her—not like this. Had ever touched her like this. Needed her. Desire was a hot spurt that fired the blood and made logic, reason, sanity laughable things.
She had magic. What did she need of reason?
“Mine.” He murmured it against her mouth. Said it again and again as his lips raced over her face, her throat. Then, throwing his head back, he shouted it.
“She’s mine now and ever. I claim her, as is my right.”
When he lifted her off her feet, lightning slashed across the sky. The world trembled.
THEY rode through the forest. He showed her a stream where golden fish swam over silver rocks. Where a waterfall tumbled down into a pool clear as blue glass.
He stopped to pick her wildflowers and thread them through her hair. And when he kissed her, it was soft and sweet.
His moods, she thought, were as magical as the rest of him, and just as inexplicable. He courted her, making her laugh as he plucked baubles out of thin air and painted rainbows in the sky.
She could feel the breeze on her cheeks, smell the flowers and the damp. What was in her heart was like music. Fairy tales were real, she thought. All the years she’d turned her back on them, dismissed the happily-ever-after that her mother sighed over, her own magic had been waiting for her.
Nothing would ever, could ever, be the same again.
Had she known it somehow? Deep inside, had she known it had only been waiting, that he had only been waiting for her to awake?
They walked or rode while birds chorused around them and mists faded away into brilliant afternoon.
There beside the pool he laid a picnic, pouring wine out of his open hand to amuse her. Touching her hair, her cheek, her shoulders dozens of times, as if the contact was as much reassurance as flirtation.
She’d never had a romance. Never taken the time for one. Now it seemed a lifetime of love and anticipation could be fit into one perfect day.
He knew something about everything. History, culture, art, literature, science. It was a new thrill to realize that the man who held her heart, who attracted her so completely, appealed to her mind as well. He could make her laugh, make her wonder, make her yearn. And he brought her a contentment she hadn’t known she’d lived without.
If this was a dream, she thought, as twilight fell and they mounted the horse once more, she hoped never to wake.
5
A perfect day deserved a perfect night. She had thought, hoped, that when they returned from their outing, he would take her inside. Take her to bed.
But he had only kissed her in that stirring way that made her weak and jittery and asked if she might like to change for the evening.
So she had gone up to her room to worry and wonder how a woman prepared, after the most magical of days, for the most momentous night of her life. Of one thing she was certain. It wouldn’t do to think. If she let her thoughts take shape, the doubts would creep in. Doubts about everything that had happened—and about what would happen yet.
For once, she would simply act. She would simply be.
The bath that adjoined her room was a testament to modern luxury. Stepping from the bedchamber with its antiques and plush velvets into this sea of tile and glass was like stepping from one world into another.
Which was, she supposed, something she’d done already. She filled the huge tub with water and scent and oil, let the low hum of the motor and quiet jets relax her as she sank in up to her chin.
Silver-topped pots sat on the long white counter. From them she scooped out cream to smooth over her skin. And watched herself in the steam-hazed window. This was the way women had prepared for a lover for centuries. Scenting and softening themselves for a man’s hands. For a man’s mouth.
A woman’s magic.
She wouldn’t be afraid, she wouldn’t let anxiety crowd out the pleasure.
In the wardrobe she found a long gown of silk in the color of ripe plums. It slid over her body like sin and scooped low over her breasts. She slipped her feet into silver slippers, started to turn to the glass.
No, she thought, she didn’t want to see herself reflected in a mirror. She wanted to see herself reflected in Flynn’s eyes.
HE felt like a green youth, all eager nerves and awkward moves. In his day, he’d had quite a way with the ladies. Though five hundred years could certainly make a man rusty in certain areas, he’d had dreams.