“So that's how it's going to be?” he asks, reaching forward and sliding his warm hands around my waist. I gasp at the touch, my thoughts flitting in my skull like butterflies. Goddamn things are back again. My lips part as Gill leans in and breathes hot against my mouth.
“That's how it's going to be,” I whisper back, reaching up to tangle my fingers in his dark hair. My skin feels like it's on fire, pulsing flames dancing across every square inch as I struggle to find my breath, to remember why I was nervous again. Standing here, doing this, everything feels right. For the first time in a long, long time.
“But you still didn't answer my question,” he says, loosening his grip on me and taking a step back. “If it's too painful,” he starts, but I raise a hand and stop him, moving over to my purse and reaching inside to unzip an inner pocket. Tossed in with a handful of change and some earrings that Anika sent me for my last birthday is Gill's engagement ring, the infinity twist that still shines as brightly today as it did back then. I haven't taken very good care of it, no, but I also debated tossing it out the window several times. The fact that it's still with me is an accomplishment to say the least.
I turn back to Gilleon and wait for him to come to me, reaching out my hand and dropping the ring into his palm, curling his fingers around it.
“When the time comes,” I begin, looking up at him with honey brown eyes, taking in his bright blue ones with a confident smile on my face, “and the time will come someday, then use this. Nothing else would feel right.”
Gill nods, reaching up to run his thumb over my lower lip, sliding his fingers down to cup the nape of my neck. Without responding in words, he leans in, pressing a scalding hot kiss to my mouth at the same moment he slips the ring into his pocket.
Our tongues tangle together as he pulls me closer, diving deeper, tasting me like I'm tasting him. Just like the night of our very first kiss, the one we shared as innocent teenagers all those years ago, Gill tastes like lemons. This time, instead of sherbet, it's lemon bars, and instead of a park, we're standing in this beautiful old house, but the love's still the same, the passion.
Time slows for me again, reverses, takes me back and wipes away the pain, the suffering, the loneliness, until all I can feel and taste and hear is Gill and his warmth, his strength, his love.
All I can taste is us.
“Mornin' sunshine,” Aveline drawls as I yawn my way down the back staircase in my stolen hotel robe and a pair of white cashmere-blend slippers. All of these in-depth emotional revelations are taking their toll on me. I'm usually a morning person, but today, eh, I kind of feel like poking the sunrise in its golden eye. That, and Gill is gone. I make myself smile and greet Aveline before I ask about him.
“Bonjour,” I mumble, snatching a mug from the cabinet and removing the coffeepot. Somehow, even after last night's baking storm, there are no dirty dishes in the sink. I doubt Aveline's the domestic type, and I know Cliff and Solène far prefer cooking to cleaning, so … the only person in this house on top of things enough to wash dishes is Gilleon. I stare at the rumbling silver face of the dishwasher and then glance back at Aveline. “A master thief who does dishes?” I ask.
Aveline shrugs, her back to me, red hair braided and hanging between her shoulder blades.
“He even rinses them before he loads it up. Pretty weird, huh? The world is just full of idiosyncrasies.” Aveline runs her fingers over the keys on her laptop, clicking away at the speed of light before she turns to face me with a slight grin curling her lips, braid flopping over her shoulder. “But why don't you ask the question you really want to ask about Gill?”
I raise both my brows and bring my coffee cup to my lips.
“Okay, fine, I'll play along: where did he disappear to this morning?”
“Dunno,” Aveline replies, winking at me and turning back to her computer. “I just wanted to hear you ask.” I roll my eyes and move out of the kitchen and down the hallway, pausing next to the staircase and letting my eyes drift left, into the nearly empty sitting area. Just past that, through the currently closed pocket door is a blank canvas with a whole wall of windows and no discernible purpose. My best guess is that it used to be the original dining room and someone walled it up to add all those extra cabinets in the kitchen. Normally that kind of thing would bother me, but here … I like how it's tucked away but not excluded.
It'd make a great studio.
Before I realize I'm moving, my slippered feet are whispering across the floor and I'm pushing back the pocket door to find gleaming hardwood floors and sunshine streaming through the wall of windows on my right.