Chapter Six

Caitlin paced the manse’s front lawn, her pale skirts swinging around her legs. A gnawing sense of desperate fear filled her and her fingernails had long since pressed little half-moon shaped marks into the edges of her palms. The rain still fell, as relentless as her agony. She’d tried the door again and again, and failed each time. Why couldn’t she get in? If there were any rules to this wretched new existence she’d been forced into, she couldn’t seem to figure them out. First she’d been able to enter the manse and now she could not. She could touch Aaron, but she passed right through anyone else… It was madness!

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, echoing the alarm some morbid sense of intuition was sounding within her, and she cursed it. Not only was she unable to enter the manse, but a sense of wrongness—a certainty that something was going very badly inside—had settled deep in her bones. The closeness she’d felt to Aaron less than an hour ago had evaporated, leaving a gaping hole in her heart. It was as if a chasm separated them, and she knew something terrible was about to happen to him on the other side. She had to get to him. Had to. She was sorely tempted to tear her hair out silver handful by silver handful, and scarcely restrained herself from doing so.

It’s Aaron, a knowing voice in the back of her head kept saying. He’s not doing well. He’s…

No, she would not think the rest. He wouldn’t die. He couldn’t. He had to recover.

But he won’t, the voice said, he won’t.

Overwhelmed with misery and anxiety, Caitlin screamed, the sound breaking the night’s silence and ripping it to shreds. With each second she keened, she grew more and more sure of Aaron’s impending death. She cried louder and louder, the sound carried on the storm’s wind, whipped over the countryside. A flash of movement in one of the manse’s first floor windows caught her eye, and she turned just in time to see Cormac O’Brien materialise behind its frame, regarding her with a grave expression.

Seized by a desperate impulse, Caitlin dashed for the door. It was as immovable and impassable as ever. She stood at its threshold and cried for Cormac to open it, to let her in so she could rush to Aaron’s side and be a part of his last moments of life. He proved as unyielding as the door, watching her for another moment before turning away, leaving her to grieve Aaron’s fate and her own powerlessness. These raging inadequacies were highlighted by memories of the brief time they had had together, threatening to drive her to her knees. She screamed again and the house’s windows rattled, shaken by the driving rain and perhaps, she thought, the sound of her voice. Somewhere behind them, Aaron was dying—the knowledge was as much a part of her now as her silver hair and moon-white skin.

Some time passed before anything changed, although it was still dark and raining. Just when Caitlin was wondering if the night would ever break, if the sun would ever splinter the darkness and shed light on the world again, the front door of the manse swung open. She stared, her eyes going wide and her heart leaping into her ragged throat. The entrance gaped, empty. She ran for it, a wail dying on her lips as she crossed the threshold.

“It is time, Bean Sidhe.” A voice, coming seemingly out of nowhere, startled Caitlin when she entered, and she turned to discover Cormac O’Brien standing to the side of the door, his expression grave. “I had thought to shut you out and keep my great-great-grandson here with me, but, damned though I may be, I cannot wish a similar fate upon his soul… It is time.”

His gaze drifted towards the staircase, and Caitlin’s followed. The first floor was oddly still, its silence unbroken. The family must be upstairs, she realised, with Aaron. So should she be.

She drifted up the stairs, feeling more than ever as if she were navigating a dream, an insubstantial being trapped in an ever-changing realm of nightmares. Still, she was vaguely hopeful as she climbed—whatever happened, she would be there, and that would certainly be better than keening out in the rain, leaving him to face death without her.

‘It is time…’ Cormac’s words haunted her as she started the second staircase. He had known…but what did he expect her to do? What could she do that they couldn’t, a mere shadow, it seemed, in the land of the truly living?

There were stories of banshees escorting the dead into the afterlife, of course, but the idea only made her want to laugh, and not with good humour. The next life? She wasn’t even capable of opening a door in this one. She was no angel of death—she wasn’t even human. Desperately confused and feeling wholly inadequate, she entered the third floor corridor.

The soft rush of anxious murmuring filled the hall, confirming Caitlin’s theory of where the O’Brien family had vanished to. She found Aaron’s bedroom door hanging halfway open, and the room crowded with his kin. Mother and sister, father and brothers—they were all there, as was Molly. There was no sign of a physician. An air of uneasy expectation surrounded those who had gathered—plainly, they were expecting the worst.

Caitlin noted that the beef tea and wine on the night table had been replaced with a basin of water, into which Molly was dipping a blood-spotted rag. When she’d wetted and wrung it, she draped it over Aaron’s forehead, the drops of water it leaked mingling with beads of sweat. His chest rose and fell slowly beneath a thin sheet and the crackling tempo of his breathing was the loudest sound in the room.

Caitlin drifted through the crowd, slipping through their bodies as if they were no more substantial than mist, feeling her body chill and waver. When she reached the bedside she extended a hand to touch Aaron’s and found it reassuringly solid beneath her own. Whatever barrier had been between their skin earlier that night was gone now. His flesh was soft on the top of his hand and lightly callused underneath, burning with fever no matter where she felt it. His breathing was so thick that he sounded like a drowning man, and, though his eyes were shut, his brows were knitted with the effort of drawing breath. His lips were slightly parted and tiny flecks of red blood dotted their inner rims. She closed her hand around his, feeling his pulse beat against her palm ebbing with alarming irregularity. And then his eyes opened.

Caitlin gasped. His eyes were wide and blue, open all the way this time and no longer rimmed with red. The dark circles were gone from beneath them, too, but hadn’t they been there a moment ago? Strangely, none of the other O’Briens were stirring. Even as Aaron rose from the bed, pushing aside the sheet, they remained silent.

“Caitlin.” Aaron’s voice was strong, and the laboured sound of his breathing was gone. He was clothed, too, she noticed, in a clean shirt and breeches, much like the ones he’d been wearing on the day they’d been caught in the rain together. He’d been bare beneath the sheets a moment ago… Where was that man, the one with blood-stained lips?

He was still there, Caitlin saw when she turned to the bed, though his chest had stilled and a tense silence had replaced the sound of his breathing. Molly reached out and pressed a hand tentatively into the hollow of his neck.

“He’s gone,” she said after several moments of silence, pulling the damp cloth from his forehead and dropping it back into the bowl.

A stark hush followed this pronouncement, brief and broken by a shuddering cry from Mrs O’Brien. Several hands went out to her—Molly’s, Katrina’s and Squire O’Brien’s—but she reached out to grasp her son’s, folding it in her own.

Caitlin turned away and found herself face to face with Aaron.

“Caitlin,” he said again, and pulled her into his arms.

He was warm—but not too warm—and unbelievably solid. For the first time since she’d awoken in the forest, Caitlin didn’t feel chilled.

“Aaron,” she sighed. The beginnings of grief surrounded them, but all of that seemed to fade away as she met his eyes, clear and blue. She was just wondering where to begin, what she could possibly say to explain the past week and their current situation, when he kissed her. She simply melted into his arms for a few moments, shutting out the strange reality that surrounded her.

“When I started bleeding,” Aaron said, “I thought for sure then I’d never find you.” He ran his hand through her silver hair, looking mildly perplexed but mostly awe-struck. “But you found me. I didn’t think… Well…” He kissed her again, placing a hand on either side of her face and drawing her to him. He tasted just as sweet as he had in the flower field, just before her disappearance. “I dreamt of you, you know,” he told her, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “I dreamt the most wonderful things.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Caitlin replied, “though it felt like one to me, too. I was here.”

Aaron opened his mouth to reply just as a particularly loud sob echoed through the small room. He turned to look at his mother, whose shoulders were slumped so acutely that her head of auburn hair was barely visible. Her husband and Katrina held fast to either side of her, as if they could act as buffers against the grief. Judging by the way Katrina’s shoulders were trembling, she was crying, too.

Aaron reached towards his mother, his outstretched hand passing right through her shoulder without so much as a ripple. He frowned, holding his hand aloft as if examining it for some sign of deficiency.

“It’s like that for me, too,” Caitlin said, pulling his hand down and grasping it and relishing the sensation of having a solid hand to hold in her own. Whatever barrier had separated them before was gone.

“I suppose we’re in a different world then, me and you,” Aaron replied, squeezing her hand firmly. He cast a glance at the bed where his body lay, and an odd expression came over his face. “I tried to find you,” he said, “to save you.” He paused, fixing Caitlin with a searching glance. “How did you…die?”

“I didn’t,” Caitlin replied. “At least, I don’t think I did.” This assertion plainly served only to confuse Aaron, so she continued in her best attempt to summarise the situation.

“That evening when you spoke to my father, I found a silver comb lying in a bed of violets as I was walking along the edge of the wood. I picked it up and then… I woke up a week later in the heart of the forest.” She shrugged, as if to show she knew it sounded ridiculous. You know the old legends,” she continued, “about banshees and silver combs? Well, there were strange women there when I woke, and…” She picked up a lock of her silver hair and eyed it uncertainly. “Your great-great-grandfather called me Bean Sidhe.”

Aaron raised an eyebrow at the mention of his great-great-grandfather, and was silent for a few moments. Reaching out to stroke her silver hair again, he finally spoke. “Violets, you say?”

Caitlin nodded, and he pressed his eyes shut, as if he was remembering. “I know the place,” he said. “I looked for you there.”

Hearing the pain in his voice, Caitlin reached up to put her arms around his neck, leaning against him, enjoying the steady rise and fall of his chest against her breasts. “I’m here now.”

“Aye, and if ye really were spirited away by the Bean Sidhe, then I suppose you’re here to guide me into the next life.”

“Well…” Caitlin frowned, remembering the instructions the silvery women in the forest had given her. “I suppose I am.”

‘See him safely to the next world,’ they’d said.

‘It is time,’ Cormac’s ghost had said.

“What now, then, my Bean Sidhe?” Aaron asked, pressing his forehead against hers.

“I think we should leave the house,” she replied with sudden certainty, repressing a shiver as she thought of Cormac. “We’re not meant for this place any longer.” She let her hands slide slowly from his shoulders, trailing over the smooth plane of his chest and brushing his hips as she took one of his hands in hers.

Aaron cast one last look at his grieving family and followed her from the room. The cries and muffled reassurances faded behind them as they travelled the empty halls and descended the lonely staircases, finding the first floor abandoned save for one man—or, at least, the ghost of one.

Cormac O’Brien stood in the parlour, looking as if he’d been expecting their appearance. Caitlin eyed him warily, remembering how he’d somehow barred her from the house, locking her outside to go half-mad in the raging rain until he’d had a change of heart. He made no attempt to stop them as they moved towards the door, though, standing still and tipping his head slightly as they passed him.

Aaron responded with a tilt of the head and a look of grim fascination, his hand still entwined with Caitlin’s.

At last they reached the door and Caitlin’s heart thrilled as she wondered what might lie beyond it.

“The storm,” Caitlin said as she and Aaron crossed the threshold, “it’s gone.” She glanced at Aaron and found that he, too, looked surprised. Behind them, the door was already shut, although she hadn’t heard it close. Before them, the countryside stretched out, bathed in sunlight so bright it ordinarily would have made her squint. As it was, she found that her eyes were strangely accustomed to it. Aaron gave her hand a squeeze and they started down the steps.

“All that rain,” he said as their feet touched the ground. “It seems to have worked wonders for the land.”

It was an understatement if there ever was one—the ground appeared to have erupted with foliage and scarcely a blade of grass was visible beneath a thick blanket of colourfully rioting blossoms. Caitlin was reminded of the wildflower-filled glade Aaron had taken her to just before her fateful encounter with the silver comb—only this one seemed to stretch on for miles and miles. A mountain ridge, richly purple and capped with snow, was just visible in the distance, skirting the horizon. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed that the O’Brien manse was gone, an expanse of wildflowers in its place. Caitlin gasped.

Aaron followed her gaze and his eyes went wide with surprise. “You must really be Bean Sidhe. This isn’t any place I’ve ever known.”

Caitlin gapedat him and their surroundings. The landscape might have been a painting, except for the fact that she could smell the wildflowers’ perfume drifting on a slight breeze.

“I…” It seemed unfair to her that she should be credited with their arrival in this place. After all, all she’d done was walk out of a door, the same as he had.

“It seems like Heaven,” he said, pulling her against him and wrapping his arms around her waist.

A thick section of hair fell over Caitlin’s shoulder and she was surprised to find that it was not silver, but a rich brown. She was also pleased to find that her skin no longer appeared silvery, but had returned to a more natural tone that was complemented by the golden sunlight. The only off thing about her appearance now was her ragged white dress. She pressed her face against Aaron’s shoulder, feeling more alive than she had at any time since touching the silver comb.

He placed a hand behind her head, urging her to tilt her face upwards. She obliged and he parted her lips with his tongue, kissing her deeply. He gripped her waist firmly and, as the kiss stretched on, slid his hands down over her hips.

Caitlin sighed when their lips parted and Aaron pulled her against him, nearly lifting her heels from the ground. The sunlight cast a golden fringe around the edges of his hair, so bright that it almost looked as if the ends of his locks had been set on fire. His touch was warm enough to justify the illusion, and, illusion though it was, it was obvious that he did, in fact, burn.

Caitlin could sense it in the way he held her against him, and, as if that weren’t enough, there was the considerable evidence of his longing caught between their bodies, firm and pulsing against her belly. The feel of it transported her back to their time in the first wildflower field, and how close they had come to losing themselves in each other then. Now, she thought, reaching up to run a hand through his sun-warmed locks, they finally would. Her heart thrilled at the thought, its enthusiasm echoing through every fibre of her being, urging her to withdraw her hand from his hair and press it between their bodies, finding him there instead.

She did.

Aaron exhaled sharply, tensing as she pressed against the front of his breeches, grasping his stiff cock. He shifted his hips so he filled her hand, and she began to stroke it, much as she had back in his bedroom.

Caitlin gripped him hard and satisfaction flared somewhere deep within her when he moaned, his breath sending a few stray strands of her hair flying as he bowed his head over hers. The fabric of his breeches seemed thin as she traced the length of his erection with a fingertip and it jumped against her touch.

In one swift movement that sent her hair streaming about her face and a cloud of perfume up from the wildflowers, Aaron swept Caitlin’s feet out from under her and lowered her onto a springy, fragrant bed of flowers and their leafy stems. Her hair spilt over the vegetation, intertwining with purple, red and yellow blossoms. He lay beside her, his breath hot on her mouth as he sought her lips with his.

They were both breathless when the kiss ended. Aaron broke eye contact with her, letting his eyes travel the length of her body from where the neckline bared her shoulders and the upper swells of her breasts to where the hem had fallen mid-thigh when she’d landed.

Caitlin could feel his gaze on her body just as well as she could see it, and she blushed, feeling as if she were already bare before him. As if he knew her thoughts, Aaron traced her collarbone with a fingertip, opening his hand when he reached the edge of her cleavage. Her breast disappeared beneath his palm and she sighed as it moulded to his hand and her nipple strained the fabric of her dress, responding immediately to his touch. The other did the same, rising like a tiny pyramid, hopeful for his attention. He saw and bent to kiss it, his lips brushing the tight bud through the fabric as he tightened his other hand. An intense flutter somewhere in Caitlin’s middle caused her to gasp, and Aaron rolled on top of her in response, parting her thighs with his. He pressed against her hard, as if he would have entered her had their clothing not acted as a barrier between their bodies, and she felt the inflamed flesh between her thighs begin to dampen.

She shifted slightly beneath him, which heightened the sense of impending penetration as their bodies ground together. She gasped again and he reached up immediately, tucking his fingers into the neckline of her dress, causing it to go taut. His grip felt so strong, and the dress seemed flimsier than ever. Caitlin’s nipples tingled and she held her breath, keeping her eyes trained on Aaron’s hands as she waited for him to free them. He, on the other hand, had begun to breathe a little harder.

He flexed his hands and the white fabric slid over the peaks of her breasts and down over their lower halves, baring their round, pale swells and pink caps to the sunlight. She finally exhaled, quivering slightly as she waited for his hands to descend on her again. For a moment he only stared, his breath streaming over her nipples as he admired them, his lips slightly parted as if eager to admit them. Then he reached out with one hand and caressed the slope of one breast, tracing around the edge of the areola with a fingertip and watching it contract, rising towards the sun that hung in the sky directly above. Then, without warning, he grasped the breast firmly and pressed his lips to it, his fiery locks spilling down its slope as he brushed her nipple with his tongue.

Caitlin wrapped her arms around his neck, sighing. He released her nipple and lifted his face just enough to touch his lips to hers, though not so lightly as they’d touched her a moment ago.

She responded with passion, lifting her head from its pillow of forget-me-nots as she clung to his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss. He pressed against her hard from below, shifting his hips and sending a jolt of sensation up through her core and all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes.

Apparently, he’d felt it too, for he abruptly ended the kiss, leaning on one elbow while with his other hand he seized the neckline of her dress, which had been forced down to around her waist. He pulled it over her hips, baring her inch by inch until he’d slid it over her legs and her toes, abandoning it among the flowers.

As he settled between her legs his cock throbbed against her body’s threshold, his strained breeches holding him back. Eager to remedy it, she let her hands drift to his hips and pulled the hem of his shirt from his breeches, pushing her fingers beneath and pressing her palms against his flat stomach. He trembled slightly beneath her touch and she tucked her fingers into the waistband, beseechingly.

He rose reluctantly from on top of her, abandoning her body to be washed by the sun’s rays again as he knelt between her thighs, pulling his shirt over his head. His hair fell back in fiery disarray, the ends brushing his bare shoulders.

Caitlin’s breath caught in her throat as she looked upon him completely shirtless for the first time. Leanly muscled, his skin perfectly fair, his body was beautiful. The red-gold locks that skimmed his shoulders seemed to be begging for her touch. Raising herself onto an elbow, she reached out, placing a hand against his stomach and marvelling as the muscle beneath tightened. His eyes rested on her breasts while he moved his hands slowly towards the laces of his breeches.

Caitlin watched with a fluttering feeling in the pit of her stomach as he unlaced himself, his skin suddenly as hot as coals beneath her fingertips. The laces had been strained by his erection, and they sprang open at once now that he’d unknotted them. This little bit of freedom made his cock appear even larger, and she took the edge of his breeches between her fingers, her cheeks burning as she realised that the sight of him so barely contained thrilled her, making the skin between her own legs ache and tingle more severely than ever.

His cock rose from his breeches as she peeled them down, stretching towards her from a bed of fiery locks. She relinquished her hold on the fabric, reaching for him instead. He sighed as she grasped him and slid her hand down his smooth shaft. His skin there was surprisingly soft, belied by the hardness she’d felt beneath his breeches and still felt now. He peeled them down over his hips as her knuckles brushed red hair, and she was forced to relinquish him so he could remove the garment entirely. When he had, they were both bare among the wildflowers, save for a few stray petals that clung here and there to their bodies. He descended on her again, with nothing between them this time.

She parted her thighs willingly, opening herself and lying ready, trusting, awaiting his entrance. He embraced her and she revelled in the sensation of her body’s soft curves conforming to his body’s hard lines. He buried his face in her hair, kissing the hollow of her neck. Her nipples touched his as her breasts were pushed against his body.

She tilted her head back and the soft edge of a forget-me-not brushed her cheek. Each kiss landed a little higher on her neck and brought him a little closer to entering her. The skin between her legs was slick, and the head of his cock glided against it, a hair’s breadth away from penetration. She tilted her head back further, the forget-me-not blossom skimming across her lips as she panted anxiously.

He lifted his head, his cock retreating far enough down the length of her thigh that her heart beat just a little slower as disappointment filled her where he should have. She opened her eyes, which she’d closed as he’d kissed her, and found him looking down at her, his clear blue eyes unblinking.

“Caitlin,” he said, “I love you. I realised after you disappeared that I hadn’t told you so, but I knew then that I loved you, and I wished I’d said so.”

“I love you too, Aaron,” Caitlin whispered as tears sprang up seemingly out of nowhere, pricking the corners of her eyes. Sudden visions of Aaron lying still in bed with blood-flecked lips filled her mind, accompanied by the memory of his laboured breathing and her own desperate keening. She remembered her own futile rage at being trapped outside, away from him, helpless to save him, and she remembered watching him die. She blinked back the tears, chastising herself. How could she think of those things now, when she rested in his arms and all seemed to be repaired? If she shed any tears, they should be for his family and her own, who had been left to mourn, confused. Still, she cried as the recollections cut through her like tiny knives.

Something wet hit her cheek. She opened her eyes, blinking away the moisture, and was surprised to see that several tears had slid down Aaron’s face, leaving damp trails in their wake. He smiled faintly, one corner of his mouth curving.

“I thought I’d lost you, too,” he said, and entered her.

She gasped, moisture streaking down her cheeks and onto the petals of nearby flowers as he slid inside her with one deep-reaching stroke.

“Is it all right?” he asked after a moment’

“Yes,” she gasped, her tears drying as the feel of him drove out her sorrow. She had expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. Not here—not now. It seemed that physical pain was one of the things they’d left behind. Without it, there was only pleasure, and more of it than she’d ever known. His cock throbbed inside her, making her want to writhe. She wriggled her hips against his.

He drew his hips back and flexed them again, moving slowly but deliberately, filling her until he heard her gasp again beneath him. She arched her back automatically, her nipples brushing his chest. He filled her well—both her body and her mind—until she was aware of nothing save for him. She noted his every breath and the way the sunlight made his eyelashes flash golden-red when he blinked, and welcomed every inch of him into her body. The sun itself—or the world, for that matter—could have vanished, and she wouldn’t have known or cared. There was only him, and her, together.

“Aaron,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around his waist, “I love you.” It had been said, of course, but it felt good—felt right—to say it again.

“Mmm…” he moaned as he pressed deep inside her. “I love you, Caitlin.” An errant lock of hair had fallen over his eye, and he tossed his head to remove it, blinking down at her. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you found me.”

Maybe not, Caitlin thought—she couldn’t think of words sufficient to convey her emotions, either—but he could show her how he felt, and he was doing a fine job of it. His every movement made her want to cry out, to dig her fingers so deeply into his hair or back that she’d surely hurt him. And, besides that, there was just the closeness of it—the feeling that this was where she belonged, that their two bodies had always been meant to be one.

She let her hands slide over the smooth, taut expanse of his back and the muscular swell of his buttocks. He felt strong, moving beneath her palms. He could go harder if he wanted to. She gripped him, pressing her fingertips into the cleft between buttock and thigh, urging him to do so.

He sighed, his breath hot and sweet, and obliged her, moving with more speed and deliberate force. She squeezed, then let go, finding her hands suddenly weak against such a powerful body. Blossoms brushed the back of her fingers as they fell and she let sensation overwhelm her, crying out to the rhythm of Aaron’s bold strokes.

It wasn’t long before she felt a strong stirring at her core where he touched her, beating a fierce rhythm against her womb. She wrapped her arms around him when it began, gripping him hard enough—she hoped—to convey her urgency.

He understood and responded, reaching deeper with each stroke than she had thought possible. Her body gripped him, tightening around the hard length of his cock as if determined to keep him there always. The pleasure washed through her in waves, each one more intense than the last. His low moan was lost beneath her cry.

When her climax ended, her chest was heaving, her breasts rising to meet his chest, then falling, only to repeat themselves. He moved at a more moderate pace now, clenching his fists and squeezing his eyes shut as if he were restraining himself.

It was an amazing feeling, Caitlin thought—intoxicating, really—to see him react in that way to her body, driven to the brink of losing control. She’d caught a glimpse of him in this state once before, on the day of her disappearance, when they’d touched and teased each other in the wildflower field. It had been exciting then—fully manifested now, it made her sigh and grip him again.

“Oh, Caitlin…” he sighed, his breath coming in gasps now.

She reached up and buried her hands in his hair, pulling his head down so their lips met. He kissed her passionately, his hips speeding up to match. She moaned and his lips vibrated pleasantly against hers as she did so. He cried out suddenly, then slowed, reining himself in again.

“Don’t hold back,” Caitlin said, tightening her grip on his hair. Already she could feel the stirring within herself again, the beginnings of another climax. If he didn’t oblige her, she’d have to scream—something she’d thought she’d left behind along with her silver hair.

Aaron abandoned his efforts at restraint, driving himself into her with a force that surprised her. She’d been impressed before, but now… She held him tightly against her as ecstasy unfolded again, sparking a slow burn within her core. He felt like the centre of her world, shedding light into a place that had been so dark without him. She gripped him hard and they cried out together.

A fresh wave of perfume washed over them a few moments later when Aaron withdrew from her body, tumbling off her with a sigh to lay in the grass and matted flowers beside her. A forget-me-not caught in his ruddy locks paled in comparison to his eyes, which he turned upon Caitlin. She stared back, sure that he was more beautiful than ever before. He reached out to take one of her hands in his, and for a moment they remained that way, their eyes locked and their breath stirring each other’s hair as their breathing gradually steadied. “What now?” Aaron asked when Caitlin’s own heartbeat had ceased to ring in her ears.

She reached up to pluck the forget-me-not from his hair, holding it close to her face and breathing its faintly sweet fragrance. “I was thinking,” she said, twirling the blossom between her fingers and watching it shed a petal, “that maybe we could do it again.”

Aaron rolled onto his side, leaning so close that their lips nearly brushed. “I’d like that.”