Chapter Nineteen

 

All night I’d feared this moment. I’d tried to tell myself I was letting doubt cloud my vision, that what I was experiencing was insecurity and dark imaginings, but deep down I had known. Known from the moment Andi confessed to the love spell, that this was how it would end.

Standing in the dark with a broken heart.

John must have been in the midst of unpacking, because he wore jeans, tennis shoes, and his gray sweatshirt had a smear of dust on the shoulder. He looked predictably austere, predictably unapproachable. Yet at the same time, he looked like the dearest thing in the world to me.

I said huskily, “I was expecting you. Come in.”

His amber eyes blazed to life. He stepped forward and, to my astonishment, pulled me close. His arms folded around me hard, almost fiercely. “Jesus. No, Cos. That’s not why I’m here. Someone came by the house to see you.”

I clutched him back, not least because relief almost made my knees give out.

“Rex?” I’m not sure why Rex was the first person I thought of. I suppose because I’d been increasingly worried as the evening passed with no return phone call.

“No, but it’s regarding Rex. I’m sorry, it’s not good news. They were in an accident. A hit-and-run. They’re in a coma.”

“Oh no.” I really did have to lean against John that time. “How?”

“It sounds like it happened on the job. They’re a private investigator, I gather. That can be a risky business.”

“Rex is a PI?”

John’s forbidding brows rose. “You didn’t know?”

“No. I had no idea. Rex never really discusses work. They’re a glassblower. I thought they earned a living at it.”

“Apparently not. So you have no idea what they were working on?”

I shook my head. “Are they going to be okay? Did this friend who brought the news—what was the friend’s name? Did they say?”

“She. Leonie de Foix.”

“I know Leonie. Is Rex going to be okay?”

John held me tight. He shook his head. “It’s not looking promising.”

“Oh Godde— Where are they?”

“I’ve never heard of it. Our Lady of the Green Vale.”

He meant Our Lady of the Green Veil. But he wouldn’t be familiar with that hospital either.

I said, “I know where that is.”

“Okay, but de Foix said that the family requests Rex’s friends stay away until sunrise. I don’t know what that’s about; I’m only relaying the message.”

“All right. What time is it now?” I felt for my phone, swore when I saw it was dead again.

“Around one thirty. You were late getting back,” John said. His smile was crooked. “You must have been having a good time. I waited out there for about an hour.”

I hadn’t seen his car when Andi and I pulled up, which was a lesson in itself. I had been so busy mooning over the fact that John was probably lost to me, that I’d completely missed him sitting right in front of me.

I said, “It was fun. It was a good night. I put off coming home because I wanted there to be a smaller window of time for you to break up with me.”

John said slowly, “There’s something almost frightening about your ability to say what you’re really feeling,” and then he kissed me.

A long, lovely press of warm mouths. The gentle bump of nose and chin, flutter of eyelashes, scratch of beards.

When we drew back, he stroked the side of my face and said roughly, “I was coming to see you before de Foix came by the house, but only because I don’t want—can’t—spend even a night without you.”

I was pretty sure I heard that wrong, but I reached for him anyway, pulling his face down to mine, kissing him with all my love, all my passion—and a fair bit of relief.

“Are you sure, John? Please be sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Because this is the speak-now moment. I won’t be able to take it if you change your mind after we’re married.”

He said gently, “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not going to change my mind.”

“If you’re following through out of some misguided sense of honor or chivalry—”

He drew back to study me. “Honor or chivalry? Where do you get this stuff, Cos? I’m not following through. I’m marrying the man I love. The man I’ve loved since the moment we met.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t love me when we first met. You didn’t even like me.”

He raised his powerful shoulders, conceding the point. “Okay. It wasn’t love at first sight.”

“More than that. You actively disliked me.”

He sighed, obviously decided to humor me, and said, “True. The first time we met, I thought you were too young, too pretty, and way too used to having your own way.” His smile was wry. “And I still think that.”

“That’s…frank.”

“You asked.”

“What is it you think you love about me, then?”

John looked perplexed, but as previously established, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition—or a murder investigation—in the midst of their declaration. It was important to me to know for sure he understood what he was doing because I wasn’t exaggerating: I didn’t think I could survive his changing his mind once we were married.

“I love all kinds of things. I didn’t put together a dossier. What is it you love about me?”

I said at once, “I love your strength and your honesty and your decency and your courage. I love the fact that you know what you want and go after it. I wish I had your single-mindedness. I love the way you smell, and I love the way you taste. I love the way you make that funny, kind of half-growl sound before you laugh, like it goes against your nature to give in to being amused.”

“I don’t think I growl before I laugh.”

“You do, though. And I love—”

“Okay, well, I can’t put it as nicely as you do, but I love you.”

“But why?” I insisted. “How do you know it’s real? Maybe it isn’t. Your friends, your family, none of them think I’m your type.”

“You’re not my type. My type was guys I had no intention of marrying. The idea of marriage never crossed my mind until you. You’re…a separate category.”

I started to answer, and he put his hand over my mouth.

“Yes, I thought some uncomplimentary things when we met, but I knew the first night we went out that I never wanted to be away from you.”

That was the love spell, pure and simple. Nothing about that reassured me in the least.

But John continued, “Because in addition to being too young, too pretty, too used to having everything your own way, you’re smart and you’re funny and you’re kind. You’re…bright. I don’t mean mentally—”

I opened my mouth, and he corrected hastily, “I mean, yes, mentally, obviously, but in your attitude. In your way of…of being. You’re positive. I don’t know how else to put it. You make me see the world in a different light. Which sounds corny, but it’s the truth. The world is different since I met you. Life is more interesting and more surprising and more entertaining.”

That couldn’t be the love spell. Could it? For one thing, John was coming up with genuine positives, whether perceived or true. For another, he definitely wasn’t blind to my faults.

He finished, “I don’t know what my family or friends think when they see us together. I don’t give a damn. I came here tonight because I can’t imagine not having you in my life. I can’t imagine anything worse than never seeing you again.”

My throat closed, squashing my answer. This was so much more than I had expected. This sounded—felt—like true love. Not that I was an expert. This was my only experience at real love, true love, as well.

“So unless you want out, we’re getting married tomorrow morning. I don’t know if we’ll live happily ever after—I don’t believe in fairy tales—but I know there isn’t a chance in hell of living happily without you.”

“I don’t want out,” I managed.

He kissed my forehead. “Then I think we should try to get some sleep.”

 

 

We didn’t sleep, though.

We lay in wakeful silence in the moonlight flooding the room, and then almost in perfect accord we turned to each other…

Warm, soft lips trailing kisses as light and lovely as thistledown or moonbeams the length of my naked back. One velvety kiss for each articulation of my spine. The vocabulary of seduction. Not that he had to convince me. Each touch of lips to skin glinting and sparkling through my nerves. Through my cells. Through the bits of air and fire that make up the soul. Kiss by kiss, John read the human runes of bone and cartilage, telling my fortune with each beat of his heart. I closed my eyes, breathing softly, wondering where he would stop, not wanting him to ever stop.

“Oh…”

“You like that?”

“Yes.”

I felt his smile against my flushed, damp skin.

He nuzzled the sensitive hollow at the small of my back, and my breath caught. It tickled a little, and it sent something fluttering in my belly. Something soft and warm and helpless.

“Baby bats in my belfry…”

“Huh?” John asked.

I shook my head. “I’m being silly.”

“I like your silliness,” he murmured, “and those little sighs you make…but they’re not good for my resolve.”

I burrowed my head in my folded arms. “What are you resolved to do?”

“Nothing that will make you regret marrying me tomorrow.”

I considered this silently while he slowly rubbed his scratchy jaw against my ass cheek, savoring, but also giving me time to think.

“Not even possible.”

“Yeah, well.”

His warm palm stroked my flank, possessively, appreciatively, and I waited, reveling in his touch. Was that too strong a word for it? No. There was nothing so simple or so powerful as the feel of his hand on my skin. I felt sure I would know his touch in the dark, know his touch in death. Was it really possible to tire of this, grow bored with being loved, cherished? I couldn’t imagine it. John’s love felt essential to my survival. There could be no substitute. No surrogate.

John’s hand stilled. He shifted around on the mattress, nudging my legs apart. I glanced over my shoulder, surprised, wary, as his fingers dug into my cheeks. His head bent and, to my shock, I felt the wet slide of his tongue on the sensitive sac of my testicles as though he was sampling something sweet and illicit. I bucked, and made a sound that men—well, men like John—are not supposed to make.

He gave a surprisingly devilish laugh.

“Good?”

“Oui. Grimper aux rideaux,” I moaned.

“I have no idea what you said, but your accent is so damn cute.”

“Merci…”

He licked my balls, then behind my balls, working his way back up to the forbidden zone, and every cell in my body seemed to take a step back and pop on its monocle. Sacrebleu! indeed. He nuzzled my ass, and I could feel myself trembling with anticipation.

He paused to whisper, “We’re not going to violate international law here, are we?”

Never mind French. I couldn’t remember how any words worked. I finally managed a thick, “I-I’m not sure. What are you going to do?” Afraid to ask in case it was something he should stop.

By way of answer, slippery heat slowly pressed into my body.

Oh. God. Oh Goddess. Oh, John…

Osculum infame. The shameful kiss.

According to the Compendium Maleficarum of 1608, witches would greet the Devil with an anal kiss—and occasionally vice versa. How like a particular type of mortal to turn something sacred and lovely into a sin.

Anyway, sin or not, it was beyond my willpower to lie motionless as John’s tongue did those shattering things: delicate, wicked, teasing things that left me mewling like a kitten. I whimpered, squirmed, humped, feeling the roughness of his beard, the hardness of teeth. He whoofed, caught my hips, holding me fast.

“Don’t break my nose, because that’s going to be impossible to explain.” His voice was threaded with amusement.

I laughed too, weakly, and then gasping as he kept pressing, pressing. “Sorry. It’s just so good. So good.”

“Yeah? I don’t want to get you thrown out of the Church of Stevie Nicks.”

I shook my head, still laughing, feeling light and silly as smoke rings or snappy, sizzling fireworks on sticks.

I could hear the smile in his voice, but he sounded serious. “I don’t ever want to push you into something that you regret or hurts you.”

I said urgently, “No, this is okay. This is not that.” Close. But crucial differences.

I hoped. Honestly, I didn’t care anymore. When the wine is drawn, one must drink it. A proverb John could surely appreciate.

John’s tongue circled and then dipped in. I heard myself making inarticulate and helpless sounds of delight and revelation. Was he really…? Was this actually…?

Yes, it was. Yes, he was. John’s tongue poked slickly in and out of my clenched-tight hole. So nasty. So naughty. Almost at once I began to come harder than I had ever come in my life, a messy spray of hot, wet, glittering celebration. Of life. Of love.

I rolled over and clutched him, whispering my feelings, my promises. He held me tightly, letting me babble.

“You’re sparkling.” I could hear the smile and the tenderness beneath the smile as he reached out to touch a drop of moonglow on my chest.

My heart seemed to rise like a will-o’-the-wisp. I was surprised it didn’t simply float away. I knew with complete certainty that he loved me with everything he was capable of.

And in that moment, I truly believed it would be enough.