Cillian had stopped teasing her breasts, lifting a hand to cup her cheek and then slid it around to the back of her neck.“What serious thoughts darken those gorgeous eyes?”
“My eyes are already black,” she pointed out.“They can’t get any darker.”
“Ah, there you’re wrong.”He traced his index fingers over her eyebrows, swiped his thumbs lightly along the upper ridges of her cheekbones.“You have shades of black, lovely Alise.And now your eyes are full of somber thoughts and feelings.Tell me.”
“I’m thinking…” Even now it was difficult to speak the words aloud.Even knowing he loved her and would be pleased to hear them.It felt like a huge step to tell him so.Because her life would never again be the same.Not that she’d had any stability in the last year, with changes coming every day, it seemed.But this was different.So long as they lived in this time when he loved her and did so with no expectations for her to love him in return, or to change her life or plans for him—such as they were—she enjoyed a certain freedom.It wasn’t fair to him, by any stretch, but a selfish part of her—the megalomaniacal Elal part, no doubt—preferred things that way.
And Cillian would allow it, she knew.She could take advantage of that unconditional generosity of his.He’d even articulated that offer: that he would love and support her, simply for the privilege and pleasure of being with her, even if she bonded a familiar and took that person as a lover.He might even be happy, as that was absolutely who he was.Only if she sent him away would he be miserable.
But if she told him she was in love with him, all of that would change.He might develop expectations and Alise had found she tended to fail in meeting those.She didn’t think she could bear to disappoint Cillian and she worried that, once he knew she loved him, she’d inevitably fail to measure up at some point.
Still, wasn’t that life?People sometimes disappointed one another and love was accepting that and sticking around anyway.
Cillian had waited patiently while she thought things through—just then and, really, for the entire span of their relationship.He watched her now, not rushing her, seeming to know she needed to go at her own pace.Just tell him.It’s true, regardless, so all that will change is his knowing for sure.
“I’m thinking…” she repeated, “…that this difficult wizard is in love with you, too.”There, she’d said it.Well, kind of.She’d still taken an out, talking in this third person game Cillian had started.Probably he’d done it on purpose, to make things easier for her.
He stroked her cheekbones, his gaze soft and sultry.“Do you think so?”he purred.“I’ve thought as much for a long time, but she’s never told me so.”
“I’m not surprised,” she confided, willing to take advantage of this buffer from her very personal, very raw feelings.
“I’m not either,” Cillian replied in that same confidential tone.
“Aren’t you?”
He slowly shook his head.“Such things are difficult for her.She hasn’t known a lot of love in her life.I’m not sure she’s ever said those words aloud to anyone.”
Tears unexpectedly pricked her eyes, almost painful.That hadn’t occurred to her and… he might be right.Even with her beloved Maman, or with Nic, she hadn’t ever said so.She had said them to Bria, to that delightful, trusting bundle of newborn.She’d whispered the words and brushed her niece’s forehead with a kiss, but that had felt like a secret.Maybe feeling it for Bria, accepting that emotion for what it was, had cracked open something inside her and she could articulate it now.Almost.
“Only to a baby,” Alise confessed quietly, “and even then she whispered.”
Cillian smiled, sadly, the sorrow all for her.Still holding her face in his gentle clasp, he leaned in to kiss her, a sweet, lingering kiss full of all that love he spoke of so easily.“It’s all right,” he said against her lips.“She doesn’t have to say them until she’s ready.I know it’s hard.”
A few tears spilled over and fell, hot on her cheeks cooled by the descending mountain night.“It shouldn’t be hard.”
He smiled, a curve of his pretty lips.“I don’t think there are rules about these things.All I know is that it is difficult for you.And that I’m all right with not hearing the words.I don’t need them from you.All I need is this, being here with you.”
“You’re so easily pleased.”
He shrugged a little, still smiling that sweet, close-lipped smile that spread across his face and lit him up.“That’s all right, too, isn’t it?You deserve to have parts of your life that are easy, someone in your life who is easily pleased, who adores you and wants you to be happy.”
“I do love you,” she blurted out, overwhelmed, peripherally aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks, which seemed all wrong for the moment, but there it was.Real.Unstoppable.The ice around her heart cracking almost audibly.It both hurt and felt good, like stretching after an injury.“I love you, Cillian.I do.”
His smile couldn’t go wider, but it softened and brightened.“I know, Alise.You showed me long before you spoke the words.”
She nodded, sniffling unromantically, unable to say anything more.
“Are you all right?”he asked softly.
“I don’t know.”She really didn’t.“I think so.I should be.”
He tutted.“No more with theshoulds.It’s just us.You can always be and feel exactly as you are with me.It’s not just a promise; it’s a requirement.I loveyou, Alise, always and exactly as you are.”
She had to wipe her nose.Then laughed, watery.“Even with snot on my face?”
He laughed, genuine, loving and heartfelt, then kissed the—hopefully not snotty—tip of her nose.“Even with hunter goo all over you.”
She swiped at her hair, which she’d dunked initially, when the sun was still high.“I’m not clean yet?”
