“No. Maybe. It depends. I need to...” She closed her eyes, held her hands out to the side, palms out.
He saw something shimmer, caught the faintest change of the light, of the air.
“He’s focused on me,” Iona said. “So he might find ways to hear, to listen, to see, even when we’re inside. I don’t want him to hear what we talk about.”
“All right. Ah, do you want tea? Or a beer?”
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind some whiskey.”
“That’s easily done.” He crossed over to take a bottle down from a cupboard, then two short glasses. “This is about tomorrow.”
“In a way. I meant what I said before. I believe we’ll win. I believe we have to, that we’re meant to. And I know what blood feels like on my hands. I know, or I believe, the good, the light, defeats evil, the dark. But not without cost. Not without price, and sometimes the price is very high.”
“If you weren’t afraid, you’d be stupid.”
She took the glass he offered. “I’m not stupid,” she said, and tossed the whiskey back. “We can’t know what will happen tomorrow, or what the price may be. I think it’s important, tonight, to grab what good we have, what light we have, and hold on to it. I want to be with you tonight.”
He took a careful step back. “Iona.”
“It’s a lot to ask, considering I asked you exactly the opposite not so very long ago. You gave your word, and you kept it. Now I’m asking you to give me tonight. I want to be touched, to be held. I want to feel before tomorrow comes. I need you tonight. I hope you need me.”
“I never stopped wanting to touch you.” He set his whiskey aside. “I never stopped wishing to be with you.”
“We’d both have tonight, whatever comes. I think we’d be stronger for it. It’s not breaking a promise if I ask you to throw it away. Will you take me to bed? Will you let me stay till morning?”
There were things he wanted to say, yearned to say. But would she believe them, even with her shining faith, if he said them here and now?
The words would wait, he told himself, until the dawn after the longest day. Then she’d believe what he’d come to know.
Instead of speaking he simply stepped to her. Though they felt big, clumsy, he cupped her face with his hands, then lowered his mouth to hers.
She leaned into him, her arms wrapping, her lips heating.
“Thank God! Thank God you didn’t send me away. I’ve—”
“Quiet,” he murmured, and kissed her—soft, soft, tender as a bud just opened.
They had till morning, he thought. All those long hours, only that finite time. He would do what he’d never thought to do. He would take each minute, make it precious. Show her, somehow, she was precious.
“Come with me now.” Taking her hand, he led her to the bedroom. Then crossed over to pull the blinds down on the windows. The light went dim and dusky.
“I’ll be a moment,” he told her, left her there.
He had candles. For emergencies rather than atmosphere, but a candle was a candle, wasn’t it?
He might not be a romantic sort of man, but he knew what romance was.
He unearthed three candles, brought them in, set them around. Then remembered matches. He patted his pockets. “I’ll just find the matches, then...”
She trailed a finger through the air, and the candles flamed.
“Or we could do that.”
“I’m not sure what we’re doing, but you’re making me nervous.”
“Good.” He went back to her, ran his hands down, shoulder to wrist and back again. “I wouldn’t mind that. I’d like feeling you tremble,” he murmured, opening the buttons of her shirt. “I’d like looking in your eyes and seeing you can’t help yourself. That nervous or not, you want me to go on touching you.”
“I do.” She reached up, managed to open a button on his shirt before he stopped her.
