This wasn’t the height of unicorn decorum. She was probably supposed to play the blushing maiden and not say a single word about desire until they were married (and ideally not even then). But she couldn’t stand the idea of him thinking that he’d done something wrong.
What he’d just done—it wasn’t a mistake or a crossed line. It was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her. For a second, everything else in the world, even all her bad memories, had simply dropped away.
“I loved that,” she said quietly. “I really did. I just want to do this right.”
Keith nodded. Relief was written all over his face. “That makes sense. It was just—impulse.” He gave her a shaky-looking smile. “You’re ... you know.”
She didn’t know, not really. If she had to guess, he was about to say, “You’re my mate.” It had to be just the instinctive draw between them that was making it so hard for him to keep his hands off her.
Instead, he said, “Gorgeous. Magnetic.”
Oh, come on. Without even meaning to, she found herself tracing one of the scars that ran along her chin and up her cheek.
“Gorgeous?” she said incredulously. “Cool-looking in a battle-scarred Xena way, maybe, or tough, like one of those warrior women fromBlack Panther.”
She hadn’t meant to give away that her modern pop culture knowledge was way better than it was supposed to be, but hopefully the outside world had left him inured to that kind of thing.
She continued: “I don’t know about magnetic, either, but I’m definitely not gorgeous.”
“I said gorgeous and I meant gorgeous.”
He looked genuinely stubborn about it, too, even though he’d been considerate and deferential about everything else. But this was where he was drawing the line. He wouldn’t even agree just to smooth things out. He looked like he was ready to get into a real argument.
It took the wind out of her sails. She still didn’t believe him, and she had trouble believing he even believed himself, but—
There really was a kind of light coming from him after all, it just wasn’t a harsh fluorescent glare. It was the kind that turned a spotlight on thoughts she’d usually try to push away.
Like, for example,Do you really want to make it your mission to make sure someone thinks less of you?
No, maybe she didn’t. Maybe that was, now that she thought about it, kind of a messed-up thing to devote time and energy to.
She said, “You really don’t mind the scars?”
“They’re yours,” Keith said. “They’re not mine to mind or not.”
Iris sighed. “Fine. I know all the things you have to say. It’s my body, you don’t care how I look, it’s about who I am as a person, true beauty comes from within. All that stuff.”
Blah, blah, blah. She knew he probably even meant it, and she was glad he did. She believed all those things herself, technically. But selfishly, unfairly, she’d hoped for more.
She’d wanted an answer that fit her desires, not just her principles.
She turned away and pulled herself together. It was probably for the best that the temperature in the room had gone down by a couple of crucial degrees. It made it easier for her to think.
For a second there, she’d been swept up in a fantasy. But even if she and Keith could build a life together, it wouldn’t be about sweet nothings and breathless passion and easy comfort. If those kinds of relationships even existed outside of the movies, they weren’t for unicorns.
You were both caught up in sweeping passion five minutes ago, her unicorn said sourly,and you’d still be there if you hadn’t chickened out. Stop blaming me for everything.
It startled her.
I’mnotblaming you!
But she could see why it thought she was. She spent an awful lot of time saying that unicorns didn’t do this or unicorns didn’t do that. She couldn’t expect heractual unicornnot to take it personally.
She didn’t have time to unpack all that now, though. She grabbed the nearest idea like it was a lifeline.
She turned back to Keith and forced her voice into unnatural perkiness. He looked miserable, like he knew he’d disappointed her but didn’t know how to fix it.
“Would you like to have dinner at my sister’s tomorrow?” she said brightly. “I could call her.”
