“The transportationfish tanks are buckled in,” Keith announced. “And Simon found the aquariums you recommended and got them all set up at my place. Our place.”
He looked back over his shoulder at the lovely whitewashed cottage with all its roses and lupins, and he grinned. Iris looked so right posed in its doorway, with the creamy lace of her dress blowing slightly in the breeze.
“Oneof our places,” he amended. “I’m glad you’re keeping the cottage.”
“Me too.” She touched one of the smooth walls. “With Seraphina working overtime to break Purity away from the worldwide Council—just for a start—I think we’ll actuallywantto come back and visit.”
“I think so too.” He wrapped her in his arms as she came over to him. “Weird, isn’t it? I spent so many years being afraid to come back here.”
“And I spent so many years longing to get away. But now that I don’t have to stay, and now that you can be yourself, it’s a lot better.” Her eyes flashed with humor. “But I still don’t want to have the wedding here.”
“No,” Keith agreed instantly, making her laugh. “No, me neither. With all due respect for the good people of our hometown, whose hearts are mostly in the right place, the last thing we want at our wedding is a bunch of people looking at us and thinking how we’re doing it wrong.”
They absolutely would be thinking that, too. In the village, weddings usually came down to courthouse-style ceremonies, with a Councilor and a few witnesses. You dressed nicely, but only the way they had when they were first meeting each other. It wasn’t treated as a big occasion.
Now that no one else’s expectations were hanging over them, they were in the mood to treat their wedding as a huge, splashy event.
“Really?” Iris teased. “What happened to just imagining everyone in the audience naked?”
“I believe in the sanctity of marriage,” Keith informed her gravely. “The only person at our wedding that I want to imagine naked is you.”
“Oh no, don’t you dare. Iz and Evie promised to take me dress-shopping at all the best designer boutiques, and they said I don’t even have to wear white if I don’t want to. For the first time in my life, I get to buy something outrageously flashy and colorful, and no one can tell me not to. Youhaveto look at the dress.”
He was excited to see it. Iris was going to look like a resplendent butterfly finally allowed to come out of her cocoon, and he was sure that Evie and Iz would be delighted to support her bright, rainbow-hued choices.
“White is overrated,” Keith said. “I can’t wait to see what you pick.”
“And best of all, you still get to take it off later.”
“I have no objections to that whatsoever,” he assured her.
She kissed him, making a hot, delicious tingling spread through his whole body. Thanks to the aches and pains of the hospital stay—and its total lack of privacy—he had gone way too many days without this kind of long, slow kiss and everything it implied. But tonight, they’d be home, and there would be absolutely nothing stopping him from spreading Iris out on the bed and taking all the time in the world to explore all her lush gorgeousness.
Actually, do we have to drive back to the city tonight? There’s nothing stopping us from going right back in the cottage—
You can’t leave the fish in the car,his unicorn said.Why are you making me be the sensible one?
It could complain all it wanted: Keith knew that it was secretly thrilled to have to play the voice of reason from time to time. It meant that he was indulging his true self so often that his unicorn, its purest voice, no longer had to fight for it all the time.
But it had a point. Besides, Seraphina was going to stay at the cottage while her new house was being built, and Keith didn’t want to risk her walking in on them.
Okay, he was going to focus on practical considerations and not think about naked Iris ....
“Is the U-Haul all set up?”
“It is.” Her eyes sparkled at him again. “Come look at my packing and be impressed.”
“I’m already very impressed,” he said, letting her tug him along to the back of the U-Haul. (Was this the first time anyone had towed a rented mini-trailer into a unicorn village? Probably.) “And sorry that I didn’t get to help with more of it. Simon didn’t handcuff me again, but the doctor kept refusing to discharge me until all my tests came back.”
“I was on her side on that one,” Iris said. “And don’t worry, I can always foist some of theunpacking on you.”
“I stand ready for foisting.”
She slid the U-Haul door up. “Behold.”
Keith beheld, and he was even more impressed now than he was before. Not only were the boxes neatly packed and neatly labeled, Iris had stacked them so well that it seemed like she’d fit an impossible number inside.
“Did you ever get any video games when you were in Polis?”
