She only smiled, glided her foot along his leg under the frothy water.
“It feels we could be in some chalet in Switzerland, which I like, but I wonder you didn’t put this in that room with all the windows, the way it’s situated so private and opening to the woods.”
He drank some wine. “I had that room built with you in mind.”
“Me?”
“With the hope one day you’d marry me as we planned, live here with me. And make your workshop there.”
“Oh, Fin.” His wish, and her own, twined together to squeeze her heart.
“You like the open when you work, the glass so you can look out, the feel of being out, is what appeals to you. Snug enough inside, but with that open to bring the out in to you. So the glass room facing the woods gives you the private and the open at once.”
She couldn’t speak for a moment, didn’t want her voice to shake when she did. “If I had the magicks to change what is, to transform them into what I’d wish them to be, it would be that, to live and to work here with you. But we have this.”
She set her wineglass in the holder, flowed over to him, to press body to body. “We have today.”
He skimmed a hand down her hair, down to where it dipped and floated over the water. “No tomorrows.”
“Today.” She laid her cheek against his. “I’m with you, you’re with me. I never believed, or let myself believe, we could have this much. Today is the world for me, as you are. It may never be enough, and still.” She drew back, just a little. “It’s all.”
She brushed his lips with hers, slid into the kiss with all the tenderness she owned.
She would give him all she had to give him. And all was love. More than her body, but through her body her heart. It had always been his, would always be, so the gift of it was simple as breathing.
“Believe,” she murmured. “Tonight.”
Sweetly, for with her practical bent she could forget the sweet, she offered the kiss, to stir, to soothe.
Her only love.
He knew what she offered, and knew what she asked. He would take, and he would give. And setting aside the wish for more, he would believe tonight was everything.
Here was magick in having her soft and yielding, her sigh warm against his cheek as they embraced. The heat rose through him, around him, with the snow a silent curtain to close out all the world but them.
He took her breasts, gently, gently, as he could still see in his mind the violent marks what shared his blood had put on her. He swore as her heart beat against his hand, he would never harm her, would give his life to keep her from harm.
Whatever came tomorrow, he’d never break the oath.
Her hands glided over him, and her fingers brushed against the mark he carried. Her touch, even so light, brought on a bone-deep ache there. A price he’d pay without question.
The water, a steady drumbeat in the hush of the night, swirled around them as their hands drifted under it to give pleasure.
Her breath caught, shaking her heart with the meeting of emotion and sensation, the rise of need and wonder.
How could tenderness cause such heat—a wire in the blood, a fire in the belly—and still have her wish to draw every moment into forever?
So when she straddled him, took him deep, and deep and deep, she knew she would never take another. Whatever the needs of the body, no other could touch her heart, her soul. Combing her fingers through his hair, she held his face as she moved over him so he could see her, see into her, and know.
On their slow climb, the swirling water glowed, a pool of light to bathe them and surround them. As they fell, holding tight, the light flowed out against the dark to illuminate the soft curtain of snow.
Later, lax and sleepy in his bed, she curled against him. As tonight became tomorrow, she held fast to what she loved.
•••
IT TOOK MORE PRECIOUS DAYS BEFORE BRANNA COULDacquire all the ingredients, in quantities to allow for experimenting, needed for the poison.
Connor looked on as she sealed them in individual jars on her work counter.
