The candlelight sparkled like diamonds in her eyes, and it cast shadows upon her nightshirt down her exposed shoulder, and more.
Breathtaking. Then he spied her arm. It was swollen below her elbow, the evidence of a bad set. It had been broken by Nickie and the others.
Gutted, broken, hurting for her, he gathered her up like fragile china and tucked her to his chest. “I need this slow, Ruthy. I need slow.”
She pulled away. With her eyes closed tight, she undid the laces of her nightshirt. It was big on her, so it slid all the way down to her waist.
A work of art, she was. The shadows, the lightness, a canvas of curves, a sculpture to shape and mold in his hands.
This was better than the nude bride statuette on his desk.
His bride wasn’t porcelain. Ruth wasn’t fragile. She was strong. She’d been tested. She was fire. Wycliff vowed to protect and worship this treasure forever. “You’ve walked through the ashes. You’re beautiful.”
“Then love me. Wycliff, let it only be you in my head.”
He took her into his arms. “Good plan.”
Ruth slipped her palms about his neck. She was gentle, taking care with his scars.
Tomorrow wasn’t promised, but tonight, he’d be everything she wanted.
And he gave himself up to this slow, perfect union.
…
I kissed my husband with my eyes closed.
That wasn’t unusual.
I’d kissed him several times like this but only in my dreams.
But then he was dead, and this part of me, this broken, stolen part of me, I thought dead, too.
It wasn’t.
It had been hidden inside the space where my heart had died. The space where it had been reborn.
My chest was full again, and I felt new.
“Open your eyes, my love, my Ruthy.”
Wycliff ’s raspy voice singed my throat, and I offered it to him.
I was new. We were new.
I held Wycliff, traced his scars from his neck to his chest, to me.
I was burned and spent but wanted more of his kiss, more of his mouth on mine.
The craving to be cared for, to be nurtured, coiled about me, linking me more and more to him.
I blinked a few times.
My lashes were damp and sticky, but I saw the face of a man who loved me more than himself.
My Adam, my Wycliff, my Adoniram was alive.
This feeling—the closeness, the not knowing where I began and he ended—I’d thought it gone. It was resurrected in his love. Nothing separated us—no nightshirts, no bedsheets, no secrets.
