“I realize that. But what can yousee? Don’t use your eyes.”
“Then what else am I-”
“Use your heart.”
It was evident that Annalise had been spending too much time with her geese. Still, though he’d never admit it to Grieves, Derrick was beginning to enjoy himself. If he were being completely honest, this was the most enjoyment he’d had in… well, in recent memory. Maybe inanymemory. So he kept his eyes closed, took a deep breath, and implored his cynical, sin-filled heart to magically grow a pair of eyeballs.
For a few seconds, while feeling utterly foolish, he saw nothing but darkness. But then… something began to happen. Something began to shift. His nostrils flared as he inhaled a new scent. Rose, with an underlying hint of warm cinnamon. Annalise’s perfume, dashed so lightly upon her wrists and throat that he had not noticed it before.
He heard the rustle of feathers as one of the geese adjusted their wings. Followed by the distantthump, thump, thumpof the rabbit as it struck its foot against the ground and the gurgle of water trickling under the bridge.
He felt the warm, bathing glow of sunlight on his face and the tickle of a light wind through his hair.
All things that had always been there, but that he’d overlooked or taken for granted in his haste to find whatever vice would fulfill him the quicker. Never pausing in his hurtling quest toward damnation to consider that what he truly wanted, what he trulyneeded,could not be found in a gambling hell or at the bottom of a glass of brandy.
Ever so slowly, Derrick opened his eyes… and all he saw was Annalise. Sweet, amusing, oddly perceptive Annalise with the golden hair and a heart infinitely more pure than his own. How beautiful she was, standing in the middle of the bridge with her trio of loyal feathered companions at her feet waiting to attack his nether regions at a moment’s notice. How calm and quiet she was; a soothing balm to a soul that had grown ragged at the edges.
Without thinking about what he was doing, or the potential implications that would follow once it was done, he went to her and gently cupped her cheek, his palm dwarfing her delicate bone structure as he coaxed her face up while he lowered his down.
The kiss was as soft as the breeze. Her lips were as warm as the sun. Blood rushed through his veins like the water flowing beneath them. Angling his head, he deepened the kiss as his fingers slid under her bonnet to tangle in the silky shine of her curls and he braced his legs on either side of her skirts.
She tasted… she tastedglorious.
Of peaches, and sugar, and all that was sweet and good.
She was a sunrise after years of sleeping through daybreak.
She was the first flower to bloom after a cold winter.
She was all he hadn’t known existed and more than he could have ever dreamt of.
How did you describe the ocean to a man that had never seen water? Or a mountain to someone that lived underground? Or an angel to a disillusioned duke that dealt in self-interest and over-indulgence?
On a small gasp, Annalise leaned slightly forward, her hands reaching shyly for the notched lapels of his tailcoat as the kiss lingered, both of them loathe to be the one to end it. All things being equal, Derrick might have stayed on that bridge with Annalise wrapped in his arms for another hour, a day, a month, a lifetime.
But Constantine had other ideas.
“Bloodyhell,” he snarled, wrenching his mouth away from heaven to curse at the goose that peered smugly up at him out of a glinting black eye, a torn piece of his trousers held firmly in its beak. “That hurt, you feather-brained little-”
“I am sure it was an accident,” Annalise interceded hastily. “He didn’t mean it.”
Derrick snorted. “He looks like he meant it.”
“It was just a…” She bit her bottom lip, flushed from his kiss. “A peck of affection.”
“I’ll show him a peck of affection,” he growled, curling his hand into a fist. With a loud honk, Constantine dove behind Annalise.
She gazed at him in dismay. “You would hit a poor, frightened, innocent animal?”
Derrick glared at Constantine.
Poking his head out from behind Annalise’s skirts, Constantine glared at Derrick.
He relaxed his hand. “No, I wouldn’t dream of it.”Cowardhe mouthed at the goose and he would have sworn, even though Constantine’s beak was anatomically incapable of producing human facial expressions, that the goose smirked. “Shall we continue on?” he asked, returning his attention to Annalise. “Or are you ready to admit that there is no such thing as love at first sight?”
Her chin lifted. “I will admit no such thing, Your Grace.”
“Your pet tried to perform an unsolicited amputation. I believe you can call me Derrick.”
