Sasha pushed up, grabbed empty plates. “I’m going to do the dishes until I stop being jumpy.”
When the dishes weren’t enough, she scrubbed down the kitchen. She was looking for something else to clean when she spotted Bran leaning against the door watching her.
“Still jumpy then?”
“I can’t get rid of it.”
“I have just the thing.” He grabbed a bottle of wine, two glasses, then her hand. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“We’ll have a drink on the terrace, you and I. It’s as you said earlier, everyone seems to have closed up in their separate spaces. Maybe we all need that for a night. But you and I have another need, to my mind. We’re having a date.”
“A date?”
“We are. A drink on the terrace in the moonlight, conversation about nothing that troubles you. And when I’ve softened you up with the wine, I’ll take you inside and have my way with you.”
“You don’t need the wine for that.”
“You’re a gift to me, fáidh, that’s the truth. But wine and conversation make a nice prelude. You had a bit of that conversation with Doyle on the boat.”
“He asked if I inherited the sight. You know, I never thought of it?” Surprised at herself, she shook her head. “I never asked if someone in the family before me had it. No one ever spoke of it, so I assumed I was the only one. I was the oddity.”
“There’s a difference between the odd and the special.”
“I’m getting there. I think we were—are—so closed up in my family. If there’s a problem, lock it away or cover it with excuses.”
“You’re not a problem—and no one should be allowed, even yourself, to think of you that way.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s been so easy to be part of this—no one considers me a problem. And it’s why it was so easy for me to move away. I love my mother, but we’ve both been fine with phone calls, emails, the rare and short visit. Just not a lot of common ground, I guess.”
“Would you ask her now—if there’d been anyone else in the family with your gift?”
“I might, if I feel a need to know. She’d tell me if I really pushed it. I don’t think she’d lie to me, and I’d know if she did. But . . .” She looked up at the full, white moon sailing over the dark sea. “It doesn’t seem very important anymore.”
She sipped wine, smiled when he took her hand in his. “I used to hate dating, so I gave it up. I’ve changed my mind.”
“We’ll have to make time for a true one.”
“This is true.” More true, more real, more lovely than any she’d ever had.
And perfect to her mind. A soft night, a full moon, the song of the waves, and a hand clasping hers.
He gave her romance again.
When he rose, she stood with him, turned to him.
“Jumpy now?”
“No. But I think I’m going to be.” She wrapped around him. She pulled him close. She took his mouth this time. And reveled in the knowledge she could. “Let’s close ourselves off,” she murmured, “in our separate place.”
“You undo me, Sasha.” He turned her into the room, shut the door behind them.
The moonlight was enough, sliding pale and blue into the room.
It felt like a dance, twining her arms around him, circling with him toward the bed. She rose up to meet his mouth with hers, and thought what a wonder to have found so much so fast. To be able to close out everything but this, but him.
To know that here, that now, he belonged to her.
He pulled the clip from her hair so it tumbled down. Sunlight to vie with the moon. She was warm silk in his hands, and he thought it miraculous to be given someone so open, so honest. Beyond the face and form that pulled at him—had pulled at him from the first—he marveled at her generosity of spirit, and the courage she failed to recognize.
To have such a partner in this dark quest was more than he’d ever believed in.
Her hands, those strong artist’s fingers, ran under his shirt, kindling new fires of lust. He laid her back on the bed, warning himself to have care. There was still an innocence in her.
She shifted over him, even that casual move warring with his control. And smiling, traced his face with her fingertips.
“I know this face, so well. So many dreams. It terrified me.”
“Why?”
“What if?” She glided her finger over his cheekbones, his mouth, the line of his jaw. “If I could create my perfect lover? Man of my dreams. But he would only be there.” On a sigh, she rested her brow to his for a moment. “On my canvas, in my mind. Only there. And when I woke or put my brush down, I’d be alone.”
“You’re not alone.”