Ophelia’s eyes were closed. Her cheeks were pink, and her face was soft. He lifted his hand and caressed her jaw and tilted it towards him. Without a word, he took her mouth in a soft kiss.
Then he said, “You are so beautiful, Ophelia.”
Her eyes snapped open, and her gaze grew pointed. “Don’t lie to me,” she said fiercely.
“I’m not lying to you,” he said, jolted by the firmness of her reply. “In this moment, you are the most beautiful woman that I’ve ever known.”
“Another lie,” she said firmly, her brow arching skeptically as she grew prickly and began to withdraw.
She started to push away from him, but he grabbed her and held her tightly on the piano bench. He wouldn’t let her retreat. Not when he was baring his soul. When she’d seen him truly and he her. “I promise you that I am not lying. Do you know what makes you beautiful to me right now?”
“No,” she said, her gaze wary. “Tell me.”
“It is the way you have given yourself over to the music. You do the same thing when you read. I’ve seen it.” He caressed her cheek, pulling her towards him, determined to keep her with him. Always. He wasn’t letting either of them run away from this chance. “But right now? You are sharing that bliss with me. You are not off in a world by yourself with your books, which I admire. As you sit here with me while I play? I can feel your enjoyment. In this moment,” he said, “we are transported together.”
Her lips slowly turned in a smile. “That’s how you feel?”
“Is it not true?” he asked.
“It is true,” she agreed. “I felt so close to you as you played. The music...It filled me up. Your passion. The notes shook through me, as if our bodies did not have boundaries. I feel as if I can feel the song coming out of you and straight into me.”
He pulled her closer, and their torsos melded as her breasts pressed against his chest. He wove his hand into her hair and tilted her head back. “That is exactly how I feel. I never want it to end.”
She gasped. “Nor do I,” she said. “Will you not play again?”
“I will,” he said. “But first...”
He kissed her softly, transported now, not just by the music but by the way they were allowing each other to be honest and close. To bare their souls. Before he turned back to the piano, knowing that she truly did wish to hear him play again, he closed his eyes.
He hadn’t known what he was searching for his whole life whilst feeling so alone.
Now he knew. He’d been searching for her.
And he knew in his heart that she sought him too, even as she sat in corners reading her books.
He could see it on her face, that look of belonging as she sat beside him.
Peter’s heart lifted in a way it had not done before. Because this was the affinity, the accord that he’d been looking for that night in the garden. It had returned to them here.
And he knew, deep in his core, that it was here to stay.
He felt close to her, warm, at peace.
And so he played an aria by Mozart. A song of love and hope. And being lost to the magic of it.
Then...she began to hum. Her voice was perfect to him. He was shocked. He could not recall hearing her sing since girlhood. Memories cascaded into him as his fingers deftly leapt over the keys, her voice high and perfect as she sang in the forest, dancing amidst the leaves as they fell from the towering oaks.
Suddenly he knew, he knew with all his heart, that helovedhis wife. Perhaps he always had.
He was so painfully grateful that she was with him now, and he did not know how to countenance it. He did not know how he had gone through the years without her by his side, sitting beside him at the piano, humming.
He paused, savoring the fact that her books and now his music were uniting them.
“Will you sing to the music while I play?” he asked gently.
Her eyes opened, and she turned to look at him. “With all my heart,” she said without hesitation.
And his love only grew. For she wasn’t afraid that she might not be perfect. For she knew their passion together was better than any perfection ever could be.