She was away with the fairies, dancing on lust and love and happiness when Kai pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. “Same old, same old,” he said, his fingertips digging into her thigh and her side. “I could take you right here.”
“I hope we never lose this passion for each other,” Flick murmured.
“Does that mean you’re going to take me on?” Kai asked, his question uncharacteristically hesitant.
Flick pulled back and frowned at him. “Why would you even doubt that?”
Kai lifted his shoulders and, under her hands, she felt the tension in his muscles. Why? “Maybe it’s because you haven’t, actually, told me that you love me. I said it at least three times—more than I’ve said it in my whole life—and you haven’t said it once.”
Oh, Lord, if he’d never said the words then that probably meant that he’d never heard them either. How could anyone survive without hearing an occasional “I love you”?
“Oh, Kai,of courseI love you. You are the beat of my heart, the reason the sun comes up every day. You’re everything I thought that I didn’t want but everything I need. The last two weeks have been...”
“Crap? Shit? Hell?”
“Yeah...and sad. And lonely. And horrible.” Flick placed her fingertips on his jaw. “Mercy is my home and as much as I love it, I’d move tomorrow. I’d go wherever you took me, live out of a suitcase if it meant I could be with you. You are where I want to be.”
“Felicity.” Kai closed his eyes, possibly to hide the depth of his feeling for her, so she couldn’t see how she made him feel. Well, that would have to change. He would know, every day for as long as she lived, how much he was loved.
Flick rested her head on his chest, content to listen to the wind in the trees, feel his strength enveloping her, his breath on her cheek.
“As perfect as this moment is,” Kai said above her head, “I can’t help feeling that something is missing.”
Flick tipped her head back to look at him. As far as she was concerned, her life was super-shiny and practically perfect.“Like?”
Kai just grinned and let out a shrill whistle. She heard an answering bark and the sound of Rufus thundering towards them. She turned her head to watch her massive dog, ears flapping and drool swinging, running toward them, a look of delight on his face. He jumped up and put one paw on Kai’s shoulder and another on Flick’s knee and they were gifted with a steady stream of doggy breath.
Rufus tried to lick Kai’s face and laughed. “Down!” he ordered and Rufus dropped to the ground.
Flick slid off Kai’s lap, stood up, and held out her hand. “Let’s take our dog and go home,” she suggested.
Kai grinned. “Yours or mine? And, on that point, we need an ours, as soon as possible.”
“I agree.” Flick grinned as his fingers interlocked with hers. Kai started to tug her away but Flick planted her feet. Kai turned to look at her, a small frown between his eyebrows. “Flick? You okay?”
Flick nodded, her eyes brimming. “It’s just that...um...”
Kai’s thumb swiped a tear away. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”
“It’s just that I was so sad and now I’m so happy. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy.”
Kai pulled her head to his chest and her arms went around her waist. She felt her lips in her hair, the emotion skittering through him.
“You chased the monsters that lurked in the pitch-dark corners of my mind.” Kai stood back and pushed her hair off her face, tucking strands behind her ears. His eyes shone with love and truth. “In loving you, being with you, I found myself. Found that I might even like myself.”
Flick sniffed up her tears. “Oh, Kai.”
Kai smiled. “Though you shouldn’t expect me to say that again. This mushy stuff is a one-time deal.”
Oh, she suspected that it might not be, but she wasn’t going to push.“As long as you tell me, at least once a day, that you love me.”
“Deal.” Kai took her hand again and pulled her down the path. “Can we please go home now? I need you in my bed and I plan on keeping you there for hours. It is, after all, our job, to give Mercy something to talk about.”
Epilogue
MayorBob: People, can we please give Knox Callow some breathing room and treat him like any other Mercy resident? He’s renting the Friedemann homestead and would, I’m sure, like to be treated like any other local.
BoredWife:Does that mean we can gossip about him as we do about everyone else?