Waiting for the Moon

"She was locked in a room, alone. She had but one rule to live by: She could not look down to Camelot. Then she saw Lancelot and she was powerlust not to look at him." Selena pressed up onto her toes, brushed the stubborn curtain of hair from his eyes. "I would have to look."

It was a long time before he answered. They stood there, touching and yet not touching, their gazes locked. In the depth of his blue eyes, she saw his uncertainty and his fear, and it called out to her, made her understand for the first time that life was unfair, and that love could hurt.

Lord, how it could hurt.

His hands slid down the length of her arms, and she shivered at the intimacy of the touch. "It killed her to look at him," he said softly.

"Yes," Selena said simply, knowing he saw the truth in her eyes. She, too, would die to see the world. Just once.

"Jesus, Selena ..." He looked away from her. His sharp, patrician profile looked to be hewn from granite, hard and unforgiving. But she saw the tremble in his jaw. Instinctively she reached out, pressed her cold hand to his warm, stubble-coated cheek.

She applied a gentle pressure, forced him to look down at her. "Do not be so afraid, Ian. I am not."

"You aren't afraid of anything."

"You are wrong. I am afraid of losing you. And I am afraid that you will look at me again as you have looked at me in the past few days."

"And how is that?"

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"As a ... possession."

He sank slowly to his knees, drawing her down with him onto the cold, damp grass. Night curled around them, warm and intimate and cleansing. It was as if there were no world beyond them, nothing that mattered except their two souls in the midst of a great, starlit darkness.

"I'm afraid, Selena." He said the words quietly. "And I don't know what in the hell to do about it."

She snuggled up to him. His arms slipped around her, drew her close. She tilted her face up to his. Behind them, Lethe House winked in windows of golden light; the stars smiled down.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

Very slowly, he brought his hands to her face, cupped her chin as if it were wrought of spun glass. Then he bent forward.

His lips claimed hers in a fierce, tender kiss that left her breathless. Instinctively she arched toward him, buried her fingers into the silky fringe of his hair, drawing him closer and closer to her. She couldn't get him close enough. She needed more, wanted him to be a part of her.

"Slow down, little one," he breathed.

The moist heat of his breath caressed her tingling lips. Drugged with newborn desire, she shook her head. "Don't stop."

He laughed shakily and drew back. "We'd better stop, goddess. Anyone in the house could be watching."

"I don't care."

He gave her a crooked smile. "Surprisingly, I do." He got slowly to his feet and offered her his hand.

A chill moved across her skin, brought a flurry of goose bumps. She looked up at him, feeling oddly off center. He stood tall and straight, his white shirt aglow in the moonlight. He acted as if nothing unusual had happened, and yet she felt as if the world had just slid off its axis.

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Slowly she placed her hand in his, feeling the warm, moist heat of his flesh against hers, and she shivered again.

Suddenly she understood.

Locking her up, closing the doors. He'd been protecting her, keeping this moment possible. It wasn't about fear, although that was part of it; it was about stark, desperate need. About the essence of life.

Already she couldn't imagine a life without Ian. She needed this moment, this sensation, and a million moments like it in her future, needed it like the air she needed to breathe. And yet she knew that he was afraid it was a mirage, something that wouldn't last.

He thought there was someone out there who could take her away from him.