I will be honorable, Ian. Will you vow the same?
He clutched her shoulders and pulled her toward him. "Christ, Selena," he whispered, hearing the ragged tenor of his voice. He couldn't help it, couldn't pretend to be strong. Everything about this moment hurt.
We could run away together. The thought spun through his mind, made him dizzy with the need to say it.
She touched him, trailed her fingers across his cheek, down his throat, caressing, claiming. Finally she drew back, let her hand fall into her lap. "You were right to be afraid."
He stared at her, losing himself in the darkness of her eyes, needing her more in that moment than he'd ever needed anyone or anything. "What will I do without you?" he whispered.
She started to cry, silently at first, and then in great,
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heaving spasms. He folded his arms around her, drew her onto his lap and held her fiercely, burying his face in the wet, cold crook of her neck.
He thought of all the times he'd touched her, all the kisses he'd trailed along her throat, across her breasts. All the words she'd mangled and the laughs she'd given him. About how yawningly empty his world would be without her. Oh, Jesus ...
The tears came at last, burning his eyes, blurring his vision. They clung to each other for a lifetime, the only warmth in the cold, rainy night.
Too soon, she pulled away. Sniffling, she wiped her eyes and touched his face. "You told me many times that the world was cold and cruel and unjust." She tried to laugh, tried and failed. "I am beginning to believe you."
"I'll wait for you, forever if I have to. Someday ..." His voice trailed off. The tears in his eyes crested, slipped down his cheeks. "Someday ..."
She shook her head. "No, Ian. This would break my heart. I must go-we both know that. But .. . but I love you so. Do not nail your life to a cross for this love of ours. I could not stand it." She leaned toward him, cupped his face in her cold, shaking hands and stared into his red-rimmed eyes. "Honor what we have had by finding it again. Fall in love, marry, have children. This is what I want from you." Her voice broke, and it took a lifetime for her to go on. "Please ... be happy."
He squeezed his eyes shut for a long, long time, shaking his head. "No,"
"Please." She pressed a quick kiss to his lips. "Please, Ian."
His arms came around her hard, crushing her
to his chest. His mouth slanted over hers, claimed her, possessed and plundered her, until he was dizzy and breathless and aching with the need to be inside her.
"Ah, Selena," he whispered against her ear. "I love you so damned much."
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"And I love you."
He clung to her, reveling in the rainwater-sweet smell of her hair, the soft feel of her lips against him. He tried to memorize everything about this moment, this tiny heartbeat of time; he would need it when she was gone. Already he tried to change it in his mind, so that when he looked back on it-when finally he could-he would remember the love, the passion, the commitment. Not her eyes brimming with tears, or his own wrenching pain. He would remember the taste of the rain, not the taste of their tears. "I will never love another as I have loved you."
He wanted to say more, but it was too late. The dawn had not yet come, and already the time was past for them. Instead, he said the only word that was left. "Good-bye, Selena."
Good-bye.
Selena stood at the top of the stairs, her fingers curled tightly around the polished wooden railing. Sunlight pooled on the warm, honeyed floorboards of the entryway.
It was the last time she'd stand here, the last time she'd feel the familiar smoothness of the wood beneath her fingers, the last time she 'd hear the quiet creak of the third step... .
She forced the thoughts back, deep, deep inside her, to that darkened place where she couldn't see them anymore. She hurried downstairs and opened the parlor door.
They were everywhere, filling the room in silent, gray silhouettes. The only family she'd ever known.
She bit on her lower lip, making eye contact with no one.
No one spoke.
The silence felt thick and heavy; the antithesis of every moment she'd ever spent in this room, every memory she'd ever made with these people.