“Five emotions down, five more to go. You’ve made me the happiest I’ve ever been. Also the saddest.” He now lifted two fingers of his other hand. “And caused me an infinite amount of pain and pleasure.”
There was only one finger left curled now.
One emotion he still hadn’t unveiled.
The watch on his wrist said it was five to five. Only five more minutes before Auntie Tilda’s wish evaporated and we ran out of time to say all the things we wanted to say.
My breath hitched.
“I love you, Persephone,” he growled. “I love you so fucking hard. Somewhere along the way, I softened. I may have saved you from a bleeding heart, but your bleeding heart saved me. Ten emotions are not twenty-seven. There’s still more to go, but I want to take this journey with you.
“We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn’t drag you down a dark path. You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus.” The clock hit five. Our sixty minutes were up. The alarm on my phone beeped to tell me so, but I smacked the side button to silence it. “I love you as he loved the sun. Too close. Too hard. Too fast.”
He dipped his head, his mouth closing in on mine. I went limp in his arms. He gathered me to his chest, strong and resilient, steadfast. A cold king in his poisonous garden, finally letting the sunrays touch his skin.
We sank down to the ground on our knees, and I no longer feared the earth would open its jaw and swallow me into the underworld.
Kill’s mouth moved over mine. He pried my lips apart, rolling his tongue with mine teasingly, tasting me. I moaned, bracketing his cheekbones, deepening our kiss as I climbed onto his lap, the only place that had ever felt like home.
We kissed for hours. By the time our lips broke, my mouth was dry, my lips cracked, and a velvet blue shadow colored the sky.
My husband slid his nose down the bridge of mine.
“The contract still stands. My soul is yours.”
“I never wanted your soul.” I smiled into his lips, my eyes meeting his. “I tore it to shreds the minute I got it in the mail. I’ve only ever wanted your heart. Now that I have it, I have a secret to tell you.”
He arched an eyebrow.
I put my lips to his ears.
“I didn’t believe in souls, either, before.”
“Before?”
“Before I met you.”
A year later.
“You look like you’re about to burst.”
I wanted to strangle my sister, even if her words were delivered with genuine concern.
Objectively speaking, I did look like an orange. I was forty-one weeks pregnant with our first child. It was clear that my son, like his father, was not to be rushed. Rather, he’d decided to opt for a grand entrance while fashionably late, something my body did not appreciate.
My breasts were the size of watermelons and constantly sore, my lower back felt like nothing but pointy needles supported it, and my hormones were all over the place.
This past week, I couldn’t even bring myself to get out of bed. I had to rely on Cillian for food and entertainment. Oh, and reaching those pesky parts I could no longer scrub while taking a shower.
I leaned over my headboard with a pout, wiggling my toes even though they were nothing but a distant memory I couldn’t see anymore.
“When are the mood swings going to be over?” I pondered aloud. Sailor and Aisling were in the room, too, fawning over me. “I’m tired of bursting into tears every time I see a Super Bowl commercial and whenever a Katy Perry song comes on the radio.”
“You cry because she sucks, right?” Belle slumped on the foot of my bed, massaging my feet. “Just want to confirm your hormones are only messing with your feelings and not your taste in music.”
I snorted, giving her a playful kick. “I’m serious.”
“My mood swings never passed,” Sailor said, draped on a recliner in the corner of our master bedroom. “I remember pushing Rooney’s stroller along a jogging trail, looking at a squirrel running about, thinking how its tail would be perfect for cleaning baby bottles. In my defense, it was really fluffy.”
“No offense, bitch, but you’re not such a great example.” Belle placed my right ankle over her thigh, digging her thumbs deep into the arch of my foot. “You got knocked up again before Rooney graduated from seeing shades to recognizing voices. Does your husband know he can put it away every now and again?”
“No,” we all said in unison, laughing. Aisling scrunched her nose. She was standing at the window, watching my lush garden. The day I’d moved back into the mansion was also the day the bleeding heart had begun to wilt and eventually die. It was like it served its purpose and then retired. I always thought of it as Auntie Tilda finally taking a breath after she granted my wish.