Silver Dew (5 page)

He slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me protectively against his chest. “Don’t be afraid. The magic doesn’t control you – you control it. You’re bound to make mistakes as you try to remember how to focus your ability. I only wish I could remember something useful, something that might help you but Caoilinn’s magic was always so different than mine. I never thought to learn about her powers, only my own.”

“Why must you always put the blame for everything on yourself?” I pulled back from him slightly as I spoke, my tone colored by affectionate exasperation.

His warm laugh in response made my body glow with pleasure from head to toe. “I apologize. It’s an incredibly irritating quality that I must have picked up from someone who I spend far too much time with as it is.”

I fought the smile twitching at my lips. “You should be more careful about who you associate yourself with then. I hear it’s gotten you into trouble in the past.”

For a second I feared I had gone too far. Sebastian blinked in surprise, his expression momentarily freezing in place before he suddenly tipped back his head and laughed. The sound was loud and unexpected, echoing throughout the trees and shadows around us. I initially flinched before becoming caught up in his contagious laughter. His joy was irresistible. These days there weren’t enough reasons to laugh.

As our laughter died down and faded away to shared grins, Sebastian met my eye with a powerful fire in his own. “Oh, Gracelynn. What would I ever do without you?” he murmured as he tenderly reached out to remove a small piece of forest debris that had become entangled in my hair.

“You’d forget me soon enough,” I teased.

“No. Never again,” he denied, his smile fading while the passion in his eyes burned brighter. He slowly reached out to brush my messy hair back from my face, his fingertips lightly grazing my temple as he did so. I automatically flinched back, my whole body tensing suspiciously, my breath catching in my chest as the memory of him once trying to erase my memory flashed behind my eyes.

Sebastian froze. The hurt my involuntary action had caused him briefly flickered in the depths of his eyes before he forced a smile onto his face.

“You won’t ever forgive me for trying to make you forget, will you?” There was no hurt or accusation in his voice as he spoke, only a sad kind of curiosity.

“I’ve forgiven you. It’s impossible to stay angry with you – especially when you don’t want me to be,” I pointed out. “I forgave you almost as soon as I remembered you – remembered
us
. I know where your intentions lay, where your heart was the whole while but… I won’t so easily
forget
what you did or that you might try it again one day.”

“I’ll never make you forget me or anything else, ever again,” Sebastian solemnly promised. He linked his fingers through mine as he spoke and raised our clasped hands. His warm, lips began gently brushing over my knuckles, his soft breath raising the hairs on my skin.

I bit my lower lip, not wanting to speak the truth but knowing I had to.

“I wish I could believe you,” I whispered.

Sebastian raised his eyes to mine. I was surprised to see the hesitance in them. He lowered our hands and gazed back to the fire, attempting to subtly avoid my eye.

“I couldn’t erase your memory again if I wanted to,” he reluctantly confessed. I frowned back at him, puzzled. “You don’t want to forget me or anything else, ever again – you
really
don’t want to. It’s like slamming into a brick wall; my attempts have absolutely no effect on you whatsoever so you needn’t worry.”

“Your
attempts
?”

He didn’t even have the courtesy to look ashamed. He shrugged.

“I know how afraid you are, Gracelynn. I know what a nightmare this has been for you. I thought that maybe if you forgot what we were running from you might...” He didn’t finish his sentence. My glare effectively silenced him.

I took a long, slow, deep breath, trying to calm myself. “I can’t believe you thought the fact that you’ve been trying to tamper with my memory unsuccessfully would actually make me feel better. Really, Sebastian! How am I supposed to trust you?”

To my extreme annoyance, he laughed. “It should be easy. I lie to myself all the time and have no qualms with my own trustworthiness,” he declared with a grin. “But I didn’t lie to you,” he pointed out when I didn’t share in his smile. “I just didn’t tell you that I had tried to alter your memory – until now.”

“Withholding information and lying aren’t that different.”

“I disagree. Lying is dishonest, while withholding certain pieces of information can often be considered… prudent.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Prudent?”

“Yes. For example, you said you didn’t want to hear the details of my past-”

“Because it doesn’t concern me,” I interjected. “What you did before we met, whatever choices you made when you couldn’t remember – it doesn’t matter. All that matters to me is us. All I care about is the present.”

He smiled, a familiar mischievous gleam sparkling in his large, wise eyes. “But I haven’t tried to affect your memory lately, that was weeks in the past. And since we’re only talking about the present…”

He suddenly leant forward, his face abruptly inches from mine, his eyes intense beneath the fans of dark lashes. He took me by surprise, barely giving me time to catch my breath, my anger abruptly vanishing.

“Presently, I was about to kiss you,” he finished, his hands gently pulling me closer as he spoke.

His lips brushed against mine lightly at first, teasing and enticing me with his sweet, playful kisses. Unable to stop myself, I leant in closer, my hand automatically sliding around his strong shoulders and up the back of his neck, my fingers curling into his black, messy hair. It was the sweetest manipulation possible and I didn’t even try to resist.

My heart pounded harder, my body came alive as an intense and overwhelming sensation began building in my chest. My lips parted to inhale the sweet, exotic warmth of his breath, the taste of his mouth filling my mind and overwhelming all my senses. Within seconds, all my reason, all of my self-control was long gone and there was nothing but his body and mine, and the undeniable need to be together.

I broke free from his kisses to catch my breath but I couldn’t stop touching him. I pulled him tightly against me as he kissed down my neck, his lips rough and tender all at the same time. Fire erupted throughout my body, lingering under my skin and demanding to be satisfied and further fueled by his touch.

“Gracelynn?” His warm breath tickled against my collarbone, sending electric chills all over. Our bodies shifted closer together.

I struggled to find the necessary air to speak. “Yes?” We had slowly moved together to lie down on the thin tarpaulin covered by a soft blanket that was to be our bed by the fire. My excitement and passion flared. He reluctantly pulled back from me, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look directly into my eyes. His hand lingered on my hip, then began to stroke slowly up and down my side as he spoke.

“I think, maybe, we should stop,” he quietly announced, the look in his eyes and the feel of his touch completely at odds with the words on his lips.

I immediately shook my head, pulling his face back down to mine. “I don’t want to stop.” My words were slightly breathless, my voice sounding suddenly much more mature and sexier than I’d expected to be able to pull-off. He made a low noise in his throat as I passionately kissed him that sounded half-groan, half-moan and only further increased my desire. He broke his lips apart from mine again to speak but this time I kept kissing down his throat, my hands sliding under his shirt and up over his firm stomach.

“You wanted to be married first,” he reminded me. I hesitated, his words finally breaking through to me.

“I did,” I reluctantly conceded, my lips tickling his skin as I spoke. I sighed and nuzzled into his neck, breathing in the warm, heady scent of his skin, my hand still slowly trailing back down his stomach. I smiled triumphantly as his hand tightened on my hip in response, pulling me over almost roughly to lay half on top of him. There was nowhere to look but his beautiful, passion-filled eyes. He stared back at me, looking deeply into my eyes. I could feel his chest rise up and down beneath me with each breath that he took.

“Marry me first,” he repeated. I could see just how hard it was for him to stop, to slow things down between us. My sense of reason was slowly and reluctantly returning to me.

“I have two conditions,” I told him, kissing his lips as I spoke.

“Anything.”

I smiled. “You have to ask me properly and you have to do it soon. I don’t want to wait anymore, Sebastian. Life’s too short and I know what I want – I want you.”

“That’s easy; I’m yours. I’ve always been yours – for as long as I can remember, and for as long as I can’t,” he added with a small laugh. “And life, for us, can be as long as we want it to be.”

I carefully slid off him, leaving just my arm wrapped around his chest. He hugged me tightly against his side and we looked up at the sparkling night sky that peeked out between the tree branches above where we lay. The fire crackled cozily nearby while our pounding hearts slowed and reason fully returned. A blush spread out and over my cheeks that had nothing to do with the hot night air as I recalled how forward I’d been just moments ago.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized for the second time that night. “I don’t know what came over me.” I turned my head against his chest, hiding my blush against his skin.

“It’s my fault as much as yours,” Sebastian answered. “I think we both may have allowed our momentary ‘wants’ to overpower one another’s better judgment.”

My brows pulled down as I gazed up at the night sky above us.

“I just wanted to be together, to forget about everything else…” I realized my mistake as soon as I said it. Sebastian chuckled softly by my side.

“And I let my wants be overpowered by your own.”

“You did?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes. Because no matter what I may want in a moment of passion, deep down inside, I know that what I truly want is for you to be happy. And I don’t think you’d be happy if you compromised a moral that you’ve stuck to and defined yourself by for so long.”

I didn’t answer. I silently considered his words.

“But a part of me must have wanted to forget that responsibility – enough that your magic was able to seduce me so easily,” he teased.

“I did not seduce you!” I argued, shocked at his suggestion. He laughed quietly. “If anything, it was the other way around.”

“Then I should apologize.” Sebastian sat up as he spoke, pulling me up with him. His eyes were bright with excitement, his smile so happy and teasing that I realized just how long it had been since I’d seen him smile like that. “You do need to learn to control your emotions though, Gracelynn. You must always be aware that what you may want in the moment is not necessarily what you want in the grander scheme of things,” he reminded me more seriously.

“I know,” I agreed. “I’m trying, Sebastian, really I am. This is just all so new and overwhelming – and frightening. I’m trying so hard but I feel like I’m getting nowhere.” My happy mood was quickly fading, reality destroying the beautiful magic of our evening together.

“It will all be okay, I promise. You’re doing just fine. It will come back to you, you just need more practice,” he added with a grin.

He shifted onto his knees as he spoke, reaching down to the edges of his shirt and tugging it up and over his head so that he knelt bare-chested before me in the firelight. I couldn’t help but swallow hard. His smooth skin looked bronze under the fire’s soft glow, all the perfect angles and contours of his muscles highlighted by the flickering firelight, his stunning physique punctuated by the black lines of the mysterious tattoos that decorated his body.

“More practice?” I repeated uncertainly.

His grin widened. “Sure. We know the answers we’re seeking are hidden within my tattoos so perhaps you should spend more time looking at them.” His muscles flexed and tightened as he stretched out on the blanket beside me, lying on his chest and resting his cheek on his folded arms. “Go ahead. Let me know if they trigger any memories for you – they sure haven’t for me.”

I shook my head at his back, biting my lip as I smiled. I slowly climbed onto him, sitting on his lower back so that I could properly examine the large, Celtic cross design that was spread out before me. A million sensations came back to me as my eyes followed the twists and turns, the depth and details of the design overwhelming me. I remembered the first time he had shown me his tattoos, that night he had revealed so many truths to me. I thought about the day he had given me his ring too, out on the middle of the frozen pond beneath the beautiful mural he had painted on the underside of a bridge. I was whisked away on a warm breeze of pleasant memories as I traced the designs of his tattoo with my finger, but nothing further came to me, no memories of a forgotten magic or a life I had lived thousands of years in the past, or hints of the secrets I had hidden for my future self.

“What do these words mean?” I lightly ran a finger over some of the small, twisting text that was woven between the images decorating the cross.

Sebastian didn’t answer right away. I leant to the side so that I could properly see his expression. His face was scrunched up, his expression almost pained, the muscles in his neck and jaw strained as he struggled to answer.