Page 58 of Love the Way You Lion
Blinking, I try to comprehend that he and his ilk place bets with things as big as boats, but I shrug it off. I’m still not used to it. “Okay. Well, yay for me, and no boat for you.”
He gives me a long-suffering sigh and then tilts his head. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to realize what day it is, you know.”
“I blink, pretending to think about it. “Huh. Well, it’s a Tuesday.”
Rolling his eyes, he shakes his head. “Keep forgetting our anniversaries—big and small—and I’m going to get a complex, my love.”
My lips curl and I bat my lashes. “Has it been two months since we...?”
Throwing his hands up, he growls. “I should give up on knowing when you’re yanking me. You get me every sodding time.” He smiles and rolls over, reaching into the nightstand drawer on his side. “I have something for you and I’m sick to death of not asking. It’s not original, but it’s from my heart.”
The box is small and intricately carved, so I’m calling bullshit on the not very original part. I think he’s had every piece of this custom made and prepared for longer than he’s admitting. He could have tortured it out of someone this weekend, too. “Ooh. Let’s see what it is, since I find it hard to believe that you’re too shy to say anything.”
He blinks and then grabs it back. “Wait! Wait.” He tugs me up so I’m sitting, then kneels in front of me, looking up. “I’ve wanted to give this to you and I’m sick to death of waiting.” Opening the box, he reveals a ring that looks like his, but smaller. “Will you wear this as I do? Be mine in soul and life and death and blood and any other way I can get you? I don’t care what finger you wear it on; I don’t. Please, love, wear it for me.”
My heart feels like it has stopped. I can’t be breathing. I’m looking at the ring, so shocked and so taken aback that I don’t even know what to do.
I’ve been brooding for weeks about why he never reciprocated my gift. My theories have always come down to my past. I thought about asking him, but I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer.
I let it fester until I had to put it away, so it wouldn’t consume me. It hit me hard last night when I felt Rafe and Talia exchange their rings, but I funneled it into our convent outing. I resigned myself to accepting that Taurus did not want to do this with me. I prepared myself to suck it up and move on, I’ve made my own choices.
And I figured I had to pay for them.
But he’s on his knees asking me now, and I’m going to cry any minute. I feel the emotion swelling inside me. “I... I...”
I can’t find words, and my hand is shaking as I reach out to him. I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat as big, fat tears fall from my eyes. “I will.”
He brushes a tear away with his thumb, before reaching for my left hand. Holding the ring and looking at me, he murmurs, “Which finger, heart of mine?”
I whisper, “Where it belongs.”
His eyes glow and he slides the ring onto my ring finger, brushing his fingertips over it as it settles on my hand. Raising my hand, he kisses the ring and then murmurs, “Never doubt my love, my complete devotion to you, to what’s true and good and light. Never doubt you are my one, my only, and my life is yours to do with as you will. My happiness is you; my peace is you; my home is you. You are now—and will always be my everything.”
Oh, now he’s got me completely blubbering.
I’m crying like a complete fool now and I pull him onto the bed with me, needing to have him close. All my paranoia and self-loathing are shoved away in one simple gesture, making my world feel right.
He presses close to me, holding on as he lowers his lips to mine and kisses me. Whispering into my mind, he says, ~Happy Anniversary, my love. Tell me, is it still worth putting up with me each day? ~
That—and more—is how we celebrated a two-month anniversary: a bloodbath, a convent, and a ring.
It seems about par for the course for us.
The Cat And The Bird Find A Little Peace
TAURUS
Istride in, ditching my duster in the closet and pouring a drink. I don’t see the minx anywhere around the room, which is disappointing.
She’s been working hard in the training program; she stays well past the other gits to practice. Her scores are off the charts, but I can’t let her know I’m checking up on her. She wants to do it on her own, and it makes me proud. I’m about to reach out to her to figure out where she is—because I know now that she’s in the house somewhere—when she pads out of the bathroom.
Holy hell in a handbasket.
Minx is pulling a brush through her long, wavy tresses. The brilliant red of her hair sets off the alabaster color of the skin of her bare shoulders, and she’s dressed in a filmy black silk nightgown with lace cups. Her bare toes peep out from under the long hem of the nightgown, and she gasps when she sees me. I suppose she didn’t notice me while she was walking out. She smells like wild jasmine and looks like every git’s wet dream.
All I can do is stare at the condensation on my glass as it drips on the counter, my drink forgotten.
She frowns and turns in a circle, looking down at herself. “Is something wrong? Do I have chocolate on my face? I was eating while I soaked.”
