But his declaration is wrong, because she hadn’t fulfilled that promise, because she ran out of time. Hadn’t she?
“I told you not to go anywhere,” she accuses.
“I didn’t.” A sly grin fills his tone. “He did.”
And it doesn’t take skill to know who he’s referring to. She has been raised on awe, and musings, and enigmas. She has spent her life meditating and discovering. She has grown up harvesting mysteries and translating secrets.
Oh stars, she knows who he means.
But how has she not considered this? Perhaps she hadn’t dared. For once, she hadn’t risked hoping for the implausible.
The first time he died, destiny trapped his soul, caging him in between his mortal demise and an immortal’s hold. Only when restoring his heart—by valuing himself and embracing love—did he restore the past. And only when perishing for the second time did he truly free himself from it.
Malice hasn’t faded. Quill has.
At last, his former self is a genuine memory. At last, the boy named Quill rests in peace.
Finally, he’s just Malice. And he’s very much alive.
“You disappeared,” Wonder testifies. “The table was empty. You were gone.”
“Eh. For a little while,” he supplies. “I was dreaming of books, and then I heard you whispering to me. You left after that, but you were on your way back, because I heard you. So yeah, you kept your promise. And just when your come-hither footfalls reappeared around the corner, the sound of you dissolved, and I was dreaming again. When I finally blinked awake, the library was vacant, and I was still on the table, alone and groggy as shit. Sort of like a death hangover.”
“Dammit, how can you joke about this?”
“Christ, come on. Don’t you know me by now?”
In spite of herself, Wonder chuckles weakly.
He was alone because her class had traveled to Stargazer Hill. In her grief, she had come here instead of following them.
And why here? Why this prairie hill from his past life, the environment that still exists unblemished and unchanged? To say good-bye to every place that led to him. Even though he’d been Quill in this setting, that existence had eventually turned him into Malice, the misfit who had shaken her heart and then filled it to overflowing. She had come here to let every piece of him go.
That’s why he had known where to look.
“You’re…,” Wonder trails off. “You’re here.”
“If that’s okay with you,” Malice says. “Otherwise, I can’t just—”
On a half-sob, half-growl, she spins around.
There he is, looming over her in a black leather sweater that blends into his jeans. He’s free of archery and shoes, his bare toes bumping against hers. And there’s that crown of mussed, golden waves. The wiry, filthy mouth and cunning chin.
Those manic eyes that are no longer ashen. Rather, they’re a silken gray, a mirror of the overcast sky or a subterranean vault. Transfixed by her, the irises glisten with a complex emotion—the most complicated and messy one of all.
He presents the corsage that she’d left with his body and fixes it around her wrist. “Told you I’d give it back eventually.” Only this misfit can manage a grin that’s equally bittersweet and devious. “By the way? I love you, too.”
Wonder launches herself at him. Slamming her fists on his chest, she pounds into him, crying and sputtering—and then flinging her arms around his neck. “Malice,” she weeps. “You came back to me.”
He crushes her to him, his arms wending around her waist. “Looks like I always will.” He seizes her face and lifts her head, their tears fusing as he speaks against her mouth. “You’re in my head. You’re in my chest, my ribs, my fingertips. You’ve been there from the beginning, before I laid eyes on you. You’ve been right there. I’ll always come back to you, Wonder. You better believe I’ll always come back.”
Scarcely finishing that sentence, his mouth tackles hers. And it doesn’t matter that he cannot always come back, that he might not be so lucky the next time. It doesn’t matter because they’re not planning on a third time. He’s so alive, and she’s so alive, and they’re here.
And this is now. Not then, but now.
This is real, with its flawed edges and exquisite detours, with its erudite underworlds and wandering hilltops. That’s all she wants, all she needs.
Under this mortal sky, they start over.
Dragging his palms to the back of her head, Malice locks Wonder in place while his teeth nip her mouth, then his lips split her open. They slant into a kiss. He’s tart to the palate, like a hard, crimson fruit, and maybe she’s sweet like a bud, or maybe they have the same flavor.
Their lips fold, spreading and rolling together. His tongue passes into her, swats into her, the tip riding along her own tongue. They coil, sweeping into a delirious rhythm—a living, sighing, teeming thing.
A moan skitters up her throat, and he catches it. In turn, he emits a guttural noise, the vibration shimmering across her flesh, radiating to the core. She feels that sound flex between her thighs, causing the muscles to tighten.
As his wet tongue strokes into her mouth with a rough tempo, she entwines with him. Her digits climb into his hair, and one of his palms braces around her nape, the other scaling down to her buttocks. Their bodies meld, her ample form snuggling into his angular one as they lunge into the kiss. Teeth scrape, and lips quiver, and tongues probe.
Gasping for air, Malice pulls back to rest his forehead against hers. Those brazen eyes fill her vision as she feels her dress loosen from behind. She reciprocates by fumbling with his leather sweater, which conceals too much of him.
Her belly takes flight, flapping in anticipation, which is odd. They’ve done this multiple times, from numerous angles, on a variety of surfaces.
Has she ever been nervous with him?
Yes. But never this nervous.
She has never made love to Malice—only to Malice.
Wonder whips the sweater over his head, throwing it somewhere, anywhere, elsewhere. The straps of her dress tumble over her shoulders, the garment ready to slip from her completely.
They sink to the grass, her back reclining, the blades of green tickling her elbows and heels. Malice falls into the gap between her thighs, his weight a delicious relief. Her legs hitch around his hips, her knees pitching high as his head dips. And oh Fates, he sucks the pliable flesh of her neck, right where it meets her clavicles.
Wonder mewls, and he hums, increasing the pressure. The result is almost hallucinatory, electrifying her senses.
Dragging down the gown’s neckline, he bares a breast, swollen to his view. “What a little pearl,” he mumbles. “I need to have that.”
His lips find the center, drawing the pert nipple between his ivories. Wonder writhes. His tongue is a torment, tugging her into his mouth, circling and lapping while his talons trace the slumped straps of the gown.
She protests when he changes his mind and inches away, which only incites a black chuckle. Curse him.
Suspending himself above her, Malice tosses Wonder a wicked, lopsided grin as he enjoys the prickles along her skin. Without warning, those nails give a flick, shearing the threads. Limp, the dress drizzles down her body.
Malice chucks the garment aside and appraises Wonder as though he’s never seen her breasts and stomach and thighs, nor the private center of her limbs. The thick, heavy-lidded expression on his face causes that spot to throb. It pulses, growing damp from his stare.