Page 117 of Lost in the Moonlight

But what if I didn’t have the gene? What if the test freed me? What if it gave me the gift of a true forever with Lincoln? Glorious decades without dreading the moment the gene ruined everything.

He frowned at my silence. “I should’ve asked…”

My eyes caught on the sketch Lincoln had been working on. It was me again, eyes closed as they’d been in the drawing this weekend—another Sleeping Beauty. It was fitting in many different ways because I did feel like I was coming awake…coming alive for the first time since Dad had been killed.

The alarm that had wrung through me disappeared, replaced with a sure resolve I promised myself I’d finally keep.

“What you see… This girl…” I tapped the page and shook my head, emotions clogging my throat. “You said I brought you into the light, woke you up out of a dream. You did the same for me. And now that I’m awake, I don’t want to go back to sleep or into hiding or play it safe. I have a list in my journal I thought was full of small joyous experiences I could have while still living within the witness protection rules and with the unknown of the FFI. But I don’t want small anymore, Lincoln. I want big. I want huge, overwhelming joys that mean taking all the leaps I can. Sometimes I’ll fall, but it’s worth the risk. The idea of getting to keep you…of building a life together…that’s what I want.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist and tugged me into his chest, kissing my temple. “First, you’re not a girl. You’re a woman who’s got more strength and fire and courage than pretty much anyone I’ve ever encountered. And you weren’t sleeping. It’s more like you were waiting for the right time to step fully into your life. We both were. The asshole leaving the notes was wrong. Wecanhave a happily ever after.” He kissed my cheek, my neck. “Don’t you feel it?”

I nodded. Because I did. I felt the pleasure, the peace, the hope all twined together, expanding and filling every piece of my soul. “Thank you, to your parents and you, for figuring out how to get the test done. It’s a beautiful gift.”

His eyes went behind me once again, as they had repeatedly in the last day, and I turned my head in the same direction with a spike of worry returning. Nothing was there except the shadows of the room. I turned back to him. “What is it?”

When I’d asked him that before, he’d said it was his past haunting him. I’d understood that. Hearing the shots had thrust me right back to that awful night. I’d felt the vibrations of the bullets hitting the speaker all over again. Seen my bloody hands pushing at the bullet holes and all the wounds I couldn’t heal on my father. But whatever was bothering Lincoln felt different. It was as if he was expecting to see someone—or actually seeing someone. Goosebumps trailed over my skin.

“Is someone there?” I asked.

He pulled me tight. “No. It’s just us here. Just us and our future.”

But for the first time since he’d sauntered into the cemetery and demanded Poco let go of me, I wasn’t sure I believed him. Something had drawn his gaze. Something was still worrying him. A tiny trickle of doubt seeped in before I pushed it aside.

I’d live in each moment like Dad had said. Savor every one of them.

And I’d start right now.

I moved, straddling Lincoln, and his eyes landed fully on me, going dark with that look of love and passion and hope I so adored seeing in his eyes. His body was hard beneath me, aching to be rejoined just like mine was. I shifted so I could take him deep inside. His nostrils flared, his hands tightened on my hips, and then we were moving. The pace was almost frantic, wildness rippling around us as if we were proving to ourselves, the world, and the fates that we were here. We were alive. We’d survived. We’d have a huge, beautiful life.

We’d live, damn it. We’d live.

My nails dug into his shoulders. Our soft pants and pounding hearts filled the room. Nothing existed but the delicious beauty of him inside me, becoming one with me, and taking me right up to the edge of the abyss that awaited us.

“I love the feel of you,” I said, gaze locking with his. “I love everything about this. About you. I love you.”

His body went completely still. The cobalt of his eyes turned dark and stormy once more. Midnight skies of passion.

“Say it again,” he demanded.

“I love you.”

“Forever. You and me, Willow. Forever.”

For the first time in what felt like hours, I smiled. “Ridiculousto say forever when we barely know each other.”

He grunted in protest, hips slamming into mine and making me gasp with pleasure.

“We’ve already proven what happens when you use that word in regard to us.”

I met his intense look with a solemn one. “I want it, Lincoln. I want whatever the length of my forever is to be spent with you.Ridiculousor not. It’s what I want.”

“Then take it, Sweetness. Take it all. Take whatever you want.”

Staring down at the gorgeous man who’d somehow, miraculously, become mine, I did what he asked. I took and took and took until we were both murmuring sensual words of love and gasping carnal words of lust. Until our bodies trembled from extreme pleasure instead of fear. And as I hit the peak and went over the edge, he took the leap right with me.

? ? ?

We didn’t make our way downstairs until the sun had already crept over the horizon, and the birds were bursting with song outside the windows. When we walked into the kitchen, Axel and Deputy Marshal James were there, sipping from plain take-out cups that didn’t have The Tea Spot logo on them.

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