Her eyes flew open. She was curled against Cole’s chest. Her bare thigh—oh, God—was slung over one of his. She was wearing one of his T-shirts, way too big and cozy. Only, she had no memory of putting it on.
Cole stirred. His eyes blinked open. He smiled at her, full and unguarded. “Hey, there,” he said.
Her expression must’ve broadcast her confusion because he blinked again, this time with alarm.
“No, no,” he said, propping himself up and showing her his palm. “You were soaked and shaking. I just—” He cut himself off. “You needed warmth, so I warmed you, but that’s all. Nothing happened, Willow. I swear.”
Willow took in the worry knotting his brow. He’d been careful with her from the beginning. Mocking, teasing, yes—but never cruel. Always measured. Always, at the last second, reining himself in. A gentleman, through and through.
That night in World’s End, though. Their last night together. She remembered how he’d looked at her in the moonlight, his eyes burning with a hunger he hadn’t been able to hide. She remembered the way he’d pulled her to him like he had no choice, like he’d been starving and she was the only thing that could keep him alive.
Their kiss, for that moment, had stopped time.
And then she’d pulled away. From him. From that moment. From everything real and warm and rooted in the normal world.
She’d run to Serrin instead.
She still felt quietly fond of Serrin. Protective, even, which was strange.
She didn’t miss him or long for him. His betrayal when he’d seen Lily in the scrying basin instead of her...
It no longer stung. In fact, it no longer felt like betrayal at all.
What had she and Serrin shared, really?
Not passion but something pure, the kind of love that belonged in a cathedral: high and golden and revered. She’d loved her faerie prince like a prince in... well... a fairy tale. The Disney kind of fairy tale.
It hadn’t really been love, had it? How could it have been? She’d never even known him.
But she knew Cole, and Cole—for the love of thrice-spun foglace—was no Disney prince.
“Willow?” he said. His eyes scanned her face, like he was afraid she might break. “What’s going on in that head of yours, princess?”
Willow smiled and let her chaotic tangle of regrets, betrayals, and broken dreams fly off on dragon’s wings. They’d circle back soon enough. Right now, Willow had other things on her mind.
She leaned in and pressed her lips to his, which were full and soft.
He tensed but didn’t pull away. Then his fingers threaded through her hair, his palm curving to the back of her neck as he drew her closer.
He shifted his position and hers so that she found herself on her back with Cole half over her. She reached for him greedily, enthralled by the warmth and strength of his mortal flesh.
His hand found her hip, her waist, and then the soft skin below her ribs. Willow arched toward him with zero hesitation—not the little lost girl from the night before. Not a little girl. Not a confused teenager—or a broken one, either.
Willow was just Willow, wanting what she wanted. Cole’s body curved toward hers, and she clutched his hips, digging her fingers into his skin.
Cole drew back and looked down at her. His eyes were glazed with the hunger she remembered, but he lifted his eyebrows.Yes? No?
She answered without words, her fingers moving to the waistband of his pajama pants. She pushed them down as far as she could, then pulled his borrowed T-shirt over her head. All she wanted was skin against skin, heat meeting heat, the press and pull of breath and need.
Cole freed himself of his pajama pants with more haste than grace, and then he was kissing her again, and everything was urgent and real. No fairy-tale shimmer, no illusion. Just the thrum of blood and the taste of salt and the whisper of her name on his lips. When release came, it rode on a warm tide, sweeping them under like a wave returning to shore. No pond, no Box, no before or after.
Only this.
Only them.
At last.
~
