He held very still. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to-”
“Yes.”
“Or later, regret-”
“Caspian, yes.”
“I just wanted to give you a good memory here. Since-”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said desperately, hungrily. “Give me a good memory. Please. I love you, Caspian. Love me.”
He cupped my face, and gently pushed aside a curl. “I love you, too, Abbey. More than life. More than death. More than forever.”
Then I was drowning again. But this time I wasn’t alone. This time he was with me. Guiding me. And we were drowning together. Closer than life, and death, and everything in between.
I cracked open an eyelid, and immediately wondered where I was. My arms and legs felt heavy, like they were still asleep. I moved to roll over onto my side, and felt a twinge of soreness from muscles I didn’t even know I had.
My eyes opened all the way, and Caspian came into sight. I realized that I was on my back, my hair spread out around me, my dress not at all where it should be, and I tingled all over. A simultaneous feeling of exhaustion and contentment spread through me.
Caspian was lying next to me, the sheet wrapped around his waist. I could tell that I was blushing even as I looked at him. “That was … intense,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Was it, um, intense for you?”
“Very intense.” He leaned forward and ran a finger down the tip of my nose. “And so very worth the wait.”
Now I was blushing even harder, a ridiculously happy feeling of satisfaction suffusing me. “How did I manage to keep my dress on?”
“Luck? Skill? Sheer force of will?” he said. “We were a bit too busy to think about it.”
I grabbed for the sheets to pull up around me. Suddenly I was feeling exposed.
He gently moved a piece of hair away from my face. “Don’t get all shy on me now,” he said.
I reached up and took his hand, smiling at him. “I’m not.” Then I glanced back down at the sheet I was desperately clinging too. “Okay, maybe I am. A little.”
He smiled too.
“Only twenty-one hours left,” I whispered, looking at the clock. We were on borrowed time. It was almost three a.m.
“Twenty-one hours more,” he corrected. “Twenty-one hours to be together.” He reached for the white tuxedo shirt on the floor. “I think we should have a dance. Since we didn’t get to share your prom.”
When he looked away, I took advantage of the moment to gather the top of my own dress together. One of the laces was dangling free, at the end of the bodice, but the other one was missing.
“Have you seen my string?” I asked. “I had two.”
He glanced around casually. “Nope. Don’t see it. Guess you’ll have to make do with just one.”
“One won’t lace it up all the way.”
“And that’s a problem?”
I laughed. “I guess if you’re not complaining …”
He held up both hands. “I’m not complaining.”
I grinned, pulling up the lace and tugging it into position. It slipped through the bodice holes easily, but it was definitely not pulled as tightly closed as it could have been. When I looked up again, Caspian had his shirt back on.
“The tux was a nice touch,” I said. “How did you pull it off?”
“Uri. He helped me out with a couple of things. The tux, the roses … It took me a while to set everything up because I …” He looked away.
Gathering up my skirt, I pushed myself to a standing position. My legs and thighs ached, like I’d been running a marathon, and it took me a second to get used to the feeling. Caspian went over to a CD player on top of the fireplace mantel and pushed a button. Jazz filled the air, and when he returned to me, he held out his hand.
We danced through four songs, and I never wanted it to end. The candles burned lower, most of them were almost gone. I looked up at him, and he was looking down at me. His eyes were wide and focused. “What?” I asked.
“Just you. I’m just happy being with you,” he explained.
“Me too.” I sighed. “I feel all warm and gooey inside. Like chocolate chip cookies.”
“I don’t remember what chocolate tastes like.”
“You don’t?” I stared up at him in disbelief.
“No.”
“Then, we need to fix that. Come on. We are going to do some baking.” I grabbed his hand and led him to the door, stopping along the way and blowing out the remainder of the lit candles.
He followed me down to the kitchen, and I flipped on a light. It didn’t take long to assemble the ingredients, and in no time we were both elbow-deep in cookie dough.
“Taste this,” I directed him, after stirring in half a bag of chocolate chips.
I held up a spoon to his lips, and he tasted some and swallowed. A comical look crossed his face. “I don’t know if I like it,” he said, licking the corner of his lips. “It’s … weird.”
“Weird?” I waved the spoon in front of him. “Weird? What planet are you from?”
He laughed.
“Okay.” I pulled my hands out of the dough and dug into the chocolate chip bag. Producing a morsel, I held it out to him. “Try this. Tell me if this is weird.”
He bent his head closer and opened his mouth. His lips wrapped around my finger when I pulled away. His eyes caught mine. “Delicious,” he said. Then, with a mischievous look on his face, he dug a hand into the bowl of dough and tossed a tiny glob at me. It landed on my cheek.
“What?” I shrieked. “You did not just do that! Are you starting a food fight?”
His eyes said it all, and he taunted me with another handful of dough.
I retaliated with a fistful of flour. It showered down upon his head, coating his eyelashes and eyebrows, and I couldn’t stop the eruption of giggles that burst out of me.
He threw sugar next, and I shrieked again as the cold grains ran down the front of my dress. More flour was my only option, and he was laughing too, even as the front of his suit exploded in a blossom of white powder.
Caspian advanced, fingers coated with sticky cookie dough, and I laughed as I retreated. The kitchen was a mess, we were a mess, and I had dough on my face, sugar down my dress, and the threat of more coming my way.
“Truce, truce,” I called, throwing my hands up in mock surrender.
“Aye, for there to be a truce, ye will need to pay a bounty,” he growled in a terrible fake pirate accent.
I couldn’t stop laughing at the sight of his white eyebrows, and I doubled over in a heap of giggles. He pounced, and pinned me down, sticky fingers grabbing mine as he straddled me.
“The bounty,” he said. “I think we can come to an agreement.”
Pulling one of his hands down to my lips, I licked his finger clean. “Mmmmm,” I said. “Chocolate chip cookie dough has never tasted so good.”
His eyes went dark and his lips met mine. “You are so right.”
Chapter Twenty-two. LOSING TIME
But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire …
– “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
We left the kitchen behind and stumbled back upstairs. We were almost to the bed when I realized that we were still covered in baking supplies. “We’re all dirty,” I said, taking my mouth from his. “We’re covered in flour and sugar, and …” I wiped my cheek. “Cookie dough.”
Caspian pulled back. “You’re right. I have an idea. Stay here.”
I sat on the edge of the bed as he left me behind and went to the bathroom. An instant later I heard the sound of bath water running.