From The Ashes (The Ministry of Curiosities #6)(86)

I nudged him with my elbow and laughed softly.

He gently took my hand and turned it over, palm up. He rubbed his thumb along mine. "Charlie—"

"No. Wait. There's something else I have to say first." I closed my hand around his and blinked up at him. "I forgive you, Lincoln."

He looked down at our linked hands. "You shouldn't."

"I should have told you earlier. If you'd died without knowing…" I cleared my throat, but it remained tight. "I understand why you sent me away. I do."

"But I shouldn't have done it." He leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands, pushing back his hair. "I heard you and Alice just now, talking about home and belonging… I didn't think about any of that when I sent you away. It never occurred to me that I was doing exactly what Holloway did. That doesn't excuse it; it doesn't absolve me of blame. It should have occurred to me." He tilted his head to the side to peer at me. The gleam had vanished from his eyes, replaced with a haunted look. "I profess to love you, yet I don't fully understand you."

My heart tripped. He loved me. It was the first time he'd even mentioned the word. I was relieved he at least knew what it meant and that he could identify it within himself. It felt like progress, so I didn't tell him that he'd never actually professed to love me. Not to my face, anyway.

I tucked his hair behind his ear to see him properly. "If men and women understood one another completely, life would be dull. You and I are different and I can't expect you to know what I'm thinking. You made a mistake, Lincoln, and you regret it. You apologized, and I know you'll never make the same mistake again."

"I won't, but…" He shook his head. "How can you forgive me, Charlie?"

I cupped his cheek and he sat up straight, his wide gaze on me. He seemed to have stopped breathing, whereas my breaths came short and sharp. I had to say this. I had to tell him. I'd never felt surer of anything in my life, never felt more confident of myself and of his feelings for me. We had a future together, as equals—I knew that now. "Not forgiving you hurts me as much as it hurts you. I want you in my life, Lincoln. I want to be with you, and love you, and be loved by you. I want—"

His mouth closed over mine, cutting off my rambling. He kissed how I remembered—confidently, with a little desperation and a lot of heat. But it quickly changed to a more tentative one, as if instinct had suddenly been pushed aside. He was thinking too much. I didn't want him to think, just feel.

I grasped his face with both my hands and touched his lips with my tongue. He smiled briefly, then dug his fingers into my hair. He deepened the kiss and I responded, not holding back. I wanted him to know how much I wanted him, that I forgave him unequivocally, that we should never be apart again. All the intense feelings I'd had in recent months filled me until there was no room left. They flowed out of me with that kiss, dripped down my face, washed over us. Joined us.

He gasped against my mouth and pulled away. He pressed a shaky hand to his forehead and swallowed hard.

"Lincoln? What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. Visions, I think."

"You saw the future?"

"I don't know. There were a lot of jumbled images. It's difficult to separate them."

"What did you see?"

"You. Us. The seaside."

I smiled, relieved he hadn't seen awful things. "Does that mean we're going on a holiday together?"

He touched the bruise on his temple. "That was…unexpected."

"You've never experienced anything like it before?"

He shook his head.

I didn't know if I liked our kisses being the trigger for his visions. We'd kissed before and he hadn't experienced them, so perhaps the experience wouldn't be repeated.

He looked a little pale again, so I touched his cheek, but it wasn't overly hot. "Does your head ache?"

"Not too much." He caught my hand and pressed it to his lips. "I'm going to give you time, Charlie. I won't rush you."

"We did progress very quickly last time." Part of me wanted to move forward, very much, but considering the madness of the last weeks, it was perhaps best if we took steady, measured steps.

"Entering into a relationship with me won't be easy," he said.

"I know that."

"I want you to be certain."

I nodded. I felt certain, but I couldn't deny the prudence behind waiting. Last time, there'd been a sense of giddiness about the engagement itself. This time I wanted to be giddy about being engaged to him.

"You know where your ring is," he went on. "When you're ready, I want you to put it on."

"I will." I twitched with the effort of remaining seated and not running up the stairs to his room. "Why did you leave it there on your desk and not put it in a drawer or safe?"

"To remind me of what I threw away." He pressed his forehead to mine. "To remind me of the things you said when you gave it back to me."

I winced. "They were awful things. I shouldn't have said them."

"You were angry and had every right."

"I spent too long being angry."