Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(54)

“Not at the house,” she heard herself whisper.

McKenna did not move, but she sensed the shock of response that went through him. A full minute passed before he murmured, “Where, then?”

“Let’s walk through the woods,” she said recklessly, “along the path that goes by the wishing well.”

McKenna knew the path she referred to—a dark and unfrequented route that they had traversed a thousand times in their youth. There could be no doubt in his mind as to why she suggested it.

A rueful little smile rose to Aline’s lips as she reflected that coupling in the forest was hardly the stuff of great romance. Furtive, inelegant, hasty, and almost certainly uncomfortable. But she would never have the luxury of candlelight and white linen and leisurely lovemaking. If she were to keep McKenna from seeing her scars, she needed darkness and expedience, so that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to notice her legs. The fact that she was actually contemplating such a thing—an act so utterly devoid of grace and tenderness—was astonishing. But this was all she could have of McKenna. And whom would it hurt? Clearly McKenna wanted the opportunity to take what he’d been denied in the past. For her part, she wanted something to remember, for all the long years she had yet to live without him. They desired each other for what were probably selfish reasons—and in Aline’s current mood, that was just fine.

“The wishing well…” McKenna murmured. “Do you still visit it?”

She remembered how, as a girl, she had often gone to cast a pin into the well and wish for the one thing she couldn’t have. “No,” she said, and turned to face him with a faint smile. “That well ran out of magic a long time ago. It never made any of my wishes come true.”

His face was shadowed as he stood with his back to the firelight. “Maybe you wished for the wrong things.”

“Always,” she admitted, her smile holding a bittersweet curve.

McKenna stared at her intently, then led her away from the bonfire, toward the forest that surrounded Stony Cross Park. They were soon swallowed in the night, their way illuminated by the cloud-crossed moon. After a while Aline’s eyes adjusted to the thickening darkness, but she was less surefooted than McKenna as they walked through the coppices of hazel and elm. He caught her hand in his. Remembering how he had once caressed her, the tender places those fingers had ventured so long ago, Aline felt her breathing turn choppy. She tugged free of him with a low, nervous laugh.

“Am I walking too fast for you?” McKenna asked.

“Just a bit.” She had walked too much that evening—her right knee was threatening to stiffen beneath the tightening scar tissue.

“Then we’ll stop for a moment.” He drew her to the side of the path, where a massive oak tree spread, and they stood in a cleft of its roots. The forest seemed to sigh as it enfolded them in rustling, mossy dampness. As Aline leaned back against the tree trunk, McKenna loomed over her, his breath stirring the wisps of hair that fell on her forehead.

“McKenna…” she said, trying to sound casual, “I want to ask you something…”

His fingertips touched the side of her neck, brushing against the sensitive nerves. “Yes?”

“Tell me about the women you’ve known. The ones you…” Aline paused as she considered the appropriate word.

McKenna drew back a few inches. “What do you want to know?”

“If you loved any of them.”

At McKenna’s silence, Aline looked up to find him staring at her with an intensity that sent hot and cold chills through her body.

“I don’t believe in love,” he said. “It’s a sugar-coated pill—the first taste is tolerable enough, but you quickly reach the bitter layers beneath.”

She had been the only one, then. Aline knew that she should regret the fact that after her, his interactions with women had been purely physical. But as always, she was selfish where McKenna was concerned. She couldn’t help but be glad that his words of long-ago had proven true…“You’ll have my heart always…you’ve ruined me for life…”

“What about Sandridge?” McKenna asked. “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” Aline whispered. She loved Adam dearly—just not in the way he meant.

“And yet you’re here with me,” he murmured.

“Adam—” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Whatever I choose to do…he doesn’t mind. This has nothing to do with him…you and I…”

“No, it doesn’t,” he said with sudden anger. “My God, he should be trying to tear my throat out, instead of letting you go somewhere alone with me. He should be willing to do anything short of murder—hell, I wouldn’t even stop at that—to keep other men away from you.” Disgust thickened his voice. “You’re lying to yourself, if you think that you’ll ever be satisfied with the kind of bloodless arrangement your parents had. You need a man who will match your will, own you, occupy every part of your body and every corner of your soul. In the eyes of the world, Sandridge is your equal—but you and I know better. He’s as different from you as ice from fire.” He leaned over her, his body forming a hard, living cage around her. “I’m your equal,” he said harshly, “though my blood is red instead of blue, though I was condemned by my very birth never to have you…inside, we’re the same. And I would break every law of God and man if—”