Page 84 of Lord of Passion

Chapter Thirty-Eight

In which windchimes are a promise.

Caroline…

I'm having the most beautiful dream.

Nikandr and I have been married for years, maybe. There is a fullness to my stomach and the slight wiggle of a little person inside me. He's grinning down at me, cupping my face as he kisses me. There's a light tinkling melody playing around us, a sweet symphony that soars and dips.

Opening my eyes and sitting up, the sound is still there, the music still playing for me. Crawling out of bed, I look out the window and see them. My three windchimes. They had been repaired and were precisely placed, equidistant from each other. A breeze is making them dance and move. The moonlight glints off the silver spoons as they twirl.

"Oh…" I put my hand up to my mouth, eyes welling up. The windchimes have found a home here, that means that I have, too.

"Do they sound the same?" Nikandr is sitting in an armchair where he can see me and the window. He's giving me an open smile, not the guarded, slightly chilly smile, or the perfunctory one. A real smile, that I've seen a few times on his face… usually when we're in bed.

"They're so beautiful." I’m a little weepy, but so stupidly happy. He rises, coming over to wrap his arms around me from behind and we watch the wind chimes dance for a while longer.

"I'm sorry that your things were treated so harshly," he says, dipping down to kiss the side of my neck. "Especially something that meant so much to you. I fired Dolores, by the way."

"I should probably feel bad about that, huh?" I ask. I feel his chest shake behind me as he laughs.

"No. You shouldn't." His scent wraps around me. I have missed it so much, clean cotton, wintergreen, and something that smells how warmth feels.

Tuning, I smile up at him, my hands holding his lapels. "It is wonderful to have you back home. Even more than the windchimes."

He pulls something out of his pocket and holds it up in the moonlight. My wedding ring. "Oh!" I say, touching it lovingly. "I have missed this ring. Johann ripped it off my finger when they shoved me into the car. How did you find it?"

Nikandr cocks his head, giving me a slight smile. "It has a transmitter in it so that I could always find you if you were in danger. That didn't exactly work out the way I had planned," he says sourly. "We traced the transmitter and found it in a flowerbed just outside Faneuil Hall." I hold my hand up and he slips the ring back on my finger, kissing my knuckles. "So, my challenge here is how to keep you safe and know where you are at all times. Especially now that we have this threat."

"What are you thinking?" I ask. He pulls a slim case from the side table and holds it up, opening the case and showing me asyringe. "Oh, wait –" I stammer. "Where the hell do you think that's going?"

"It's a subdermal transmitter," he says, turning the syringe delicately in his hands. "Impossible to detect by the usual scanner, lasts up to six years."

"You know, I've got a thing about needles." I move back a step. "They freak me out really bad, I used to have to take a Valium before I got my immunization shots."

Nikandr's smile isfilthy."I promise you," he says, "that you will never even notice me injecting it."

Folding my arms nervously, I ask, "How are you planning that?"

He runs his fingertips down my neck and lightly over my collarbones. "I trust you," he says. "I probably don't deserve it, based on the last few days, but do you trust me, too?"

"Yes," I say instantly, without thinking, but it's right. I do trust him.

"Then let me show you that I love you," he says, kissing me and my knees weaken like I'm a Victorian maiden.

"You do?" I lean back, searching his face.

"I do," he says gently. "I should've told you the first time I realized it, that night at the dinner with Liria and Alexsey. I watched you laughing at something Liria said and your face was so beautiful, it was joyful. And it made me realize how much of that you've brought into my life. I should have told you then."

I've already heard the phrase, "My heart swelled," but I never understood it until now. That love is an ephemeral thing that feels too big to contain.

"You're going to hate this," I say honestly. "The first time that I knew I loved you was when I was looking at Dritan Krasniqi and planning to kill him. I wassomad that I said it to him first, thathegot to hear that I loved you before you did."

Nikandr laughs, his head tilting back and I get to admire his gorgeous neck, because every part of this man is gorgeous. There's a slight curve of a tattoo written in Cyrillic that goes up one side of his throat. "As long as you love me," he says, "I don't care about the timing. Now…" He cups my face in his hands, kissing me thoroughly. "I can promise you that you won't feel a thing with this needle."

Eyeing him suspiciously, I ask, "And how would that be?"

That filthy smile is back. "Because I'm going to be fucking you. Right as you come, I'll put the transmitter in you." I eye the needle. It's long. "Trust me," he whispers, kissing me again, pushing his thumb between my lips. I suck it, watching him swallow.