Star's Crossing

Epilogue 11: Ours

"I've missed you."

Mare looked up from the hotel table, heart leaping when she saw him. Teddy smiled, seating himself across from her. 

She'd stayed at this Philadelphia hotel before during her travels, though her sister often insisted she stay at the house downtown. Mare found the independence thrilling. And after several weeks of seeing so little of Teddy, she wanted him at the very center of her attention. She had a thought. An idea—something that had long ago taken root, and which she wanted to convince him of.

"Your dress," he said, settling, his eyes moving over her in a way that made it difficult to breathe. "It's new, isn't it?"

"Yes. Do you like it?" It was a darker shade than she usually wore, with a low neckline more suited to the popular style. A fine lace trim rested against her skin. In her more daring moments, she'd imagined it drawing his eye.

"I do." Teddy's smile was small and hindered. His eyes were shadowed. "Shall we eat?"

Mare stared at him. They were transformed, both of them, from the naïve, pining young people they'd once been. They were beyond couth. Mare felt she hadn't properly seen Teddy since the night of their engagement. When had it been? Weeks ago? A month? Longer? Always they were surrounded, or otherwise engaged, or busy, or apart.

Mare closed her menu. "I find," she said, "that I am not terribly hungry."

***

Teddy closed the door behind her. She made her way around the small board room, lighting candles as she went. Darkness pressed against the windows, dotted with the sinuous lines of city streetlights and houses, whose own facades were bright as the autumn night fell in earnest.

"A view," Teddy observed, stepping up to the glass. His hands were in his pockets, and his jacket fit well, the shoulders snug, the collar against his neck. His curls fell forward over his forehead, and in the candlelight he might have been a portrait, beautiful and serene.

A view, indeed.

"Teddy," Mare said, and he turned to her. Her breath hitched. Now, her heart said. Now, now, now.

He must have heard the desperation in her voice, or seen it in her face. "We should wait," he said softly, while taking a step toward her. "The wedding is only three months away, Mare."

"We shouldn't wait." Her heart pounded. "We have waited."

His eyes glowed, sliding from her face to her shoulders, lower, lower—rising to touch her mouth. "Only a bit longer."

Mare shook her head. "No longer." She reached for the fastenings at the front of her gown. Teddy stepped toward her, closing the space between them, his hands alighting on hers.

"Enough," she whispered, as his fingers halted hers from their illicit work. "We've let the world tell us enough. Let us have our time."

A smile, fleeting, futile, touched his lips. "You're not thinking clearly."

"No. And thank God for it. I don't want to think a moment more." She reached for him, touching his face. His skin was warm to the touch, and his eyes fluttered shut, only to open once again, sober through her temptation. "Teddy."

"Do you think I don't want to?" He said softly. His hands still hovered at her fastenings, his fingers branding where they grazed her skin. "Do you think I've thought of anything else? I've had to keep away."

"Don't," she whispered.

His eyes shone. "You drive me mad."

"You drive me mad. Let us be mad together. Let us forget all else."

A smile touched his lips. "There could be consequences."

"Let the sky fall down," Mare said, holding his eyes. She traced his cheekbone with her thumb, remembered a thousand nights alone, wondering if she'd ever hear his heartbeat again, or his words, or the sound of his breath against her ear. "Let the world burn, for all I care."

"Wilder and wilder," he whispered. He raised a hand to her face, thumb tracing the swell of her bottom lip. "You never cease to surprise me."

She took his hands in hers and guided them to her waist. When she closed the last few inches between them, she felt the give of his stubborn, honorable will. He bent and kissed her, drawing her close. His hands traveled to the back of her gown, loosening the fastenings with deft fingers.

"Perhaps," Mare said against his lips, "we ought to run away."

"You're mad," he said, and she felt the give of her gown.

Her body froze, heart raging. He drew back, holding her eyes as he pulled the fabric from her shoulders. She let him tug it lower and lower still, until it was a dark pool at her feet, and she stood before him in only her bodice.

"Why not?" Mare pressed, savoring the weight of his gaze. This was her thought. Her wild notion. The thing she'd dreamt of wandering paths and beaches and crowded parlors. "We've had our fill of convention, have we not? I looked—the registration office is not far."

Teddy's smile was wild, electric. Tempted. "A civil ceremony? Your mother would kill us."

Mare reached for him, tracing her palms over his chest. She'd only imagined this. Dreamed of it. She felt unmoored. Unattached. A smile touched her lips as she drew his coat from his shoulders, and looked up to meet his eyes.

"It's just us here, Teddy," Mare said, feeling the heat of his body through his shirt. "No one else in the world is looking. No one else in the world cares what we do. We are free."

He slid a hand into her hair, searching her eyes. "How did you get so bold?"

"Practice," she answered. He pressed his lips to hers, and she slid her arms around him. "Say yes," she whispered against his lips.

And he lifted her in his arms in answer, sweeping her toward the bed, their lips locked. When he lay her down, Mare forgot the distance, the trials, the war, the pain, the grief, the missing, the game. It was nothing, their past. She'd wait another war, another decade, another lifetime. She'd wait however may forevers she had to.

Mine. Teddy held her, his tongue sliding into her mouth, his body alive and vital and hers. As it once was, and always would be.

"If we are to do something mad," Teddy murmured, his lips trailing to her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. His hand, warm and rough, left a line of fire along her bare calf. "You'd best write a story off it."

No, she thought. This, this alone is ours. Wilder and wilder.

Teddy drew her into his arms and kissed her deeply, reality slipping from the edges of the room like a severed seam.

"No," Mare said, smiling against Teddy's lips. "There are some things the world doesn't get to know."