[ Two years. Any sane woman would have moved on. And despite her tendency towards social reclusiveness, towards hyper-focusing on her work, towards awkwardness and rambling, it's not as if men haven't still found ways to notice her. To flirt. Sometimes she picked up on it, sometimes she didn't (to Darcy's constant amusement). The times she did ... she thought about it. She'd known him for all of three days, and then he had disappeared. This phenomenally powerful -- alien, that was what he was, really, who'd made and to all appearances broken a promise to her whilst gallivanting across the universe (saving it, not a bad reason but still) and doing everything but returning to her side like he'd sworn he would do...
... this man is bowing his head to press a warm, heartfelt, scratchy kiss to her knuckles.
And she is just so gone.
The courtly formality was what had initially won her fondness, her curiosity. But it was the sharpness of his mind, the trueness of his heart, that had won her, all of her, all that she was and is and will be. Her expression is one of wonder as she watches him.
Can there be any response to that but raising the hand she's still got free to cup his face, and surging up into a fierce and long-awaited kiss? ]
[Action]
... this man is bowing his head to press a warm, heartfelt, scratchy kiss to her knuckles.
And she is just so gone.
The courtly formality was what had initially won her fondness, her curiosity. But it was the sharpness of his mind, the trueness of his heart, that had won her, all of her, all that she was and is and will be. Her expression is one of wonder as she watches him.
Can there be any response to that but raising the hand she's still got free to cup his face, and surging up into a fierce and long-awaited kiss? ]