Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] (39 page)

“I think we pretty much did it,” Gawain said.

“We might have changed some things. I guess we’ll find out. But it doesn’t look like it was anything earth-shattering.” She sipped her wine.

There was just one thing left to resolve.

She loved this man, damn it. And she might not be Guinevere, but Guinevere was fifteen hundred years dead. She wasn’t chopped liver, either, and she’d seen the heat with which Gawain looked at her. Had he made love to her just because he was desperate for a lay? Now that she remembered everything, she couldn’t imagine him just taking casual advantage of her. He
knew
her. She was his friend, someone he’d cared for, even if it was in a
platonic way, as though he were her older brother. But he wasn’t her brother. And she’d never been so glad of anything in her life. No. He’d
wanted
to make love to her.

So why couldn’t he love her? They shared everything. Didn’t they both have mothers they’d never known? Weren’t they both afflicted or blessed or something with a little magic? They had things in common few other people had. They’d traveled through time, for instance. Twice or, in her case, three times. Maybe she couldn’t make him forget Guinevere. But she was never going to know if she didn’t try. If it didn’t work, she’d lose him even as a friend. Big risk. Big stakes. But strangely enough, she realized she was a risk taker and she wanted what she wanted. First step was to see if he was mourning Guinevere.

Gawain glanced down to his glass. He didn’t want to show Diana what he knew were hungry eyes. If she really thought of him only as a friend, why were her eyes heating up like that? Oh yeah. Recreational sex. Was that all she wanted—a release after the excitement of their adventures?

Nope. He was not doing recreational sex with Diana. He wanted more. He might not be perfect, but who was? Certainly not his father. You made your mistakes because that was inevitable, and you corrected them as best you could and you learned from them and went on. He wasn’t saying sex with Diana had been a mistake. He hadn’t held to his pure ideals, true, but if he wanted to make her his wife and share his life with her forever (which he absolutely did), if she needed at the time to be shown that she was special and loved, if it had been a spiritual bonding for him, then it was a step on the way to their true relationship. He wanted her to feel that same spiritual bonding. He might not be perfect, but . . . but she wasn’t immune to him entirely. He’d felt that when they’d been
making love. And holding her in his arms, bloody and sweaty as he was, after he’d killed Mordred, had made the ordeal almost worthwhile. If he’d gone through an ordeal to win her love, he couldn’t stop now.

“Are you sorry you couldn’t bring Guinevere forward with you?” she asked, her eyes serious. That was a shocker.

He snorted. “She was old enough to be my mother.”

Diana looked skeptical. “Not the last time around. Probably not even ten years older.”

“She was the right woman for Arthur, not for me.”

“You had a crush on her when you were ten.”

“And who was your first crush? Probably some Beastie Boy or something.”

“When I was twelve I had a crush on you.”

Just a crush. That hurt. “Well, we both grew out of it.” He took too big a swig of wine. Maybe this wasn’t going to work out after all.

“I was sure glad you weren’t my brother back then.” Her eyes were doing that molten-lava thing. “Still am.”

Was that a sign? By god he was going to take it as one. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms and take her into the bedroom and pull off that robe and bury himself in her. He wanted to claim her as his own and dare her to deny they belonged together. They had always belonged together. But he didn’t want her to mistake what he wanted for recreational sex.

He slid off the couch and went down on one knee. He sucked in a breath. It was as if his lungs were independent of him, like sucking in air when you surged up after swimming underwater. “Will you marry me?”

She looked dumbfounded. That was bad. “You . . . you want to
marry
me?”

“I wanted to marry you before you said, ‘Excuse me,’ in the liquor store.”

She smiled at him, a sly and knowing smile. “It took
me a few days longer. But only because I thought you were stalking me and I didn’t remember knowing you at all.” She ran a hand around his neck and bent to kiss him softly. She was the one who deepened the kiss. Surprising. Diana was getting bolder. He responded in kind, feeling his loins tighten further in response to her. She could rouse a dead man.

Suddenly she pulled back, stricken. “What if this is just that ‘magic to magic’ thing your father was talking about? What if it’s just kind of a sexual need, not love?”

She had a point. Gawain looked inside himself.

And he was sure. “My father said I’d know what to do when the time came. And I do. I love you, Diana. The ‘for all time’ kind of love.” To his horror, big tears rolled down her cheeks.

“You don’t believe me?” How would he prove himself to her?

“I do,” she said simply. “Your eyes are blue. That’s the color they go when you’re serious about what you’re saying.” He felt his eyes change. “Now they’re green. And
that
means . . .”

His eyes told that much about him? And she had bothered to notice? But she hadn’t said she loved him in return. He closed his eyes and took two breaths. If she wanted him as a friend, he’d do it, though it cost his soul.

“What?” Concern drenched her voice.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I love you and part of me couldn’t quite believe you could love me. I’m glad that part was wrong. That’s worth some tears.”

He blinked at her. She’d never looked so lovely. She was even looking . . . a little bit sure of herself. Diana? Who never thought she was pretty, according to his father? “Diana,” he said slowly, “do you feel different since we got back?”

She looked uncertain. “Maybe.” Her eyes darted around the room. “Yeah. I feel . . . I feel like I know who I am. You?”

“Yeah. I . . . I guess I don’t feel like quite such a . . . failure.”

“My God,” she whispered. “What we changed by going back was . . .
us.
Remember your father saying that he was going to tell us he valued us every day? Well, he did. And we’re . . . we’re not as . . . damaged as we were.”

“You remember him telling us those things every day?” He did. But he also remembered going back and hearing his father promise him to do it as though it were the future.

“Yeah. I do. And I remember how lost I felt before, how invisible.  . . . But . . .”

“But it’s getting harder to remember how it felt to be who we were before.” He could feel that awful, bleak guilt he’d once carried like a weight on his soul fading even now.

They looked at each other, tense.

“So, did those other people even exist?” he asked slowly. “I mean if we aren’t now who we were before, would you have gone back and tried to find Camelot and started this whole thing? Would my father have flung us forward in time, if we hadn’t gone back and told him he had to do it?”

They stared at each other while they thought about that. “Weird, huh?” Diana finally said. “It’s no use trying to explain it. It’s one of those time travel things.”

Gawain felt himself relax. You couldn’t know. So all you could do was live life the best you could. And he felt stronger, happier, more whole than he ever thought he could. Except for one thing. He cleared his throat. “So . . . what’s your answer?” He felt stronger now. Strong enough to tell her he wouldn’t be just a friend. “And I won’t take
a marriage of convenience. I don’t want you to marry me because you want recreational sex. I want a sacred bond, Diana, and I won’t settle for anything else.”

She put her arms around his neck and slithered onto his knee. Diana? “Well, can’t we have both? I mean sacred-bond love and spectacular sex? I won’t settle for anything else.”

“You’re saying you love me.” He knew he was being stubborn, but he wanted to hear it.

“Yeah. I love you. I thought it was hopeless once, but now it seems almost inevitable.”

“Good,” he said. He drew her up and picked her up in his arms. “Then it’s settled. Love and great sex it is.” He bent to kiss her, his attention beginning to narrow to one thing. Diana.

“The book!” she said suddenly, pulling away to look around. He blinked, a little dazed. Sure enough, the book by Leonardo da Vinci was still there on the end table.

“We should destroy it, so no one can go back and change time like we almost did.” He nuzzled her neck. Did she have to be thinking about the book now?

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “The red-haired woman said I would use it to make myself happy. Your father told me it started the whole thing. In a way, it’s responsible for me going back, and therefore your father knowing that we should be sent forward. . . . It had a purpose, Gawain. To save the magic. And I
am
happy, so that worked out, too. Maybe I’ll find someone else who needs it someday. Maybe its work isn’t done yet. I’ll keep it just in case.”

“
We’ll
keep it,” he growled. “Because I’m not letting you go, ever.”

“And we’re going to keep Excalibur, too. I have a feeling it’s not done with you yet.”

“Let it do its worst.” He swept her into the bedroom and laid her carefully on the big bed. She untied the belt
of her robe and let it fall open. He was having a hard time breathing. His jeans were positively painful. He knew an answer to that. He unbuttoned them and just pushed them down. His erection sprang free. He let Diana look her fill. She wasn’t shy about it.

She smiled. “Well?” Challenging him. He liked the change.

He lay down beside her and draped one knee over her thigh. He kissed her thoroughly even as he ran his hands over her body until he had her moaning and her hips moving involuntarily to make the most of his caresses. He moved from her mouth to her breast and watched her arch her back to give him better access to her nipples. He would make her scream tonight with pleasure. Several times.

She reached for him. Her hand might be small, but it was just the right size for that. He wanted to hold out, to make this special for her, but she was making that awfully difficult.

“I want you in me,” she breathed into his hair.

“Your wish is my command, my lady.” She guided him into her. He thrust home. He wanted to shout that she was his and he would protect her until the end of days. He moved in and out. She writhed beneath him. He had never felt so complete.

Diana stirred. The room was dark. Gawain was awake. She could feel him looking at her. She felt sleepy and sated and a little sore and entirely . . . wonderful. He was a generous lover. She’d known that about him before they went back in time. The first time tonight had been fierce and needy. The second had been slow and almost . . . worshipful, a mutual thanksgiving that they were who they were and they had found each other. No less explosive at the finale, of course.

She reached out and smoothed a hand over his shoulder.
She could feel the scar there, slick and tight. A wound he got in prison, when Merlin couldn’t heal him. He reached and took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“What will we do with our power?” Life ahead with Gawain rolled out like a red carpet before her.

“Make magical babies,” he whispered. She could feel his smile against her palm. “You heard my father. Magic calls to magic, and our rivulets need to flow together. Our children will find others like them, and my father’s magic will live and change the world.”

Babies. Gawain’s babies. That sounded . . . good. It was not something some part of her had ever thought she’d have. She admitted for the first time that she’d always wanted them. “Well, besides that. We have to do something else.”
Hmmm.
“We could be jewel thieves.”

“Steal from the rich and give to the poor? Maybe. Been done, though.”

“We could find stolen things for insurance companies. Bet they’d pay well for that.”

“Aren’t
you
entrepreneurial? A little bureaucratic for me, I’m afraid.” He paused. “We’d be really good on search and rescue in disasters. You find trapped people, and I’ll get into wherever they are and save them.”

“That’s a thought. Or maybe I find lost children and you vanquish the bad guys who have them? Every milk carton holds a new job.”

“You’ll still write books of course,” he said firmly. “That’s in your soul.”

It was. And she was so glad he knew her that well. “Maybe I’ll finish my work in progress. I’m going to make the hero a
lot
more difficult.” A new thought occurred. “Maybe the fact that you pulled Excalibur from the stone means you should be a politician.”

“Ugh. I hate all that raising money and lying to get elected.”

“Well, there are other kinds of leaders,” she said, snuggling into him.

“We’ll find something,” he said. His voice was confident in the darkness. “Might take a little trial and error.”

How good it was to hear him say that. He was more courageous, more honorable, more openhearted than any other man she’d ever known. She remembered how he was before, even if he was forgetting. He would remember how she was before, too. They would be the keeper of each other’s history, so who they’d been would not be lost in the mists of time, so they could rejoice in who they had become.

“That’s what life’s like. Trial and error,” she whispered, tracing his lips with a finger. “I think that’s what relationships are like.”

He kissed her. “I’m going to like figuring out how to make a life together. Might take me fifty years or so.”

“I’ll like trying to figure out a real-life, difficult man.”

“If at first we don’t succeed,” he murmured, his lips finding hers. “Try, try again.”

And they did.