Dreaming of You by Jennifer McNare Page B

her fingers drifting along the top of his nose, skimming lightly across the bridge and then moving to gently trace the subtle arches of his eyebrows.  She placed a delicate kiss upon his lips as her fingers moved to follow the curve of his ear and then across to his cheekbone.  In a sense, she did see him and he was beautiful.    
    Gavin’s breathing slowly returned to normal as she continued her gentle exploration of his face.  He’d done the same thing to her on numerous occasions, tracing her features with his fingers, trying to envision her face and create a picture of her in his mind.  At times, the inability to truly see her, to see the sparkle in her eyes when she laughed or the expression on her face when she was in the throes of passion was maddening.  Only with his touch could he conceive of her delicate beauty, her utter perfection, but ultimately it was enough, it had to be.  
    As Melody’s fingers moved once again to brush along the lower portion of his face, she felt the thin scar about half of the length of her index finger, just beneath his jawline.  She’d asked him about it once before.  A childhood injury he’d told her at the time.  She would have asked him to elaborate, but as it so often was, her attention had quickly been diverted by his lips and hands.  “Tell me what happened,” she said now, moving her thumb lightly back and forth across the thin line.  
    He considered her request, wondering if telling her about it would break any of his captor’s damnable rules.  He supposed not, as long as he didn’t reveal any personal information about himself.  Though he believed she was just as much a victim as he was, and as much as he wanted to believe he could trust her, he knew better than to ever let his guard down.  “I was sword fighting,” he said after a moment, amusement tingeing his voice as he recalled the incident.  
    “Sword fighting?”  
    “I was eleven at the time,” he began, “and had a hankering to become a pirate.”  
    Melody smiled.   A pirate , every little boy’s fantasy.    
    “My…friend and I,” he’d been about to say my brother and I, but caught himself, “snuck two of the swords from my father’s collection of antique weapons out of the house and into the nearby woods.”  He paused, remembering his and Richard’s mad dash into the forest, the heavy metal swords barely hidden beneath their long coats.  They’d been quite a pair in their younger days, a couple of unruly scamps who’d often tested their governess’, as well as their parent’s patience to the limit.  “We staged a mock battle, and it was quite a performance, if I do say so myself.  But of course, we were young and overly careless.  I lost my footing at one point and fell forward, and the tip of his blade caught me just under my chin.”  
    “Oh dear.”  She could almost picture the scene in her mind.  
    “The wound wasn’t deep, but nonetheless, by the time we made it back to the house I was quite a sight.”  
    “I can only imagine.”  
    He chuckled at the now fond memory, though it hadn’t been nearly so amusing at the time.  “We had left our coats in the woods in our haste, and when we reached the house my white shirt was covered in blood, as was my neck and the entire lower portion of my face.  My poor mother nearly fainted at the sight.  But of course it looked far worse than it was.  A few stitches and I was as good as new, or near enough anyhow.  
    “A battle scar for a would-be pirate,” Melody murmured, snuggling into him as she brushed her lips against his jaw.  
    “I’ll admit that I was rather proud of it at the time.”  
    Melody giggled softly, nestling her head against his shoulder.  They lay quietly then, savoring the final minutes of their time together.  How would she bear it when it all ended, these magical afternoons that brought such joy to her life?  She tried not to think about it, but it was hard not to.  Was it