The next morning, Willow woke early, while Marcus was still fast asleep beside her.
She lay quietly for a moment, her gaze lingering on his face, that familiar face she had thought about for so many years, and slowly, almost without realizing it, she found herself lost in it.
"You bad man," she whispered under her breath, her voice soft and faint. "I couldn't escape you after all."
There was a strange sense of resignation in her heart, though it wasn't bitter. The woman who had once claimed to hate men more than anything, who had guarded herself so fiercely, had fallen so easily in front of him. All the feelings she had tried to bury, to run from, had been far deeper than she ever dared admit.
When he held her, when he touched her without restraint, she had not truly wanted to resist. Beneath the shyness, beneath the embarrassment, there had only been a quiet willingness, and something even more undeniable than that.
Happiness.
