Chapter 48 #2
“Those are my favorite.” He grinned, the slyest grin she had seen from him with his gaze fixed on her lips.
The yearning he felt was etched on his face as clearly as if it had been chiseled on stone.
Alice felt as though she might faint. Was this what it was to swoon?
Alice gazed on him a moment, then looked to the lantern.
She needn’t say the rest of the dream, for he knew it—but could it be they shared the same one?
Alice looked at the world around them, the meal he had planned, and then looked at him.
“The cucumber sandwiches…”
“You enjoy them in my dreams,” he said almost bashfully, then looked very intensely at her. “Alice, nearly every night, it’s as if I escape to a world where you love me as any man could hardly deserve, and in return, I love you with the very essence of my being,” he confessed.
Alice’s stomach churned in waves as nerves overtook her, causing her to tremble.
Blinkem sat up and put his arm gently around her shoulders.
In that moment, the only thing that her mind began to obsess over was what it would be like to kiss him, and how his strong nose would fit against her face.
She tried to push those thoughts from her mind, feeling his gaze fixed on her cheek and eyelashes.
The moment was exciting enough without daydreams disrupting it.
Alice imagined how it would feel if a breeze blew, and Blinkem pulled her in tighter.
She wished for it, and as if she had summoned it, the breeze came, and he pulled her even closer.
He smelled clean and musky at once, and she burrowed closer to him.
Perhaps this was all the moment needed to be, but she wished she had the boldness to look up at him, and that he would take her face in his hands…
Just when she thought she might, and he might, a crack of thunder sounded so abruptly that she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Shall we?” he said, caressing her back just slightly.
“Blinkem,” she said as he took her hands and helped her to her feet beneath the tree lit by the whipping lantern flame. “This is most impertinent,” she said, and he immediately laughed.
“Would you permit me a…”
“May I kiss you, Alice?” he said, causing her heart to pound. The tremble she fought came quickly with the wind, and the sound of the trees blowing roared as a rolling clap of thunder sounded somewhere.
“Yes, you may,” she said. He gently let go of her hands, which she gingerly placed upon his chest, hoping that was where one should place their hands in such an intimate exchange.
He leaned close to her, and something very ridiculous weaseled in her brain.
She imagined them bumping noses, which caused a small but distinguishable giggle.
He was leaning so close to her that her giggle caused him to sputter into his own.
His teeth were large and white in the most becoming way, and he had full lips that were nothing but lovely.
“What is it?” he said through his smile, his long nose turning down toward her. His breath smelled of sweet cucumber sandwiches.
She shook her head, grinning to herself, grinning with him.
He touched her chin so delicately, in a very gentlemanly way, and softly his lips pressed to hers.
Alice tried not to assess the experience in her mind, but without fail, her mind began to describe it.
It was more enjoyable than anything she had ever imagined while reading the works of Bronte.
He pulled away and gently moved his head, kissing her again, this time a bit more fully and deeply.
The butterflies in her stomach responded with enormous delight.
She pulled away, tilting her head down, this time not in performance but in absolute instinct. She needed to steady herself.
The wind rushed again, and a thunder crack came overhead. Drops of rain began to land upon her head through the trees. She looked at him, and he nodded, and she knew it was time to head back to the palace.
As the light rain picked up speed, Alice crouched to gather their evening picnic.
“Leave the sandwiches for the forest creatures,” Blinkem said.
She smiled so widely that she likely looked like a child.
What a thoughtful notion, one that she herself wouldn’t have thought of—though she was not a prince who was also a rabbit, a magic by which she was now enchanted.
The rabbit prince from a dream took her hand, and together they ran through the cool rain to the Palace North in Oz.
Through the diamond-paned windows of the tower stairwell as she climbed to her chambers, Alice looked out over the land of Oz.
A shadow passed over the moon, and she heard the heavy whoosh of dragon wings.
Where did the creature spend her time since the escape?
She wondered as Dinah moved close to the tower and then vanished from sight before reappearing again in the opposite window of the stairwell.
“Thank you,” Alice said softly. “For watching over me.” She could only hope such magic also watched over Wendy.
The time with Blinkem had been most distracting, but now that he was gone, her thoughts had returned to the threat of the gnomes below ground, and the slim hope that Tattypoo could find Wendy.