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On not laying her down on these floorboards and taking her here and now. On remembering that I am a gentleman, or was once. On the fact that she very nearly broke her neck not five minutes ago, and I have not yet stopped shaking.

“On not losing what little remains of my composure.”

She draws back to look at me. Something in her expression shifts. The teasing gives way to something softer. Something almost shy.

“What if I want you to lose it?”

Everything in me goes still.

I slide my hand from her back, up her side, beneath the hem of her shirt. Along her ribs, one at a time. Her breath catches. My thumb grazes the underside of her breast through a scrap of lace, and she shudders, her eyes falling closed, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

I want to see her. Every inch of her. I want to learn what makes her gasp and what makes her laugh and what makes her say my name the way she said it a moment ago.

I want it more than I have wanted anything in one hundred and forty-three years.

And still, I hesitate.

“April. I do not know how long this will last.”

“This?”

“This body. If the granite returns while we—if we” I cannot finish. The thought of stone closing over me while she lies beneath me is enough to turn my blood to ice.

She considers that. Then she takes my hand and presses it flat over her heart. It is racing.

“You changed back because you felt something,” she says. “Not because I touched you. Because you felt something big enough to break right through all that rock.”

“Your point?”

“My point is—” she leans in until her lips brush mine “—I don’t think you’re going anywhere as long as you keep feeling it.”

It is a theory. Like all of April’s theories, it is reckless, unproven, and quite possibly sourced from the internet.

It is also the most persuasive argument anyone has ever made to me.

“And if you are wrong?”

“Then I wriggle out from under a very heavy gargoyle, and we try again later.” She smiles. “But I know I’m not wrong.”

I look at her. Pink curls tumbling loose around her face. Lips swollen from my kisses. Eyes full of something that looks remarkably like faith.

In me.

“Gabriel.” Softer now. “I want you. Here. Now. Do you want me? Because if you don’t, I totally understand. I mean, I know one part of you wants me, but that could be pure biology.”

There is only one possible answer. I have spent a century and a half unable to give it to anyone.

“I want you more than my next breath.”

I take the hem of her shirt and draw it slowly up and over her head. Her hair catches, then springs free in a riot of pink. She laughs, and I kiss the laugh from her mouth.

The lace beneath is pale blue and absurdly delicate. I trace its edge with one finger and watch gooseflesh rise in the wake of my touch.

“You’re staring,” she whispers.

“I am admiring. There is a distinction.”

She reaches behind herself, and the lace falls away.