With great suspicion, he drops into the sand one leg after another. She joins him, palms heavy on his shoulders. She begins tracing a finger along the side of his mouth. “This line,” she says. “I like this. I like what it does to your face on the terrifying occasion that you smile.”
“I’ll try very hard to keep it next regeneration.” He tugs at her sleeve, slips his thumb inside to find her bones, the pulse that refuses to return. He is trying to speak an unpractised language.
“Keep these too.” She presses both her thumbs to his mouth. His lips are swollen from what she’d done to him in the backseat. “They put up with my granny kisses.”
He takes in the new heat in her skin. She watches with fascination as he imparts a pinprick kiss to the flesh of her thumbs. This small victory. She licks her own lips and considers letting him suck on her fingers.
“I’ve grown quite fond of the eyebrows as well.” She smooths over the ridge of his brow and the muscle crinkles from the unexpected attention. “Might as well hang onto the colour in your eyes. Your Scottish tongue. No question about that nose. And the hair—”
“Should I make a list?”
“Maybe not the hair.” She breaks into a grin. “Needs a bit of a cull.”