Her words no longer transmit fear to Peter, as he has come to appreciate this is how she says, “I love you.” Hands again on her cheeks, he plants a wet kiss upon her nose, a lip-grazing one on her lips, and then a deep tongue-laden kiss into her mouth.
Zara braces herself for what she would expect men in her past life to do after a kiss like this. Intimacies that she has not had for many a year. Intimacies she physically cannot fulfill for him. Intimacies she had forestalled having in her life by choice in her pursuit of her faith. But now she wants him. Somehow he knows how to fill that void within her. As with their past touches, the sense of peace, calm, and harmony overtakes all her proclivities. She accepts that what will happen now must happen and puts her destiny in his full contro
