Prince Caspian -Jung Yoonoh NCT

19. I Could Stay Like This Forever

Figures emerge, trudging towards us like ghostly apparations through the thick blanket of smoke. 

We fall apart, aware for the first time that we are both soaking wet. 

We are breathing hard.

Caspian says, laughter in his voice, "It's the first time I've ever kissed a girl in a thunderstorm. You'll always have that distinction, darling." 

I stare at him in a daze.

Is that all I am to him, the girl he kissed in the rain? 

I hear Alistair's voice. 

"Are you both crazy? Yiseul, you're soaked!"

He drags a couple of mackintoshes out of the landrover.

"It's good to be crazy once in a while." Caspian says, a flicker of heat still smouldering in the depths of his laughing eyes. "Yiseul won't forget this morning." 

He is looking at me, at my lips, his eyes narrowed, and there is something in his eyes when he looks at me - a possessiveness, an arrogance, like a savage, primal beast that has marked its territory.

I am his territory.

And at the thought, a thrill shoots through me.

I force my eyes away, and say, in a thin, false voice, "What a morning it has been! I've never seen anything like that fire."

I gesture at the blackened landscape, struggling for composure, even though all I can think of is his face driven by mad passion and desire, his hands hot on me, running all over on me, his feverish lips plundering mine so hungrily, while Alistair drapes the enormous raincoat over my shoulders. 

Caspian's eyes meet mine; the fever has subsided, and they are now wicked instead, full of teasing mischief. 

"There's more than one sort of fire,' he says softly, looking at me, "but alas, from that prim little face, I'm afraid they're all out now."

He lifts me up and dumps me unceremoniously on the front seat of the landrover. Pulling the other mackintosh over his shoulders, he turns to Alistair and Pierre to arrange relays of men to watch that the fire does not break out again. 

Finally he climbs in beside me while Alistair takes the driver's seat. I sit sandwiched between them, suddenly overcome with weariness, and half asleep. 

Dimly I am aware that Caspian has put his arm around me, holding me steady against his chest. My head with its tangle of wet hair drops against his shoulder, and I feel him stroking it idly, comfortingly, as he converses across it unconcernedly with Alistair about the fire. Cascades of water from rain soaked branches splash upon the roof of the vehicle. Intermittent lightning still flickers among the trees, while the thunder reverberates from hill to hill. 

"Are you nervous?" he asks softly, when I am jolted awake after a particularly vivid flash. 

"No," I mumble, still half-asleep. "Not with you here."

He tightens his grip on me, and I could have sworn I felt the brush of his lips on the top of my head.

I wish, oh how I wish I could go on forever in this dream-like trance with my head bobbing on his chest, his arms tight, and steady around me. The lightning might at any moment strike one of the trees and bring it down upon us, but somehow, I don't care. 

I am lying in Caspian's strong arms, I have never felt so safe and contented in my life. 

I could stay like this forever.

The storm has passed when we reach the Chateau, the rain settling into a steady downpour. It is only ten o'clock; how strange - the hours that have passed since I went with Alistair have seemed like an eternity. 

We enter the hall where Mrs. Lee greets us with upraised hands. 

"Yiseul, is that you? I thought you were asleep in your room. Oh dear, look at you..." she clucks her tongue.

"She came to rescue me," Caspian says very solemnly.

Mrs. Lee looks puzzled. 

"Have you all gone mad?"

"Quite mad," he says, laughing. "Yiseul, can you walk upstairs or shall I carry you?"

"I can manage," I say hastily, sliding the coat from my shoulders, but I stumble a little, swaying on my feet, and without a word, he sweeps me up in his arms, and lops up the stairs.

We reach my room, and he opens it, and kicks it shut behind us.

He lowers me on the bathroom floor, and removes my shoes.

I sit there, spent, leaning against the tub.

He sits down on the edge of the tub, and brushes my damp hair from my face.

"I could give you a shower but I don't think Mrs. Lee would approve..."

I look at him tiredly.

"Take a shower, and go straight to bed, you hear?"

I nod.

He bends down, and brushes his lips very gently against my forehead.

I close my eyes.

"I'll be seeing you, nereid..."

When I open my eyes, he's gone.