I'd Give Up The World For You

Daisy regarded Rukelion with a look he couldn't decipher. "You're an interesting person, Leo Blaze."

"…is that a bad thing?"

"Not in the slightest. Being interesting is a good thing."

He let out the breath he had unconsciously been holding. Good. The last thing he wanted was for her to think there was something wrong with him. She wouldn't want to go out with him again that way. 

Their entrees arrived and they dug in with gusto, planning to head to the movies right after, but they got stuck in terrible traffic due to an accident. They would have been more than thirty minutes late by the time they arrived so Daisy asked if he would rather watch a movie at her place instead or go home, apologizing for the letdown. 

Rukelion wasn't let down at all. He preferred spending time with her alone even if it meant it might be harder for him to keep himself in check than it would be in a public place. 

He definitely didn't want to go home so they headed back to her apartment. She hadn't been kidding when she said it was a forest. There were plants EVERYWHERE. She didn't notice him gaping at them as she tenderly set the vase of flowers he got her on the middle of her two-person table and leaned over to sniff them with a satisfied sigh. 

A moment later Daisy straightened and took her jacket off before draping it over the back of a chair. When he turned to look at her he got goosebumps. Her jacket had been on the whole time so he hadn't realized her dress was also sleeveless. 

Rukelion gulped. Was this really going to be alright?

"Go on and sit on the couch," she said, gesturing toward it as she walked over to the TV stand to get two remotes before joining him. 

She wasn't sitting nearly as close to him as she used to back home so why was his heart going haywire? This wasn't supposed to be happening! But this was the closest she had been to him in this world and he wanted to hold her more than anything. He was hardly able to respond as she asked his opinion about what to watch. 

After he told her anything was fine she ended up shrugging and picking something before pressing play. For the first fifteen minutes or so he wasn't able to pay attention to anything happening on the screen because he was warring with himself. 

The rational part of him acknowledged that he needed to stick to the plan and not do anything to scare her off. The part of him that desperately needed his wife's love wanted to forget the plan and let her know just how much he missed her. He KNEW that the latter was dangerous and would ruin everything, hence the internal battle. 

The war momentarily stopped when Daisy scooted so close to him that their thighs were touching. What was she doing?!

Rukelion stopped panicking after a minute and remembered that he had read about this in preparation for tonight. There had been a whole list of hints that someone might give on a date when they wanted you to do something. 

Scooting closer to him meant she probably wanted him to put his arm around her. He obliged happily and savored the closeness as she pulled her feet up onto the couch and curled into his side. 

He had missed this more than he could say. He had grown so used to sitting with his arm around her or having her in his lap after she realized she loved him. After all that, losing that contact for months had been torturous. But it still wasn't enough. 

Rukelion wanted to pick her up, put her in his lap, and kiss her with all the pent-up feelings in his heart but he couldn't do that. He couldn't even kiss the top of her head or the side of her face without crossing a line. 

The plan was simple yet agonizing. He could only do what she wanted him to. Nothing more, nothing less. That was how he was going to win her back. 

Daisy was much taller now than she had been before. Probably more than half a foot. As they sat next to each other, her head was almost level with his. That definitely hadn't been the case in her other body.

He didn't mind. It would simply take some getting used to. 

That wasn't the only difference. She wasn't as curvy and her hands were bigger. When he held hers on top of the table at the restaurant he had noticed that particular detail. That would take getting used to as well because her old hands were so tiny that they got swallowed up in his. 

Rukelion truly didn't care that she was a different person now. Her soul was the same and that was what he had fallen in love with. She was still the most beautiful woman in existence even if she looked nothing like Veronica May. 

He was losing his mind. Holding her like this but not being able to do it fully was testing the limits of his willpower. 

Those limits were tested even further when Daisy looked up at him to ask him what he thought of something that happened in the movie that he wasn't even paying attention to. He was so close to her that his face was reflected in her eyes. Her red lips were so close to his that it would only take half a second to cross the distance and kiss her but he wasn't allowed to do that!

"I'm sorry, I was thinking about something else," he said penitently. "I haven't been able to concentrate on the movie at all." 

She tilted her head. "What have you been thinking about then?"

"You."

Rukelion cringed when he realized he let that slip out. He should NOT have admitted that. She was going to get weirded out, demand he leave, and never speak to him again. He was seized with panic at the very thought. 

But that wasn't what happened. After a brief moment of hesitation Daisy leaned forward to peck him on the lips. That was all it took for his willpower to finally snap. 

He didn't care about the plan. He didn't care about how many courting rituals they had skipped. He didn't care about anything at all but the fact that after so many months he was finally kissing his wife. 

Rukelion pulled her onto his lap and kissed her passionately as his eyes stupidly filled with tears. He had missed this so much! With her lips on his and her hand in his hair he felt like he had truly come home. 

And they didn't stop there. He didn't regain control of himself until she was asleep against his chest in bed, her arm slung over his torso in such a familiar way. 

What had they done?! This sort of thing was only supposed to happen between people who were married back in his world. He knew they were married but she didn't. So why had she gone along with what he was doing? Were things different here? Was it normal to make love on a first date in this world?

Somehow that made him angry. How many people had she done this with before meeting him? She had been his one and only. The thought of other men touching his Daisy filled him with rage. 

Rukelion forced himself to calm down and breathe deeply. That wasn't her fault. She had grown up differently and he knew she hadn't done it with anyone else since she met him. He was going to have to let it go. 

What did this mean for them though? Did she intend to marry him or at the very least date him? Or was this supposed to be a one-time thing? 

That idea filled him with terror. No! No matter what else happened he couldn't let her walk away from him like that after he finally (sort of) got her back. Whatever happened in the morning, he was going to have to convince her to let him stay in her life. 

He needed her. He needed her so much—more than he had ever needed anything—so losing her was not an option. Keeping his wits about him was paramount. He couldn't lose his head like he had earlier. 

But how was Rukelion supposed to do anything differently when Daisy had kissed him first? He had been waiting for that since the moment he arrived in this world. 

Undoing what had been done was impossible. All he could do now was figure out how to work with it moving forward. He had to. 

He tenderly traced circles on Daisy's back to calm himself down. This was fine. Everything was going to be fine. He could deal with the aftermath in the morning. For now he wanted nothing more than to savor the fact that his wife was in his arms where she belonged at last. 

Rukelion sighed and twisted his head to kiss the top of hers. "I love you, Daisy. I love you so, so much."

She didn't stir. He pulled her closer and fell asleep to the incredibly reassuring sound of her heartbeat.. For the first time in months he got a full night's sleep without any nightmares.