Chapter 8: Brighter Than Sunshine

The world was shifting, teetering on some unexplainable fault line, back and forth. Isabelle turned over in bed face down in the pillow to ward off the spell of dizziness she felt. She blamed it on her excessive drinking the night before, on the cigarettes and still unforgiving jet lag and the new life she'd tossed herself into. She wanted to know that it was curable by getting out of bed, taking a shower and breathing in a warm cup of coffee like most every morning. But the more the balance of her mind shifted, the more she realized it was a rocking that had woken her, and when she sat up in the warm sheets to look around for a possible seismic catastrophe, she remembered everything all at once.

I'm on a boat, she sighed with a certain grin. Roux's boat...

Warding off the cool air of the empty cabin with the sheet wrapped around her, Isabelle began frantically searching for her discarded red dress. And when it didn't turn up anywhere on the floor or bed, she instead threw on Roux's wrinkled shirt. Her pink fingernails caressed the tiny holes in the sleeves as she rolled them to her elbows and also across her chest and stomach as she buttoned it to her mid thighs. It was comfortable, smelled like salt breeze and tobacco and best of all, him.

Barefooted and sea-legged, she snuck out of the tiny wooden bungalow and into a burst of mid-day sunlight. The skies were an impossible blue, with only one or two clouds to speak of, and every plank of the boat under her feet was drenched in brightness as she leaned on the first railing she could for balance. She tried to peer against the sun's strength to find Roux, but could only see shadows of the sails and rigging and distant hills.

From four feet away though, out of sight behind her at the opposing rail, Roux snickered at her tipsy consciousness and knotted one last sail rig to the deck. His eyes were enveloped by all of Isabelle. He'd never seen her in this sort of light before, brazen and weary in pure waterlogged sunshine. Her long, honey toned legs seemed to go on for miles before they met the tail fabric of his old blue shirt, and in the other direction, he smiled at how her coral toenails sparkled with every rock of the boat she attempted to master. Her golden hair was offset and messy and revealed every truth of the night before. And all those things killed him silently as he stepped towards her, his bare toes just meeting the heels of her feet as she turned towards him, startled.

"Oh, my Gosh…" She giggled as she grabbed him for equilibrium. "I didn't see you there. It's so bright."

"I think I might know how t' help with that."

"Yeah?"

He nodded and pulled a second pair of sunglasses from his back pocket, sliding them onto her nose with a satisfied eye through his own shades. "There. Ye look right cute, Miss Isabelle."

She gave an exaggerated pucker and movie star tilt of her head to the sky as he laughed and circled his arms around her waist, hugging her body's softness to his. He knew it was an addiction now. That feeling of her pressed to him in all the right places, held by the jaws of his own desperation to feed off of her. It was sheer perfection.

"Good morning," he whispered against her lips. She returned in a half mumble as he cut her off with the heat of his mouth, his kiss driving and forceful, needy and unexpected. She loved every bit of it. Her arms hooked around his neck as he lifted her bare toes from the salty deck, making the end of his shirt ride up the backs of her thighs, practically revealing all of her to the riverbanks they sailed down. It wasn't a concern though, not with the way his tongue felt roving through her mouth, or the way his hair felt between her fingers, or the way his strong arms protected her from the world that had once seemed so frightening.

When her feet hit the boat again and his lips slithered away from hers, all she could do was smile like the universe depended on happiness alone in that moment.

"Good morning," she finally concluded in a breathless murmur on his neck. "You kidnapped me."

Roux chuckled, "I did. For all intensive purposes, o' course."

"Intensive purposes?"

"There's something I want you t' see."

"Something special?"

With a soft nuzzle of his face towards hers, a tantalizing rub of her lower back and a kiss on her forehead, she had her confirmation.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Giverny, France

"Where are we, Roux? Seriously…"

His hand tangled with hers was all she knew for safety. He led her on a pathway to nowhere she could determine really, except that it was outside, near water, and heavily shadowed by trees and other things that brushed against the skirt of her dress as they walked. He had blindfolded her with an ancient bandana the second they had stepped off the boat on the banks of a small river village. She had no opportunity to guess where she was, or read a sign, or expect an answer from Roux.

"Bonjour."

"Bonjour," Roux whispered back to a pair of women who were softly laughing at the bandana covering Isabelle's eyes. "Je suis ici pour surprendre ses. Je vais romance son pantalon."

He was purposefully speaking in French to keep her confused as he wrapped his arm tighter around her waist and led her past the 'Oh's' and 'Ahs' of the older women. There seemed to be a whim of heartfelt emotion in their sighing humor, and it only kept her lost in wondering where they were headed. It didn't take long for Roux to admit they had arrived, when she heard her boots stomping on the wooden planks of a small incline, and realized it was some kind of a bridge.

"What did you say to those women?"

Roux tugged at the knot of the bandana as he pressed his nose and lips into her hair, inhaling the impossible sweetness of it, even through sleep and evening ardor.

"I told them that ye were madly in love with me." Isabelle gulped at the teasing of his quieted words as she felt the bandana loosening slowly. "An' I told them that this was the only way I could get rid o' you."

"What?"

He laughed and let the cloth fall from her eyes as the darkness was replaced with only brightness and beauty. The sun she could feel on her bared shoulders, now cascaded down over the trees she could sense and smell, circling countless flowers, wild and not, where upon the light sparkled on the surface of the water, a streaming pond. And twirling slowly over that same green plane, were millions of water lilies, of every possible shape and size and color. They drifted underneath the bridge one by one as she watched in awe, and it was only when she had fully taken in the magnificence he'd promised, that she finally took fair notice of the those same two arms that had protected her since day one in Paris. Roux kissed the top of her head as she felt water pooling in her eyes, half blocking the exquisiteness of the scene before her.

"Any idea where we are now, love?"

Isabelle held onto his arms as she leaned over the ancient wooden rail of the bridge, staring at her reflection in the water below. Roux's chin rested on her shoulder, his lips at the curve of her neck breathing her in, and it was suddenly the most perfect thing in the world.

"I think I've seen this place before somewhere." He smiled against her skin and hugged her body more closely to his. "I know this place. Why do I know this place?"

"Can I lend you a hint?"

She turned back to see his honest eyes and nodded. Then Roux moved a hand from her waist to gently reach for one of hers, stretching it out over the bridge. His hand controlled her index finger as he began to trace over the scenery, using it as an imaginary brush, stroking each flower and swirling every ripple in the water. And when Isabelle realized just what he was doing, she smiled and fell deeper into his arms.

"The water lilies." His touch softened with the strokes of her finger on the distant lily pads. "It's Monet, isn't it? This is the garden, his garden."

Roux stopped moving her hand about and instead brought it back towards his lips, where he kissed each of her knuckles and then her palm as she eyed him sensually.

"I wanted t' show you the place that first inspired me t' paint. You're the only person I've ever brought 'ere with me."

"Why did you bring me then?"

"Because," he murmured low and sweet. "As quick as it seems, I know you're mine. Somehow I know. I need you, Izzie."

Isabelle felt a tingle run the course of her spine, this time at the claim he'd made of her again, more so than from the kisses. She spun around in his arms with her back to the rail and stared longingly into his eyes, wanting to find something wrong with him, desperate to find the glitch in the equation. She didn't believe for a second it could be that impossibly sublime, the two of them, this.

"I need all o' you. I can't think straight when you're not 'round. I can't be simple 'bout it either. I don't want t' be simple with you." He looked straight into her eyes, his forehead pressed lovingly to hers as he softly hummed words she didn't think she'd be able to stand from anyone again, and especially not so immediately. "I want to give you the whole world, starting right 'ere in Giverny."

She sighed with tears forming at the corners of her eyes, and he swiftly brushed them away.

"What are you saying, Roux?"

"I'm saying that I think I'm falling in love you, Isabelle. And I want t' love you for as long as you'll let me."

Her heart stopped beating in her chest as one single teardrop fell between the closeness of their bodies. Everything about them was so rapid and seemed to be moving at the speed of light. It had been two days and two nights. No more. And yet here he was, standing in front of her on a bridge, offering himself to her, offering her anything and everything he could give, the world even. It had been a week only since she'd flown out of Tennessee without a second care except getting away for good. Then he stepped into the picture and had torn down every last barrier her heart had built over the years. Roux had softened Isabelle back to a healthy romantic and to the passionate self she'd missed for too long.

"Did ye hear me, love?"

His hand stroking her cheek brought her to reality and she nodded with a wistful smile.

"I heard you."

"You look scared."

"No, I'm not." Isabelle wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled her face in his chest. "I promise. I've never been happier." He could sense she wasn't ready to return the affection, whether she felt it for him or not, but it didn't bother him. Just to hold her, just to know she wanted him to hold her, was more than enough for any man in his opinion.

They stayed tied up in each other's arms for what felt like eternity, kissing and dancing on the tiny bridge to no music at all, except the trickling of the pond water beneath their feet and the breezy rustle in the trees. There was nothing else in the universe but them that afternoon. Roux wined and dined her in the village of Giverny until the sun began to sink over the hillside. And before they set sail for a return to the twinkling lights of Paris, he made love to her as softly as he'd ever made love. He cherished every inch of Isabelle and swore he saw in the spark of her eyes, the additional promise that she would soon be as much his as he swore he was hers.