that for?”
“For admitting you do tune me out when I speak.”
He swept her up in his arms and Melody squealed when he spun
her around then placed her back on her feet a step higher than him and yet she
was still shorter. Her laugh got caught in her throat when she saw the change
from amusement to desire in his eyes as he stared at her lips.
“Your lips drive
me to distraction. You can’t blame me for being mesmerized by them, imagining
when I get to kiss you next.”
She licked the said dried lips and swallowed hard when he
leaned down to brush his against hers. “Especially when you do that. Total
distraction,” he breathed seductively against her lips.
“Ruiz…” she gasped, quietly begging him to kiss her already.
“All the travel magazines say to fully appreciate the
stained glass windows. They are magical on a sunny day.”
“Aha,” she responded absently reaching higher on her toes
when it hit her. “Wait, did you just quote me to me?”
He pressed a quick kiss on her lips and released her. “See,
I do pay attention!”
They rushed up the steps and into the church to the lower
chapel. They then climbed the narrow winding staircase off to one side of the
lower room to the upper chapel—there wasn’t much to see in the lower chapel
except for the low ceiling and it wasn’t all that interesting in the dark. The
upper chapel had the richest decorations from the floor to the ceiling and
strong vertical emphasis that gave it a sense of weightlessness. And even
though it wasn’t as sunny as she hoped, it was sunny enough to see the magic as
the light played against the stained glass windows.
“Now that is mesmerizing,” she muttered, moving to stand
under the reflection of the glass so that the colors would fall onto her white
winter jacket.
Ruiz came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her
mid-section and kissing her cheek. “Come on, there is a lot more to see.”
There were a number of tourists taking photos and Ruiz,
thank goodness, had remembered to carry a camera. He looked exactly how Melody
would describe a tourist taking photos and paying attention to the discussions
about the Holy Chapel.
“Hey, come hear this,” he whispered, waving her over to a
plump guy speaking in French accented English about the church.
He wasn’t saying anything Melody didn’t already know, but
Ruiz was such an excited tourist she didn’t want to ruin it for him. So with a
pleasant smile she joined him on the unsanctioned tour.
“…it is considered among the highest achievements of the
Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture. It was built under the commission of
Louis the ninth to store over thirty items including his collection of the
Passion Relics that included the image of Edessa and the Crown of Thorns laced
on Jesus Christ’s head on the day of his crucifixion. The crown of Thorns is
considered to be the most important relic from medieval Christendom and Louis
bought it and other relics like it from the Latin emperor Baldwin the second.”
“He doesn’t mean Aleck Baldwin and no they are not related,”
she whispered to Ruiz and he answered with an elbow to her side when those
around them who heard chuckled.
The wannabe tour guide glared at her for the interruption
and she smiled back at him. “ Veuillez
continuer —continue please.”
With a toss of
his head he kept on walking and talking and like a herd of sheep they followed
him. “The Sainte-Chapelle is one of the surviving buildings of the Capetian
royal palace on the Ile de la Cité, and though it was restored in the
nineteenth century after it sustained damages during the French revolution, it
still has one of the most extensive in-situ collections of the thirteenth
century stained glass anywhere in the world.”
“This guy knows his stuff,” Ruiz whispered down to her.
“Pft! Please, he’s just regurgitating what he read on
Wikipedia before he came here. I bet he