She tensed and sat still, looking at him. She could feel Malik’s watchful, and Adwen’s bewildered, stares fixed upon her.
She could refuse him. He might not force the issue.
She was fooling herself. Of course he would force it. Gage always did what he said he would do.
I will fight all your dragons, Brynn of Falkhaar.
Why had those words suddenly come flying back to her? He was fighting her, not her enemies.
Adwen took a protective step closer to Brynn. “Perhaps she does not want—” She looked from Brynn to Gage and back again. “Brynn?”
If Brynn refused him, Adwen would feel she had to intervene. This newfound contentment would be shattered. It was clever of Gage to realize how desperately Brynn wanted that serenity to continue.
She rose to her feet and strode toward Gage. “Go to your sleep, Adwen.” She lay down beside Gage, jerked the blanket from his grasp, and tucked it around herself. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Adwen hesitated. “Are you sure that is what you want?”
“I’m sure.” Brynn closed her eyes and was immediately assaulted by the scent of leather and musk that always clung to Gage. “Go to sleep.”
She heard Adwen moving slowly away.
“Go take your pallet and set it by the wagon, Malik,” Gage said. “Adwen may need protection if Richard decides it’s time to take a hostage.”
“I doubt that’s the reason you want me gone,” Malik said ruefully.
“No, but the reason is sound.”
And the one ploy that Malik would find irresistible, Brynn thought. He would let the world crumble, if it meant Adwen remaining safe. Only seconds later she heard Malik’s departure.
The muscles of her stomach knotted.
“Be at ease,” Gage said roughly. “You’re so taut, it’s like lying next to a log.”
But a log has no feelings, no senses. “I don’t want to be here.”
“Yes, you do.” His arm slid around her beneath the blanket. “And if your conscience would allow you to be honest about it, you would admit it. This is where you belong.”
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not true.” “Then why are you afraid to be here? Do you fear I’ll use you?” “Yes.”
“Fear?” he prodded. “Is that what you really feel?” His hand cupped her breast. “Now? This minute?”
Her teeth bit into her lower lip as she realized her breast was swelling, peaking beneath his touch. “You know it’s not. But it makes no difference that my flesh is weak. In my heart I don’t wish to couple with you.”
“In your heart you wish nothing else.” His tongue plunged into her ear. “And, by God, before we reach Gwynthal, you’ll tell me so.”
Her body felt flushed, burning, her heart pounded painfully. “You would take me here, in full view of the others?”
“They’re asleep.” His hand lazily rubbed back and forth on her breast. “Or will be soon.”
“They could wake.”
“I doubt if you’d care by that time.” His thumb and forefinger plucked at her nipple. “This gown does not please me. I think we’ll have to be rid of it.”
“I would”—a wave of heat spread through her as his fingers compressed and then tugged—“become—chilled.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’ll still have the blanket for cover and it’s warm here by the fire.” His hand slipped down between her thighs. “But we’ll wait for a while if you like.” His palm cupped and then rubbed back and forth. “Though it annoys me not to be able to touch your flesh down here. I remember this fleece was wondrously soft and yet had a delightful springiness as it brushed against me while I moved in and out of—”
“Be silent,” she broke in desperately. “Such talk is most unseemly.”
His hand slid up her skirt. “And it makes you wish to do unseemly things, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you like to slip off your gown and ride me like you did by the pond that first day?” Then, as he felt the muscles of her stomach clench under his hand, he added, “Ah, I see you do. Let’s see how much.” His hand moved down and tested the moist heart of her. “Very much indeed.” He lowered his lips to her ear. “It would be easy to close your eyes and let me do what I wish with you, wouldn’t it? Then tomorrow you could tell yourself that I had forced you.”
Her body was hot, aching. She arched upward with a little murmur of need.
“But I’m not going to let you be anything but honest with yourself and me. I’m not going to enter this lovely tight sheath. I’m not going to give you my seed until you ask it of me.” He found the nub for which he was searching and began to slowly rotate it with his thumb.
She cried out as a searing jolt of need streaked through her. “Then why are you … doing this?” she panted. “It can bring you no satisfaction.”
“Satisfaction?” he asked grimly. “It may kill me.”
“Then let me go back to Adwen. I cannot stand this.”
“You will stand it,” he said fiercely. “I’ll stroke your body until it feels strange without my touch. I’ll give you pleasure and torment. I’ll wake you in the night with my tongue or my fingers or my voice telling you all the ways I will have you when you ask it of me.”
“Please … I can never ask it of you.”
Two fingers slid deep within her. “Let us pray for the sake of both our sanity that you change your mind.”
Shocking …
Sinful, she thought sleepily, it must be a dream. It could not be …
“Wider,” Gage’s voice, muffled against the heart of her. “Just a little wider, Brynn …”
Her limbs obeyed without her volition.
His tongue!
Her eyes flew open as his tongue firmed, teasing, tormenting the nub.
“Gage. No.” She panted. “This is not—”
His mouth … hungry.
Teeth … nipping gently.
She convulsed, her own teeth biting into her lip as the dark madness overpowered her.
His hands grasped her hips, holding her in place as he took her response, stealing the release she could not deny him.
After it was over, she lay there, shuddering, trembling in every limb.
He moved up and lay beside her, settling his arm over her shoulders.
“This cannot be a good thing,” she said shakily. “I have never heard of a man doing such a thing to a woman. And—”
“It’s a very good thing,” he interrupted. “It’s not an uncommon way to pleasure a woman in Byzantium. I would have showed you the way of it before, but I was always too impatient to get inside you.” He drew her closer. “Go to sleep.”
“So you can wake me in such a manner again?”
“I told you how it would be. And your response was everything I could wish. I look forward to experimenting with other forms of pleasure.” He began to stroke her breasts through the wool of her gown. “But this garment really does get in the way.”
“I won’t take it off.” It was clearly no barrier, but she felt vulnerable enough without lying naked in his arms. “Don’t ask me again.”
He looked at her in surprise. “But of course I’ll ask you again. I want it off.”
“Wake, Brynn,” Gage whispered. “Open your limbs.”
Again? She felt the heat begin between her thighs as if on signal. She could not remember how many times he had awakened her that night. Once it had been with his mouth on her breast sucking strongly as his fingers brought her to pleasure.
And his mouth …
She stretched, seeking.
He chuckled, “Not this time. It’s nearly dawn.” A cool damp cloth was applied to the juncture of her thighs.
She opened her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Soothing you. You have a long ride today, and I toyed with this lovely part of you most of the night in one fashion or the other. Are you sore?”
“No.” She wanted his hands and mouth there again and not his “soothing” cloth.
He
smoothed the curls with the cloth. “Your breasts?”
“No.” Her breasts did ache a little. He had not been gentle, but had fed on her like a hungry child. At one time he had made her release with just that violent suction.
“Your breasts are very sensitive to touch.” He said thickly, “They harden and swell like ripe fruit. I’d like to suck them when you are with child.”
She lost her breath at the vision his words brought. Her belly swollen with his child, Gage naked over her, his lips on her breast.
“You’d like that too,” he said. “I’ll have to see what I can do.” He threw the cloth aside and handed her her gown. “Dress quickly. They’ll be stirring soon.”
When had she taken off her clothes? She vaguely remembered a moment of frantic need when any barrier between them seemed too much. Gage had wanted it gone, but there had been no triumph when he had gotten what he wished. Just his hands on her naked flesh, playing with her as if she were an exquisitely desirable toy.
She pulled the gown over her head and got to her knees, settling it in place. That was better. The coldness of the wool against her body was jarring her out of the sensual euphoria.
Gage’s eyes narrowed on her face. “It will happen again tonight, you know. Tonight and every night. Your body will become so accustomed to it that you won’t be able to do without me.”
She was terribly afraid he might be right. Even now she felt full-bodied and sensual as never before. She didn’t look at him as she started hurriedly across the camp. “I must go wake Adwen.”
Eleven
“Take off the gown,” Gage said.
Brynn pulled the garment over her head and settled down with her back to him. After four days the act was commonplace now. She wondered if she would have been able to sleep at all without his hands on her naked body.
His big palms instantly cradled her breasts as he settled down beside her. Possession. Sometimes it started like this; no wild sensuality, only this comfortable sense of belonging.
“I want inside you,” he said in her ear. “Will you take me?”
That was commonplace too; the request before the onslaught of seduction.
“No.”
His grasp involuntarily tightened on her breasts. “My God, you’re a stubborn woman. Why will you not—” He broke off and she could sense the effort for control. “This can’t go on. You want me, damn you.”
She did want him. The pleasure he gave her was wild and exotic, but there was no primeval joining, that searing bonding that made her feel totally complete. “It will go on.” She paused. “Unless you choose to call a halt. I think this restraint is not natural for a man. It’s you who are suffering, not I.”
“Natural? No, by God, it’s far from natural.” He took his hands from her and rolled onto his back, looking up at the night sky. “What is right and natural for both of us is what you’re denying us.”
“You take everything else, why not that?”
“You know why. When you come to me, you must never walk away again.”
“You know why that can never be.”
“Because of the death of a man you detested?” He raised himself on one elbow and looked down at her. “I didn’t kill Delmas.”
She went still. “I saw you.”
“You didn’t see me kill him because I didn’t do it.”
The scene in the stable flooded back to her. “I did see.”
“Have you ever known me to lie?”
“No.” For an instant hope soared through her before the picture in the stable returned. “Not until now. You’ve always told me you believe only what you can see and touch. I saw you.”
“But you’ve never thought as I do. You believe in faith and miracles.” His voice was bitterly mocking. “Where is your faith now, Brynn?”
She was silent, the tears stinging her eyes.
He muttered a curse. “Perhaps you’re right not to trust me. I probably would lie and cheat and murder for you. It was only fate that kept me from slaughtering your husband like the pig he was. I was even in a rage at being cheated of the pleasure.”
The faintest hope was reborn. The bitter words were more convincing than any declaration.
I probably would lie and cheat and murder for you.
What was she thinking? He had also said those words with chilling conviction and he was very clever. He could become the silk-voiced persuader, the merchant who could buy and sell anything in the flicker of an eyelash. She must not be blinded by what she wanted to see as truth. “You’re right, I cannot trust your words.”
He smiled sardonically. “I didn’t think you would. That’s why I didn’t protest my innocence in the beginning. Cynic that I am, I don’t know if I’d believe you in the same circumstances.” His lips tightened. “But there is one difference in us. I would not abandon you. No matter what your sin, I’d claim it as my own.”
“Our natures are not the same.”
“We’re more similar than you will let yourself believe. We’re both honest, determined, and totally ruthless when it suits our purpose.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “I’m not ruthless.”
“You’re more ruthless than any soldier in my acquaintance. You’d trample over half the world to save a life.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, you’d be careful not to inflict any lasting wound, but you’d definitely trample all obstructions underfoot to protect the one you were healing.”
“You’re wrong. There are other ways.”
“I’m not wrong. You don’t know yourself. You say you must break with me because of guilt, but you’re far too clear-seeing to blame yourself for Delmas’s death.” His voice was relentless, driving each word at her. “You may have grounds to think I’m to blame, but you refuse to give me the faith you would Adwen or Malik. Why is that?”
“I saw … the pitchfork.” “Faith, Brynn.”
The tears were running down her cheeks. “I cannot—”
“Then it’s not guilt, it’s something else. You’re using Delmas as a barrier between us. Why? You know I will wed you and treat you with honor.”
“Bathsheba …”
“We are one. Why do you push me away?”
“We are not one.”
“Do you think I would have fought you and for you if I hadn’t been certain? God’s blood, I have no desire to have a woman rule my life. The only way I can tolerate it is if I also rule yours. We will be one. We are one.”
“I don’t rule your life. You do what you please with me and everyone around you.”
“Is that why I’m traveling to this unbreachable island to seek a treasure that no one has ever heard about?”
“You said you believed me.”
“I want to believe you, but I’d go to Gwynthal anyway. Nothing could keep me away now.”
“Why?”
“Because I think the answer is there.”
“Answer?”
“To why you’ll not admit what we both know is true.”
She shook her head. “I’ve told you what waits for you at Gwynthal. You will find nothing else.”
“No? We will see.”
To her relief, he lay back down. Perhaps this tortuous passage was at an end. She was awhirl with the strange thoughts and doubts he had put into her head. She was not as he saw her. She was always honest with herself. Why would she continue to push Gage away when she had admitted to herself that she loved him?
Yet it was true that she would have given Malik or Adwen her faith no matter what the circumstances.
But Gage was different. Gage exuded a dark violence that neither of them possessed.
“I will never talk of this again. I’ll never ask you for fairness or honesty,” Gage said. “But I swear everything I said to you tonight is truth.” When she did not answer, he laughed without mirth. “And you say you’re not hard. Let’s test you, shall we? You said you thought I was the one suffering. You’re right. Do you know the pain a m
an suffers when he wants and cannot spend?”
She did not know but she had suspected. He had tried to keep it from her, but once she had seen his face twist with agony, and there were times he had lain apart from her, his muscles knotted, his spine rigid.
“It’s a torment you cannot imagine.”
“Then don’t put yourself in such a position.”
“By denying me, you hurt me. Doesn’t that offend your healer’s instincts?”
“No.” It was not the truth. The thought of Gage in physical pain was agonizing. “It’s your own fault.”
“No, it’s yours. All you need do is yield to me and the pain will go away. I will be healed.”
“I won’t listen to you,” she said desperately.
“But you will remember.” He drew her into his arms. “Won’t you, Brynn?”
Yes, she would remember. Even now the tautness of his muscles was being mirrored in her own body. She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
A long silence fell between them before Gage said, “Brynn.”
“I don’t want to talk anymore.”
“Kythe.”
She was taken by surprise at the change of subject. “What?”
“When will we reach Kythe?”
“I’m not sure. Tomorrow or the next day. I don’t remember very much about how long it took us between the Welsh border and Kythe.”
“I find it curious you remembered everything else. You knew every stick and stone of the way here before we reached it.”
She felt a sudden burst of rage. “Well, I don’t remember how long it took us after we left Kythe. I’m not perfect. You can’t expect me to remember everything.”
He was silent again. “We don’t have to go to Kythe. We could go direct to the sea.”
“We need supplies, and Kythe is the only village nearby. Why shouldn’t we go?”
“Your mother.”
She felt her chest tighten and the familiar coldness of her hands. “That happened a long time ago.”
“They also wanted to burn you,” he reminded her dryly.
She felt a surge of hope. Perhaps there was good reason for them not to go. “You think there will be danger?”