If You Dare(74)
She yawned, then murmured in a drowsy voice, “He’ll take me to Castile and get the family to find a husband for me who’ll overlook the scandal. I suppose it won’t be so bad.” She ran her smooth thigh over his legs, relaxing against him, her body warming for sleep. “MacCarrick,” she whispered, drifting, “if I’d known husbands touch like you do, I’d have been much more eager to wed.”
Court, the blackheart, the mercenary who’d sell his sister for a pound, just took a direct hit to the chest.
Twenty-four
W hen Court woke Anna early the next morning, she was slow to rouse, but when she did, she smiled shyly at him. He didn’t even bother questioning why his chest reacted to the sight of it. “How do you feel?”
She sat up and gave him a surprised look, as if she’d woken in a foreign but more comfortable body. “I feel wonderful.” She didn’t seem embarrassed by her nudity, though the blanket bundled in her lap covered some, as did her hair falling over one breast. Which left one uncovered—
When she put her hands above her head to stretch, he ran his palm over the back of his neck, and grated, “Mind the arm, lass.” If she were his, he’d always be there to see her stretch in the morning. And he’d make sure each night that she had no clothes on to conceal her.
“Oh, I’d forgotten about it completely.”
He gave her a tight nod. “I’ll leave you to dress. We’ll go on the crossing soon.”
Before he could escape, she asked in a small voice, “Why are you…different?”
Because he’d realized in the long hours of the night that she could never be his. Even if he didn’t have a five-hundred-year-old curse shadowing him and even if he could somehow convince a fine woman like her to want to stay with him, Court could never have her. And now he cared about her enough that he refused to ruin her. “Because things will no’ be the same between us once we reach England. We canna be together as we were last night.”
“Then I want to stay here,” she said, surprising him.
“No, you know we canna do that.”
When she began to reply, he said, “Here. I almost forgot.” He dug into his pocket. “I have your choker.” He’d finally figured out the secret behind the choker, and held it with the length dropping down and swinging in front of her, hoping this would startle some sense into her about him.
He’d recognized it wasn’t merely a piece of jewelry—it was a talisman that had been her mother’s. Her mother wasn’t buried with her father, but alone in Paris, away from Andorra and from her family in Castile. She’d somehow been disowned by both. By the way Annalía had acted after the grotto, he suspected he knew why.
She wore it so she wouldn’t be like her mother.
To his bewilderment, her gaze flickered over it without interest, then returned, intent only on his face. “I don’t want it. It doesn’t fit any longer.”
When she wouldn’t accept it, he stuffed it into his pocket, then strode from the room. He shut the door and leaned back against it, thinking that once he got to London, his brothers would see that this woman had him twisted inside. They’d wonder how, if Court cared about her at all, he could let it get this far.
He wondered, too. How could he explain that as things developed between him and Anna, he hadn’t felt that he was taking more than he ought?
He had felt that finally—finally—the pieces were falling into place.
Even the exciting steamer ferry trip across the channel did nothing to break up the tension between Annalía and MacCarrick.
He hadn’t spoken to her in anything but one-word answers, except when he’d asked if she was seasick. She’d glanced around and seen that most everyone else was, but when she answered no, he appeared bothered, which hurt her feelings.
She scarcely cared that he was surly to her because she had much to think on. She wanted to memorize every instant of the night before because she never, never wanted to forget even the tiniest detail.
Before MacCarrick she’d gone about her life completely ignorant of the staggering pleasure a man can give a woman. She caught him scowling at her from the ship’s railing and bit her lip. And the pleasure a woman could give a man. She’d seen it….
He’d always been in control, yet she’d wrested it from him with naught but her fingers, and made him yell and thrash with pleasure with every muscle in that huge body going rigid.
Just remembering made her breasts grow fuller and more sensitive, and simply looking at his talented fingers gripping the railing…She frowned. They’d tightened so much around the wood they’d gone white. She glanced up, caught him studying her as she’d been staring at his hands. She parted her lips, and a breath shuddered out. He turned sharply away.