The Highlander's Bride(46)
He kissed the finger that teased his dent. “I would never hurt you. You have my word on that.”
“I think I’ve known that all along. I believed you a good man from first we met.”
“Then you trust me?” he asked softly.
“Aye, I do,” she said without hesitation.
He brushed warm lips across hers. “Then let us seal our vows and protect you.”
Her smile was slow to surface and she ran a finger along his moist lips. Her words did not come easy, but they did come firmly. “I can’t.”
He took her hand and rested it over his heart. “You wound me.”
She sighed with pleasure and disappointment. “And you tempt me beyond belief.”
He took her hand and kissed her palm. “Then why not surrender?”
Her eyes danced with merriment. “I would prefer to know victory.”
“What makes you think you wouldn’t be victorious?”
“Easy,” she said with a twinge of regret. “Love can be the only victor in this skirmish.”
His eyes turned sad. “Love died with Alaina.”
“Only if you let it.”
He rolled off her and sat up. “It wasn’t by choice.”
Sara rested her hand on his arm, and as usual, the strength of him permeated her flesh and sent shivers racing through her. “It is if you let it be.”
He got to his feet. “You don’t understand. You’ve never loved.”
Sara sat up. “Perhaps, but I’ve known emptiness.”
Cullen hunched down beside her, his hand gliding up her neck to cup her cheek. “Then let me fill you.”
How easy it would be to agree. She’d then know the joys of intimacy without the complications. But recently she had given it second thought and believed if she tasted intimacy with Cullen, it would produce more complications than she was able or willing to handle.
He was a good man, and she had so wanted to find a good man to share her life with. Since that didn’t seem a possibility, she didn’t want to open herself to more disappointment.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said.
“Why?” he asked with a quick kiss.
She took hold of his wrist. His wildly beating pulse quickly had hers matching his own, then he moved his hand away from her. “I’ve explained the best I could and we’ll leave it at that.”
He didn’t mask his disappointment or resign himself to it. “We have two days yet.”
“Uneventful days to be sure.”
He stood, walked to his side of the campfire and stretched out on the blanket. “We shall see.”
“You have more pressing matters to consider,” she reminded him. “You must act the good husband—”
“I am trying,” he said, shaking his hands to the Heavens, “but I have a stubborn wife.”
“A sensible wife,” she corrected with a sweet grin.
“Not this time,” he argued.
“I’m always sensible. You can count on me being sensible.”
He turned to rest on his side. “Sensible is getting yourself stuck in an abbey for two years for refusing to obey your father, forcing a stranger to wed you so you could escape, painting pockmarks on my son to get him past the guards? And I have no doubt there is an array of other times your sensible actions were thought otherwise.”
“I can’t help it if I’m more sensible than anyone else.”
He laughed. “So that’s the way you explain your insensible actions?”
“I have never made an insensible decision in my life. Not marrying a smelly fool was good common sense. Marrying a stranger who would place no demands on me and I could rid myself of was great common sense and a promise—”
Sara stopped abruptly and Cullen sprung up, his handsome face contorted by the firelight, giving the impression that the devil had just risen from the fires of Hell.
“Promise? Who did you promise what?”
She hadn’t meant to mention the promise, not just yet at least. Besides, no one truly needed to know about it, it would serve no purpose.
“I want an answer, Sara.”
“I hadn’t planned to tell you this. I saw no reason to.”
“I want to know,” he said sternly.
His body grew rigid as if he braced for a blow, and Sara was certain her words would hit him hard, so she delivered them fast. “I promised Alaina I would keep her son safe.”
Cullen jumped to his feet. “You spoke with Alaina and never planned to tell me about it? In God’s name why?”
“As I said, I saw no reason. It would serve no purpose.”
“You didn’t think I would want to hear what she said to you?”
“And what would those words do for you? Bring you more suffering?”