Cates, Kimberly (32 page)

She stiffened as he found a tiny, aching point she'd never suspected could hold such a wealth of sensation—pleasure so intense it was nigh agony.

"It's all right, angel. Just trust me. Let me give this to you." He murmured the words, words of praise, a strange mix of urging and comfort as he carried her off into a world so new, so overwhelming.

Exquisite circles, airy brushes, he moved his fingers against her, drawing the coil of pleasure tighter and tighter until she writhed against his touch, reaching for something she didn't understand.

"Please, Lion, I c-can't bear..."

"Hush, love. Just let yourself feel it. Know how good you feel against my fingers. Heaven, Rhiannon. Heaven. But there is more. Can I show you?" He gazed so deep into her eyes that it was as if he touched her very soul.

"Anything, Lion. Everything."

He kissed her, hard, drawing his hand away from her. With a whimper of protest, she shifted her body toward him, but he was already moving himself. He slid down her body, kissing her waist, her navel, her thighs. Her legs shifted, restless, her whole body aching.

"I want to kiss you, sweetheart. Here." His thumb brushed the down between her thighs. She gasped, disbelieving, his breath stirring those curls. "Will you let me?"

It seemed so—so decadent and wicked. But he'd asked her to trust him. Lion, who trusted so little. Who believed so little that he deserved trust. How could she deny him anything he might ask?

She gave him a smile that trembled, then nodded. "Yes, Lion. I love you."

With a low groan, he eased her legs apart, kissed the inside of her knee, swept his mouth upward, kissing, nipping, then soothing each spot with his tongue.

She stiffened, bracing herself, for what, she wasn't sure. Lion curved his hands beneath her thighs, spreading them until she was wide, wide open. Then, with exquisite care, he closed his lips over that tiny, exquisitely burning nub. Rhiannon gasped, arched up, sensation spearing through her—hunger, stripped to its rawest form, need, pulsing so fiercely it blazed behind her eyelids. She writhed, not to escape the sweet, forbidden torment but to urge Lion on, to try to convey what magic she was feeling.

She stroked his hair, crying out broken words of love as his tongue darted out, dipping and circling. Something was building inside her, coiling tighter, tighter, until it was the most exquisite torture, as if, after an eternity of darkness, the brightest of suns danced just beyond her reach.

Every muscle in her body strained toward it, and then, with a flick of his tongue, he sent her hurtling, hurtling through fire-bright sensations, wild and earthy, beautiful and sacred, a breaking apart of body and soul. She shattered, bit her lip to stifle a scream as he drove her pleasure higher, farther, deeper. She gave herself up to it, glorying in his gift.

She wasn't certain how much time passed before the world spun back into focus. Lion's pristine bedroom, everything arranged with military precision. The only thing out of place was the sword she'd carried in to defend him.

It was the same. So familiar. Only one thing was different. Lion.

He leaned over her, one elbow braced on the mattress, eyes still blazing with intensity and need, and yet a wry kind of tenderness, as if some sort of jest had been played upon him.

With obvious reluctance, he grasped the edge of the coverlet and pulled it across her body, tucking it under her breasts. Innocent she might be, but she was enough a child of the wild lands to realize that something was missing in what they had just shared.

"Lion," she said, her cheeks burning, "what about you?"

She could feel the tension in his body, see the hard determination in his face. He was fighting back his own needs, those needs doubtless still pounding through his veins with the same ferocity with which they had pounded through hers before she reached that delicious sense of fulfillment.

"Lion, I want you. I would have welcomed—"

"I know," he said. "But I fear I've stumbled across a most inconvenient case of scruples where you are concerned, my dear. I trust that you won't reveal my guilty secret to anyone."

She buried her face in his shoulder. "Tell that we almost made love?"

"No, sweetheart. That I had you here, naked in my bed and
did not."
He chuckled, gathering her against him. "It would be most damaging to my reputation, you understand."

"I think I liked you better as a villain," she admitted with a sigh.

He startled her by loosening his arms, sliding from the bed. "I know it is customary to give the bride a betrothal ring. And you'll have one—the finest coin can buy, I promise. But I want you to have something now that you can hold"—he hesitated, crossing to his desk—"to remind you of tonight." He took something out of the drawer. "The night I vowed to wed you, and you... you gave me... hope." His voice dropped, low, reverent, as he came to place the object in her hand.

She stared down at the most exquisite carving she'd ever seen. A medieval queen garbed in robes so real it seemed they should flutter in the breeze from the open window.

"Lion... she's so beautiful."

"It's a chess piece, the only thing I took with me when I left my grandfather's house. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But the old man and I had spent so many hours warring over that chessboard. I'd fought so hard to keep the queen. I just couldn't surrender her, even then."

Rhiannon pressed the wooden lady against her heart, her eyes burning with the knowledge of what Lion had given her—the only possession he'd ever cared about. And a fragment of his carefully guarded past. "I'll treasure her forever. Keep her safe for you."

Fierce intensity darkened his face. Rhiannon stared into his features, realizing she was seeing the real Lionel Redmayne for the first time. The intelligence was there, but without the razor edge that could so easily cut at someone else's confidence, his innate courage and strength honed to a purer, more vivid sheen.

"I... care about you, Rhiannon. More than I've ever let myself care about anyone, save that wooden lady. This much I promise you. I will have you one day. And when I do, nothing will stand between us. Not the danger of assassins or shadows from my past or the tiniest hint of dishonor."

She shivered as a cool night breeze blew through the open window, chilling her despite Lion's arms about her. His world waited beyond. A world filled with intrigue and enemies, self-doubt and the nightmare she'd seen reflected in his eyes. Always he'd walked in it alone. From this moment on, she'd make certain they faced it together.

Lionel gathered Rhiannon up in his arms an hour before the camp began to stir. Taking care not to wake her, he settled her into her own bed, draping her nightgown about her body with more tenderness than he'd ever guessed he could possess. Gently he tucked her beneath layers of downy coverlets, then took care to obliterate any evidence of their tryst. The ball gown hung over the chair beside Rhiannon's fireplace, dancing slippers at attention beneath a flounce of hem. Undergarments, still scented with the subtle perfume of her skin, were stacked in a foamy pile to one side. No one would question where she had spent the night.

The wood-carved queen stood in regal splendor on her bedside table, out in the open for the first time in countless years, where Rhiannon would be certain to see it the moment she woke up.

He intended to leave the moment he got her settled so he could put his own room to rights and gather his thoughts. But he lingered, looking down at the wealth of tousled curls against the pillows, the slight smile that curved her lips even in sleep, as if she held a delicious secret close to her heart. Love, he knew. Love for him.

He touched her cheek, as if trying to reassure himself that she was not merely the fevered dream of a man too long alone. Her skin was warm satin beneath his fingertips, her breath, so soft, warm, drifted in precious waves against him. No one knew better than a soldier how fragile life could be, or how fleeting happiness.

He fought back the memory of the lone caravan isolated in that Irish glen, three men striding up to the camp—some, at least, bent on murder. Assassins he should have hunted with his accustomed ruthlessness during the past week. Instead, he'd been far more alarmed by the enemy Rhiannon had loosed upon him—emotions he could scarce remember stirred up in him by her merest smile, touch. Feelings far more terrifying to Redmayne than the paltry threat of his own death. They had confused him, distracted him. He was even shamed to admit that some deep-buried part of him had known why he was suddenly so accursedly inept. He was stalling, as an excuse to keep her near him.

He'd been a fool not to move with lightning swiftness to put everything in order. His first duty should be to make certain she was safe. Now if anything happened to him, she would be just as helpless, as vulnerable, as poor as when he first awakened in her bright-painted cart. A woman alone, cast upon the capricious winds of fate. The thought sent a chill down Redmayne's spine.

No, he vowed. Whatever happened when he confronted his enemies, he would make certain Rhiannon was taken care of. Taken care of... Redmayne fingered the strange notion as if it were a pearl he'd found in the sand, something beautiful, flawless, unexpected.

Never in his life had he felt this urge to protect and defend, this almost holy trust inside him, awe-inspiring, terrifying, inescapable. So this was the emotion that he saw burning in the eyes of his men, that indescribable quality he'd examined with such curiosity, used as a weapon when necessary. He'd under- stood the vulnerability it bred, but never guessed that the wonder in love far outweighed the risks.

Perhaps he would be walking into the flames for Rhiannon by allowing himself to fall prey to these emotions, and yet he was fiercely glad to do it. For when she'd vowed she loved him, her eyes shining with tears, he'd glimpsed for a heartbeat what might wait for him on the other side of the flames.

He straightened with new resolve and stalked from the room. He was garbed in a fresh uniform, ink drying on several letters, by the time there was a knock on the door of his headquarters. He raised his gaze from the missives and glared at the door.

It was time to put an end to whatever game his enemies were playing. The next move was his. It was a crossroads he'd come to countless times during his life. One familiar, almost eagerly anticipated in the past. Why was he suddenly so accursedly unnerved?

He'd never failed before; he had countered every strategy with icy calm brilliance. But one vital thing had changed since Rhiannon Fitzgerald careened into his world. For the first time in his life, Redmayne had something precious to lose.

He closed his eyes, picturing the delicate form of the single chess piece he'd guarded throughout his misspent life. A symbol of what he had never hoped to have until he gave her to his own brave-hearted lady.

A queen for his undeserving heart.

CHAPTER 17

Lion paced the confines of his office, succumbing to a ridiculous show of restlessness for the first time in his life. He couldn't help it, damn it. In the eight days since he'd carried the sleeping Rhiannon from his bed, he'd used every trick in his repertoire to set things in order, flush out the assassins, unearth his enemies once and for all.

He'd even gone so far as to summon Sir Thorne Carville to Galway, intending to confront the man directly. Well-placed questions regarding the man's courage, should he choose not to come, should have sent Thorne bolting to confront his accuser. Lion had been certain he understood this adversary to his very bones. But even the lances aimed at Thorne's prodigious pride had failed to make the man appear.

Even the Irishman who had been Thorne's comrade seemed to have disappeared into the mist, vanishing altogether. Only Barton remained of the three men who had sauntered up to Rhiannon's caravan what seemed an eternity ago.

Frustration gnawed at Redmayne's nerves, loosing an edge of temper he hadn't even realized he possessed. He fought to conceal it, and yet he was appalled to know it was there.

Hellfire, it was one thing to play upon the vast chessboard of life when you didn't care how many pieces you might lose in any gamble. You could play coolly, use your strategies with the greatest of cunning. But the instant one piece became precious, the whole game shifted, became terrifying instead of stimulating.

He paused at the window, where a row of potted flowers now stood, butter yellow in the sun. Another of Rhiannon's gifts, subtly beckoning him to look outside now and then, to tempt him into a world beyond the four walls of this room. Could she possibly guess how much danger might lie in that sun-drenched landscape she so loved? Rhiannon, with her fairy magic, her belief in the goodness of everyone and everything she encountered, couldn't she feel the danger, sense it tightening like jaws about them, its cold teeth gleaming.

Someone was out there.

He could feel it deep in the marrow of his bones where every soldier's instinct for survival lay buried. Was it Thorne? No. He was more powder keg than man, no more able to be silent and subtle under the provocation Redmayne had offered than that keg would be if someone showered it with sparks. The Irishman? Far more likely, and yet, with the extra guards Lion had posted, wouldn't the man have been caught by now? No matter what trap he laid, this person managed to slip through the net as if he had no more substance than moonlight.

He'd spent most of his nights in that odd twilight, not sleeping, yet only partially awake, but these past eight nights had been absolute torture. He couldn't even count the number of times he'd slipped into Rhiannon's bedchamber, damn the presence of her maid a doorway beyond, and had kept watch over her until dawn broke.

Most terrifying of all was the knowledge that no matter what he did, he might not be able to keep his lady safe from whatever peril he sensed circling them like a pack of wolves.

A rap on his door made Lion start. Forcing his face into his accustomed expression of icy calm, he paced to his desk and sat down before bidding his visitor to enter.