Dragon Lord (20 page)

The question was, did he want to ignore it?

Opening his eyes, he tightened his hand around the breast resting in his palm, squeezing it experimentally to test his interest. She made a faint noise of complaint in her sleep, shifting away from him. Mildly annoyed by her disinterest in his overture, despite the fact that he hadn’t been certain of his own interest, he pushed himself up on one elbow to look down at her.

Dark, bruised crescents had formed beneath her eyes. He studied her sleeping face for a long moment, felt … something stir inside of him and finally lifted the arm he had draped over her and rolled away from her. She was obviously exhausted, he decided, staring up at the ceiling as he allowed his mind to fill with the impressions of the hours he had spent expending himself on her--the sounds, the sights, the scents, the sensations that had raced through him.

Sexual interest stirred again, but the troubling sense that there was something he needed to do, something that needed his attention, eclipsed it. Whatever it was eluded him, but the restless energy that filled him made it impossible to seek sleep again and he rolled from the bed and went to shower and shave, deciding that whatever it was was bound to come to him when he was more alert.

It didn’t, but he dressed and left the room in search of something to do to work off the excessive energy. He met up with Tedra on his way to the basement to work out, nodded a morning greeting and kept going. Seeing her heading toward the kitchen, however, put him in mind of Raina, still sleeping in his bed and he stopped, considering it.

The time he’d spent with her had been surprisingly satisfying, but the point was he
did
feel completely satisfied. She’d been right, and he’d been right. Giving in to temptation had been the way to go. He could not recall when the last time was that he had felt so thoroughly and completely satisfied.

Swiveling on his heels, he turned to look at Tedra, whom he discovered had stopped and turned to look at him questioningly, her hand poised on the doorknob. “You should go and tell Raina to give you a hand about the place. I am done with her. She might as well make herself useful.”

An hour and half later, when he’d worn off the brunt of his excess energy and broken a sweat, it dawned on him what had brought about the sense of something ‘undone’ that needed to be done. He had nothing to do--here--nothing of any importance whatsoever. Every day was like the day before because, in essence, he was a prisoner. There was a very great deal of things to do in Schalome, however, things shelved for a more appropriate time, things ignored because he had not had the heart to face them or been able to summon the will to care whether they were ever done or not.

Vengeance and justice--they were his to wield, his to seek, his duty to perform, and no one else’s.

Belated, he thought with self-disgust. His sense of ‘urgency’ was seriously, criminally belated. Like a mindless beast searching for a quiet place to die, he had crawled into a hole and buried himself deeply, telling himself he only needed time to grieve, time to heal, time to grow strong again and then he would find his lost manhood, his courage, his conviction, and he would be a force to be reckoned with.

Those thoughts sustained him until he caught a glimpse of Raina as he headed back to his suite. At once a mixture of conflicting emotions swamped him; guilt, desire, a sense loss and disappointment when he tried to dismiss the first two with the reflection that he had no reason to feel either. They’d desired one another. It was simple lust, and he had been careful to give as much pleasure as he’d taken, but it was time to move on and focus on his duty.

Her scent and his memories lingered in his suite, though, taunting him with the urge to reverse his decision, undermining his certainty that he’d slaked his desire for her and when he’d bathed and changed the restlessness and uncomfortable sense of loss drove him from the house.

* * * *

And on the fourth day, they rested, Raina thought wryly when she woke to discover she was alone in the bed, trying
not
to feel deserted even though she knew she had been.

Mrs. Higgenbottom, who’d awakened her, stood in the doorway. “You will need to clean the parlor when you have broken your fast,” she said crisply, as if she wasn’t standing in Simon’s bedroom door with Raina sprawled naked in his bed.

Raina heaved a heavy sigh. “Yes, ma’am,” she responded, trying to feel philosophical about it.

She’d expected nothing less. She’d just hoped it would last a little longer.

Rising when Mrs. Higgenbottom had departed, she headed into the bathroom for a shower. When she emerged, she realized she had a problem. She had her jeans and panties and nothing else. It took her a little while to remember that Simon had stripped her of her blouse and bra before he’d decided to haul her to his room. He’d grabbed her jeans and panties from the floor when he’d grabbed her, but he hadn’t bothered to look for the blouse he’d flung across the room.

She had two choices. She could borrow something of Simon’s or stroll topless down the hall to the room where her suitcases were--because nobody had brought them to her.

She wasn’t going to stroll topless, not with six men in the house. Moving to Simon’s closet, she took out one of his shirts and put it on, staring down at herself wryly. The shirt tails came to her knees. She would’ve been decently covered without the jeans.

Not that it mattered, except there was no way anybody meeting up with her would be in any doubt that she was wearing Simon’s clothes and if she met up with Higgenbottom she’d probably shit a brick.

Thankfully, Simon’s sitting room was empty. Obviously, he’d left the house while the house keeper rousted her out of his room.

It was harder to be philosophical about that.

She jolted to halt, though, completely forgetting her feelings of misuse when she discovered the portrait was missing from above the fireplace mantel. Frowning, she glanced around, but she’d already realized it hadn’t simply been moved. It had been removed completely.

Simon probably hadn’t felt comfortable cavorting with her and then having to ‘face’ his wife, she decided.

Shaking off her depression, she hurried down the hall to Audric’s room and went in. Audric had one foot in his pants when she sailed in the door. “Oh shit!” Raina exclaimed, coming to a screeching halt and throwing up her hands. “God, Audric! I am so sorry! I should’ve knocked.”

He said nothing and after a moment she realized he’d returned his attention to dressing. Discomfort moved through her. She’d been so disconcerted when she’d come in on him dressing she’d completely forgotten the first encounter after Simon was probably going to be an uncomfortable one.

She studied him a moment, but what could she say?

She was just sorry that she’d been trying to seduce him in the garden just before. He might have felt the rejection anyway, but that had to have made it worse, because
she
was the one who’d tried to cross the line between friends and lovers.

He must think she was a slut of the worse kind, she thought guiltily.

Trying to shrug that off as she had the depression that had settled over her because
she
had been rejected, she looked around for her suitcases and finally got down on her knees to see if they’d been shoved further under the bed.

“They were moved to the garage apartment.”

Raina would have been a lot more favorably impressed with his progress on his English if not for the content of the sentence he’d just uttered.

“Moved?” she echoed in disbelief. “You have got to be fucking kidding me! Well! I guess I should just be grateful he didn’t pitch me in the yard naked when he got done, the arrogant asshole!”

Whirling, she stalked from the room and headed down the backstairs, angry enough to blast anybody that happened to step unwarily in her path. Fortunately, she didn’t run in to anybody, because she was in no state of mind, at the moment, to consider the inadvisability of it. She’d been dumped by her boss. The next step was the boot, and she hadn’t saved up enough money yet to get her an apartment, even a crummy one, in town.

She remembered that when she got to the garage apartment and it cooled her temper right down. It didn’t make the sense of misuse disappear, but she could handle that--and smile. God knew she’d been dumped on enough in her life she ought to be able to handle it.

She threw Simon’s shirt in the laundry when she came down again. She’d intended to return it to his room, but then it occurred to her that she might run in to him and she wasn’t ready--lunch would be soon enough.

She didn’t get the chance to eat. Higgenbottom had cleaned everything up and put it away by the time she made it back to the main house. She wasn’t hungry anyway. Her stomach was coiled into a nauseating knot of dread as she headed to the parlor to clean.

She couldn’t act angry, she coached herself as she settled to work. That wouldn’t do at all. In the first place, there was a good chance that she was on the way out and she had a better chance of sticking around a while longer if she behaved herself. In the second, she actually had no
right
to be mad. He hadn’t made her any promises. She hadn’t asked for any, and she certainly couldn’t claim that she hadn’t been a willing soul in the seduction.

Cold wouldn’t do, either. That was just mad inside out.

She was going to have to try to figure out how to behave as if nothing at all had happened.

That was just going to be lovely, of course, because there wasn’t a damned soul in the house that didn’t know.

It didn’t dawn on her until she was ready to serve lunch that, under the circumstances, the other men might decide to have a go at her. She wished it hadn’t occurred to her then because she could’ve served their luncheon without feeling so tense. On the other hand, she was a domestic, she thought wryly, and they were supposed to ignore her existence.

It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared it would be. She had to focus on what she was doing anyway and that made it a lot easier not to look at anyone, which meant if they were giving her knowing looks they were wasting their time.

She was still relieved when she’d finished and could retreat to the kitchen where she didn’t have to be worried about anyone except Higgenbottom. Her own lunch was miserable. She hadn’t gotten breakfast, so her stomach was trying to eat her alive, and she was so tense and upset she could hardly swallow her food without choking on it. She managed to swallow enough to appease the beast and not look as if she was moping, but it sat like lead in the bottom of her stomach when she went back to work.

She was so exhausted from romping with Simon for days and having little sleep, that she was barely dragging by the end of the day. With gratitude, she climbed the stairs to the loft apartment and sprawled on the bed for a nap before she had to serve dinner. It seemed to her that she’d barely dozed off when a loud, extremely annoying buzzer went off. She came off the bed as if she’d had a jolt of electricity up the ass, staggering as she whipped her head around in search of the source. It stopped before she found it. She stared at the bed again. Just as she put her knee on the mattress to climb back in, the buzzer sounded again. This time, though, it dawned on her that it must be a summons.

Sighing, she went to the bathroom to wash her face, combed her hair and headed to the main house. It was hard even trying to look alert while she passed out the plates, which was a blessing in disguise. She didn’t even think about being uncomfortable.

She was more than half asleep by the time she’d eaten.

Audric cornered her before she managed to make back to her apartment. She really, really didn’t feel like a confrontation, but she stopped and looked at him questioningly.

“You are ok?”

She stared at him, feeling the sense of misuse from earlier descend upon her like a clap of thunder on a sunny day. She hadn’t expected sympathy, especially not from Audric. Her chin wobbled threateningly. She bolstered it. “I’m just tired,” she said and then reddened when she realized he would immediately know why. She cleared her throat, studying her shoes. “But thank you for asking. That’s really sweet of you. Especially after … after ….”

“Hush,” he said, grabbing her hand and hauling her quickly across the garden and into the garage.

She thought she’d mastered the urge to cry but when Audric pulled her into the apartment and into his arms, she burst into noisy sobs. He stood holding her for a few minutes, rocking her slightly and finally scooped her up and carried her to the bed. Settling her on the mattress, he lay down beside her and pulled her close again.

“I can’t,” she said tearfully. “I’m so sorry, Audric, but I can’t do this.”

He ignored her efforts to push him away, holding her tighter until she gave up and wilted against him. But, contrary to her fears, he didn’t attempt to do anything more than hold her. He was still holding her when she woke up.

That went badly, because she was too disoriented at first to realize she wasn’t snuggling next to Simon and it gave her a jolt when she finally realized it wasn’t him.

And he knew.

She looked up at him guiltily for a moment and finally averted her gaze and climbed out of the bed. By the time she emerged from the bathroom, he was gone.

The rest and the catharsis of tears had helped her tremendously, she discovered.

One more reason to be grateful for Audric.

One more reason to feel like shit for not treating him as he deserved.

The worse of it, she thought, was that it wasn’t even as if she didn’t find him attractive. She did, and she appreciated his other qualities, as well. If she’d never seen anyone but Audric, she would’ve thought he was the most wonderful man she’d ever met--strong, handsome, protective--but Simon eclipsed him. Simon was
more
in every way. She couldn’t help it that she felt that way or that she had been drawn in as much by Simon’s neediness as his powerful charisma.

If she hadn’t felt that Simon needed her, she would still have followed him off at the crook of his finger.

She wasn’t actually sorry that she had. She was just sorry if it had hurt Audric that she had.