Lion's Bride - Iris Johansen [40]
He stopped at the top of the stairs and then was moving down the corridor. “I’m not carrying you down again. You’ve been bother enough tonight. You can have my bed. I won’t be using it.”
Something soft beneath her…
He was turning away and striding toward the door.
That was wrong, too…. She couldn’t allow him to go.
“No.” She struggled to an upright position and swung her legs to the floor. “You shouldn’t go back to the hall. Stay here….” She pulled herself up by the bedpost. “I’ll go to Jasmine’s—”
He whirled on her. “By the saints, why won’t you give up?”
She was too weary to argue. She could only shake her head.
His hands clenched into fists at his side as he glared at her. Was he going to strike her? She almost hoped he would. Then she could go to sleep without breaking her vow to Kadar. He was striding toward her, his blue eyes glittering. He was going to strike her.
He pushed her down on the bed.
She looked up at him, startled, as he threw himself into the cushioned chair next to the bed. “Go to sleep,” he growled. “I’ll stay.”
“You’ll try to sleep?”
“I said I’d stay. I didn’t say I’d sleep.”
It was victory enough. Kadar couldn’t expect more from her tonight. “You might as well.” She turned over on her side and closed her eyes. “There’s nothing else to do….”
There’s nothing else to do.
Ware rested his head on the back of the chair. He could think of any number of things to do at the moment, and none of them concerned sleeping. He hadn’t thought he wanted a woman until he saw her lying in his bed.
Now there was no doubt at all what he wanted to do.
So why wasn’t he inside her? Why was he sitting there watching her sleep like one of those foolish gallants in a troubadour’s tale? She had angered him, forced him to her will, and he was still not reaching out to take what he wanted.
His gaze slowly traveled over her. She was curled up like an exhausted child, but she was no child. She was old enough to take a man and bear a child. She would have fine sons; she would give them her strength and courage and protect them as she had Haroun.
The thought brought a violent surge of heat to his loins. Christ, what was happening to him? Now he was not only lusting after the woman, but her children. He wanted those sons to be his, wanted to see her belly swell with his seed and her breasts grow large with milk.
His hands clenched on the arms of the chair. Not for him. Never for him. If he conceived a child, he would probably never live to see it born.
Yet he suddenly wanted that child with an overwhelming passion. He didn’t want to let them banish every trace of him from the earth. Something should live on, someone…
Oh, yes, he thought with self-disgust, get the woman with child and let the Grand Master murder them both as he had the villagers.
Or hold them both hostage to make sure of Ware’s death.
Why was he even considering the possibility? He had known this danger for years and had been careful to draw out of the women he used to slake himself. That it mattered so much now was unreasonable.
The destruction of the village must be the source of this sense of urgency. It could not be the woman. He admired her courage and endurance, but she was far too independent and bold. Never had a woman defied and ordered him about. Yet if she had not been bold, could she have survived? Gentleness would not have served her on that long trek to Damascus. Meekness would have made her stay in that silken prison in Constantinople.
He could not condemn her for surviving and wishing to live in freedom. He had been driven by that same wish when he’d left Scotland those many years ago.
But he could condemn her for being a constant irritant since he had brought her to Dundragon.
No, in fairness, she had tried to avoid him. It was his own lust that had been at fault. Damnation, was there no way to escape guilt? he thought wearily. Every way he turned, he bore responsibility for some new sin. He should have gone back to the Great Hall and the wine that blurred the guilt and made life a little more bearable.
She murmured something