Chapter 21 #2
Biting her lip again, she rose from her elbows to one palm, filling the space between them with her nakedness. Luke braced.
With her free hand, she reached out and grabbed the waist of his breeches. She tugged. He dug his knees into the mattress,
refusing to fall.
“You know everything about how this happens,” she informed him softly. She gave another tug, more strenuous this time. His
erection strained toward her hand.
She continued. “What thinking is there left to do? What research? I’m the student here, not you. I’m learning new things. Teach me.”
Possessiveness hit him like an anchor. He reminded himself not to be selfish. He should remember all the reasons not to consummate.
So she can marry again.
So she can live a full life.
With me . . .
“Bannock,” she repeated, more forceful this time. She yanked at his trousers hard enough to topple him. And he wanted to topple.
He’d been poised, holding his breath, waiting for her to pull him onto her beautiful nakedness. And now she had done. And
all of his many thoughts, contradictory and useless, toppled, too. She’d commanded it, and now they were dust.
He found her mouth and seized it.
In her woozy state of throbbing pleasure, Dani tried to understand why this man held back.
Was it gallantry? Confusion? Did he not want her?
If gallantry held him back—well, then, how gallant. And good for him. Also: please stop. The moment to be a gentleman had
come and gone when he’d lied to her for nearly a fortnight and then married her.
Confusion? That couldn’t be it. Even she wasn’t confused, and this was her first time in bed with a man.
But if he held back because he did not want her, well—
His hand slid to her breast, large, rough fingers toying with the burning tip, and for a long, delicious moment, Dani lost
the ability to think.
It wasn’t, she decided, that he did not want her. It couldn’t be that.
No, he’d hesitated for some very complicated, very sacrificial reason—likely several reasons.
It was never selfishness that propelled him to lie and manipulate her.
She believed this. He hadn’t trusted her to help him.
And true, he came with many complicated and colorful challenges.
He needed serious assistance. But she was not afraid; she loved a challenge.
His lack of trust was a problem. Given the choice, she’d rather not address this now, but she also would rather not beg him to make love to her.
“Did you know, Bannock,” she asked, breathing hard, “that you have managed, and directed, and controlled every minute of our
association from the very beginning? You’ve doled out bits of information; other bits, you’ve withheld. You married me so
I could not go back, and now you hesitate. You have dangled mansions to entice me, and crowns, and my own sister in front
of me—all to manipulate instead of simply saying what you need.”
“I know . . .” he whispered, kissing her neck.
“You know, and I know. And it stops now. Now, we will . . . collaborate.”
“We cannot collaborate on this.”
“Why not?”
He paused over the skin of her shoulder. He exhaled. He fell away from her body and flopped on the bed, face up. He ran a
hand through his hair. Speaking to the ceiling, he said, “Because . . . if I make love to you, Danielle, I have to ask you—to really ask you, and then extract a proper answer—this question. ‘Do you want to remain in the marriage with me? Forever?’ Because
if we make love, we cannot dissolve the union with an annulment. That is why.”
Dani went up on an elbow. She was so unaccustomed to bald honesty from him, she had no immediate reply.
He finished, “And I don’t want to ask you that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I don’t want to know,” he growled. He shoved up to sitting, propping his elbows on his knees. “I simply wanted to
make you feel good.”
Very quietly, Dani said, “But I do want you.”
The truth.
God help her, it was the truth.
“You want me to make you feel good,” he stated.
“Yes. But also, I simply want to remain in the marriage. With you.”
He looked back at her. “You want me now—yes, but do you want me for always? Will you want me if I abandon you after one night?
After I go to France on a deadly rescue mission? Because that is what I must do. And it could take months. I could die—likely
I will die trying to rescue my friend.
“Do you want me—the actual me,” he continued, “not the national hero but the smuggler who knows shite about running an estate? The bastard? Oh yes, I’ve only alluded to this, but let me be perfectly clear: my mother was impregnated by a Cornish sailor and, being
a fine lady from a fine family, threw me over to be raised by my paternal grandmother who lived in penury on the docks. And
I use the word raised very loosely. I was a wild menace to the town until the chance encounter with Linus Welty saved my life.”
“Luke—” She tried to cut in, but he wasn’t finished.
“Do you want a man tortured by the death of his mates? The man who gave the order that sent them to the bottom of the sea?
The man who cannot sleep at night for his horrifying dreams?
“Look, Danielle,” he said, sighing, “I came here to make a deal with someone I assumed was a political pawn. Instead I married
a living, breathing woman whose very boots I do not deserve to shine. A gorgeous, clever, brave . . . princess—of all people. And so now what? I’m to believe you when you say you want this?
“I have lied to you egregiously,” he added. “If you don’t resent that now—and you certainly resented it in the labyrinth—you
will. For months I’ve been committed to dying in my quest to rescue Linus, and now I’m considering marriage for the rest of
our lives?”
Dani listened, marveling at how quickly and forthrightly he was telling her these great many truths. She examined every word
for how they applied to her—really applied. She cared about his missing friend and his nightmares, truly she did, but if she
was meant to make some ruling on the rest of her life with this man, what really mattered was his regard for her. Did he love
her? If he loved her, his identity as a hero or a bastard mattered not at all. This was perhaps the one truth that had not
been revealed. Did he love her? Did he feel any emotional connection to her? Any at all?
Or had he simply required her for his revenge and rescue, and he acquiesced now because she was willing and convenient?
Dani tried to remember what he’d said about her. Gorgeous, clever, brave . . . These were favorable sentiments, to be sure, but hardly a declaration of love.
I don’t want to ask you that, he’d said, because I don’t want to know.
He’d said this about remaining in the marriage. He didn’t want to know whether she wanted to dissolve the union. But why didn’t
he? Knowing things was his bloody favorite.
“You told me not to think,” he said. “You gave me permission not to think. You ordered me not to think about any of it. For now. For tonight.”
She regarded him. “Yes, I did.”
“So, I’m allowing myself this. I’ve stopped thinking.
I want only to bring you pleasure. For an hour or so.
Can we pretend for a little while that we don’t know every answer?
” He’d sat up in bed and leaned forward, propping his arms on his knees.
His biceps bulged and the muscles of his back rippled. He looked at her over his shoulder.
Do you love me? Dani asked in her head. She should not have to ask this. He should say the words. Then again, she had not said them. She
thought what she’d felt for him was love, but too many lies had been revealed for her to comprehend whom she was loving. It
was too soon.
But was it too soon for this? For tonight?
“Dani?” he whispered miserably, shaking his head. She could see him retreating; he was moments away from dragging himself
from the bed.
She reached out and kissed him. A soft, sensual kiss on the hard rock of his shoulder. A nuzzle. Another kiss. She breathed
against his neck.
“I’m the worst sort of blaggard,” he moaned, reaching for her.
“Yes,” she said, falling into him.
He made a growling noise and scooped her against him, kissing her deep and hard, their way from the start. The discussion
had cooled her desire but his kisses stoked the flames, and she felt the delicious burn rise in her body like a blush. She
rubbed her breasts against him, feeling the tickle of hair on his chest. She traced the plates of his muscles; the hard ridges
twitched when she touched him.
He’d leaned her back in a sort of diagonal flop. She wanted more—she wanted to be beneath him. Dani shifted, swimming across
the coverlet until their legs tangled. His breeches were rough, and tight, the texture felt good—but she wanted them off.
While he ravaged her mouth, she slipped a hand down his body and grabbed hold of the waist of his breeches. Shoving, she managed to work them down two inches. He jerked away with a hard kiss and sought to capture her hand. Catching it up, he entwined their fingers. He growled a warning.
Fine, Dani thought, if not her hand, then her foot. She bent her right leg and angled it up to the sagging waist of his breeches,
hooking it with her heel. She tugged downward, gaining another two inches. Bannock made a noise of frustration and released
her hand to snatch her foot.
“Do not,” he warned.
She jerked her leg, trying to free her foot, but he held her fast.
“Lay still,” he ordered and punished her with a delicious roll of his hips.
She jerked her foot again. This time, it slipped from his grasp. She tucked her heel in the waist of his breeches and pushed
them farther down. Now his bottom was exposed and she felt his erection drop, hard and hot, against her belly.
He reached to pull them up again, but Dani shimmied higher on the bed, cradling his heat with her burning center. She raised
her hips. He went still; his breath caught. She pumped.