Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“You ken this?”
She nodded. “I had brothers.”
He grinned. “I keep forgetting. What else do you ken?”
“That such a wound would need searing to stop the bleeding only if it was deep.”
He shrugged by lifting his right shoulder. “It was deep. Is that what you wish to hear?”
“It was nae scratch, was it?” Lisle replied, innocently.
He shook his head, rolling it along the back of his chair with the motion.
“Then, you lied to me,” she said.
His lips held the smile for a moment, then let it out. “I always lie. I live a lie. Haven’t you listened to a thing I’ve said to you?”
“I’ve listened. I just doona’ believe my ears anymore, though.”
“Truly?”
“Aye. I’ve found something better.”
“And what would that be?” he asked.
She moved her hands away from where they were clasped between her breasts and put them on her knees. “Trust,” she whispered.
“Trust,” he replied. “Good word. Harsh. Full of meaning. That word contains too much, means too much, and can destroy too much. It is too deep. Much like this wound of mine.”
Lisle moved her hands away from where they were holding to her knees and wiped at the residue of tears on her face. “You can trust me,” she replied.
“I know,” he answered.
Those two words sent such a vicious spate of joy running through her, Lisle felt she could easily float about the chamber and wouldn’t need any beam. Then it stopped, crashing about her and making it feel like it hurt her ears with the sound of it—much like breaking glass.
“Then, why doona’ you?” she asked in a little voice.
He sighed heavily. He didn’t move his gaze from hers.
“Because you are too full of joy and love and compassion and everything that is light in this world. I’ve never come across one who breathes, eats, sleeps, and exudes such emotion.
You’re vivid with all that is light and life and bliss.
One can reach out and sense it…” He put out a hand toward her.
“One can almost feel it, just by being near you. It drew me the moment I saw you. It still does.”
His hand dropped. “It is also easy to read. Transparent. Every thought in that beautiful little head, I can see. That means others can, too.”
“You are starting to be insulting,” she replied.
His eyebrows rose. “Oh. And why is that?”
“I can keep a secret.”
“You, my dear, exude honesty. There isn’t a secret safe with you in the entire world.”
“I have never given away a secret!” she complained.
“I dinna’ mean that. I have already said I can trust you. I ken how honest you are. That is the trouble. This honesty thing. Such a thing is of little use in negotiations and politics and chess.”
“Chess?” Lisle asked, without hiding the confusion.
“Life is a chess game. With a really large, convoluted, constantly changing game board. We’re all players. Everyone you come across. Some are pawns. Easily erased. Rarely missed. Easily replaced. Some are kings. Some are knights.”
“You are a very strange man, Langston Monteith,” she commented, since he seemed to be waiting for a reply.
“True,” he stated.
“And you have very strange views of things. Nae one is easily erased and na’ missed.”
“Spend half your life in Persia and we’ll see if you think the same. Forget I offered that. I would na’ wish you to see anything so dark. I doona’ want anything to change you. I doona’ dare change perfection.”
There was that floating sensation again, and Lisle’s eyes were huge with it, while her mouth was trying to hold in the smile.
“I am na’ perfect,” she challenged him.
“True. But you are perfect…for me.”
The floating feeling burst, sending her back to the floor, kneeling at his feet, and talking senseless things. “You are a very strange man, Monteith.”
“You already said that, and I agreed.”
“And I can keep a secret. I can keep it well.”
“I know your mouth can. ’Tis the rest of you I am in doubt of.”
“What? Why?”
“A moment ago, you were afire with happiness at hearing I found you perfect. And the next you were upset at me, for changing my definition of the word perfection to encompass only me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Her mouth was open. She couldn’t speak it.
“You see? Everything on you is so open, so honest, so trusting. So opposite of everything I am. I’m ensnared.”
“Ensnared?” Lisle asked.
“Tightly.”
“By me?”
He nodded, moving his head on the backrest of the chair. “’Tis worse than an opiate. I have never tried the stuff, myself. I doona’ dare. I watched it erase too many pawns in this chess game you say doesn’t exist.”
“But…you would use such a thing on me?” she asked in a very small voice.
His lips twitched. His eyes were so amber-dark there wasn’t a hint of black. “I only told Mary MacGreggor what it was and how it acted on the senses. She did the rest.”
“What?”
“You’ve been bathing in incense and jasmine oil, and naught else. I only allowed you to think otherwise.”
“Why?”
“Because the mind is a powerful weapon, and if one thinks certain things are…then they are. ’Tis difficult to convince them otherwise.”
“You played with me?”
“There you go, getting all upset with me again. And here you just said I could trust you.”
“Langston Monteith! You are a devil.”
“And you’re going to have to change your definition…either of me, or what a devil is.”
“Now, why would I do such a thing?” Lisle was moving to her knees so she could stand and finish this nonsensical conversation from a safe distance from him.
“Because the devil canna’ feel love,” he said softly, stopping everything in the world with the power of those words.
“Wh-what did you just say?” she asked, halfway between a crouch and standing upright.
“I love you,” he replied.
Her legs decided it was easier to fall to the floor than try to stand and hold her up. Lisle slid back to her knees. “You do?” she asked.
He licked his lips. “More than I can say. Definitely more than I can show.”
“Nae,” she breathed.
He chuckled. “You are hard to convince, my love.”
“You canna’ love me, Monteith.”
“Why na?”
“Because—I doona’ know.”
“You ken something else, sweet?” he asked.
She shook her head. Her voice wasn’t working.
“You love me, too.”
“I doona’!”
“And you will need to work on your lying skills to say something so false and make me believe it.”
Lisle was on her feet now. So was he, and it looked easy. Then he was stalking…and there wasn’t much left of his attire from what she was looking at.
“I doona’!”
She was backing from him; stumbling. There was a table in the way. It fell with a crashing noise, sending breads rolling all along his floor. She glanced down for the best path through the rolls, and thanking her luck it hadn’t contained gravies to coat the floor and make it slick.
She shouldn’t have looked down.
Langston had her with his right arm, lifting her easily above the floor, and then he was laughing and hauling her under his arm, while her kicking and pummeling didn’t make a hint of difference.
Then she was tossed into the tub, on her back, and lunging herself into an arch, since he’d hooked her legs on the edge.
That was sending water all about the floor with the sound of a waterfall.
Then, he was there, lifting her against him and holding her to where the shirt wasn’t any good as a covering since it was plastered to him now.
Then he was lowering his head and kissing her, and Lisle forgot everything.
Hands flew about his back, along the curve of his buttocks, around to the front, and Langston was groaning into the depths of the mouth she’d opened in order to taste him more fully.
She felt her skirts lifting, water making the material much heavier than before, and then he was lifting her above him, sliding her along his chest and belly, before bringing her down to embrace where he was ready for her.
Lisle felt the size of him as she enwrapped him, and there was nothing resembling the remembered pain, only the ecstasy and light and everything he’d told her she was.
Lisle looped her ankles together behind him, wrapped her arms about his neck, and leaned back, glorying in everything the tall, godlike man was.
He had his hands about the mass of material he’d shoved to her waist, using his left merely to guide, and his right to maintain the rhythm of a silent drumbeat, as he took her to heights no beam could reach, and then even higher than that.
Water sloshed about with his every move, sounding like it was splashing more than the floor, and Lisle watched traces of the same ecstatic feeling flit across his face with every twinge he made, every heave, every move…every inhaled breath that he hung onto.
Then, he was taking them from the tub, balancing them for a moment on the rim, before settling down onto his haunches, keeping her with him, sealing his lips to hers, his body to hers, and pounding every bit of what he considered love into her until there wasn’t any excuse for not screaming.
So she did, with abandon, until her throat hoarsened and his laughter was making everything more vivid and life-stirring and wonderful.
He drew her toward him, holding her so closely to his chest that every breath was pushed into her.
She did the same, although there wasn’t much air she could suck in and hold before having to do it again.
He was moving them again, this time laying her on her back, on what could be a rug, but could just as easily be stone, or wood, or any number of things.
The position caused the wad of skirts and underthings that were still about her waist to lift her more fully for him, and against him, and everywhere to him, and added even more to the throes of abandonment she didn’t have a voice left to scream with.