Chapter Eighteen #2
Panic swept through Jaykun and his first reaction was to crush the source of his vulnerability.
“I do not. You are a means to an end, Jileana. You brought me here to meet your empress, and outside of a little bed sport, that is all I needed you for. When I return home, I promise you, I will not give you or this place a second thought. I’m sorry if anything I said or did led you to believe otherwise. I tried to warn you.”
His words stung her; there was no denying that. But she also saw them for what they were: a defensive gesture. He said he was trying to protect her, but what she saw was Jaykun trying to protect himself.
“So you did. But regardless of your warning or your intentions, I have come to care for you, Jaykun. Maybe that makes me a fool in your eyes, but I would rather love you in vain than not at all. The gods know you deserve to have someone love you. You deserve something good to offset all the pain you have suffered … still suffer. Thank you for sharing your story of Casiria with me. It means something to me that you trusted me with something you didn’t even trust your own brothers with. ”
“I didn’t tell you because I trusted you!”
“Didn’t you?” She turned it around on him. “The biggest betrayal of your life and you chose to share it with me and no one else. If that isn’t trust, then I don’t know what is.”
“I told you to warn you—gah!” He threw up his hands in frustration with her. Was there nothing he could say to deter her? She was so relentlessly loving and open, it utterly baffled him. Wasn’t she afraid of being hurt? Did she have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever?
“You think you told me to warn me, but what you did was share a part of you that needed sharing. Desperately so. How can you possibly heal from something so damaging all on your own? You need someone to help share the burden of that kind of pain. I am happy to be that person.”
“You don’t understand,” he said tightly. “I don’t want to heal from this!”
“No, you don’t. Because to heal from it would mean opening yourself up to possibilities again, and you are afraid of those possibilities.”
“I fear nothing,” he said, although there was no power to the declaration. Possibly because they both knew it was a lie.
“You fear me. Me and my heart.”
“Stop,” he whispered.
She came up close to him, leaned her body against his, and lifted her hand to run her fingers through his salt-riddled hair.
The sun gleamed off it, adding light to the dark gold locks.
He looked like a strong warrior god. A male version of Weysa.
Full of conflict and searching for a resolution to that conflict.
Only, for all the wars he fought outside himself, it was the inner turmoil that gave him the most trouble.
He said he didn’t want to trust. He said he didn’t want to love.
But she saw both of those statements for the lies they were.
He wanted very much to trust and love; he was simply afraid to do so.
Afraid whomever he chose this time would be just as bad a choice as Casiria had been.
No, it wasn’t her he didn’t trust … It was himself.
Jileana lifted up onto her toes and pressed a kiss against his stiff lips.
He could have pushed her away, could have stormed off.
But he did neither. That only served to reinforce her beliefs.
He wanted more than he was admitting to.
And she would be there to offer up whatever he was willing to take.
Because even though it had been just a matter of days, she was aware of just how deeply she had come to care for him.
To love him. He was a magnificent man, a creature unlike anything she’d ever known before.
Oh, she knew men, knew their ways, but she had never met one so noble or so kind.
So like her father and yet so much better than him at the same time.
She couldn’t have explained why she viewed him in a better light, only that she did.
And she did not see him as faultless. He had a great many flaws.
But she realized they made him who he was, made him the man she loved.
But she would not confront him with her deepest feelings.
He wasn’t ready yet. She had the whole of the next three weeks to win him to her and she would do so in small increments.
She could not make him love her, but she suspected she would not be forcing his hand in the matter.
He longed for someone to disprove his theories on love …
He simply wasn’t yet willing to acknowledge that.
“Enough, now,” she said then. “I can see we are merely going to disagree over this. Let us put it aside. You have warned me away and I have heard you. You can be satisfied that you are no longer responsible for my feelings in this matter. There. Does that make you feel better?”
Honestly, it didn’t. And not just because Jaykun knew she was merely placating him.
Even if she wasn’t, if she had been seriously put on her guard, she might now act differently with him.
She might no longer be the open, warm, and delightful creature he had come to know.
The thought saddened him profoundly. He did not like the idea of being the one who cast shadows over her personality, shading it from the bright sun she usually lived in.
He would always give off a tremendous light when he burned, but he preferred to think of her basking in that light, not hiding from it, guarding herself from it, shielding herself from it.
Damn it! Why couldn’t he make up his mind about this? No. No, his mind was made up. She had been warned and it was no longer his responsibility. She was a grown woman in charge of her own feelings.
But again, he found no comfort in the thought.
Both Jaykun and Jileana had a great deal on their minds, so the rest of the day passed in relative quiet.
She showed him more of her world, and they pretended talk of emotions, and trust had never transpired.
After a while it became less uncomfortable and he once again found himself genuinely enjoying being in her company.
He should have felt even freer now that he had made himself clear to her.
Freer to act however he wished without fear of her reading too much into it.
But he did not. She was not to be trusted, he thought with bemusement. She had made her position quite clear and he needed to be on his guard against her.
But for now he relaxed and found himself enjoying her again.
When she laughed, it was with commitment, with all of her heart and soul, and it made him smile every time.
The sun would shine on her and highlight all her darkly beautiful features, making her seem brighter and happier still.
Then all the innocence she had gained from the light of the sun would be silkily tarnished all of a sudden when she leaned her sultry curves up against him and slid along him like falling water.
But she did not cool him off as falling water might; she scorched him instead, as if he had been put in a pot and set to boil.
She made him hard both on purpose and when she wasn’t meaning to.
He couldn’t help himself. She was a remarkable creature through and through, and as sexy as the day was long.
And for him, a day was very long indeed.
They climbed up to her living quarters about an hour before dusk, intent on eating an early dinner.
Dremu was there, eagerly tidying up the place and quick to obey their command to fetch food for them.
Jileana couldn’t help but notice the brightness of his features and how markedly happier he seemed to be.
She wondered at the cause. Then again, escaping his former life seemed to be more than enough to make him happy.
“Dremu will return shortly,” she said to Jaykun as she stood close to him, drinking in the warmth and strength of his body with the whole of hers. “What shall we do in the interim?”
The question was obviously leading and suggestive, and he couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him. She was audacious and wild, and he wouldn’t have her any other way. He was relieved that their argument of earlier did not seem to be affecting her too negatively.
“There is nothing to be done in such a short amount of time,” he said with a chuckle as her hand fell onto his chest and began to wend in a circuitous path down his torso. Eventually her fingernails were raking through the curling hairs of his pubis, then on up the length of his upthrusting cock.
“Surely there is something we can—”
“So! It is true what Silan tells me!” a male voice suddenly boomed into the cave.
With a gasp, Jileana spun around. She instinctively stepped between the owner of the voice and Jaykun. He might have been insulted had he not been so bemused.
The voice was owned by a large, lean male with a good two inches in height on Jaykun, though he was lighter by a few rocks. He had a craggy face, all sharp, stony features and hollow cheeks.
“Barban!”