Chapter 20
Jamie opened her eyes to find Sebastien beside her, propped on one elbow, watching her. Un-like the morning before, his expression was unreadable and did not change even when she smiled tentatively at him.
It was not a good sign.
She slowly pulled the sheet up higher on her chest. “Morning.” Inane, but she was suddenly at a loss for what to say. She didn't know what she expected, but … well, she did know what she expected. She expected him to be like he had been yesterday morning.
But yesterday was over in more ways than one.
A chill raced over her skin.
“Bonjour,mademoiselle.”
His voice was rough and sexy and made her shiver again, this time in remembrance of just how it had sounded last night as he'd whispered to her all the things he planned to do to her. And he had. Yet she could find nothing of her bold pirate in his eyes this morning. He appeared moody and withdrawn.
“Is something wrong?”
“I am not entirely certain.”
Oh, great. This was definitely sounding like the beginning of the end. Only she wasn't ready for this to end and she had every intention of figuring out howto make it last. Maybe she'd grown after all. “Can I help?”
He was looking at her, but she wasn't certain what he was actually seeing.
Abruptly, he said, “Tell me about your husbands.”
More than a little surprised at the demand, her first instinct was to fling back the covers and stalk out of the room. But she didn't. In racing, she had always fought hard to the bitter end, because she knew she was good enough to win if she worked hard enough. In relationships with men, she didn't have the same confidence—her track record certainly hadn't bred any. But running away hadn't solved anything before. And what she discovered right now was that, for the first time, she didn't want to run. She wanted to stay and fight. For him. For them.
“Pardon me for sounding a bit confused, but I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out what went so terribly wrong from when we finally fell into exhausted sleep a few hours ago and now.”
“Nothing has gone wrong.” He seemed honestly confused. “Do you not wish to discuss your husbands? I did not ask to anger you. I merely need to understand—
”
“Why would you be thinking about them now? What could you possibly need to understand about my husb—” Her eyes widened. “Oh, wait just a minute. You had better not be planning on bringing up that whole matchmaking thing.” She tossed the covers back. “Because after what we have shared, I cannot believe you would dare think about finding me anyone—
” A strong hand clamped down on her arm, stopping her escape. “That is the very last thing I'm thinking about at this moment.”
She looked back at him. Damn, but he was too sexy in the morning. Hair rumpled, a morning shadow ofbeard lining his jaw, his bare chest looking hard and tan against the white sheets, his eyes so dark and deep she felt she could tumble headlong into them. Her anger dissolved, leaving only the confusion. “Then why do you ask?”
“Come back here and I'll tell you.” He tugged her back into bed, and damn if she didn't let him. She rolled to her back, coming to a stop in the crook of his arm, her body aligning all too well with his. Her fears began to dissipate. A little.
“So, what is it about my failures as a wife you'd like to know?” she asked dryly.
“First of all, I do not believe you failed as a wife. Did it occur to you that perhaps the men you married failed at being a husband?”
“Yes, well, they definitely didn't win any awards either, but still …”
He brushed the tangled strands of hair from her face. “I asked about them because I want to understand the mistakes they made with your heart.” His deep voice thrummed a responding chord deep inside her. She'd never seen him so serious. “So I don't repeat them.”
She melted. “Why?” She immediately saw the hurt and realized he'd misunderstood. “I didn't mean I don't want you to try, I just meant that how … You know … we can't … you … I … Damn.” This was too hard. “Can't we pretend it's still yesterday?” Her throat tightened at the look in his eyes. She all but begged him. “Just for one more day?”
He pulled her abruptly to him and kissed her mouth. More rightly described, he possessed it. She submitted instantly, only he was not satisfied with her submission. As he had every time they'd made love, he demanded her active participation. And as she'd eagerly discovered, equal partners in passion can produce amazing results.
was completely without breath and reaching for more when he lifted his head.
“Maybe we should find a way,” he managed roughly.
That stopped her. “Find a way … to what?”
Now it was his turn to look away, to sigh in frustration. “Never mind. You are right, I am spoiling this morning we have together.” He turned back to her and stroked his fingertips down her cheek. “I apologize. I have lain awake for hours and I haven't properly wished you good morning.”
Despite the tumble of confusion and alarm she felt, she found a smile. She clung to it almost desperately. “Oh, I think that kiss was pretty much a great good morning for me.”
His lips quirked, but his eyes still looked concerned. “I'm sorry I didn't begin with that, then. I do not wish to waste a moment with you.”
“I don't wish to waste time with you either.” She worked hard to keep a lock on the fear, fear so great it threatened to swell up and choke her.
Jamie looked up at Sebastien to find him studying her again, but this time there was only heat in his eyes. Heat and need. This she understood. She shared that need. And, God help her, she would not walk willingly away from it.
Yes, there would be pain. Crushing heaps of it. Eventually. But right here, right now, she could honestly say she wouldn't give the last two days back even if she could.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. He smoothed a fingertip across her brow.
She found a smile, a heartfelt one, and focused firmly on it. He was right. They shouldn't waste any of what time they did have. “I am thinking that it's Monday and the shop is usually pretty quiet until the afternoon. Do you have any pressing engagements this morning?”
“I believe I could make myself available.” As if taking her cue, finally the devilish grin resurfaced, all the way to his twinkling dark eyes.
Jamie relaxed and allowed the buzz of anticipation to build within her. “Then why don't you show me again how you hunt for buried treasure?”
He ripped the sheet from the bed and tossed it to the floor, a very piratical gleam in his eyes. “Aye-aye, mon amour.” He laid a large, warm palm flat on her belly. “I believe I left off the last hunt right about here.” He kissed a tender spot just below her navel.
She twitched at the tickle of his morning beard. He immediately lifted his head, eliciting a whimper of disappointment from her. That quickly turned into a squeal when he rolled her into his arms and slid off the bed to stand at the foot of it.
“You have this plunder-and-ravish thing down.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. Being carried in the arms of a man was even better when they were both naked, she decided.
“I may not be a privateer anymore, but I was once quite good at what I did.”
“Trust me, you're still quite good at what you do.” His grin widened. “I believe a warm shower is in order. You have tender areas that need ministering to.”
“And you have a beard that needs taming.” He raised his eyebrows. “Am I to trust you with a blade at my throat?”
“I believe that is how we met, was it not?” In the very instant she said it, she wished she could take it back. Reminders of anything having to do with the origins of their relationship were exactly what they didn't need.
But he didn't even blink. “And you wielded it beautifully, my pirate queen.” He pushed open the door to the adjoining bathroom, a decidedly largerone than hers. He let her slide down the front of his body, both of them sh
uddering with a low groan as she settled upon his erection.
“And you … wield things quite well yourself.” Her voice was tight and she squirmed on him. “Oh, Sebastien.”
He pushed the door shut, then shifted so her back pressed against a towel that hung from the back of the door. “Wrap those legs about my waist, Jamie,” he said hoarsely.
She did and exhaled on a long, needy moan as he slid inside her. “Oh, yes.” She groaned. “This is definitely the perfect way to minister to my tender areas.”
“I cannot stay here,” he murmured against her throat. “I am not protected.”
She held him more tightly, her legs wrapped firmly about his waist, her arms clamped about his neck.
“Don't leave. Not just yet.”
“If it were within my power, I'd never leave.” He kissed her throat and shifted more fully inside her.
“You hold me as if made for me, Jamie.”
She blinked hard to keep the sudden tears from escaping. He said the most wonderfully amazing things to her. She buried her face in his neck so he wouldn't see. “I know,” she said, hoping he took her hoarseness for need. She did have immense need. A bottomless pit of it. And she never wanted to crawl out.
“I know.”
She tightened around him and he groaned, his hips beginning to move. “Jamie, we—”
“It's okay,” she murmured against his ear. “It's not the right time for me. I won't get pregnant.” She wrapped her legs even more tightly. “I want to feel you—like this—in me.” She wanted to feel him come inside her. In fact, she could never remember something being this important.
shuddered at her words, then abruptly shifted her off him. She groaned at the sudden loss but let her feet drop to the floor. Sebastien gathered her close and rested his forehead against the door, eyes shut.
“This is insanity,” he said heavily. “We lose control, you and I, too easily.”
She stroked his hair and turned his face to hers. “It would have been okay. I don't take unnecessary risks.” She tried a smile. “I gave up life in the fast lane, remember?”
But he didn't find a smile in return. “We want— Non. want this too much. It is too dangerous for us to continue like this.”
She sighed, hating this. She supposed if she'd been honest with herself, she'd have known there was no avoiding it. They couldn't pretend things hadn't changed between them now. “You knew about the danger. You warned me, remember? And I understand danger, better than perhaps anyone.”
He framed her face and looked intently into her eyes. “Tell me, is this how you thought it would be? Will you be able to just walk away afterward, your heart unscathed?” She wanted to lie, to tell him what he wanted to hear. But what did he want to hear? Truth, honesty. She'd promised herself that much, and she owed that to him as well.
“No. It's more. Much more. I don't want it to end. But we both knew it would have to at some point. I don't want it to hurt either, but it will. More than I even knew. And that's only going to get worse the longer it lasts.” She looked into his serious eyes. “But if we both understand that, and are still willing to—”
“I don't know that I am willing.”
Jamie knew her heart was involved, but only when she felt the giant, rending wounds his words openeddeep inside it did she really learn what pain was. “I'd—” She had to stop and clear her throat. “I thought I had matured enough to handle something like this. I thought I could keep it all in perspective.”
“Mine is already lost, Jamie.”
She nodded, feeling the burn of tears behind her eyes. This time she let them surface. What was the use of hiding them? “Mine too. It wasn't supposed to be this bad. I wanted—” She looked into his eyes, hers so blurred with tears she couldn't read his expression. “I wanted, for once, to enjoy something without having a price to pay for it. Stupid me.”
“Non. It was foolish, perhaps, for both of us to underestimate the power of our union. I would not give up a second of the time we had, Jamie. And not just this weekend, but all the seconds that came before. You have taught me that I have a heart that is capable of—” He shifted his gaze from hers and took her hand in his instead. He kissed her palm and curled her fingers tightly over it. “Keep this. It is everything I feel for you and cannot say.”
There was no stopping the tears now. Silently they tracked down her cheeks. “This is really it, then?” He stepped back, but she refused to retreat. Right there, with both of them naked and standing in a cold, tiled bathroom, she was not retreating. “There must be a way, Sebastien. You said yourself you don't know all the rules.”
He smiled then, but there was no joy in it for either of them. “You believe in what I am. I have at least gotten that from you.”
“When I am with you, I do. You overwhelm me, and everything seems possible.”
“And when we are apart?”
Just hearing the word apart tore a bit more at her already ragged heart. Could this be the last time she would see him? Her voice was a bit shakier when shecontinued. “When we are apart, I guess I try not to think about that part at all.”
“You would want to stay with me, then, even thinking I am a man plagued by delusions?”
She should have hesitated at it being put like that, but she didn't. “Yes, I would stay with you.”
His eyes grew fierce. “I would have been honored to have a woman such as you by my side. I only wish my path had crossed yours centuries ago.”
She felt her legs begin to shake. He was really ending this. Right now. And she was very afraid there was nothing she could do about it. “I am crossing your path now. Why can't we just continue as we began last night and see what happens?”
“What will happen is that I must make my last match. And once I do, I will leave you—whether it is my wish or not. I do not think we should go on, only to compound the pain of that inevitable conclusion.”
She stepped forward and took his hand, trying to quell the desperation she felt, but she was not quite successful at it. “So what if you don't match Jack right away? Is there a rule that says how much time you have?”
“It won't be Jack, Jamie.”
That stopped her. “What? I thought you agreed to try and see if—
”
“I can't explain it. I just feel it. I know what I am supposed to do. I will match him if you like, but that is not my destiny.”
“So, then, you're saying—What?” Her throat went so dry, her next words were hardly a rasp. “You have to match me? With someone else? But you said—
” He reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. Suddenly she felt cold, and very naked. She snatched the towel from the hook and wrapped it around herself. A certain kind of calm descended over her, possibly more of a protective shield. Without it, she'dhave shattered into a million pieces. She turned and looked at him. “I won't be matched, Sebastien. Not with anyone. I will not accept anyone else into my life right now. I wasn't even going to accept you. And look where that got me!”
She turned to leave, but his quiet voice stopped her.
“There is something else I must explain to you.” She wasn't certain she could will herself to stand there a second longer. “What?”
“When I am done, and the sword is returned to you, you will not recall my role in your life.”
She spun to face him. “What? You think I'll just forget you?”
He shook his head. “I didn't say that. You will remember me as someone in your life. But you will have no memory of my function while I was here, that I was the matcher of souls.”
“How can that be?” She began to shake again. It was too much, all of it, too much. Not only was he taking himself away, ripping her heart out, and planning to try and foist it off on another—She couldn't even finish the thought. But now he thought to rob her of what they had shared as well? She should be angry enough to embrace that pronouncement, but she wasn't. She was … she was devastated.
“I cannot explain. Other
than to tell you that when I have come back in the past and sought out matches I had made, to see how they were prospering, they remembered me as an old friend in their lives, but that was all they remembered. The sword and its properties, along with my role, were lost to them. Perhaps to maintain the sanctity of the sword's function. So that it cannot be corrupted.”
“Then you're saying I will remember you as a lover, but … but what?”
“I am not certain. You know more of me than I'veever revealed before. But I do know you wille no recollection of the sword, of how we truly met, or of my true function here.” She couldn't even begin to assimilate it all. Only one thing swam to the surface. “Will I forget the pain, then?” she asked, tears clogging her throat.
“I do not know. Pain isn't usually associated with what I do. But I will forget nothing.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, clutching the towel as if her life depended on holding on to it. “It all seems rather cruel.”
“I had never believed so before.” He stepped closer. “I feel different now.”
He went to reach for her, but she couldn't allow it. She was holding on by a very raveled thread. “No. Don't.”
The pain in his eyes almost undid her completely. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly.
“You know the worst part? This time I finally thought I'd found something worth fighting for.” She opened the bathroom door. “I have to go. Right now.” He followed her into the bedroom and watched her gather her clothes. She made it a point not to look at him, standing there in all his naked glory— watching her walk out of his life. “I'd really prefer it if you didn't come around anymore. Do whatever you have to do, but keep away from me and my friends. Understood?”
—
Now she did look at him, not caring how ravaged her tear-streaked face looked. “If you could do one thing for me, then this is all I ask. Stay away.”
He could only nod. When she was at the door, he said, “I must fulfill my role. No matter what you or I feel about the matter.” His voice was choked now too. “I have no choice.”
“I don't plan on making it any easier for you.”“I will make you a happy future, Jamie. I will give you that much.”
Your Wish Is My Command Page 22
