Chapter Sixteen

H e waited for lightning to strike him. It did flash but safely stayed outside in the storm. William saw the disbelief in her eyes at his admission. He could hardly believe he’d said the words to her, but ’twas as if the weight of the world had been lifted from him. Was it true?

“How can you say that? You did not need to be saved.”

Could he tell her the truth of his life? In spite of his love for her, he knew he could not. Not yet. But he could explain some of it.

“Isabel, I shut myself off from living when I came here three years ago. I know you suspected as much. I shut off my feelings, my wants, my plans, even my thoughts of having a future. I simply wanted to exist. Then you came and interfered with my well-thought plan.”

He could not see her face during his admission and wondered what she must think. Unused to the risk, he stumbled a bit on his words as he spoke. If she re jected him now, he doubted he would ever have the courage to offer again. William turned onto his side.

“I interfered?” she asked in a whisper.

“Oh, aye, you interfered.” He smiled, though she could not see it. “You showed a spirit and determination to live that impressed me. With nothing to go on, you have carved out a life here, gaining support from one and all with your kind ways.”

She laughed softly. “I do not believe I was always kind to you. I disturbed you.”

“You disturbed the darkness within me. You unearthed feelings I thought long dead—ones of honor and trust and even love.” He reached up and stroked her cheek, wanting to repeat the kiss they’d shared in the chapel. But he did not dare loosen the last vestiges of control he still held.

Startled when she mimicked his touches with her hand on his cheek, he stayed still and endured it, for he feared ’twould end soon.

“And you do not believe you deserve honor or trust or even love, do you, Royce?”

“It is not a question of believing it or not, Isabel. It is just that I do not deserve or expect them now.”

He swore that she snorted at that. How could he make her understand without going into his sordid past? He had lived like an animal, seeking its own gratification and not caring who paid for it. He did not deserve to have a life and dreams when he’d stolen those from too many to count.

“You take in a complete stranger and save her life. You guard the lady of the keep’s secrets and protect her honor against any who would defame or embar rass her. You make a small boy far from home feel important and needed.”

“How do you know these things?” He had spoken to no one about Margaret’s history or Cadby’s duties.

“I may not know who I am, but I can see who you are. I watched you in your work and in your dealings with the people who live here. Deep inside you lives an honorable man who you fight to keep hidden there.”

“I am not an honorable man, Isabel. Think it not of me, for an honorable man would never be speaking of love to you when there can be nothing between us. An honorable man would have taken you back to the keep to protect your virtue from his basest desires.” Anger and those desires swelled up inside him and he needed her to stop him. “An honorable man would never do this.”

He took her mouth in a possessive kiss that told her everything about what he wanted from her. Even without specific memories, she knew as a woman about this kind of passion. The heat and power of it threatened to overwhelm her as he leaned over her and gathered her close. Like coiled springs within her, spirals of pleasure moved through her as he took and took and took of her mouth. She felt him harden against her hip and her body readied in response. Her breasts swelled and the core of her body tightened.

Isabel reached up, untangling her hands from the covers and pulled the layer of blankets from between them. He hissed as their skin touched from chest to hips to thighs. She wrapped her hands in his hair and kept his mouth on hers, letting him plunge his tongue inside it and taste hers.

She could taste and feel his need for her and it refreshed her spirit. In her other life, she was unneeded, unwanted, a burden. But here, Royce needed her and wanted her…and loved her. After a kiss that left them both gasping, he tried to move away.

“I cannot offer you more than this, Isabel. There is no future for us, in spite of your soft words and in spite of my deepest desires. Please, let me go while I can still stop this.”

The pain and fear in his voice and in his soul screamed out to her. What could he have done that was so heinous that he did not deserve to live as others did? Had three years of deprivation and solitary existence not been penance enough for his sins?

“A dishonorable man would lie with pretty words to have what I am offering to you, Royce. I fear what is coming and I know that neither of us can offer more than this night.” He had not moved away but did not come closer either. “Please. Give me tonight so I can face what I must in the coming days.”

She lifted her head up until their lips met, but she did not kiss him. If he loved her, he would know that she needed this now. She needed to feel valued as a woman. She needed…him. He spoke against her mouth.

“This is wrong.”

“This is right,” she countered, her lips tingling under his, “if there is love.”

“I do love you, Isabel.”

Her heart soared at his declaration. She’d known since that day in the chapel, but he had not said the words out loud.

“Yet there will be naught but heartache from this.”

“Then our love will save us from that. Love me, Royce.”

With a growl, he moved over her and this time did not stop the kiss even when they were breathless from it. The heat between them rose and soon her skin was slick with sweat. She touched him where she could reach—his chest, his shoulders, his back. Sliding her hands down to his buttocks, she felt the strong muscles there and imagined how they would feel when he entered her.

When he rolled off her a bit, she thought he was leaving, but the touch of his fingers on her breasts eased her fears and stoked the fires of passion. The kiss ended, but she could not stop gasping as each touch ignited another spark within her until she wanted to scream from it. His mouth replaced his fingers on her nipples and she did scream, the feelings were so intense and still increasing.

Royce’s lips drew on her until the tips of her breasts hardened. So ardent were his attentions there that when his hand traced a line down from her breast to her stomach, she did not notice it. Almost. She clutched at his chest and his shoulders and her legs trembled from the sensations. The core of her ached for his touch and her hips arched to meet his hand.

Finally, finally, he slipped his hand between her thighs and his fingers into the wet heat of her center. She did moan then as her legs fell open and let him do what he would there. His mouth followed his hand down her stomach and she felt the ripples of pleasure move with him. He crawled over her and knelt between her legs, lifting her legs over his shoulders and kissing and licking a path down the tender skin inside her thighs.

She wanted to keep quiet and make no sounds, but her body had other ideas. With the first touch of his mouth on the throbbing flesh there, she screamed again. When his fingers and tongue danced over her there and something grew tighter and tighter within her, she heard the moans being pulled from her. Her sounds seemed to spur him on, for each one was met by a brief pause and then more kissing and fondling.

Her peak was coming. Isabel felt him slide his fingers inside her and then he sucked hard on the tiny exposed bud of flesh where all of the pulsing and heat seemed to come from. Everything within her exploded, releasing waves and waves of pleasure that moved through her body and her soul and her heart. But he did not stop. He was relentless, bringing her to this again and again until she could scream no more.

He lifted her legs off him and then slid up her body; each touch of him against her ignited heat once more. Even though she thought she was done, he had other ideas. As he reached her mouth, he took her hand and put himself in it, wrapping her fingers around his erection. Now he moaned as he moved against her grip and she felt him grow harder and thicker in her hand. She tasted her essence on his lips and in his mouth.

Royce moved up until he could place himself at the opening of her core. Their hands guided his hardness to her. Then he stopped and lifted his mouth from hers.

“Tell me now, Isabel. Say it now and I will stop.” His words were a gruff whisper, filled with passion and promise. “Tell me no.”

“Yes,” she whispered back as she arched against him, bringing him inside her. “Yes!”

He released her hands and thrust into her with all the power those muscles had promised her. He filled her and pulled back, almost leaving her empty. Then he lifted her hips and plunged again and again, groaning loudly himself at each thrust.

She could not breathe. She could not think. She could only feel and she felt every one of his thrusts into the center of her. The throbbing and aching increased again and she knew he would bring her to the edge with him. She lifted as he moved, drawing him in as deeply as she could, feeling every inch of his hardness within her flesh. And then it happened.

She heard her scream burst forth as though she was not inside herself. His loud yell of completion poured from him as he released his seed within her. Even though he had stopped pulsing inside her, he remained there, filling her emptiness as no one else could. Completely spent, she did not resist when he slid her leg over his hip and turned onto his side, all without ever pulling from her.

The last thing she remembered were the words he whispered into her ear as they lay together.

“I do love you, Isabel. God forgive me, but I do.”

The storm raging outside was of no comparison to the one raging within him. Guilt, anger, fear and still more desire surged in his heart and soul over claiming her as his own. Grief was there, too, at the knowledge that no matter her thoughts on this, there could be nothing between them.

He had taken what she had offered. He had marked her as his own with his mouth and his seed. He had lied to have her even as he told her part of the truth, for the whole of it would have scared her back into the storm rather than anywhere he was. So much for being an honorable man.

His thoughts wandered over what had happened between them and what was to come. She would regain her memory and return to her family and he would live out his life here without her. Convinced that nothing more could be, at least he would have incredible memories to savor when she was gone. Memories that could get him through times of weakness and wanting. Memories that would remind him to never over-step the life he knew he must live.

Isabel sighed in her sleep and he turned to her. He had slipped out of her wonderful body some time ago, but did not want to lose the touch of her on him. He shifted her to face away from him, straightened the blankets over them and fit himself behind her to sleep. She laid her head on his arm and he pulled her close with the other one, wrapping around her to keep her warm.

She slept like the dead, her breathing low and quiet. He should feel guilty over that as well. Emotionally and physically exhausted, she’d run to him for protection and he’d swived her without regard for her condition. Honorable? Ha!

An errant thought crossed his mind. What if her memory did not return and she wanted to stay with him? Could he have her and still keep his past secret?

The irony made him chuckle—she did not know her past and did everything in her power to remember it, while he knew his and did everything in his to forget.

But wait. He could tell her he had committed serious sins, acts against others, and that he had given up his life much as a pilgrim did to seek forgiveness. It was near to the truth. Of course, he knew deep within that forgiveness would never be his.

Or could it?

This was exactly what he had feared when the first crack had started in the walls he’d built around himself. She gave him hope. Her love made him think that the impossible was possible.

Why then was she there? If Lady Margaret was correct, then her appearance had a purpose and certainly it had to be one other than giving him hope…and sex? Was he expected to give her his protection? Offer her a life where she could be safe from the men who had plotted her death? Was that his role?

He needed to think on this when his head was clear and his body was not besieged by her nearness. When the storm had cleared and they returned to the keep, he would seek Orrick and Margaret’s counsel before making any decisions.

William snuggled closer to her and kissed her lightly on the head. As she had said, they had this night before reality intruded and fate did its worst. He would take the night.