Her hair was a mess, so he unpinned it, one pin at a time.
Laid them all on his night table.
“You can pin it again before you leave,” he said drowsily. Never had pleasure so owned him. So fully consumed him. Never had it so thoroughly relieved him, if momentarily, of the burden of being himself, the man who held up the world.
“I must leave soon,” she murmured. She gave a somnolent, stunned laugh. “Never in my wildest fantasies did I think I’d need to repin my hair in the afternoon after having been ravished.”
“And afterhavingravished.”
“Fair enough.”
He smiled. He threaded his hands through her hair. As soft as he’d dreamed it would be, full of hidden mahogany lights. “Have you wild fantasies?” He was tremendously interested in these.
She hesitated. “Promise you won’t laugh?”
“I’m too sated to laugh.”
“Angelique and I once talked about what we would do if the king came to The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“Theking? Because now that you’ve conquered me, he’s the only challenge left?”
“Because it wouldmaddenthe Duchess of Brexford, who can never get him to come to one of her dinners. She is terribly rude to me and tried to steal my cook more than once. She thinks I’m quite beneath her.”
“I think we’ve time,” Tristan said thoughtfully, “for you to be beneathmeonce again.”
She smiled and shifted to throw a leg over his thigh. Her hands were idly roaming over his chest, following the trenches made by his muscle. He shifted, restlessly. Mad hunger was an echo, but already ramping again. “Why were you stealing an apple?” she asked.
“I was hungry.”
“Tristan,” she said. She stopped the caresses and propped herself up on her elbows. Her hair fell down over his chest, across her face. He parted it like a curtain onto his favorite musicale. Her face was an ache.
“The difference between me and the drunk man at the entrance of your boardinghouse is pigheadedness and fortitude.”
“Yes. I’m certain that’s all. Had naught to do with courage, or intelligence, or skill.”
“Flatterer. You must be trying to seduce me again,” he said hopefully.
She was quiet, however. “You must have been so frightened.” It was a near whisper.
She was worried, that was clear. She was hurting for him now, and the boy he was. And somehow he didn’t mind. He had never realized these untold stories possessed any encumbering weight, anyballast, until he began to tell them to someone who thought they mattered.
“Iwasafraid. But I think when fear becomes a part of your everyday experience that you cease to think of it as fear. You either harness it, and turn it into a source of strength, or it harnesses you, and destroys your soul. I’ve seen examples of both.”
“I think it’s a question of character, too. And while I’m glad you’re herenow, I’m sorry you endured that.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
This wasn’t entirely true.
The arc of his life didn’t allow it. It mattered that he caught the smugglers. It mattered to him, to his men, to the king, to the loved ones of the family killed. Dozens, hundreds, fanning out from there, people depended upon his wisdom and judgment and experience to bring them to justice.
And the questions he yet needed to ask her mattered. Who had taken that room on the first floor, for instance?
But he kissed her again, because he could not lie next to her and not kiss her, and apparently he was Achilles and she was the heel.
It began slowly, slowly as they dared knowing they had very little time, their hands moving over each other’s bodies, finding the hollows and knobs and angles and silky hidden places that made each other breathe swiftly, to ripple and beg for more. But in moments it was a frenzy of tangled limbs and little bites and deep kisses and urgency rather than finesse. She clung to him as he dove in her again and again; he buried his cry of release against her throat as she shook and shook beneath him, saying his name as if he’d wrought a miracle.
Side by side again, her head against his shoulder, his heart pounding harder than it had when that pirate had shot at him, Delilah sniffed.