Their eyes met and locked. If Cumbria were to take the form of a man, here he stood. Half-tamed, and that half much in doubt, forbiddingly beautiful and dangerous to the unwary. A voice in the back of her head warned that she ought to keep her silence, but she plowed on.
"You belong here." Without thought, she stepped toward him and touched his cheek, following the line back to his temple. His skin felt warm, the heat of him filled her. Inside her, in her heart and in her soul, she knew him. She knew everything about him that mattered. All of him was inside her right now, complete and right and heartbreaking because he was lost. He turned his head and for a moment, she felt the warmth of his breath against her gloved palm.
"My poor, dear Captain Alexander. You are too young to feel such desolation. You think you've lost your heart, but you haven't. It's here at Pennhyll. It's in the ground and the air, the trees and the stone, everywhere you look. You have only to take it. Take what is yours.
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel the-spare
He made a small movement of his head. "Do you love Pennhyll as well as you do the mountain upon which it sits?"
"I find it much like you."
His mouth quirked, and then, curved in another smile. She stared, transfixed by the sight. "Unpleasant and forlorn?"
She tipped her head to one side, considering him. She felt an odd sensation of understanding this harsh man who was, in fact, a stranger to her. "Not entirely unpleasant, that I will admit. Nor forlorn, either."
"Do not tell me you find me amiable."
"Certainly not. Like Pennhyll, you are strong and fierce." She felt, ridiculous as it was, that she knew him better than she knew herself. "To make a life here is to have courage and heart, and those you surely have.
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel the-spare
The patterns overhead shifted so that, had she an imagination prone to hysteria, she could easily convince herself something hid in the curtains above her head. She imagined a face in the shadows and folds of fabric, a face with sad, hollow eyes. The sliver of light shining through a crack in the window curtains disappeared. Shadows deepened and swirled and the face became even more uncannily real.
Carolyn JewelMots clés olivia carolyn-jewel the-spare
What is this place?" Now that they'd stopped, his body registered violent objection to the abuse of a mile's walk down the mountain. Hell. To pay. Pandelion whined.
"Home," replied Miss Willow.
He held out his hand for the key.
She sighed. "You're a very managing sort."
"I am a man, Miss Willow."
"I dislike being managed."
"Alas," said Sebastian.
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel the-spare
What do you want most in life, Miss Willow?"
"For my mother to be well."
"Imagine you had that." His fingers rested on the nape of her neck. "What do you want for yourself?"
"Peace on earth?"
"Come, Miss Willow. I want a serious answer from you. Better yet, a selfish one." Though she stood inches from him, she seemed not to notice their proximity. As a grown man, he could control his base urges. He'd done so for years. He would do better by her than his father and brothers. Slowly, he lifted his fingers from the back of her neck. His palm took their place.
Head tilted, she considered him. "You'll laugh."
"Try me."
"A family. Children."
"What? Not thousands of pounds at your disposal? A mansion? Jewels to dazzle you? Servants at your beck and call?"
She rested the side of her head against the doorway and looked at him from beneath her thick red lashes. "I always thought I'd be married one day with half a dozen children at my knees." Her eyes danced again, and for a moment, the space of a breath, he was caught like a fly in a web. "I was right about the children at least, though I was sure they'd be mine."
"Are you sorry?" What soft skin she had, such a tender nape.
"That I'm not a wife and mother?"
"Mm." He imagined her with a husband, with children. His children. He saw her gravid by his doing, and him cradling an infant in his arms, the one he'd made in her. He could give her what she wanted, and, of course, he could imagine the act of making her so.
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel the-spare
She ran and didn't slow until she came to a hallway that terminated in a multipaned window of thick, old-fashioned glass. Her breath rasped in her throat, but the dizziness and nausea eased enough that she stood steadier on her feet. She heard again the gentle ringing of metal sliding against metal. Musty air rose up with the same smell of leather and dust, an acrid undertone beneath. She whipped her head toward the end of the hall. At first she didn't see anything. The light shifted and swirled, and the swordsman materialized from the shadows. Gold and red emblazoned his tunic in a chevron against a cobalt background. The sword was back in its scabbard, strapped across his back. He was tall, with broad shoulders and dark hair, and he looked like Sebastian. Timed to the wind stirring the ivy outside, he vanished through the wall.
Carolyn JewelMots clés olivia carolyn-jewel the-spare the-black-earl
His eyes darkened. "You're in pain, aren't you?" He touched her temple, and she leaned her head against his hand.
"Yes." The inside of her head felt stuffed full like an iron band slowly tightened around her brain.
"Still having bad dreams?"
"Nightmares." She put her palms flat to his chest and spoke to the buttons on his coat. "Always the same. A face looming over me. I can't breathe. I feel helpless. And frightened."
"Hush, my heart." His fingertips nudged her chin up so that she looked into his face. "Hush."
She leaned against him. "Why can't I remember?"
"It isn't time, yet." His hands landed on her shoulders.
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel the-spare
Memories whirled in the back of her head. Not frightening this time. The owner of that voice made her smile. He protected her, and he loved her. When she was with him, the world felt right. As long as she was with him, she was safe.
He entered the room, crossing at an angle to her so that she saw just his shoulders and a glimpse of flat stomach. Not a stitch of clothing covered him. Not one. She could see the backs of his thighs and his bare behind. Round and strong and firm. Dark hair cut short gave his profile greater sternness. She knew beyond certainty she had every right to be here, with him perfectly naked. Her heart swelled with joy, a feeling so intense she wanted to cry out to the world.
He stopped at the window and stood there, one arm resting atop the sash, staring at the hills rising toward Scotland. His arm came forward on the sash, and he shifted so that he faced her. "Well," he said in a soft voice that made her breath catch. His voice was velvet, liquid velvet, and she was drowning in it, filled all the way to her soul. That voice, a woman could love. "Good afternoon."
Bluer eyes she'd never seen. Nor more piercing ones. She drowned in eyes of an incredible, piercing blue. The light shimmered as a cloud crossed the sun. But this man, this man with eyes like frost on a window, whose eyes made battle-hardened men quail and who seemed so foreign to tenderness, made her complete...
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel dream-sequence the-spare
Come here into the warmth," he said easily. He reached for her, taking her hand and pulling her toward him. "I've been waiting for you." He stroked her hair, shifting a bit to let the light fall on her. "For a very long time."
She, too, reached for him, following a line in the air along the length of the forming scar that marred his chest. A corona flared around him until she moved past the point where the sunlight hit her eyes. She stared at his chest, at the gashed and ill-healed flesh, and he, seeing her attention, took her hand and brought her fingers to his mouth. She felt the warmth of his breath, the pressure of his lips, soft and warm. "I wish you had never been wounded," she said. "Even though it brought you home to me.
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel dream-sequence the-spare
Mots clés olivia sebastian carolyn-jewel the-spare
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