But she shifted just a little more and her fingers rose to his neck and she began to stroke very gently. He groaned and pulled back. He looked at her. “I would not distress you for anything right now, but you fill me with desire when you touch me over my vein.”
He waited, willing her to understand his dilemma, but a sudden drift of croissant flavored the air. He closed his eyes and shuddered.
“Jean-Pierre, I have need of you right now. I know it isn’t proper, but will you make love to me?”
There were so many reasons to refuse her request. The death of the Militia Warrior had reminded him of the impermanence of the fighting man. He was such a man.
If he continued down this path with her, taking her body beneath his, making these intimate connections, where would it all end? What did he truly have to give her? For all this time, he had kept his heart free of the commitment to a woman, any woman. His occupation was one reason, but the other, he believed, touched the core of him: He did not know if he could trust Fiona.
His wife had been so much like her, tenderhearted, kind, perhaps even driven in her own way to shape the world around her to her tastes and liking. She had made a home for them in impoverished Paris, battling for rooms, selling off the ancestral possessions he had brought with him after renouncing his estates—not for gain, but to furnish their new home and to buy food, all the necessities. His activism in the revolution used up his energy. But what had he not seen? Had his obsession with creating a new, freer France blinded him to her true nature? Or perhaps living in poverty had battered at her resolve so that one day, she had given him up to Robespierre. What had he not seen?
And if such a woman, of fine character and worth, could betray him, then why could he ever believe in another woman again, even Fiona, whom he admired?
The answer was simple. He could not.
So what was he to do with these vast sentiments that swelled in his heart when he held her like this, when he looked into her silver-blue eyes, when he felt her need for his touch, for his embraces, for the pleasure of his body?
There was only one answer: He could not deny her. So he suppressed thoughts of the betrayal that had ruined his heart. He rose to his feet and held his hand out to her. When she took it, he lifted her up then bent down to slide a hand behind her knees so he could carry her in his arms.
But he did not take her back to his bedroom. For this, for a time when her heart ached and he still had a terrible beam in his chest, he went to the northernmost part of his house and there began to make a three-story climb up a narrow tower.
“Where do the stairs lead?” she asked, her arms around his neck.
“To the sky,” he said.
Fiona would love this. As he climbed, his chest began to ease.
* * *
Fiona leaned her head against Jean-Pierre’s shoulder. She forced herself not to think about what was lost tonight, but about what was gained: one more night with the man carrying her in his arms, one more day with Carolyn and her children, one more stretch of life in which she had the chance to keep living.
She couldn’t have changed the outcome of the fighting tonight. She had acquitted herself extremely well in that she’d helped Jean-Pierre stay alive.
Beyond that, what control did any one single person ever have over the horrors of life, over the chance events that thrust one warrior beneath a blade and pushed the other out of harm’s way? No control.
What could she control? That she was safe for this moment in time and nothing more. If the Upper ascender were to come after her, or after her family or Jean-Pierre, could she stand against him? Probably not.
But she was safe, bouncing in Jean-Pierre’s arms as he carried her up the winding staircase, up and up. She focused then on what she might find at the very top of these stairs and on losing herself in his body, perhaps even tasting of him for the first time.
As he reached a landing, she opened her eyes and saw that he was pushing open the door. He carried her onto what proved to be an open platform high in the canopy of the tall Arizona sycamores.
The air was so fresh and clean and carried the somewhat sharp scent of the sycamores. He put her on her feet. She looked up. Through the gossamer web of Endelle’s mist, stars filled what was a large open space between a circle of branches.
“Jean-Pierre, this is so beautiful!”
“I thought you would like it.”
She turned in a circle on the solid deck, looking up. The railing had widely spaced natural wooden pickets, weathered by the elements and time, but beautiful. “I would like to sleep up here tonight. Do you think we could? Would that be possible?”
He smiled and moved her close to the railing. “This will require some maneuvering, but yes, it is very possible.” She could tell he was focusing hard so she kept very still.
A moment later a bed appeared—sheets, pillows, comforter, everything, well, everything except the bed frame and the box spring.
He gestured with a sweep of his hands. “Will this do?”
He was turned away from her, apparently admiring his skill. She had a daring idea and thought the thought. “Very nicely, and will this do?” she asked, mimicking him.
He turned back to her, then his eyes flared since she stood naked in the cool March air, even shivering. Her ni**les responded, pulling into hard beads. His gaze fell to her br**sts and he moved into her, sweeping an arm around her back and covering one of her br**sts with his hand. He thumbed the hard tip then kissed her.
Fiona let it all go, her grief, her fears about the future, about what had almost happened to him in Honduras, everything. She focused on that beautiful mouth of his, the lips that were pointed and full, so sensual, on his tongue as he invaded her mouth searching out the recesses.
She shivered. Her hair was still damp and the night was cold. She pulled out of his arms and dove beneath the covers.
He laughed and, with another thought, divested himself of his clothes as well. He climbed into bed beside her and looked down at her. “You are so beautiful in starlight.”
“You say the loveliest things.” She saw him in her preternatural way, as though he were lit by candles. Because he was over her, she had a view of the long column of his throat. She could see his pulse beating and desire rose in a sudden sharp tug between her legs. “Jean-Pierre. I have never taken blood before but I want to, so very much, and I want you to be the first.”
He growled softly, but she thought it was a growl not of desire but of ownership. She knew the state he was in most of the time, that she was for him a territory that he had to mark and claim and stake, over and over.