Aria broke off, her gaze widening as she realized what she had just revealed to him, or had nearly revealed to him. “Orders?” he inquired softly.
She shook her head, not wanting to discuss this now. She simply couldn’t. “He’s my friend and he is going to die because of me. I can’t… I can’t bear it,” she choked out. “All he wanted was to save me, for Daniel.”
“Daniel?”
Aria nodded, managing a tremulous smile. “My brother.”
Braith’s face was hard, his eyes searching as he looked her over. “I see.”
“Max could have gotten away Braith. I went in to rescue Mary’s child, but Max could have gotten away, he could have escaped and fled into the woods. He is here because he thought that he could save me from all of this, Max is an optimist to the end.”
“And you’re not?”
She managed a wan smile as she sat back slightly. “I have always been one hundred percent pragmatic. Like I said I have seen a lot in my short life, very little of it has been good. Max is good though, and I hate the fact that his goodness will be destroyed because of me. I didn’t mean to hurt you; I just wanted to see my friend, to know that he was safe, and that he wasn’t dead. At least not yet anyway.”
Braith sighed as he sat back. “You didn’t hurt me.”
Arianna nodded, her hands slipping slowly away from his hard face. “Of course I didn’t hurt you. I shouldn’t have said that, I didn’t mean it.” She couldn’t hurt him, she had been foolish to think that maybe that was the reason he had been so angry with her. She needed to remember that though her feelings for him might be changing, his feelings for her weren’t. “I didn’t mean to do what I did today. It’s just that when I saw Max he reminded me so much of home, and I missed him so much that all I could think of was getting to him. All I could think of was freedom. All I could think of was my woods and hunting and running free. Freedom, Braith, I loved my freedom, I reveled in it. And I’m sorry that what I did today could have caused us both problems, but I couldn’t stop myself because for one brief moment I was in those woods again. I could smell them, taste them, feel them around me, and it was wonderful.”
Aria broke off, overcome with a crushing sense of homesickness again. Braith was silent, his mouth parted slightly as he studied her, and then his fingers were in her hair and he was pulling her against him. Aria gasped softly, but then his lips were upon hers, his mouth claiming hers with a desperation that left her stunned and breathless. At first she was so surprised that she was motionless against him, unable to respond to the intensity and need she felt radiating from him.
And then her shock was buried beneath the torrent of emotions that surged forth in her. She was shaking, rocked by the need that filled her, the desperation that seized her. She needed this, she needed him. And it felt so right, so perfectly, wonderfully, right! Something inside of her seemed to be healing, mending, becoming whole. There had always been something missing in her life, something that she had been searching and hoping for, but she had never known what it was. Until now.
And now she knew that it was him.
He was what she had been missing; he was what she had been searching for, looking for. He was what had made her so reckless all the time, because without him she had been so lost and empty that she hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences of her actions. And though she knew there would be consequences for these actions, she didn’t care, because this was right. In fact, even though he was something that she had always hated and fought against, she thought this might be the first right thing she had ever done.
He rose over top of her, his large body loomed over hers as he seized hold of her waist and lifted her easily up. Aria gasped softly as he deposited her in the center of the bed before coming down on top of her. Aria’s heart hammered, excitement and panic tore through her in equal measures. It all felt so wonderful and new and thrilling, but it was also moving far too fast as the heavy weight of his body pressed her deeper into the mattress, and his strong hands began to slip her thin dress up her thighs.
Aria broke free of the delightful pressure of his mouth as fear finally took over completely. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get control of her surging body and tumultuous emotions. “Wait Braith, wait!” she managed to pant out.
He froze against her, his hands stilled instantly upon her thigh. Aria shook at that realization; it was the most intimate touch she had ever experienced. A tremor raced through her as desire sent her heartbeat skyrocketing again. She had never felt so torn and lost before, never felt such overwhelming desire mingled with such pulsating fear of the unknown. It was all moving too swiftly, she couldn’t think, and she desperately needed just a moment to at least try and sort out what was going on.
His hands were upon her face, turning it towards him. She blinked at him, trying hard to focus on the beautiful, caring eyes swarming before her. “Arianna, are you ok?”
She managed to nod; she even managed a wan smile. “I’m just… I’m not… It’s just too fast. It’s all too fast.”
His eyebrows drew sharply together again for a moment, his eyes scanned slowly over her face. Then, much to Aria’s horror, a dawning realization seemed to come over him. His brow smoothed out, his eyes were far more understanding as they came back to her. “Arianna, are you a virgin?” Her face flooded with color and her eyes darted rapidly away from him. She couldn’t meet his gaze again, she was too mortified. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She bit on her bottom lip, shaking her head as she struggled to keep the fierce heat from her face. “You should have told me, I would have gone slower, I would have…”
“Stop,” she whispered, too embarrassed to hear anymore.
He sighed softly; he bent his head, pressing his forehead against hers for a moment. His fingers twined slowly within her hair, stroking lightly through it. “Ok,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to her nose. He rolled off of her, pulling her tightly against him, his arm wrapping around her waist as he held her against him. Aria was stunned by the easiness with which he cradled her, and the fact that he had taking her rejection this calmly as he held her gently within his arms.
“I don’t understand any of this,” she whispered.
He was silent for a long moment, lightly brushing the hair back from her face. “Neither do I, but you must keep this to yourself Arianna. No one else can know about my eyesight.”