Taking some food and a wine bladder from one of his bags, he walked to the far wall of the lodge and sat on a bench. He could see her from here, her pale skin gleaming among the furs. The long, sinuous lines of her body made gentle white hills within the mounds. Her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders, and one enticing long lock snaked over her back, its curling end brushing the swell of her breast.

Eventually she would wake. Before morning, he was sure. Fate had not brought them to this firelit lodge so that she would sleep through the night.

He enjoyed watching her. He was glad that she had not deliberately let him see her stretched out like this. He could not have refused a blatant offer, but that was not really how he wanted it to be.

Court ladies granted men their favors, but he wanted no favors from Nesta. It was not a courtier’s desire that fired in him whenever she was near. His reactions were too raw for that, too vital and too violent. The warrior she battled wanted her, as did the lord whom she thwarted with impunity. So did the starving youth who watched with resentment from the alleys.

He made himself comfortable on the bench. He waited for her to wake up, so that what had begun in that garden could be finished.

The pain in her ankle poked into her dream, nudging her toward wakefulness. She shifted her foot and the pain subsided. Sleep lured her again. Enough consciousness intruded, however, for her foggy mind to grope for the reason she should not succumb to the blissful rest. A very good reason, as she vaguely recalled.

She suddenly remembered where she was.

She jerked alert and felt her hands beneath her cheek and the furs beneath her stomach and breasts. The sensation of various warmths on the back of her body told her that the fur covered her hips, but little else.

“I found a cup and mixed some water and wine in it if you are thirsty. It is right beside you, near the fire,” Marcus said.

His voice came from her left. She turned her head and peered into the shadows obscuring the far end of the lodge. The highlights of his hair and the fires of his eyes were all she could see distinctly. He seemed to be sitting on a bench against the wall.

She thrust her arm back and pulled the fur so that she was covered a bit more. She contemplated how to sit up in such a way that she could cloak herself completely without first exposing herself more. Something in the way Marcus sat there said that if she asked him to turn away while she arranged herself, he would refuse.

“You should not have let me lie here like this. You should have woken me,” she said while she twisted her head to examine the furs.