When his son swung the door open, Silvan slipped back into the chair, gathering the gloom around him with a few soft words.

His news would keep till the morn.

Chapter 20

20

There’s something I haven’t told you, Chloe-lass, Dageus said, stepping forward from the shadowy circle of stones. His eyes said he wanted to tell her. His eyes said he was afraid to tell her. What might such a man fear? That he feared it, frightened her as well, and diminished her need to know substantially. For a novel change, her curiosity curled up and played dead.

You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, she prevaricated, wanting the dreamy pleasure of their newfound intimacy to remain unspoiled by difficult truths. From the look on his face, difficult was a mild word for whatever he was withholding.

The tendons in his strong neck worked and he opened and closed his mouth several times. He took a deep breath. Mayhap you should know—

A sudden pounding at the door jarred Chloe instantly awake. Her dream shattered into tiny particles of sandman’s dust.

When she jerked, Dageus’s arms tightened around her.

“Are ye awake in there?” Nell was calling through the door. “Silvan’s nigh beside himself with impatience. He’s requestin’ ye both belowstairs.”

“We’re awake, Nell,” Dageus replied. “Would you mind having a bath sent up?”

“Dageus, yer da will get himself in a fankle. He’s been waiting to show ye what he’s found since early yestermorn and ye know he’s ne’er been the most patient man.”

Dageus exhaled loudly. “A quarter hour, Nell,” he said, sounding resigned, “then we’ll be down.”

“I wouldn’t be disturbin’ ye, were it left to me.” A soft laugh, and her footsteps faded down the corridor.

Dageus rolled Chloe over on her side to face him, capturing one of her legs between his, cupping her full breasts possessively.

“G’morning,” she said drowsily, flushing from the memory of what he’d done to her through the night. What she’d encouraged him, even begged him to do. She smiled. She was achy and sore and felt scrumptious. She’d spent the entire night in his arms. Funny, she mused, of all the things that were so difficult to believe, the past twenty-four hours with him seemed the most astonishing. Since she’d given herself to him, he’d been a completely different man. Warm, sexy, playful. Oh, still every inch dominant, basely sexual man, but infinitely more approachable. Where, previously, sometimes it had seemed he was there but not quite there—a part of him somewhere else entirely—in bed he was one hundred percent there. One hundred percent focused and involved.

It was devastating to be the focal point of such raw, relentless eroticism. He was everything she’d fantasized Dageus MacKeltar might be in bed and more. Wild and demanding, battering past all her inhibitions.