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“Yes. But it pleases me so very much.”
He squeezed her arm. “Come. Let me show you my house.”
He moved forward with her, but her steps slowed. He stopped and turned to watch her. She seemed surprised, her brows high on her forehead. “What is it?”
“When you told me about your house, how you had built it, I didn’t realize you’d used so much glass. I had come to think of it like a cabin in the woods, but it’s not at all like that.”
“Ah, oui. But if you look around, you can see the why of it, that I put the house in the middle of a woodland of sycamores. And on the opposite side of the house is Oak Creek, which you can hear from this place. I wanted views of it all.”
“It’s … beautiful.” She spoke the words slowly as though she savored each syllable, which of course made his heart swell.
The front entrance was set at an angle to the body of the house and had a steepled porch that served as protection from the weather. Sometimes there was snow in Sedona and during the summer, heavy monsoon rains.
He released her to slide his arm about her waist and held her close. Only then did she move forward with him.
He opened the front door and swung it wide, letting her precede him.
When she crossed the threshold, something powerful inside him opened and spilled out, leaving behind a pit of relief—as though he had been holding his breath all these months and now he could finally breathe.
Oui, the breh-hedden was a terrible master.
But she was here, in his home, with him, and she was safe.
“A piano,” she cried. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Of all the things I expected to see here, this wasn’t one of them. Do you play?”
Such astonishment. He shrugged. He knew he should not be offended but somehow he was. “Oui. Bien sûr. Of course.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “That sounded so … wrong and I apologize. But I haven’t seen a piano yet on Second Earth, not that I’ve been in many ascended homes.”
Of course she had not. Perhaps only a handful, since he kept her close and she only had encounters with Madame Endelle’s administrative headquarters, Militia Warrior HQ, her daughter’s home, or Alison and Kerrick’s. Once she had been to Medichi and Parisa’s villa. But that was all … and no pianos in any of these homes. Perhaps one day.
She turned back to the small grand piano situated in the angled foyer, and said, “It’s just that all of the warriors battle so hard. Even Seriffe is gone so much working with the Militia Warriors. I didn’t think anyone had time for such things, for even a modest hobby.”
She had a lovely shape; her shoulders were neither narrow nor too broad and she had a small waist. He longed to put his hands around her waist and see if his fingers met. He had long fingers. He thought they might touch, fingertip-to-fingertip, but such thoughts put a trembling in his thighs.
He drew close to her from behind and fingered the lavender silk of her blouse. Her hair hung just a few inches from her waist, so thick and beautiful, chestnut streaked with dark golds and reds.
He worked to set aside the trembling and the desire. “There was a time when we did not fight as we do now. We were called to service by Central throughout the night, at different hours, but not every hour until dawn as we do now. We were able to do many things when I first ascended; that is how Medichi built his villa and vineyard and how I built this house. But the war has changed in recent decades, grown much more intense. Yes, at one time we were able to do many things.”
She looked back at him, her smile teasing. His breath caught in his throat at such an expression. He did not think he would get used to her beauty and how it made him feel, especially wearing a smile that reached her eyes.
“Many things, huh?”
He smiled as well, not dwelling too much on her meaning, for his fingers were now smoothing the silk of her blouse in a line up to her neck, beneath the wavy fall of chestnut hair until he found skin. He stroked the nape of her neck slowly.
“Oui. Many things. I will not lie to you. I am a man.”
Her smile dimmed just a little. “And did you bring many of those activities here?”
He shook his head. “Here? No, Fiona. Jamais. Never. I swear it. I could not have brought you into my house if I had.”
All the teasing left her lovely face, and he leaned close. He drifted a kiss over the line of her cheek. “I never wanted anyone here, not until I saw you in Toulouse.”
She blinked and looked down, a most certain sign that the old horrible memories had surfaced.
He cursed himself for bringing up Toulouse. Had he lost all his skill? All his finesse? Merde. Toulouse was where that monster, Rith, had taken her and the other blood slaves when the Warriors of the Blood had rescued Parisa from the Burma facility.
He decided to simply shove the conversation in a different direction entirely.
“Come,” he said. He stepped away from her but took her hand at the same time. He drew her toward the door behind him, to the right of the front door. “I wish to show you something.”
She followed and did not protest.
He opened the door for her. “Be careful. The steps are a little steep.” Much of the house was built on a slope and there were many short flights of stairs throughout the progression of the house, some up, some down.
The smell of wood and her scent flowed over him. The room below was cool and dark. He touched one of the switches to his right as he descended the stairs.
Inset ceiling lights just around the perimeter lit the room in a warm glow.
“Oh … my.” She put her hands to her face. “You keep … surprising me.”
He looked around at his woodworking shop and could not quite understand what she meant.
She turned back to him. “Don’t you see, Warrior? You are not a simple man.”
“And you thought I was?”
She shook her head slowly back and forth. “I have not seen past the battling you do. But this—” She turned in a circle. “Every tool is hung on the wall in a specific place. And there must be hundreds of them. It’s all so … organized.”
“It keeps the process very simple, to know where one’s tools are kept.”
She walked to the table in the center of the room and ran her hands over the top. She touched the place he worked and he was moved. He could feel his heart pounding. She was telling him something. She spoke with her actions more than her words, perhaps more than any woman he had ever known before.
