“We both need to be finding our pallets,” Patrik said. “Dawn and the leagues we must travel will come soon enough.”
She hesitated. “Will you be able to sleep?”
“A question I should be asking you.”
A faint smile touched Cristina’s mouth, and he found he liked knowing he’d put it there. As he watched her, her eyes softened.
The moment shifted.
The blackness surrounding the meager flicker of flame seemed to embrace them, to heighten the fact they were very alone. The golden shimmers of light caressed her face, lured him to trace her skin, to sample the lush fullness of her mouth and discover whether it would fulfill its silent promise. He could all but taste her, a potent sensuality that beckoned him for more.
Unsettled by his musings, Patrik stepped back. “Rest, I will be nearby.” He strode off, damning his amorous thoughts.
As Sir Patrik’s figure faded in the darkness, Emma exhaled. What had just happened between them? Nothing. Everything. She’d witnessed his desire, an emotion the warrior stirred within her as well.
God help her, she’d wanted him to kiss her. Since her rape at twelve summers, never had she yearned for a man’s touch. But something about the Scot made the horrific memories fade, left her wanting.
Go to sleep. Leave him be. ’Twas safe.
Yet, he was hurting, tormented by a past he, too, had weathered. A past he believed her ignorant of. Emma stood, needing to talk to him, to help him. Not because of her mission, but because he was a man who under different circumstances she might have called friend.
Friend? Laughable truly. She made not friends, only contacts.
Or enemies.
She turned from the candle toward where Sir Patrik had faded into the gloom. Gathering her courage, she walked into the darkness. Her eyes slowly adjusted. Within the faint spill of candlelight, she caught hints of shapes within the cavern.
A soft splash echoed in the distance.
She caught the rebel’s faint outline. He sat upon a boulder, his feet dangling in the water.
Loneliness. It radiated from him as if a man sentenced. A feeling she knew too well. A feeling her harsh comments had inspired.
In silence, she walked over and sat.
He stared straight ahead. “You should be asleep.”
“I should.” Emma removed her slippers, set them aside, and then slid her feet into the warmth of the water. “I am amazed at how the distant candlelight still plays upon the columns of stone.”
“Why did you come?”
The roughness of his question alerted her that he battled against his wanting her. Warmth flooded Emma. “You asked me questions, questions I struggle with. My frustration made me lash out when you were but trying to guide me from my grief.”
“You were honest.”
“I was, but it does not make my curt manner right.”
“Right?” Sir Patrik asked. “Is there such a thing?”
“I do not know.” A sad smile touched her mouth. “Do not think too deeply; you will sound like me.”
Within the wisps of candlelight, a hint of humor touched his face, and then fell away. “Aye, a sad lot we are.”
She trailed her foot through the water. “So where does that leave us?”
“To go on, to believe our lives can be better.”
“Is that what you have done?”
