* * *
THOUGH FIONA HAD INSISTEDupon arriving alone, she agreed to allow Morgan to accompany her home. Relieved by the way the entire evening had gone, Morgan held her tightly against him in the closed coach all the way back to Brookhaven, enjoying the closeness and simply breathing her in. They didn’t talk much, but the silence felt comfortable.
A lot had changed between them over the course of the evening, and he was still somewhat surprised that she’d agreed to allow him to court her. He hadn’t been at all certain that she would.
When they finally pulled up in front of Brookhaven, he took her hand, staring into her lovely eyes, his heart beating hard in his chest. “I’m not ready for the night to end just yet. Do you mind if I come inside for a while?”
She swallowed, and his gaze was drawn to the slim column of her throat, remembering how it had felt to run his lips across that smooth skin.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I’m not ready to let it end either.”
Elated, he helped her down from the coach, the air between them crackling with the weight of their attraction for each other. He’d never felt anything so powerful, and he wanted to explore it.
How long had it been since he’d last had sex? It shamed him to admit that he couldn’t remember the last time between him and Anne. Their lovemaking had never been memorable, truth to tell.
He wondered now, how much of that had been his fault. It certainly hadn’t been Anne’s. She’d been raised to believe that sex was only for the purpose of procreation, lying there stiff as a board until he’d finished. He hadn’t known how to help her relax, how to make her believe it didn’t have to be a chore, something distasteful to be endured.
However, the encounters he’d had so far with Fiona made him think she would be pure fire if they ever made love.
Unfortunately, his mind latched on to what Fiona had said earlier about not being able to have children. Although it didn’t bother him to not have more children, he suddenly wondered what sort of accident would leave her injured in such a way.
A pall fell over his mood suddenly, and he wished that Adrian had told him more about Fiona’s past. What sort of horrors had she been through before she and Adrian had met?
For that matter, howhadshe and Adrian met? He still greatly feared that she’d been one of Prometheus’s rescues.
Despite his intense attraction to her, he realized there was very much about Fiona that he did not yet know.
Several dark thoughts intruded on his former euphoria, but he shook them away. It didn’t matter. How could he hold anything in Fiona’s past against her, when he himself had done murder?
With a groan, he forced away the ancient guilt and fear. He could not be upset with Fiona for keeping her secrets when he had such a big one of his own.
Soon they were in Brookhaven’s sitting room, comfortably ensconced on the couch before the fire where they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms a few weeks ago. She’d poured them both a glass of a passable red wine, and they sipped their drinks quietly, staring into the flames. She sat a bit apart from him, and as much as he wanted to pull her tighter against him, he knew it was best to let her be. He’d already shattered a lot of her walls tonight.
At last, she turned to look at him, her eyes troubled. “I’m not a virgin, Morgan.”
His heart plummeted, not because of what she’d said but because he very much feared that whoever had taken her innocence had done so cruelly. “Neither am I,” he finally said, in a poor attempt at levity. “I don’t care,” he added, more seriously. “Nothing that happened before we met has any bearing on my feelings for you.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “You don’t understand—”
He pressed his finger to her lips, stopping her. “You can tell me if you want. But you don’t have to. It doesn’t matter now.”
She bit her lip, and the relief in her eyes made him know he’d done the right thing. He hoped that someday she’d be ready to reveal her secrets but perhaps it was too soon.
He held out his arm, and she scooted close to him, laying her head upon his shoulder. He hugged her tight to his side, wishing he could somehow fix all the wrongs that had been done to her. As she slowly began to relax against him, he started to rub her neck again, and soon she was making those soft little sounds of pleasure he’d grown to love so much.
“Do you know how safe you make me feel?” she asked at last. “How cared for and cherished?” A helpless little laugh escaped her. “I know that doesn’t sound like much, but to me, it is everything. I never thought I could trust someone the way I trust you.”
His heart swelled with a strange sort of pride, because he knew that in her mind, she’d just paid him the highest compliment she could ever give. “I am going to try my best to earn that, Fiona.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, feeling a sense of connection he’d never had with anyone. Though their lives had been very different thus far, they somehow understood each other, and feeling understood was a powerful thing.
She shivered and pulled slightly away, staring up into his eyes with haunting vulnerability. “Will you come up to my room with me, Morgan? Will you make love to me?”
He caught his breath, all the desire he’d been trying to hold back surfacing in a heated rush. “I would love to,” he whispered. “More than anything. But I don’t think you’re ready.”
With a trembling hand, she cupped his cheek. “I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be ready. But I need to know if I can ever give you this part of me, because it wouldn’t be fair to you to continue on down this path if I can’t.”
That seemed a tremendous amount of pressure to put on something that should be spontaneous and passionate, but he was determined to give her whatever she needed to feel comfortable with him. The last thing he wanted was for his relationship with her to devolve into what he’d had with Anne. She was right. They needed to make sure that the physical side was possible before they moved forward.
He put his hand over hers and leaned into her touch. “We will only go as far as you want. We can stop at any point. You can trust me, Fiona. I promise.”
