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Or maybe he was married. Come to think of it, the Wyrd Sisters had never mentioned it.
Sean considered every last one of these options before landing on his real fear. What if the king found him repugnant? Maybe the spark between them was one-sided and he was in a rush to quit Sean’s company.
The question was, what difference did that make? Why was he so forlorn over a rejection?
He hadn’t been sent to fall for Malcolm de Moray. His job was to get him to fall for Sean’s charms just long enough to fuck.
Sean’s intention to stay out of the void that imprisoned his soul for more than a century had gone past desperation, past madness, into a determined ruthlessness that drove him like nothing before. If Malcolm de Moray had to be a casualty of regaining his freedom, then so be it. He couldn’t go back into that place, the dark hole where despair swallowed him in endless torment, and he couldn’t even look forward to death as a release.
There was no release. No escape. Only this.
Running his cheek along his drawn up knees, he reveled in the warmth of the king’s fine cloak.
He’d left it. Why? Pity? Because he was a decent man?
Most likely because he had a hundred more like it in his castle chambers and left this one to ease his conscience.
Well, it would be the perfect opportunity to see him again. Sean could request an audience at Dun Moray under the guise of returning it. The king would be more relaxed in his own home, less guarded, and easier to seduce. There would be beds, candlelight, and maybe he could get Nemain to craft a spell that would—
The collection of sticks that passed for a door moved again, stunning his thoughts to silence. Malcolm bent to enter, carrying a bundle of kindling and a few larger logs. “Yer wood pile is nigh empty,” he chastised gently. “We’ll need to remedy that.”
Sean could only stare, as the king—the king— bent to lay a fire in the meager circle of stones that passed for a fire pit.
“We?” he finally ventured.
He stood again and left just as abruptly as before, returning with his saddle bags. Retrieving implements from within them, he bent to start a fire on some tinder striking the flint together blowing on the spot where sparks began to catch.
Sean knew he should be re-strategizing his approach, and he would, just as soon as he could tear his eyes from the way the man’s back and shoulders stretched at the seams of his fine shirt, or how his kilt rested on his bent backside.
His legs were so long. Lithe and powerful. Sean’s fingers itched to get at what was under that kilt.
For the sake of freedom, of course, he reminded himself.
Sean got the impression that Malcolm wasn’t a man of many words. He worked quietly, absorbed in the task of building a fire, and didn’t look up until the blaze was stable and throwing off a furnace of heat. That accomplished, he reached again for the saddle bags and extracted a cloth wrapped around some cheese, some bread, and a few slices of cured meat. Next came a skein of something, hopefully spirits or ale.
It had been so long.
“If yer not feeling peaky, ye should eat and drink something,” he murmured. Taking a knife, he crouched down and cut a generous portion of the food, handing it to Sean without truly looking at him. “I retrieved water from the spring trickling into the loch, there. While ye eat, I’ll restock yer wood pile.” He frowned, motioning for Sean to take the food he offered. “I’ll not leave ye here with no axe to pick through frosty kindling. I’d have to question my manhood if I did.”
Sean thought of the member that had twitched and throbbed against his rump while they’d shared the saddle. No one in the history of the world would ever be able to question his manhood. Lord, but it was generous.
Blinking down at the offered fare, shock and something else entirely clouded his vision with moisture. Behind that was panic. Where was this coming from? Why did he suddenly have a lump in his throat so big he was unable to form words of thanks? And just how in the hell could he seduce a man if he was a weeping disaster?
If he failed, he’d go back to the void. He needed to pull himself together.
Now.
“Why?” he whispered before he could stop himself, hating that his voice was tight with tears.
“Why, what?”
Sean didn’t look up from his lap, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his own knees. “If you want nothing from me, then why are you kind?”
De Moray’s big, warm hand reached out to cup his cheek, his green eyes as sharp as cut emeralds and twice as brilliant in the firelight. “I’m kind because I am a Druid and yer king, and therefore kindness is not just my responsibility, but my way of life.” He dropped his hand from Sean’s cheek then, but his next words reached so deep, they seared to the very bones. “But make no mistake, lad, I want to take ye in ways that would wipe the word ‘kind’ from yer thoughts of me.”
Sean’s breath caught around a lump in his throat made of half emotion, and half elation. “Then, take me,” he whispered.
“It wouldna be right,” the king forced through clenched teeth, his eyes those of a warrior valiantly fighting a losing battle.
