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through her body. His own release joined hers, and held him prisoner while he fought to capture the moment,
thefeeling . But like the ocean's waves battering his ship, the explosion of his senses drove him before it, and
he was helpless in a way he had never known before.
Slowly, reality filtered into his thoughts, easing his pounding heart. Once again he felt the rock pressing into
his back, and from long habit, he rested his palm over his chest and gloried in this proof of his humanness. As
his breathing slowed, he opened his eyes and met her glazed stare.
"What happened?"
She still stood against the tree, her dress and shawl were still in place, and he still sat across the clearing from
her. As he watched, she pushed back her thick fall of hair. He followed the motion, wanting to reach out and
slide his fingers through the strands.
"No, don't answer that." She reached behind her to touch the tree's rough bark as though that was her only
way to affirm reality. "You reached into my mind, made everything real, but it only happened in mymind . I
felt my own body's reactions at the same time I was feeling yours. How... ?" Her voice trailed off as she
skimmed her clothing with fingers that shook. "Everythinghappened in my mind."
"Ye need not know how, only that I can." He slipped his shirt on, fastened his plaid, then stood. When he
raised his gaze, she was fumbling with her shawl as she tried to wrap it more tightly around herself. Would she
feel guilt now, or worse yet, fear? Mayhap he had been a wee bit too eager. "Ye drew pleasure only from your
mind, so ye need feel no guilt about your job." He strode across the clearing, took the shawl from her grasp,
and did what she could not.
As she stood facing him, a smile touched her lips. "Could've fooled me. All that pleasure felt pretty global."
She took a deep breath, then shrugged. "I cheated. There's nothing I can do to change what happened." She
finally met his gaze directly. "I don't think I'd change anything even if I could. I've never had that kind of
sexual experience, and I can't imagine anything being that good again. Ever."
Her gaze narrowed. "But that doesn't mean it will happen again. I think Ecstasy is right about not mixing
business with pleasure. Sex muddies the water, makes it harder to concentrate." Suspicion touched her gaze.
"Maybe that's what you planned."
He shook his head and smiled. She was so intense, so focused on things that really did not matter. In five
hundred years he had learned that not many things mattered beyond the pleasure life could give. "I didna plan
tonight. If I had, ye would be warm beside me in my bed."
"Right." She frowned, and he knew her thoughts wandered elsewhere. "You called out to Freyja when you
climaxed. Who is Freyja?"
It was his turn to frown. He never blurted out things he shouldn't, even in the throes of sexual excitement.
"Freyja is the Northmen's goddess of love and war. 'Twould seem they have much in common."
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"I notice that whenever you speak of the Northmen you speak in the present tense." Her gaze was intent on
him, and he saw the exact moment when realization widened her eyes.
He stilled. Waiting.
"Do you still guide your ship in from the sea on stormy nights? Do you shout your battle cry... Varin?"
He smiled at her. A smile his enemies could tell her was not to be believed. "Only when I have drunk too
much and wish to frighten women and bairns."
Â
Chapter Five
A Viking. Blythe walked toward the castle with a silent Darach beside her. She couldn't conceive of the
violence he'd experienced or where he stored all the disturbing memories. And what happened when his
mental storage facility reached capacity? Did it just explode from the pressure, sending Darach into a
downward spiral toward insanity?
She cast him a sideways glance. No, she didn't think insanity would claim him. He was too much in control. It
was his control that kept her from reaching his emotions. "So tell me about your life as Black Varin. How did
you become Darach MacKenzie?"
He didn't look at her. "We raided this coast and decided 'twould make a better home than our own. We took
the name of a clan most would not find strange, then found this place to build our castle. It was a remote area
and few could find it. We didna call attention to ourselves for a hundred years. By that time none were alive
who remembered who we truly were, neither the real MacKenzies nor the people we had raided."
"What do you do with all the bad memories, Darach? There have to be a lot more than I thought at first. What
about your family?" The logical progression widened her eyes. "What about a wife?" Maybe she should have
thought of a wife before she gave herself over to all that mind sex back on the path. "Did you ever have a
wife?" Automatically she touched the Ecstasy charm at her throat.
"Aye." He walked faster.
Uh-oh. One-word answer. Walking faster. She'd hit a nerve again. "Any children?"
"No."
"What happened?" He was walking so fast now that she had to trot to keep up.
He stopped so suddenly that she trotted a few steps ahead before realizing he wasn't beside her.
She turned to face him and was hit with a wave of anger that almost flattened her.
"Thor's hammer, woman, do ye never leave a man be?" He towered over her, fists clenched and eyes
narrowed to blue slits of fury. "Ye're like the healer who pokes and prods at a man's body, asking where it
hurts until he aches in a hundred places instead of just one."
"But after all the poking, he heals you. Isn't that what's important?" Blythe swallowed hard to dislodge her
fear. She couldn't stop now. All of his anger was protecting a deeper emotion. Years of experience had taught
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her that.
"Sometimes there is nothing to heal." He clasped her chin and tilted her face up to meet his glare. "Do ye ever
think that ye have no right to invade a man's emotions if he doesna wish it? And mayhap ye should try to heal
yourself."
She blinked. "Me? What do I have to do with this? I'm perfectly happy." Blythe pushed aside any temptation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]