“Tell me your day was better than mine,” Angus said, as he exited the bathroom, hair still damp from his shower, wearing just a black silk robe.

“Mine was all about our wedding. I went through a thousand and one lists of unending things that needed to be ordered.”

Siobhan found it funny to be having this ‘How was your day, dear?’ conversation with him. As if they were a long-wed couple and not a couple to-be-wed in less than two months.

But the two of them had started to fall into rhythms, the only possible disruption being Siobhan’s desire to meet her relatives, which was kept mute by mutual agreement for the time being.

Each night after dinner, they ravished each other—even if he’d managed to drop in over the day.

During those stolen daytime trysts, he’d have her ride him on whatever settee was near or take her atop her desk, with his hand over her mouth to mute her desperate moans as he sunk his teeth into her neck to stifle his own shouts.

If he came before her, he’d drop down and use his mouth to bring her over the edge. The first time he’d done this, she’d cried, “Oh! Ohhh…” and felt obligated to say something before he tasted his own seed. He’d answered, “It’s me mingled with you.”

Every time he brought her to climax, she grew more sexually confident. And he grew cockier. Each of them found the other’s changes hot as hell.

Sometimes, the things they imagined proved anatomically impossible, and they ended up collapsed in a laughing heap on the floor. Sometimes—like the time he took her in a frenzy from behind, standing up, with her plastered against the wall—it was unbiasedly good.

Once the worst of their need had been slaked, they would read the newspapers, then the estate correspondence together, before indulging in lovemaking again.

He always wanted her opinion on things. More than once he’d told her her insight rivaled that of his best advisors at times.

But tonight, there was something different in him and Siobhan chalked it up to the private dinner he had with his mother and aunt—to settle some rules, he had told her.

“Some newspapers,” she said, “are saying you are making a dreadful mistake in marrying me.”

“They’re wrong.” Despite her smile, there was something in her eyes which told him she was sad.

“All of them, whomever they are.”

He joined her on the chaise-lounge styled sofa Siobhan had ordered for them in front of the TV, pulling her on his lap and kissing her. “You are the best choice I have ever made.”

There was a light in her green eyes when she looked at him, one that made him feel a thousand feet tall. He could have conquered an entire army with her at his side. Whatever it was that could go wrong would come out right.

It was almost too much to believe.

And so instead, he dipped his head and kissed her again.

He kissed her with no finesse, no gentleness that was part and parcel of their nightly trysts.

He kissed her with all the emotion he hadn’t shown since he’d kidnapped her—fiercely, savagely, as if he’d returned from a long absence, or was about to go away, and needed to remind her of everything they had together.

His arms came around her, wrapping her to him as tightly as chains, his body a scorching heat against hers.

He gave her kiss after kiss, scarcely allowing her to draw breath and she scarcely noticed when he lifted her up and set her on the low center table in front of the chaise.

He left her mouth long enough to suck on her earlobe, neck, collarbone—little spots of pleasure he had mapped and treasured—as he untied the knot on her wraparound dress, pulled it open, and disengaged her bra.

“God, Angel,” he breathed against her breast. “What will I do without you?”

“Why would you ever have to know? I’m not going anywhere.”

His mouth closed over her nipple and she gave herself over to him.

Somehow that fact—that he’d been so desperate for her he’d not even bothered to remove their clothes all the way, he’d pushed her on a hard table instead of taking her on the chaise—only heightened her desire all the more.

There was nothing but the heat of his tongue against her, the savagery of his hands on her hips as he tore the thin ties of her panties, his fingers searching for her. Her body was slick to receive him.

“I’m here,” she said, undoing the belt of his robe and rubbing his pulsing hard erection over his black underwear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

But he didn’t seem to hear her.

He pushed his underwear down barely enough to bare his all too potent arousal and when he plunged in, her tight muscles squeezing his large girth, he let out a harsh shout.

She gasped at that first intrusion. Angus was a big man and his cock was no exception, stretching her insides, making her arch her back and dig her nails in his biceps.

“God,” he groaned as with a powerful flex of his hips he buried himself all the way inside her. “You’re so tight, so hot.”

There wasn’t anything pristine and proper about this lovemaking.

It was something far more feral, an elemental force she’d never experienced before. His demanding mouth on her breasts; his unyielding fingers on her clitoris; his hard and forceful thrusts inside her.

The glorious slide of his body into hers seemed even more delicious, even more forbidden.

“I want you,” he said fiercely on her lips, his chestnut hair falling down around them. “God, I want you. Why can’t I have you?”

“You can.” She clenched him tightly inside herself. “You do.”

But he didn’t speak in response. Instead, he took her harder, faster, making her come with a scream at the swift orgasm that shattered reality into bright white stars of pleasure.

He seemed almost in a frenzy as he chased his own climax, hammering himself inside her in wild thrusts, devouring her mouth. He growled one final time and came.

As his climax passed, his kiss faded from savage to sweet. He gently pulled away, took in a shuddering breath, and looked around, as if to verify he had just had his way with her on top of the table.

Panting, he disengaged from her and sat on his heels.

“I had something for you,” he said, gesturing to a black velvet box which was forgotten on the chaise. “Well, I have…but…”

She sat up gingerly. “If you say one word other than God, that was magnificent, I will smite you,” she said.

“God,”—he let out a laugh—“you are magnificent.”

He picked her up in his arms and took her to bed. After he’d taken his robe and her dress off, he took the long diamond necklace with an enormous emerald drop from the box and fastened it around her neck, arranging the emerald at the top of the valley between her breasts.

“To match her eyes,” he said simply.

But there was still a shadow on his face, a veil pulled over his face. She could feel him withdrawing.

“Are these supposed to be a bribe?” she asked. “You should realize by now that you don’t have to offer me anything to get me in your bed.”

“I know it,” he said arrogantly, “but luckily for you, lust makes me stupid. You get emeralds, I get you.”

“Lucky me.” There was something he wasn’t telling her. She knew. She could see it in the tilt of his head, the way his eyes didn’t meet hers.

“You are dangerous for me.”

His words shifted the mood and they both grew serious.

She smiled, but it was a worried smile. “Dangerous how?”

“You make me want,” he said simply. His fingers slid into her hair and he stared deep into her eyes. “God, Siobhan, how you make me want.”

The words shattered her as much as the savage lovemaking had. “I…want, as well.”

After a while, he sighed and said, “I had dinner with Catriona and Aileen.”

I know. Siobhan stilled in his arms, but did not speak. Did not rush him for fear that he would change his mind, and there was nothing in the world she wanted more than for him to continue.

“I’m sorry I made you sad with my words today,” he whispered at her temple, to the wisps of hair that had come loose there.

Sad was such a simple, damaging word. It meant so much more than its elaborate cousins. He’d hurt her, and she’d soldiered through.

“I have been sad before, Dragon. I will be sad again.”

He hated that. “I wish I could take it all back.”

“You cannot.” She smiled. “All you can do is make up for it.”

I’ve made a hash of it, haven’t I? “I wish I could take you to Las Vegas and marry there, just the two of us. But now the entire population of Lektenstaten is waiting for us to marry on May fifteenth.”

“If you think on it,” she continued, “if I were attempting to land you in the parson’s noose, I’ve done a remarkable job of it.”

He laughed at the old-fashioned expression. “The parson’s noose?”

“Very ominous.”

“Not ominous,” he said. “But I thought love was not for me.”

He could see the question in her eyes, unspoken.

Why can’t you love me? Tell me. she’d asked. And he ached to do just that. And more. To tell someone why he was the man he was. To share his past.

He could tell her. He could show her. He tangled his fingers in hers, his thumb stroking across her soft skin, his gaze on a collection of little brown freckles that marked her shoulders. “I came back when I was seventeen.”

“For good?”

“I was just home from school for the summer. Like any man of my age who finds a woman for the first time, I…well, I thought it was it.”

She smiled. “You don’t need to hide what seventeen-year-old boys think.”

“What do you know about seventeen-year-old boys?”

“Enough to know having sex isn’t the worst thing you wished to do that summer.”

“I was too old to fish in the river and since I would be king in a few more months, I couldn’t very well while away the days.”

She imagined him younger, leaner, his long body not quite what it was now, his face freer of the character it held now. Handsome, but nothing like he was now. The bones of the man he would become. And too serious for his age, already carrying a burden to heavy.

She settled into his arms. She’d like to fish with him. She’d like him to build a fire on the banks of the river, and spend the evening telling her about his life as it grew dark around them. “I should like to have fished with you.”

He looked at her, surprised. “I’ll take you.”

“Aren’t you too old for it, now?” she teased.

He shook his head. “Now I’m old enough to know whiling away the days is not such a horrible way to spend one’s time.” He paused, “particularly with the right companion.”

“She was Romani—we called them gypsies then—and a milkmaid,” he said with a disbelieving laugh, lost in thought. “A Romani milkmaid. As though we all lived in a painting by a Dutch master. Her father ran the dairy near the mountain house, and she worked with the cows.”

Siobhan didn’t laugh. “And how did you meet?”

He brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles, sending little shocking threads of pleasure through her. When he stopped, he held her hand to his mouth and answered, “One of the cows escaped. She came looking for it.”

He paused, then said, quietly, “It was Shakespearean. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

Siobhan inhaled at the words. “What did she look like?”

“Tall, willowy. Blonde, with perfect pink skin as smooth as cream,” he replied. “Since her coloring was so different from the usual dark of the Romani, I thought my mother would not see it. Not that it would have mattered at all.”

Siobhan could see the woman, young and doe-eyed.

“The moment she looked up at me, dirt on her face, skirts muddy from her search, I wanted to protect her.”

She could see him wanting that. “Did she require protecting?”

“It felt that way,” he said, lost in the memory. “There was something precious about her. Something that felt nearly breakable.” He met her gaze. “I wanted to marry her from the start.”

She wasn’t prepared for the hot thread of jealousy that wove through her at the words. Nor was she prepared for the flood of questions that came on their heels. “And?”

“We spent the summer together, meeting in secret, hiding everything from our respective fathers. We passed messages through the stable boys, one in particular, whom I paid handsomely for his trouble. She was terrified her father would discover us.”

Siobhan nodded.

“Terrified enough that she began to beg me to marry her in secret. She wanted us to run, over the border to Austria, to find the nearest blacksmith and have an anvil marriage. Get it done.” He stopped. “I should have.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I was going to be the king, and I didn’t want it to be secret. When I took a wife, I wanted it to be in front of all the world. All of Lektenstaten. I’d make her my princess. She’d be by my side when I ruled. There was no shame in that, and I wouldn’t allow us to be a scandal. I loved her.”

“You’d make her your wife,” Siobhan said softly. The titles were nothing of importance compared to that. Compared to the idea of living with him, as his partner, forever.

Siobhan’s heart ached at the words, with sorrow for him, and with jealousy of this girl who had stolen his heart so long ago.

“Of course, I was young and stupid. And tilting at windmills.” He laughed humorlessly. “I thought as I was going to be king, it was time for my mother to put away her stupid thoughts on title and blue blood, and accept there was a place for love in the world.”

Siobhan could feel the frustration in him, in the stiffness of his chest and the quickness of his breath, the way the cords of his neck stood prominently, revealing a clenched jaw, a grim mouth.

She couldn’t help her little sad smile at the words, her heart in her throat. Of course, there was a place for love in the world. But the aristocracy was a world far beyond normal, and there, Romani milkmaids didn’t become duchesses. It was as though he heard her thoughts.

“I was young, and I’d never been told no in my life.”

Her brows rose. “And had the name and arrogance to prove it.”

He did laugh then, a little chuckle that reminded her, however tragic the tale became, he was here now. Hale and hers.

“I thought no one told a King no.”

Silence fell between them, and she grew cold, knowing instinctively the tale was about to turn.

“I marched her in here, without telling my mother I was bringing someone with me. I presented Lilian to her like the petulant child I was.”

It had not occurred to him previously he’d recreated the events with Siobhan. “I stood with her in that same hall, in front of my mother and I introduced her as my future bride.”

Good Lord. At least when he’d done it to Siobhan, she’d been prepared for it to turn sour. But the poor young girl knew nothing better. Who had no doubt been quaking in her slippers at meeting the imposing Regent Princess of Lektenstaten. “What happened?”

“My mother eviscerated her. I’ve never seen a woman treat another so poorly, milkmaid or not.” Angus shook his head, his eyes unfocused, staring into the past. “Her words…Lilian was cheap and just willing to marry me for my title and wealth. Then she asked a thoroughly humiliated and crying girl to give us some privacy, showing her onto the balcony. I ran to my room to retrieve the ring I had planned to give her. And when I returned…she…I—” he choked on his words.

“You were a child,” she held his hands tighter and tighter, until her knuckles were white.

He shook his head again. “I wasn’t a child, though. I was almost eighteen, old enough to rule a country. To sit in the bank presidency. She trusted in me.”

He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers.

Siobhan had never heard anything so horrible in her life. Tears streamed down her face as she watched him finish his story.

“Catriona told me that Lilian had fallen off the balcony to her death.”

She reached for him then, taking his handsome, shadowed face in her hands and turned him to face her, waiting until he met her gaze, until she was certain he was paying attention. “It was an accident.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

The confession devastated her, and suddenly she understood so much about him. “You were a child, and you were doing what you thought best. What you thought right. You didn’t kill her.”

“Fuck.” The curse came soft and shocking. “I didn’t, but it feels as though as I did. And it hurts still.”

She did the only thing she could think to do ease the ache in her heart. In his. She drew his face to hers, and kissed him, at first soft and tentative, as though he might push her away at any moment, as though she was intruding.

But he didn’t, he closed his eyes and let himself be soothed.

His next words couldn’t have surprised Siobhan more. “I told my mother and my aunt they are not welcome to live in Lenox Palace anymore.”

“Angus…”

He pulled her closer, cinched his arms as tight around her as he could. “I don’t want you sad; I don’t want you hurt. And I will do anything in my power to keep you happy and safe, Angel.”   

He wanted Siobhan with a deep yearning he couldn’t have explained. He almost told himself he loved her.

He fell asleep with his arm around her and woke the next morning in the same position.

‘If I fall in love with you, would it be an anathema?’  Her words came back to him as the emerald between her breasts winked at him in the early light. And if she doesn’t?

He shook his head to clear it of such an unsettling thought.

They had been together for months already. There was time for love to come. No need to rush at all.

From the bed, Siobhan watched as he went to his dressing room to change. Her fingers went to the necklace and fingered the green drop resting in the middle of her breasts.

She was right. The emerald had been a bribe. Not for her favors; he wasn’t a man who would pay for sex.

Siobhan was sure he wanted her to care for him—perhaps, love him?—and that was his way of asking for it.