Not a walk-in-the-moonlight sort of man, she thought. Yet it was strangely romantic the way he stood, watched, waited.
Her choice.
“Funny. So have I.”
Making her choice, she went to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It surprised her to find him there when she woke at first light. It surprised her to wish he could stay, and she with him, to take a day without responsibilities and duties.
But that wasn’t his way, and she had responsibilities and duties of her own.
She started to get up, to begin dealing with those responsibilities and duties, and in a room full of shadows, he took her hand.
“A moment. Sometimes the day starts too soon.”
“It does.”
He flicked his free hand toward the fire, so the flames came alive. “The bed’s warm, but you won’t be when you’re out of it. I’d have you stay in it and me with you if the world would just stop for one bleeding day. But it won’t.”
He sat up, shoved back his hair. “I need to go to the Capital. Likely I should’ve stayed there last night instead of coming back. I may be back tonight, or I may not.”
She sat up beside him and rubbed a hand down his arm, rubbed it down her own. “No strings.” On his baffled look, she got up. “It’s an expression,” she began.
“Aye. I know the meaning, I think.”
Since she was naked, she decided to put on workout gear. She’d just throw a jacket over it for her morning ritual with Bollocks.
“I think I see strings on Brian and Marco.”
“Yes, very clearly. They’ll have a lot to work out at some point.”
He watched her pull on leggings, a sports bra. “I like the clothes you wear to do your exercise.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Because they’re practical for the purpose?”
“No, though I suppose they are that as well. I’d like to use your shower before I go if you don’t mind.”
She walked back, sat on the edge of the bed. “Let’s do something. Let’s say when you come here, when I sleep with you, when you’re here in the morning, you don’t have to ask to use the shower, or eat something, or make tea or have a beer. Whatever.”
“I don’t want to be careless with you.”
“You’re impatient, often abrupt, occasionally dictatorial, but you’re not careless.”
“I was careless with her, I think. With Shana. It’s not excusing any of it, but I can look back and see I was careless in assuming we both knew what we had, and what we didn’t and never would.”
“I’m not Shana.”
“You’re not, no, and nothing like her. Nothing like anyone else. I shouldn’t be with you like this, that’s the truth of it. I shouldn’t have mixed things this way, but I have. My worry for you should be only as the key to protecting my world and yours and all the others. But it’s not now, and can’t be again.”
She pushed back the urge to stroke and soothe because that wasn’t his way either.
“I see, so it’s all on you. I didn’t have anything to say about it.”
“That’s clever,” he said as he rose. “You have an agile and clever mind. I admire it.”
Naked, he wandered to the window. “I’ve spent more than half my life as taoiseach. I’ll hold the sword and staff until I die, to protect Talamh. Odran may see that’s sooner than I’d like.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t.”
He looked back at her. “I don’t fear dying for my world, for my people. I wear the braid and have as a vow to fight, to give my life if needed, as my father did, as yours did. But I fear, as I didn’t, as I shouldn’t, harm coming to you. Not just for Talamh, but for myself.”
“So you’ll knock me down, insult my sword work, and mock my archery skills.”
“You have no archery skills, and aye, as often as I can, I’ll knock you down. That’s not being careless with you, as I see it. It’s the opposite.”
“I don’t have many relationship skills either, but I’m pretty sure of this. The fact that we have one, a personal sort of relationship, makes us both stronger.”
“And how are you figuring that one?”
“Because it matters more when you care. I’m going down to let the dog out and make coffee.”
Odd, she thought, as Bollocks bolted down the steps ahead of her, she’d never had a more romantic conversation in her life. She wasn’t sure what it said about either of them, but she was fine with it.