Guardian (14 page)

I carefully put my hand to her waist and her body jumped making me assume my hands were cold.  I doused the man in me and what it craved.

My thoughts went back to the scratch.  It was not an injury a man complains about, but it felt like my finger was burning through to the bone.  The ceremonial wash enforced a sting the second it hit, but this was dang painful.

“So ask me!”

“Ask you what, my Grace?” I snapped back to her pissed off and afraid I would say something I shouldn’t.

“You know, the down on one knee kind of question that we half human girls dream about.”

I eased into a smile catching her hints that I often did not, “In our world betrothed and engaged have different meanings.  The right time will come when I ask you that question the proper way and with style.  As you say, you half human women want the fairy tale I hear.  I shall deliver in due time.”  I smiled down at her.  The one she liked.

“So what happens next?” she purred at me. “When we wake up tomorrow?”  I stopped moving.  Was she really being that blunt?  She wanted...

“Uh…” she stammered.  She swallowed hard, “I mean what happens in the morning?  What kind of things does a prince do?”

Oh!  She didn’t mean...

She closed her eyes and said, “I mean like, business to attend to.  Oh, you know what I mean?”   She was embarrassed.

Oh good!  As awful as my body was checking into the idea of owning every single detail of her body on mine, that wasn’t in the plan.  For now. 

I would value her virtue if it took every ounce of torture to myself to do it.  Physical pain would be my best friend for a little while longer.

I dipped her just slightly and allowed myself to brush my lips slowly along the jaw line to her neck and even a little further. And then I wanted to see her eyes.  I wanted to know that I could affect her.  I had to know.  Her face was delicious.

“You needed saving, my queen?”  She just grinned in an upward motion.  I didn’t mean for my voice to be so suggestive, but there it was.  Sometimes my body took on a mind of its own when she looked at me that way.

“You shouldn’t do that to a girl.  You could give her wipe lash.”

“Counting on it!”

“I’ve not seen this side of you.” She seemed light and feathery to hold in my arms. 

“Enjoy it. You just agreed to it for life,” I reminded her.

She breathed out, “Counting on it!” She smiled, liking what she said. 

“Well, in answer to your question…”  I wanted her full attention, “I don’t really know what will happen tomorrow, Grace.  I’ve never done this either.”  She bit her lip.   She shouldn’t do that.  And then again, yes she should! 

Her face changed, gathered up at little, “Where will I stay?”

I watched her lips say the last four words, saying nothing.

“At night?”

Hell, she was killing me here.

In her head she called it a guy thing.  Yes ma’am.  At least you know what you’re up against. 

“Ian!” she broke my crazed thoughts saying my name louder a second time though I hadn’t answered her the first time.  She rocked her face slowly back and forth in front of me.

“Um—

“Grace, I’ve no idea how or what to do next,” I confessed letting go of the breath I’d held.  I’d never courted a girl. “Whatever happens, I want to figure it out together.  No other half human has ever been queen, so no seer or any of the Fey can tell us what will happen next.  We are making the future as we go.  And otherwise, I’ve only seen families created for decades and have never desired to create my own.”  I held my breath again waiting.  She thought I was mixing business and us all into the same conversation.  I was!

“Can I ask you something?” She blinked back what I thought I saw was tears.  “Do you like me for me or is it just the prophecy?” she said despondently.

In shock, I pulled her closer up against my growling chest and stopped dancing.  Her warmth washed over me.  Until then, we’d swayed together holding each other.  Everyone had left the garden.  We were alone.  My jaw tightened, “Grace, you can’t imagine how I feel right now.”  She touched my stomach, smoothed her fingers over my abs.  Hell, do that again. 
 

“For once I wish I could read your mind.”

“I’ll confess something.  I seem to do that a lot with you.”  I cupped her cheek.  “I’ve loved you for years.”  She looked down and I instinctively pulled her chin up to meet my eyes to be sure she had the full effect of what I was about to say for the first time in my life. “I love you!”   The feeling was amazing.  “There are hungers inside of me that even I don’t understand.  But you were really young when I first realized I was falling in love with you,” I tilted my head and twisted my mouth up.  I remembered the day very well.  Kinsler. 

“I may understand more than you realize,” she told me.

I continued, “I wasn’t content with being just your friend, Grace.  But I had no choice.  THEY were always watching.”

“THEY?”

“The Unseelie Court.  Others too…who would have you dead to stop the prophecy.”

“Oh!”

“If I’d for one second, shown the way I felt, they’d have broken the treaty.”  The response she gave didn’t help my resolve to keep my hands off her.

“What treaty?”   She was upset, but she went with it.

“The treaty that said no human or Fey could form more than a friendship bond with the future queen until the prophecy was fulfilled.  The queen sealed the treaty to protect you from the Unseelie court.  Their prince dishonored their court shortly after going into exile to attempt to end the treaty and have you captured and maybe even dead.   The two courts keep each other’s interests well watched.  I’m not the only one who kept things hidden. They were watching too. But he didn’t succeed.” 

“And?” her eyes narrowed.

“If I acted as a normal human teenager as I really wanted too, I’d have asked you on a date long ago, courted you even.  When you went out with that bozo, Luke, I just about, well…” I made my aching heart look her in the eye, anger and something dangerous brewing.

“Wow!  All that!  And I only went out with that BOZO to see what you would do.  All I did was think about you the whole night.”

“I know!” I smiled impishly.

“YOU!” She slapped my chest playfully and blushed.

“Doth thy maiden blush paint your cheeks?”  Her favorite play.

“Okay Romeo. Cool it.” 

I snickered, “Don’t be embarrassed.  I think a lot about your eyes too.  That’s all you did the whole night.  I wanted to be the one out with you that night gazing into your beautiful eyes.”

WAIT! I thought.  Her eyes!  I stopped moving.

“Wait a minute.  Your eyes are not changed.  They didn’t change,” I paused with my hand flying to my chin, rubbing.  I needed to pace.

“What? Were they supposed to?” 

“Something had to have gone wrong.”  I thought for a second and stepped away tapping my fingers on my chin in a steady beat to help me think.  I didn’t like this. She frowned when I looked at her and it was killing me not to just listen and see why she was upset.  “What are you thinking?” I asked urgently and stepped back closer to her.  I purred like a man shouldn’t then realized the fierce desperate carelessness of the situation and the way it sounded in my voice. 

“Um, wondering why you’re acting crazy suddenly?” That was all she said to me.

“No, really?” I was frantic so sarcasm was causing rudeness and she didn’t deserve that.

“Um, I’m getting scared about the way you’re acting.” She backed away saying it.  Sure enough, she’d never seen me panic to this magnitude.

“Exactly what you are thinking?  You’re exact words,”   I put my finger on her cheek for proximity.  I didn’t want to stop touching her, but didn’t want to warn her off by being creepy.   Probably too late.  Man, if she hadn’t bit that sweet bottom lip. 

She closed her eyes and told me I scared her, inside and out.  “You are scaring me! That’s what I thought just now.”

Her arms tangled in front of me and a surge of pain hit my heart.  I worried her silent thoughts were a bad sign.  I was going to lose her.  And then…

When our lips met, she tasted sweet, soft. She froze her lips to mine.  Her bottom lip tested to see what might happen next.  When it opened just a small amount the sweet breath that tortured me for years invaded my senses.  I was lost and this girl hadn’t laid one finger on me.  She managed to pull one hand free of my tight hold on her.  When her finger pressed against my neck, I lost it all over again.  I let go of the kiss, then an overwhelming urge to have more made me press in, more urgent.  My teeth pressed into her bottom lip.  Feeling.  Again.    I forced myself to gain control and felt the heat warm her all over as she stayed so still.  I didn’t want to go forward.  I didn’t want it to end. 

“I can’t figure you out,” she parted her lips to whisper into my mouth.  “You make no sense sometimes.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it.  That was just…wow.  But you seem to be deep in thought and suddenly…bam.” 

Moving to be eye level and be sure she understood exactly what I was about to reveal, “I can’t read your mind right now.” 

“Good!” she said smugly. 

“No, Grace, I CAN’T READ YOUR MIND AT ALL!”

When the reality of it hit her, she let me talk attempting to figure it out herself.  After a while, I thought of the scratch, her possible part in creating it, and a million other hints to the solution.

I moved to kiss her again and she let me making her shudder all over.  I took my time kissing her several times in slow motion to keep the thoughts from returning.  To just feel her. 

“I don’t know.  I think…when we had the betrothing ceremony you scratched my hand.   My theory, the scratch altered the outcome somehow.  Only a theory.  I’m not sure what to think until we figure a little more out.  That seems too simple.”

“I’m not the queen?” she sounded disappointed.  It was a three-sixty turnabout!  “No, I don’t think that’s the case or Lazyra would have known.”

“I think…that it altered …I don’t know.  But we will find out, won’t we?” Rion summoned me clearing his throat.  

“You can’t read my mind!” She danced and sang like she’d just heard it. 

“Don’t look so happy,” I sulked at her happiness.  Rion relayed the message that was important, but far from my mind at the time.

“Oh, but I am.  And I’m not. You have no idea how embarrassing it is.  Do you think it will come back?”  

Heck if I know.  “I’m not sure, but never be embarrassed by what I know.  Your thoughts kept me going for years.  And the trampoline nights,” I touched her chin as she shied away, lifted it and place a soft peck on her chin.  Man if her cheek didn’t warm under my lips.   

“What are you thinking? I can’t read your mind,” I thought with a little frustration. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she chuckled and raised her thin—darker than her hair— eyebrow at me.  I loved studying every part of her.  “Did you know whiplash involves a kind of muscle spasm?  Could be fatal.” 

I laughed.  “Why, is that what you want for your birthday?”

“You are my birthday present.”

I furrowed my brow and she put her hand on my face to smooth it.  No friggin’ way was I moving if only to get her to do it again. “I’ve always wanted to do that!” she paused, “Well, I’m feeling like I want to dance again,” she pouted that lovely lip of hers to get what she wanted. We danced with no music. I whispered after a while, “It’s late!”

“Since your offering gifts, can I request one?”  I knew what she was trying to do—give me the girl who gets everything with the simple bat of an eye.  Anyone else, nada.  Grace, I was wrapped around her little finger long ago. 

“Anything,” I said.

She put a hand around my neck like she knew exactly what she was doing to me.  I was right.  I knew where she was headed. Even so, I felt myself smile. 

I held her gaze like she did mine.  Not reading her mind was excruciatingly painful.  She slid her top lip over mine and down across the bottom and back up.  She seemed to be an old pro at this bold kitten stuff.  Only I knew different.  I knew full well I’d just indulged in giving Grace her first kiss.  And now, she was kissing me back.   

Then...her tongue slipped out and into my mouth.  My audacious Grace.  Fine.  I can play too.  When my tongue racked across her top teeth, her feet loosened just as I predicted. Now I had control. 

I smiled down at her refusing to let her go when Bane and Eric, the best trained guards of the court, walked over. Kinsler wouldn’t leave the grounds insisting on having a second with Grace declaring he earned the right to it.  She heard me ask if he was out there, but of course didn’t know
who
I meant. I stationed her two guards at her door.  Quietly I asked if we were completely surrounded.  She heard that too. 

“Let me walk you to your room,” my voiced deepened unexpectedly with the thought of leaving her for a few minutes or a whole night.  Danella had a watchful eye on me so I signaled for her keep an eye out for her until Kinsler was gone.  Thorough she was when it came to keeping me on my toes about Grace.  Yes, I wanted to know each and every freckle located on every inch of her smooth skin.  Yes, I wanted to hide her away from any eye that could take what is mine. Not mine how I wished.   But no, her virtue was not at stake by any means, except in my fantasizing.  I kissed her hand, careful to keep my eyes on hers and watched her close me out for a long ten hours without her.   Safe.