Chapter 13
The guy was a snuggler. He just curved in, body to body, with an arm hooked around her waist—the way she imagined a kid might hold on to a teddy bear.
Blair just wasn’t used to having someone hang on to her at night, and couldn’t decide if she liked it or not. On one hand, it was sort of sweet and sexy to wake up with him wrapped all over her. Everything was all warm and soft and cozy.
On the other, if she had to move fast, get to a stake or a sword, he was dead weight.
Maybe she should practice breaking loose, rolling out, reaching the closest weapon. And maybe she should relax. It wasn’t as if this was a permanent situation.
It was just…convenient.
And that was a stupid attitude sunk in bullshit, she admitted. If she couldn’t be honest inside her own head, her own heart, then where?
They were more than a convenience to each other, more than compatriots. More, she was afraid, than lovers. At least on her side.
Still, in the light of day she had to be realistic. Whatever it was they were to each other, it couldn’t go anywhere. Not beyond this. Cian had spoken the pure truth in Ireland, outside of the Dance. The problems they faced were a lot bigger and more important than one person or their personal needs and wishes. And so their personal needs had to be, by definition, temporary.
After Samhain it would be over. She had to believe they’d win, that was essential, but after the victory dance, the backslapping and champagne toasts there would be hard facts to face.
Larkin—Lord Larkin—was a man of Geall. Once this was done and she’d completed the mission, Geall would be for her, in a very real sense, a fairy tale again. Sure, maybe she could hang around for a few days, have that picnic he’d talked about. Bask a little. But in the end, she’d have to go.
She had a birthright, she had a duty, she thought as she touched her fingers to Morrigan’s cross. Turning her back on it wasn’t an option.
Love, if that’s what she was feeling, wasn’t enough to win the day. Who knew better?
He was more than she’d ever expected to have, even in the short term, so she couldn’t and wouldn’t complain about her luck, or her destiny, or the cold will of gods. He accepted her, cared for her, desired her. He had courage, a bone-deep loyalty, and a sense of fun.
She’d never been with a man who possessed all that, and who still looked at her as if she were special.
She thought maybe—it wasn’t impossible—he loved her.
For her, Larkin was a kind of personal miracle. He would never walk away from her without a backward glance. He would never shove her aside simply because of what she was. So when they parted, there could be no regrets.
If things were different they might have been able to make a go of it. At least give it a good, solid try. But things weren’t different.
Or, more accurately, things were too different.
So they’d have a few weeks. They’d have the journey. And they’d both take something memorable away from it.
She kissed him, a soft and warm press of lips. Then she poked him.
“Wake up.”
His hand slid down her back to rub lazily over her ass.
“Not that way.”
“’S the best way. Feel how firm you are, smooth and firm. I dreamed I was making love with you in an orchard in the high days of summer. For you always smell of tart, green apples. Makes me want to take a good bite of you.”
“Eat enough green apples, you get a bellyache.”
“My belly’s iron.” His fingers trailed up and down the back of her thigh. “In the dream there was no one but us two, and the trees ladened with fruit under a sky painted the purest of blues.”
His voice was all sleepy and slurry, she thought. Sexy. “Like paradise? Adam and Eve? An apple got them in big, bad trouble, if memory serves.”
He only smiled. He’d yet to open his eyes. “You look on the dark side of things, but I don’t mind that. In the dream, I gave you such pleasure you wept from the joy of it.”
She snorted. “Yeah. In your dreams.”