again. Most important, he kept those warm strong arms around her. How absolutely lovely. To rest in his embrace, to feel his kiss in her hair, his heart beating a little fast like her own, but steady and true, too, under her ear.
She spoke dreamily, without lifting her head. ‘‘Hauk, you probably won’t believe this, but I came in here to talk to you.’’
‘‘Ah,’’ he said. ‘‘To talk. Always a danger, when you want to talk.’’
She faked an outraged cry and lightly punched his arm.
He stroked her hair. ‘‘Go ahead then. Say what you came to say.’’
She lifted her head. ‘‘I want to suggest something to you. And I want you to really think about it before you tell me it’s not possible….’’ He was looking at her. And she was looking back at him. And suddenly what she’d intended to say was the last thing on her mind. ‘‘Oh, Hauk…’’
He said her name again, ‘‘Elli…’’ The sound thrilled her.
With a hungry cry, she scooted up the glorious terrain of his big body to claim those beautiful lips.
Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as her mouth touched his. Elli didn’t know or care which storm—the one outside or the sweeter, hotter one between them—had caused the bright pulsing behind her eyelids, the lovely, echoing, booming crash that seemed to shake her to the core. She kissed him harder, longer, deeper.
And he didn’t hold back. He kissed her tenderly, passionately. He made her stomach hollow out and all her thoughts melt away to nothing but joy and a longing to be his. She rubbed herself against him, shamelessly eager, and she felt his response to her, knew that he was ready, so ready, to be hers.
But then he was capturing her chin, making her look at him. ‘‘We are foolish, worse than foolish.’’
She couldn’t argue fast enough. ‘‘Oh, no. That’s not so. Everything will work out. Just you wait and see.’’
His fine mouth curved upward. ‘‘You are, truly, an American.’’
She was so delighted to see his expression, she forgot to be irked at his superior tone. ‘‘Oh, Hauk. Look at that. I swear that’s a smile you’ve got on your mouth.’’
‘‘What man wouldn’t smile after kissing you?’’
She touched his lips, so soft when the rest of him was anything but. So soft and so perfectly designed for kissing…
‘‘Oh, Hauk…’’ Her eyes drifted closed and she lifted her mouth to him.
But just before her lips touched his and all rational thought could fly away, she remembered that she had something important to tell him. Her eyes popped open. ‘‘Wait.’’
He actually chuckled. ‘‘What?’’
She kissed the ridge of a crescent-shaped scar on his chin, because she couldn’t resist the temptation. But then she did pull back enough to say, ‘‘I was lying in that big, lonely bed in the other room, thinking…’’
He raised his huge arms, laced his fingers behind his head and lifted one eyebrow. ‘‘About?’’
She canted up on an elbow and laid a hand on his smooth chest, right in the center, where the lightning bolt zagged and a dragon reared, breathing fire. ‘‘My father.’’
He didn’t move. That one eyebrow was still arched, yet it seemed to her that his rare lighthearted mood had vanished as swiftly as the sun sliding behind a dark cloud. Lightning flared again, a blinding glare through the room, and somewhere out in the storm-dark sky, thunder boomed and rolled away.
‘‘Just listen to what I have to say.’’ She touched the hard line of his jaw. ‘‘Please.’’
‘‘I’m listening.’’
‘‘Everyone—my mother, my sisters, Hildy, Aunt Nanna and you, too—you all seem to think my father has something else planned for me. That there’s more going on here than a father’s desire to meet a daughter he’s never really known.’’
‘‘I never said—’’
‘‘Bear with me. Please?’’
He gave her a curt nod.
She spoke briskly. ‘‘So, then, what could it be, this other reason he’s sent for me?’’
‘‘We’ve spoken of this.’’ His gaze slid away. ‘‘I’ve told you I don’t know.’’
She reached up again, this time to touch his cheek. ‘‘Don’t look away….’’
He unlaced his fingers and dropped one hand at his side. The other hand he rested in the curve of her back—but very lightly, as if he didn’t plan on keeping it there for long. ‘‘All right.’’ He was frowning. ‘‘I’ll say it once more. I can’t tell you what His Majesty has planned for you, if anything, beyond what we already know—a time to speak with you, to see your face, to know the splendid young woman his infant daughter has become.’’
‘‘Splendid, huh? I like the sound of that.’’
‘‘It’s only the truth.’’
She trailed her hand down, so tenderly, and rested it once more against the dragon’s heart. ‘‘I think you do suspect his plans, Hauk.’’
‘‘It is not my place to—’’
‘‘Don’t say it.’’ She put her fingers to his lips. ‘‘I don’t need to hear it again. I sincerely do not.’’
He moved his head, to free his mouth from her shushing hand. ‘‘What do you wish me to say?’’
‘‘Nothing. Just listen.’’
He gazed at her coolly now. She wondered if this conversation would cost her the precious night to come.
No. She wouldn’t think that way. Once he heard what she had to tell him, he would cradle her close and kiss her, again and again. They’d hold back the dawn together.
And morning would find them all wrapped up in each other’s arms.
‘‘Hauk, I think my father has plans for me—wedding plans. I think you think so, too, and—’’ She cut herself off with a tiny cry of distress. ‘‘Oh, don’t do that, don’t… get that hard and distant look.’’
‘‘Why say such a thing?’’ His voice was ragged. ‘‘Why say it now, except to remind me that I betray my king—and that you and I have nothing beyond this moment, this moment that shouldn’t even be?’’
‘‘No. No, you don’t understand. You have to let me finish.’’
‘‘What do you want from me?’’ He dragged himself up against the padded headboard, took her by the shoulders and pushed her carefully away from him.
‘‘I
