Dream of Me/Believe in Me

all the world as though he spoke in a tongue she could not comprehend. “Do we speak of the same thing? The night of the storm, you …”
    “I shared your bed. But I did you no harm and if you were frightened or offended, I am truly sorry.” He fell silent for a moment, remembering. The lit brazier. She must have done that and in the doing, seen him. Why then had she returned to the bed … unclad? A possibility teased at the edge of his mind, tempting him. Gently, going very carefully, he asked,
“Were
you frightened or offended, Krysta? Or did you by chance have other feelings I didn't recognize?”
    She answered so softly that he had to strain to hear her over the song of the wind. “A lady of true worth would not have such feelings.”
    The back of his neck prickled, the same way it would do on a battlefield when someone right behind him was about to split his head open with an ax. Then the appropriate response was simple and straightforward—if necessarily brutal. Now he had to go much more cautiously.
    “You think a lady shouldn't have feelings?”
    She darted a quick look at him before turning away. “Proper feelings, certainly, at the proper time and place. She should be … restrained.”
    He thought of how she had kissed him in the stable and spared a moment's fervent thanks that such restraint was foreign to her nature.
    “I think you have an odd idea of what makes a lady.”
    He was beginning to smile broadly at the realization that her chagrin came not from what he had done but from what he had not. What a fool he had been not to think of that sooner, and how much more pleasant these last few days would have been for both of them if he had. But done was done. It was now that mattered.
    “A lady is merely a woman of property and position,” he said. “Nothing more or less. To be a lady says naught about what is in a woman's heart.” He leaned closer and put his hand over hers on the rudder. “Nor does it say what
should
be in her heart. That is for her to decide.”
    Her eyes as they met his were doe-wide. She did not protest when he turned them downwind. The sail billowed, snapping in the stiff offshore breeze. They raced over the water glinting with the captured treasure of sunlight. Gulls circled overhead and a startled porpoise raised its head to watch. Krysta gasped when she saw a small island coming up swiftly directly ahead, but Hawk's hand tightened on hers and they deftly steered around it with almost no loss of speed. The wind changed direction slightly but he seemed to sense it before it happened and maneuvered so adroitly that the sail never sagged. Quickly, she realized that he close-hauled with steely skill, something she rarely dared to do. Sailing so close to the wind brought special challenges and dangers, but he clearly thrived on both. With a start, she realized that just perhaps she did, too, for never had she enjoyed a sail more.
    “Does anyone ever race you?” she asked, vividly conscious of the warmth and strength of his hand over hers.
    Hawk laughed and she felt the movement of his chest against her back. “Wolf and Dragon will, no one else. They win half the time, too.” He sounded pleased, as though he relished true competition.
    “What about you?” he asked. “How did you learn to sail?”
    “My father taught me. We used to go out together whenever he came to visit.”
    “Was that often?”
    “As often as he could. Between his visits, I would go out by myself. He didn't know that, though. I think he would have worried.”
    The thought of her as a child sailing alone along a coast the Danes had been known to raid before the Wolf of Sciringesheal established his iron hold over it made Hawk frown. “Did no one even try to rein you in?”
    She turned her head to look at him and was startled to discover how very near he was. So near that she could see the fine etching of lines around his light blue eyes and at the corners of his firm mouth. His skin was sun burnished and smoothly shaven. He smelled of soap and the sea. Her mouth was suddenly very dry.
    “I am not a mare, my lord,” she said softly. “There are no reins on me.”
    He reached around and took the rudder with both hands. She was effectively trapped within the circle of his arms. His breath was warm on her cheek, sending a delicate shiver down her back. “Then I suppose I'll have to resort to persuasion,” he said and caught her mouth with his.
    His kiss was swift and hard, leaving her