Heart Duel (23 page)

“Of course it's serious, but I do my best persuasion in bed.” He smiled with patent charm.

She shook her head, but felt heat creep into her cheeks. She suspected that he could persuade a woman to do anything if he was in bed with her. She wondered how long she could keep him satisfied, then blinked as she remembered that they were actually discussing marriage. He'd be a faithful husband, the Hollys always were, HeartMates or not.

“I'm going to the waterfall,” she said, using Flair to 'port to the cubicle. At a Word, the waterfall shot over the wide granite ledge above her and poured down. The music D'Holly had written matched and mingled with the water.

Marriage! She'd been married before, married for love—or what she thought was love, but Holm—she cut that thought off at the start. Marriage. Ethyn.

Ethyn Collinson had been the most innately gentle man she'd ever known. Now she understood it had been the contrast with her Father's inflexibility that had drawn her to Ethyn.

His sweet smile, his intelligence, and the strength of his Healing Flair that so complemented her own, all combined in one man; a common man with no Noble arrogance had proved to be impossible for Lark to resist.

She was being tempted—when her tumbled thoughts were not being swayed by her weak body—with an actual marriage offer from one of the most confident, virile, and powerful men on Celta. A man she wasn't even sure she respected. Oh, he had Flair enough, and cleverness, and honor—She stopped. Ah, the quality that redeemed him, his own sense of honor. An honor she believed he'd never betray. He'd follow all the rules and laws that governed everyone on Celta.

But marriage? How could such a blazing passion between them allow for anything other than a short affair? Not to mention the feuding of their Families. She winced. She'd actually forgotten that basic fact the moment Holm stepped into her apartment.

His mind reached for hers. “Bélla,” he called from outside the door.

She refused to let him have an open current between them, yet knew there existed a link on a basic level she couldn't reject or deny.

“I'll be right there!” she replied, using a whirlwind spell to dry and clothe her.

When she walked into the mainspace, he was lounging on the sofa, stroking its arm, with half-lidded eyes and a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. She tried to dismiss the hard thump of her heart at the sight of him. His shirt was open at the chest, but his breeches and boots were on. She knew they could vanish at a word.

The kittens stretched out on the back of the couch.

She summoned two icyblacktea cylinders from the no-time and brought one to him.

His eyebrows rose as he took it, making sure their fingers touched. “Being a hostess, Bélla? Retreating behind manners?”

Lark compressed her lips and chose a chair at an angle to the sofa. She was
not
getting on that couch again with Holm.

They sipped in silence, and Lark found herself too restless to sit. Leaving her half-full drink, she stood and drifted to a window. She didn't really see the courtyard gardens, but was intensely aware of Holm.

She heard the small click as he set his own cylinder down, then the slight intake of his breath.

“Open to me, Bélla.”

“No.” But she turned to face him.

He smiled lopsidedly. “Our previous rules of engagement, Bélla, physical or mental, but one connection.”

She hissed. The kittens looked at her admiringly.

With complete grace, Holm stood and strode to within a handspan of her, dominating her space. “You can order me from this apartment, and I will go, but it will not change the fact that there is something very, very strong between us. Do you want this unresolved before we meet at the ball, tonight?”

His scent crept into her nostrils, dazing her mind with remembered images of their passion. If he touched her, the craving for him and what he could give her would begin again. And if he held her, without passion but with the tenderness she felt underlying his demands, she would surrender utterly.

Appalled at the emotion he drew from her, she knew she'd gone too far to be cautious with him ever again, and too deep to be able to play a superficial lover. What had she done?

She couldn't retreat. “Please,” she said unsteadily, not meeting his eyes. Lark edged open her mind and their bond flashed between them, golden and pulsing and strong.

She felt rather than saw him narrow his eyes and come to a decision. He withdrew to the sofa and she found she could breathe deeper and could meet his pewter eyes.

“No flash-white sparks from my Bélla. I am not pushing too hard,” Holm murmured.

He was right. She felt slightly constricted, but not the feeling he'd ever hold her against her will, that he'd cage her until she was wild to escape.

“Now, Bélla,” he tapped his long, elegant fingers against the sofa arm. “Marriage.”

She met his gaze squarely and lifted her chin, denying all the yearning that swelled up inside her. “Make it easy on yourself, Holm, choose another woman.”

His lips curved in a smile. “What ever made you think the Hollys want it easy?”

“Is that why you're pursuing me? Because it's difficult?”

Holm looked annoyed. “Well, men don't want to have their courtship as complicated as mine, either. I simply want you to know that I won't be backing off because of anything that happens between our Families.”

Her brows lowered. “Your Family doesn't know you're courting me.”

“Of course—”

She lifted a hand. “No, I believe they know you're wooing someone, but not me, not a Hawthorn.”

The muscles in his shoulder shifted a minute amount. It was enough for Lark. “They don't know,” she repeated.

His gaze remained steady. “You're the woman, the
Lady,
I want as a wife. No other. My Family must accept that. Will accept it.”

“How can you say that. You love your Family—”

“And you don't?”

“Of course I do.”

“So you know how much it hurts when you're estranged. I'm sorry about that, Bélla.”

She ignored his gentleness. “This won't work.”

“My Family won't hate you because you're a Hawthorn, Bélla. They don't see just a Family when they look at a person, they see the individual.”

“They'll disown you.”

“No, they won't.”

She sighed in exasperation. “This won't work.”

“I'll make it work.”

Another thought struck her. “Are you wooing me because I'm a Hawthorn? Is this how you want to mend the feud?”

His mouth tightened. He cut the stream of energy between them. “I need to touch you.”

Lark retreated a step and lifted her palms. “No sex.”

He stood and looked down his straight nose. “I'm perfectly capable of restraining myself when I must, but I need to touch you.”

Holm walked over and curved his hands to frame her face. He searched her eyes. A smile played around his lips. “Would it impress you that I'd marry to stop a feud?”

Her eyes widened. “Perhaps.”

“To impress you I might say that. But I don't run from fights, Bélla, you know that.”

“Marrying to stop the feud,” she said, consideringly.

His hands dropped to her shoulders and he gave her a little shake. “Don't think you'll marry me for that reason. I won't let you.”

She shook her head. “It wouldn't stop the feud, anyway. My Father would disown me. Our relations are already strained.”

“I'm sorry for that.”

“Find another woman, Holm.”

“I'm going to marry
you
.”

“Why?”

He opened his mouth, closed it, then sent her an easy smile. “The simple reason is that I want you, Bélla. Very much. More than I've ever wanted any other woman. We match, physically,” He pulled her against him, and moved his hands down her back stroking. “We match mentally. Our connection is effortless and strong.” His mind skimmed against hers, containing just enough sensual hunger to fire her own. She couldn't refuse him.

Seeing nothing but disaster in their future, she pressed her face against his shoulder and allowed herself a whimper.

“Don't, Bélla,” he whispered in his hair. “If we are careful, we can make this work.”

Sardonic humor quirked her mouth. “I am known to be a careful person. You are not.”

“I am if the stakes are high enough. These are the highest stakes there are.”

His words stirred her hair and tickled her scalp. She stepped back. He kept one hand on her upper arm and clasped her fingers in his other hand. He put her palm on his chest, pressed his own palm against the softness of her breast to feel the pace of her heart.

“Open to me, Bélla.”

He held her with such care, she couldn't refuse. The tie between them opened, redoubled, surged, until their hearts beat in time, they breathed together. “We have this bond, Bélla.”

She cut the link.

He caught her shoulders. His eyes darkened to storm-cloud gray. “I'm not an inexperienced fool, I know how precious our connection is, how strange and powerful and wonderful. I'm not going to let you deny it, or refuse to act upon it.”

“You want the bond.”

He tunneled his fingers through his hair. “You want it, too. Should want it. Me.”

“What I want isn't my only consideration.”

“You would throw away something special because of this—this feud between our Families? Time for harsh words, I think. Did you have a bond like this with your husband?”

She flinched. That arrow hit solid and true. Her lips were dry. “I won't speak of my husband with you, Holm.”

“Just this one question, Bélla. I think you owe me that.”

“I don't know what I owe you. I don't want to owe you, I don't want you to owe me! I don't want—”

“We are lovers. Not onenight lovers, not reckless lovers involved in a fling, but two who care for each other, more than affection, more than—”

“No!” She put her hands over her ears, then angled her fingers to massage her temples.

Silence simmered for a long moment. She sensed the impatience prowling inside him, but he didn't move from where he stood. Perhaps he longed to push her with words, with caresses, with the strong will of his mind, with the emotional attachment between them, but he didn't. He refrained. Because he didn't push, she found the strength to answer his questions honestly.

When she looked at him again, his face was taut.

“No, Holm, my husband Ethyn and I never had such a link as the one that's developed between you and me.” She shook her head in confusion, puzzling how such a thing had sprung so quickly into being. Then she took a deep breath and continued. “And no, I never reached the sort of sexual climax with him that I have with you. We never—He never—” She stopped.

Holm's eyes gleamed. “I think there are many ways of loving you've never tried. Time to expand your horizons—our horizons. I promise—”

“Holm, please. We've only met a handful of times. We've just become lovers. Can't you give me some time? Not only is the resolution of the feud between our Families uncertain, but I'm uncertain of the suddenness of this attraction—uncertain of myself.” A gleeful thought pounced and she gave it voice. “Since you insist on comparisons, I knew and worked with Ethyn daily for over two years before we married, and we didn't become intimate until our wedding night.”

Horrified amazement appeared in his widened eyes. He paled and cursed softly. She didn't quite catch his mutter, but it sounded like “The man was an idiot.” She ignored the words.

Then his spine straightened and his head lifted with all the arrogance and pride inbred in a Nobleman. The mannerism irritated her, but not as much as before. This was Holm, after all, and Holm only took himself seriously sometimes.

He set his fists on his hips and studied her intensely.

It looked as if this was one of those times.

“You and I linked and participated in GreatCircle Rituals for
three
years when we were younger, Bélla. We've known of each other and our Families all our lives. We've become lovers and reached a level of sensuality and a sexual height I've never known. We have a strong, emotional, and intimate connection.”

And it sounded as if he'd thought about their relationship seriously.

“I need time,” she said.

Holm frowned, rocked forward as if he wanted to stride over and snatch her up, then settled back into his solid stance.

“I'll give you as much time to answer my proposal as I can. But I won't let you deny the bond between us, emotional, spiritual, or physical. I'll be here in your bed tonight, Bélla.”

“We must be discreet,” she whispered.

He grimaced and jerked his head in a nod. “Yes. Much as I hate it, we must be discreet.”

“I'll see you at the ball.”

His shoulders slumped in exaggerated dejection even as his fingers snapped Meserv from the couch into his hands. He cradled the plump kitten gently, and Lark felt another bit of the shield surrounding her heart from this man crumble. He shifted Meserv to one broad shoulder.

Holm 'ported his wreath to land on his head. He looked incredibly sexy, a manifestation of the Green Man or the Green Knight of their culture. Breath stopped in her throat.

“I owe you a gift from my own hands. Be sure you'll receive one from me.” The way he emphasized the words, she'd have thought he offered a HeartGift, but neither of them had HeartMates. She wondered what his creative talent was.