Page 52 of Fire Dragon
“Yes. But I’m not without family. I have an aunt and an uncle. Cousins and second cousins. Still, the deaths of my parents left a huge gap.” She was still moving her arms and staying afloat though he watched her swallow hard.
He had to look away. He wasn’t sure why she was sharing this with him or what it had to do with her lack of focus during training, but these were core issues. They all had them.
God knew he had his own.
The image of his beautiful wife, just before she’d given birth, pierced his mind. She’d been so excited.
His throat tightened.
“Liam?”
He took a deep breath and forced the memories away as he turned back to her. “I’m here.”
She nodded. “The reason I brought up my parents is because I’ve come to believe that their deaths affected me more profoundly than I’ve realized. I have a long habit of throwing grenades into the middle of my relationships and I threw one the other night, when we were at the lake house—” she broke off and stood up on the sandy bottom of the pool. The water reached her shoulders as she turned to face him squarely. “I want to apologize for what I said that night, for mentioning your wife in such an offhand, insensitive way. I can only think of it with profound sorrow that I was so unkind. I hope you can forgive me. That’s what I wanted to say, what I needed to say to you.”
Once more, he slid his gaze away from her. The last thing he’d expected was a direct apology. He honestly thought she’d intended to reprimand him for cutting her off as well. “There’s no need.” His voice sounded thin to his own ears.
She half-stepped, half-swam toward him, closing the gap. Her proximity forced him to look at her. “There’s every need,” she insisted. “I’m ashamed of what I said. You didn’t deserve that. You’d been so wonderful, and the lovemaking had been amazing and incredibly satisfying. I think I got scared.” She lifted her hands out of the water and made a splash. “There. I’ve spoken the truth. I was feeling too much and threw my grenade quite perfectly straight at your heart. I’m so sorry.”
He let his knees bend and sank down into the water all the way to his chin. “Thank you for apologizing. I believe I understand what it cost you to talk like this.”
He felt uneasy suddenly, like there was something he needed to add or to explain. But the words wouldn’t come.
He decided a shift in subject was necessary. “Are you hungry?”
She smiled. “Starved.”
“Me, too. I’ll fire up the grill if you like. Or if you’d prefer to head home, that will work as well.”
“Your place is perfect.”
He stroked to the edge of the pool then levitated out of the water. As he gathered up their clothes and rose into the air, she once more flew beside him though she giggled. “All this cold air on my wet skin has me covered in goosebumps.”
He smiled as he ascended to his cave landing. Yet, his heart thudded all over again.
He’d bought the cave property after his wife had passed but he’d never brought a woman here before. He’d promised himself his home would remain sacred and solitary. Yet here he was inviting Emma in.
What the hell was he doing?
~ ~ ~
Emma had never flown through the air naked before. She was chilled but she couldn’t tell if it was the water evaporating off her skin or her just her nerves.
She hadn’t known what to expect when Liam suggested they head to Dragonslip Gorge. At the time, his apprehension had rippled from him. She’d known he hadn’t wanted this conversation.
Neither had she, for that matter.
Now she was approaching his cave landing.
She hadn’t seen the front entrance before while making their way to the waterfall. But she could see it now. Her jaw dropped as her brows rose.
The landing was halfway up the cliff so that it had been hidden among the trees. Once it came fully into view, she gasped softly. The entire face of the cave spanned several dozen feet and it was clear the massive carvings that surrounded an equally large front set of glass doors had been sculpted by a master. The doors alone had to be thirty feet high and were supported by antique bronze beams.
She gauged the landing to be fifty feet across. Large boulders gave shape to primitive landscaping dotted with a variety of evergreen shrubs. The surface of the patio floor, however, was pure polished rock so that the different colors of granite made its own mosaic over the entire surface.
As she descended to touch down beside Liam, her gaze swept the front elevation. She put a hand to her throat then forced herself to breathe. She had never seen anything so beautiful.
Additional windows lined either side of the carvings in two stacked rows allowing for plenty of natural light for the interior of the dwelling.
