Page 37 of Never Love a Lord
“Of course she is,” Sybilla huffed. “How could she be anything but, to have saved a memento of a woman so quietly wretched and not to have sought her out through the king? She could have destroyed my mother at any time. My mother likely knew that.”
“Sybil asked me if I had met you,” Julian said, stroking Sybilla’s back now. “Of course I hadn’t yet, but even she had heard the tales of your boldness and success. We compared stories.” He felt a smile come to his mouth. Was this a dream? Was he truly comforting Sybilla Foxe in his arms? In his bed?
Her voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “Was she appalled?”
Julian frowned, looking down at the curve of her cheek, the crescent of her ear—all of her that he could see. “Appalled? No. She was quite pleased and intrigued, I daresay.”
“I would think it to be an embarrassment to her.”
Julian took hold of her shoulder then, and held her slightly away from him so that he could look into her eyes. “How could you say such a thing? Sybilla, how could you think yourself to be an embarrassment to anyone?”
Her eyes searched his hungrily, helplessly, and it was in that instant that Julian realized how frightened Sybilla Foxe actually was. How frightened she had likely been for so long, and how alone.
“You,” he said slowly, emphatically, “are alegend. You are amazing. Tremendous. Brave. Strong.” He paused, swallowed. “I would behonoredto even call you myfriend, to proclaim that Iknowyou. I would shout it from the very top of Westminster, and I would be the most envied man in England. In theworld.”
Julian was surprised when her chin flinched, her eyes filled with tears again. He had not wanted her to cry.
“Oh, but wait,” he said quickly, pulling a disappointed face. “There is one person you have likely embarrassed deeply.”
Her brow crinkled into a frown, but her eyes held their wetness at the brim without spilling over. “Who?”
He leaned his face close so that the tip of his nose barely touched hers. “The king, I’m afraid. I’ve seen him face a score of wild rebels alone in a foreign desert, and yet he can’t bring one tiny woman to heel in his own country. Quite humiliating for such a manly monarch, wouldn’t you agree?”
Then Sybilla Foxe actually giggled. And Julian felt such relief, even as her mirth caused a rogue tear to roll down her cheek.
“I’m not a tiny woman,” she objected.
“Oh, you give the impression that you are quite intimidating,” Julian said. “But there’s really almost nothing to you. Quite small, actually.”
She gave a short gasp of outrage.
“No, really, see?” He ran the back of his fingers down her face. “This jawline—delicate.” Down her throat and over her bare shoulder, where he encircled her bicep. “Your arms, strong, but slight.” Down to the curve of her waist, stopping just shy of the crest of her hip. “Your waist, fragile. Vulnerable. Your legs, so shapely, and yet you come only to my shoulder when you stand.” He was whispering now. “I daren’t go on.”
“Why?” she whispered back, and he could see a familiar spark in her deep and glistening eyes now. A glimmer of the Sybilla he had known since coming to Fallstowe.
“Because I want to so very much,” he choked, and skimmed his hand back up her side and to her arm, where he let the pads of his fingers swirl against the perfect satin that was her skin. “And I don’t wish to become a regret to you, Sybilla.”
Her gaze never wavered from his as her palms came to the sides of his face. Slowly, keeping him pinned with the ethereal blue of her eyes, she moved her head toward his. And then her lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she slid her open mouth onto his lips.
Julian’s eyes were open when Sybilla pulled away from his mouth. She looked up at him, their eyes little more than a hand’s-breadth apart, and she knew her desire had to be washed plainly over her face.
“Holy God, woman,” he rasped. “Sybilla, you must know, I cannot in good conscience take you when you have been so recently distraught.” The words seemed to dangle between them in the humid chill of the room.
“But?” Sybilla dared, looking at his mouth, unable now to look away from it, hungering for the taste of him on her tongue once more.
“But I am at your mercy,” he confessed, and even as he spoke he drew her even nearer to him, until her flesh was pressed against him, into him. “I beg you, have pity on me.”
His plea seemed anything but helpless, the fire in his amber eyes warming the skin of her face, and Sybilla could not slow her heartbeat. She didn’t want to. And she knew fully that it was not Julian Griffin who was at anyone’s mercy now.
“Pity you?” she said, unable to stop herself from reaching out her tongue and tasting him once more, just the slightest flick. “Julian—oh, Julian—how could I pity you when I can’t stop thinking of the things I want you to do to my body right now?”
She felt his sharp intake of breath before he said, “If they are even a shade of the things I want to do to your body, perhaps you should have pity on yourself.”
And then he rolled over on top of her, covering her chilled body with his own, pressing her head back into the mattress as his mouth descended on hers. Sybilla was lost in the hunger his kiss stirred in her, a deep, primitive want unlike any she had ever felt for a man before. It was vulnerable, frightening, consuming, and because she was so afraid of this cavernous depth of passion, she entered headlong into it, meeting it on the battlefield of Julian Griffin’s bed.
“Love me now, Julian,” she demanded in a mumble against his mouth when he drew away for a gasp of air. His right hand found her breast, stroked it too gently, making her squirm into him.
“Now?” he said in a taunting whisper. “Oh no, my lady. Not yet. Not for a while.” He kissed her hard, with a closed mouth, and only for an instant before drawing away completely and getting up from the bed.
