Page 50 of Moon Awakening

Emily's face fell and her small hand dropped from his arm. "Very well. I will not keep you from your duties any longer with my unimportant problems."

"They are not unimportant," he denied, even though he had told himself that very thing only a second before. "I simply do not know what you would have me do to fix them. I will not have you treated as a servant and you must wait to see your friend until she and Drustan emerge from his quarters."

Which did not mean Lachlan could not think of anything to occupy Emily's time. He could, all too easily, but it had nothing to do with work and everything to do with getting her naked. He did not think she would appreciate his solution.

"At least let me stay in a room that is not a prison."

"You said you preferred to be kept from my people." She'd been adamant on that point.

"I was overwrought yesterday. I wasn't thinking clearly when I ran from you."

"Why?"

She looked at him as if she could not believe he had needed to ask. "I was kidnapped, then I discovered the only friend I have in the Highlands was to be forced into marriage to exact revenge on her brother, then you made me sit in that tiny boat to cross water so deep there is probably no bottom while your brother glared at me as if I were his worst enemy. When we landed on dry land, my emotions got the better of me."

"The water frightened you?" he asked, wondering if she would tell him the truth.

Knowing an opponent's fears made them vulnerable to you and she did not realize he knew hers already. He'd been shocked when he heard her and Cait talking about it. He had not smelled Emily's fear on the boat and he should have. Humans were not trained to mask their scent.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't want to die by drowning."

"A sound plan, but that does not explain your concern when you were in a seaworthy boat."

"The boat could have tipped. A wave could have crashed over the bow and knocked me into the water."

"I would have pulled you out."

She stared at him, an odd expression on her face. Then she sighed. "I don't expect you to understand, but I don't like the water and the sea terrifies me."

"Why?"

She looked away, her face schooled into an impassive mask that impressed him all the more for the fact that her features were usually so expressive. "It does not matter."

"I will be the judge of that. Tell me."

"You are even more demanding than my father."

"Did your father instill the fear of water in you because he was afraid you would drown?" It was not such an uncommon practice, but it was a foolish one. Better to teach a child to swim than to teach them fear.

She did not answer and she did not move. There was a quality to her stillness that bothered him. It was too absolute. She was barely breathing.

"Emily?"

She looked at him then and her violet eyes were filled with an agony he could not stand.

Without considering his next actions, he sat beside her on the bed and then pulled her into his lap. It was a measure of her inner turmoil that she did not fight his hold, but burrowed against him as if hiding from her own thoughts.

It shamed him that while she was so obviously upset, his body reacted to her nearness with primitive intensity. He wanted her and his sex was soon rigid with the need to take her.

Forcing his thoughts to other paths, he repeated, "Tell me."

She shook her head.

"Why not?"