Page 84 of Dark Rival

Allie felt her heart race. “You want to know about the time we spent together?”

His expression threatened to crack. “Aye.”

She was stunned and thrilled. “Let’s sit,” she said. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

ROYCE SIMPLY STOOD, his arms folded almost defensively across his chest.

So Allie sat on the steps he’d vacated. “What do you want to know?”

His gaze was intense. “Everything.”

Allie realized he wanted every single detail of their time together—even the time in bed. Her heart lurched, and her body became terribly hollow. “Where do you want me to start?” she asked slowly.

“How did I find ye?”

Allie wet her lips, his gaze unwavering upon her. “It was as if you knew I was there, at Carrick. I was waiting for you in the hall with a glass of wine. I didn’t know you were from the future—I was expecting my golden warrior from this time, the same man who had appeared to help me fight the demons in South Hampton the night before. You drove into the courtyard in a black Ferrari and the moment you got out of the car, you looked into the window at me—as if you could see me, which you couldn’t possibly.”

His nostrils flared. “I’d ken ye were there. I’d sense yer white power—yer purity, yer beauty…yer heat.”

She inhaled, desire pooling. “You knew I was there, all right. You came into the hall like a man coming home to his bride.”

Royce stared, his gaze now silver. “I dinna think I’d forget the date.”

Allie was bewildered.

“I left ye in my home on September 6, 2007. I wouldn’t forget such a day, ever.”

She stood and hugged herself now, terribly serious—and acutely aware of the tension throbbing between them. It was so easy to feel his pounding pulse. “Now I understand, because when you came in, you greeted me without a pause.”

“And ye were pleased to see me?”

She nodded, smiling briefly. “I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t wait to see you, to make sure you were real and to be in your arms—and in your bed,” she said softly.

His eyes blazed. “Ye dinna ken I was my future self?”

“I was confused—but your aura was the same. Still, you had such short hair—you looked older—but I knew it was you.”

“And?” he demanded when she paused.

“You asked me if I wanted supper. I said no. You dismissed the housekeeper. I asked you if you had a brother and you said no. And then I asked if you had rescued me the night before.”

He stood so still he might have been a marble statue, but he was hardly made of stone. His aura blazed with red desire, and his leine billowed, exposing that desire.

She whispered, “You said you rescued me, but not the night before. You said you’d helped me over five hundred years ago.”

Royce didn’t move.

She felt moisture dripping between her thighs. “You took my glass of wine away and told me I talk too much.” Allie trembled. “And you told me you’d waited five hundred and seventy-seven years for me.”

He made a harsh sound. “And?” he demanded.

“You took me in your arms—you kissed me with your tongue in my throat—and then I was against the wall, and you lifted my thigh and your trousers ripped,” she managed.

He stared and she stared back. “How much pleasure,” he finally said, “did I give ye?”

“So much,” she whispered. “More than any man ever. We had sex in the hall, there against the wall, and then you took me to your bed, and we made love all night.” Her heart raced madly now. “I must have come a dozen times. So did you.”