“You didn’t answer my question.”
“You ignored mine,” I say with a lift to my chin.
“I have thought about being a father.” He moves to the table and pours us both a goblet of wine. As he hands mine to me, he speaks. “I think six or seven children would do.”
I gasp, as he smirks again.
One more smirk, and I will pour my wine all over his arrogant face.
“I’m jesting with you.”
“Of course.” I shrug. “You will not bed me. Therefore, you will not give me a baby.”
He taps his thumb against the edge of the stoneware and studies me for several breaths. “It would only take once.”
Is he offering?
I shouldn’t react. Shouldn’t feel.
My body doesn’t care what I should or shouldn’t do.
Warmth floods my stomach at the thought of him climbing on the bed with me. It deepens as I imagine his mouth against mine. His hands pulling away my clothes.
“Once?” I allow my gaze to slide over his body. Slowly. Thoroughly. “You must have a remarkable set if you think you can give me six children and only bed me once.”
He returns the thoroughness of my gaze, staring long enough to cause more heat to flood my stomach. “We would start with twins.”
Twins?
I cough my wine back into my goblet as his smirk reappears.
Shift this conversation.
Shift it now.
I don’t listen to my own reasoning. “Do you have twins in your family?”
“Not yet,” he says so confidently, so assuredly, I think he means it.
He doesn’t.
He’s jesting with you.
“Now you’re the tease.” I walk to the basin and dump my wine into the pottery.
He moves to stand next to me and reaches for my left hand, the one with my binding tattoo. Gently, his fingertips brush against the raised skin as he brings me around to face him.
“You don’t know me. Nor do you know what I want, so don’t think I’m merely teasing you.”
“But you said you would never bed me.”
“I know what I said.”
This is foolish, a conversation meant for a couple who intend to stay wed.
It’s not for someone like me. Or someone like him.
If he were normal, he would have already bedded me.
