“She’s dead,” Deirdre replied, yawning again.
Damn. She was utterly alone, and he felt utterly responsible to ensure she was going to be okay. How the hell was he supposed to do that? “Do you have other family?”
Christ. Now he was skipping down the damn path.
She shook her head. “My father did nae have siblings, and my uncle from my mother’s clan died some time ago.”
When she yawned yet again and her eyes took on a heavy look, he reached over with his right hand to the plaid his mom had set beside him before she’d gone to sleep. He shook it out and indicated to it. “Sleep here. I’ll watch you.”
“Ye will watch me? Why?”
“You hit your head so you could have a concussion, which is an injury to your brain.” When her eyes grew wide, he rushed on to ease her mind. “I doubt it’s serious. If it was, I think you’d be throwing up, but I’m no doctor.”
“What would I be throwing?” she asked.
“Food out of your stomach,” he teased, watching as she shifted out of his arms and crawled onto the plaid. She moved like his cat, Cupcake, agile and effortless. Actually, he realized, smiling, Deirdre reminded him of Cupcake in other ways, as well. Deirdre was gorgeous and guarded. He suspected it had to do with her past and how she’d been treated.
As Deirdre settled onto her spot, he thought about Cupcake. She had long, creamy fur sprinkled with streaks of gold and gray that invited you to pet her, but she wasn’t sweet as her name implied. He hadn’t named her. He’d picked her up from the shelter when his shrink had insisted that caring for something, being responsible for a living thing, would eventually make him come completely alive again and teach him life was about taking risks after something bad had happened.
He’d bought that damn cat every toy known to Cat Land and the most expensive food he could find. He’d let Cupcake sleep on his bed, almost always on his feet, and he would pet her despite the fact that she would randomly try to scratch or bite him for no explainable reason. For a year, he’d gone on this way. He’d allowed the temperamental feline to rule his house and hadn’t gotten angry at her for her ways because the people at the shelter had told him that Cupcake had been abused by her previous owners. He understood she would have trust issues. He’d been determined to give Cupcake the best damn life, and one day he’d come home to find Cupcake gone. That was a year ago.
“Why are ye smiling at me?”
He focused on Deirdre, and in a split second, decided to risk being truthful. His shrink would be proud. “You remind me of my cat.” Her offended look made him chuckle. “It’s a compliment, I assure you.”
“How so?” she asked, her frown deepening.
Damn. How did he keep putting himself in these sharing situations with this woman? He hadn’t had this problem once since the car accident, and now it just kept coming. He sure as hell was not going to tell her all his thoughts, like how her guarded actions were likely a result of her past or how he was trying to figure out how to ensure she was okay when she was left behind, so he said, “You move with easy grace.”
Her mouth formed a perfectO, and she stared at him for a long moment. Then her eyes narrowed. “Flowery compliments will nae get me on my back for ye to bed me.”
“First,” he said, irritated that his mom had planted this seed about him in Deirdre’s mind and curious if Deirdre was as innocent as her words made her seem, “I am not trying to bed you. I assure you, my reputation has been greatly exaggerated. And secondly”—he decided to pitch his voice low and go in for the kill, a habit of his silver tongue of years gone by—“what makes you think I’d want you on your back to bed you?”Bedwas such an odd word, but he felt like the wordsexmight seriously offend her.
“Is that nae how it’s done?” she blurted. She was lying on her side now, head resting against the palm of her hand. The moon shone down on her, making her blond hair look as if it glistened. Her gown had fallen forward just enough that the swell of her breasts was barely visible, but itwasvisible. Her waist was small, her hips curved, and her innocence damned alluring. She was beautiful, and he wanted her, but he would not act on that desire. Hell no. He would be good. He would control himself. Thank God his mom, aunt, and uncle were nearby.
“You’ve never been bedded?” he asked, knowing damn well he should not have. He was running down that trail of personal questions now, except these questions were raising the heat level in him by so many degrees he’d need to take a dip in a cold lake soon.
“Of course nae!” She gasped. “I’ve never been wed.” Her eyes popped wide. “Do women in yer time let men bed them when they are nae wed?” she whispered.
He sat up and drew his knees toward him. He rested his forearms on his knees as an image of Deirdre splayed out in naked, desirous glory danced before his eyes. Her lips were parted, eyes barely open, blond hair fanned around her. Christ. His mouth was suddenly dry. He cleared his throat, feeling his blood pump through his veins, pushed hard by desire. “Not all women, but some, yes. Some are in love, and some…well, some—”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that some women just wanted the pleasure sex could give them. He didn’t want to destroy her innocence, and he hoped she could have both pleasure and complete intimacy, though it felt unsettling to think about her having sex with a man. Well, not him. It didn’t feel odd to imagine that. It felt right. Too right.
“Some what?”
He thought about how to answer. “Some just want to feel and some don’t want to think, and sex, umm,beddingcan help someone do both those things.”
She pursed her lips. “That seems wrong to me. I will nae be bedding anyone until I’m in love and wed.”
“That’s a good plan,” he assured her. If he’d had any intentions of anything with her, which he didn’t, but if he had, he’d just detonated the possibility.
She stared at him for a long moment, as if she wanted to say something but was battling with herself. Finally, she bit her lip, then said, “I would think bedding without love would be empty and make one feel lonelier. Ye should think on that.” She flipped onto her other side so her back was presented to him. He’d just been reprimanded like a naughty boy, so why the hell he was grinning, he couldn’t say.
Chapter Eleven
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
