Page 12 of His Dark Delights
“Are you alright?” Ren asked, tugging my mind from a drifting haze. I glanced up at him through heavy lids and nodded.
Perhaps I should have felt shame for allowing him access to my body. I hardly knew the knight, and he might have fae blood on his hands after the state I discovered him in. He didn’t deserve any part of me, and yet I longed to share myself. I wanted to explore levels of pleasure with him that were previously unavailable tome.
He leaned over me and brushed a wild strand of hair away from my face. The gentle smile on his sensual mouth made my heart flutter, and a new current of energy lit me up from within.
“Will you share the bed with me tonight, Lilly?” That tentative question contained a storm of promise and passion.
No man in the village would want me for a wife thanks to my heritage. If I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity with Ren, it might never come again. I didn’t want to die of old age, alone and miserable, having never felt the touch of a lover. I knew what came next if I agreed.
“Yes.”
Ren’s darkened blue eyes lit up like the sky on a bright spring day. His smile widened, and I felt it against my lips when he leaned down and kissed me, softly, tenderly, as if that were our first kiss instead of the manic, consuming from before. That one was sweeter—a kiss I could hold on to and remember long after he left.
“Will you let me finish working on the barn now?” Ren asked, smirking.
I rolled my eyes and grumbled, “I’m too tired to argue. I’ll be cross if you open your wounds again.”
Ren sat up and placed his hand over his heart. “I swear I’ll be careful.” Something wicked gleamed in his gaze. “Trust that I know when to be gentle, Lilly.”
He put the shirt back on and left me blushing furiously. If I stayed in bed any longer, I’d keep replaying what happened in my head. I got up and fixed my dress in favor of distracting myself with chores. There wouldbe time later to reminisce, but the day was young, and the farm needed tending.
I made a light lunch of cheese sandwiches paired with fresh berries from the garden while Ren toiled, hammering away at the barn and anything else he deemed in need of fixing. He joined me in the pasture, settling in for a late lunch and watching my animals graze.
Millie stared at Ren while chewing grass, and I bit down a laugh. She studied him with suspicion, and I couldn’t blame her for it. We’d been alone out here for months before the knight had fallen into our lives. Having another person on the farm was strange at first, but welcome and refreshing now that he was awake and providing more than I would have dreamt possible.
“Can I ask you questions?” I asked before biting into a plump, red berry.
Ren chewed on a bite of his sandwich and nodded his permission. Though I noted a guarded wall rising behind his eyes.
“Where are you from?” I started.
“The capital,” he answered easily, confirming my suspicion he was a knight for the new king.
“I’ve never been to the capital. What’s it like?”
“To be honest, I spent most of my life hating it. My mother was the only reason I stayed, then I hated the capital more when I lost her.” His jaw flexed, and he briskly turned his head as if he hadn’t meant to say that. Tight-lipped, he cast his gaze to the thin clouds coasting across the pale mid-afternoon sky.
“I’m sorry.” Unthinking, I turned to relieve his misery. I reached out and placed my hand on his thigh. His next breath shuddered through him when he feltmy touch, and he cast his gaze down to my dainty hand on his knee.
“You understand how I feel, don’t you?” His eyes flicked up to mine.
“I do. Life hasn’t been the same without my father. One day he was here and the next he wasn’t,” I replied, skimming my thumb in circles.
“What about your mother? You haven’t mentioned her.”
I stiffened and pulled my hand back. Lips pursed, I held onto my answer until I knew what to say. I took a bite of my sandwich as I thought it over. Ren was a knight from the capital. Telling him the truth might mean my life.
“She left after I was born. I don’t know her.” Mostly true, and half a lie. In a biological and magical way, I knew her. “It hurts that she isn’t here, but I believe she had a good reason for leaving.”
“And what reason was that? I was so close to my mother. She wouldn’t have left me behind for anything other than death.” Ren seemed soured by his own experience and annoyed at the mother I’d never met for leaving me behind.
“It wasn’t safe for her to stay.” That was the only acceptable and vague answer I could think of. Then I shrugged and turned the topic back on the knight. “What of your father?”
Ren clammed up at once. His entire frame went rigged, and his fist clenched on his thigh until his knuckles turned bone white. He stared out at the pasture as if living through a memory that haunted him.
“All I got is an unwanted responsibility fromhim. He doesn’t matter now. My father is dead,” Ren answered after several brittle seconds of silence. He tore another bite from his sandwich, nearly inhaling half of it in one go.
I picked at the crust of my bread, uneasy with the waves of Ren’s soured mood rolling off him. Swallowing over a dry tongue, I said, “Well, you don’t have any responsibilities while you’re here with me. If you need a place to rest, I’ll give you that.”
