Her face came closer.
‘I know you want me,” she said, trailing her fingers down his cheek.
He knew that this was wrong. He knew that he should push her away, gently but firmly, and flee back down the tower stairs, back to his room, where he could bolt the door and catch his breath and try to convince himself this never happened. But instead, as her lips moved to his, so close he could feel her hot breath against his face, he put his arms around her and pulled her close, crushing his lips to hersHer tongue slipped between his lips and found his and his head swam with the overwhelming, new, and utterly intoxicating sensation. She rubbed up against him as her fingers trailed down his cheeks and his hands seemed to move down of their own volition, pressing her still closer as they kissed, hungrily, sinking to their knees into the water pooling on the parapet. She helped him pull her soaked nightgown over her head, and as he removed his shirt, she fumbled with the wet laces on his breeches, loosening them just enough to pull them down and, without waiting for him to remove them, she pulled him down on top of her.
They made love in the pouring rain as the wind whistled through the battlements, and thunder rolled and lightning split the sky.
**chapter Three**
Aedan’s concerns about the emperor’s health soon paled in the face of new anxieties. He was racked with guilt over his affair with Princess Laera and filled with dread of being discovered, for contrary to what she had said that night, it was not enough for her to have, “just once,”
a man she could desire. She had to have him again. And then again, and again, and again.
Aedan felt helpless in the grip of conflicting new emotions. He knew it was madness to continue the affair, but at the same time, he just could not resist her. And he understood only too well that he was the one who had the most to lose. Laera was a princess of the royal house, and he doubted she would suffer very greatly if knowledge of their secret trysts came to light. The marriage with Lord Arwyn would surely be called off, but that would be just what she wanted. He, on the other hand, would take the full brunt of Lord Arwyn’s wrath, and under the circumstances, his father would be powerless to help him.
He could be thrown into the dungeons, or else challenged by Lord Arwyn, and he did not think much of his chances in such an event. The Archduke of Boeruine was one of the most powerful knights in the empire, whereas, Aedan reminded himself painfully, he hadn’t even been able to stop little Ariel’s assault. True, he had not really been fighting or paying very close attention for that matter, but he knew his skills as a swordsman were nothing compared to Arwyn’s. He had been training for only a few years, while Arwyn had won countless tournaments in addition to proving himself many times in actual combat.
But for that very reason, Arwyn might decide he was not worth challenging. He could simply have him tried and executed. It would certainly be his right. What if, in a careless moment, Laera allowed something to slip?
What if they were caught together? Or what if, anxious to escape the marriage, she were to reveal their affair on purpose?
Every possible scenario for disaster went through Aedan’s fevered mind, but when Laera’s eyes met his during dinner in the great hall, and she gazed at him with that conspiratorial, knowing look, his knees went weak, his heart pounded, and he wanted her all over again, despite the guilt and fear. Sexual awakening had come to Aedan with a vengeance, and one smoldering glance from Laera was enough to bring him to immediate, acute, an able attention.
They met several more times on the tower parapet where they had begun their affair, and then Laera accosted him in a castle corridor one evening and pulled him into a niche behind a tapestry, where they made love while, several times, people passed by in the corridor. The fear of being caught had added a dangerous excitement to their lovemaking, but afterward, Aedan never wanted to go through anything that nerve-racking again. Laera, on the other hand, had enjoyed it so much that she became emboldened to take still greater chances.
The next time, she found him in the stables, putting up the horses after he and Michael had gone riding, and they coupled in an empty stall, with the grooms brushing down the horses only yards away. It had been necessary for Aedan to cover Laera’s mouth so that he could keep her cries of pleasure muffled, lest anyone should hear. She didn’t seem to care. The risks they took only seemed to excite her all the more. And she would not be put off. She seemed to delight in the control that she exerted over him, and kept finding new ways to tempt fate.
She would tell him to meet her in the castle courtyard after dark, and they would make love in the shadows while the guards stood posted at the gate, less than a stone’s throw away. When a tournament was held in the fields below the castle, she took him underneath the stands, and they made love beneath the royal box, where the empress sat with all of Laera’s sisters and with Prince Michael and Lord Tieran at her side.
It was as if Laera wanted to be caught, thought Aedan, and the worst
