She watched as he retrieved her jerkin, battling within herself. She wanted to ask him but she was afraid to know. He held it out to her and she turned around, pulling her hair out of the way and letting him dress her.
A blast of cool air came across the garden, hitting her in the face. It felt so good.
“John,” she managed. She sounded like someone was choking her. She licked her lips in hesitation. “Do you think maybe, you might want me again?”
His hands stopped on the laces, and then he tied them off and turned her around to face him.
“What do you mean?”
She couldn’t look at him. She pretended to fuss with a loose thread on her tunic. “I mean after we’ve completed our agreement.”
He tilted her face to him. Reluctantly she met his eyes. “I made you a second offer, didn’t I?”
She nodded. “To bear you an heir yes, but like you said, that could take no time at all.”
“What are you thinking?” he murmured. And then he leaned in, looking her face to face. “I’d have you, Alana, until the day I die.”
It couldn’t. No. Things like that didn’t happen to her. She shook her head, not believing it. “Really?”
“I tell you that I want no one else to touch you, and you still don’t see it?”
She drew in a long shuddered breath. The words I love you wanted so badly to come off her tongue but she couldn’t make them. No, he would have to say it first; she couldn’t humiliate herself like that. It would hurt too much if he didn’t say it back.
Darcy Branwyn 
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