“Nicholas…”
“Phillip,” he said quietly, staring at nothing. “Phillip is her son.”
“You are her son!” Julianna insisted. She had to, for she could hear in his familiar voice utter disgust and horror. She could see in his smoldering, steel eyes the rage, coiled and so masterfully controlled for years, begin to unravel. “Nicholas, you listen to me,” she commanded and took a step toward him with such force her curls flipped over her shoulders and jostled around her face. “She chose you, not to lie at her breast—she had me for that—and ’tis why he hates us. But because you needed her, she went to you in the same way I felt when Elias needed me. It bonded me to him instantly. Berengaria kept you as her own, giving you a name, William. ’Twas you she raised, you she loved, you and me. An orphan and a might-as-well-have-been orphan. Two for the one she lost.” She smiled at him.
He smiled back and pulled her into his arms. “I have missed you, my fire.”
His eyes were closing as if he could scarcely wait to kiss her, taste her.
She tilted her head and parted her lips, receiving him like water to a parched and dying soul. He tasted like need and truth. Love she could trust through anything, and though everything else had failed her, his love never had. It never would. She opened her mouth as his hands slipped over her curves, pulling her closer by the thigh and one buttock of her plump arse.
She met his tongue in an eager, seductive dance that heated their blood. His kiss grew deeper, more urgent.
Dragging both palms up her sides, he encircled her waist and lifted her off her feet.
She instantly coiled her legs around him and locked her ankles. Her long hair fell around them like a curtain. She felt him pause and then grunt as he took her arse in his hands. She wanted him desperately. She wanted to hurry to her room with him, bolt the door, and kiss him like this until their clothes came off and their bodies came together.
But what about Phillip?
He was her husband.
He was Berengaria’s son.
“Nicholas,” she whispered against his mouth and uncoiled her legs.
“Aye,” he sighed and closed his eyes as she slipped down his hard body.
“You are her son, but so is Phillip. We cannot kill him. We cannot do such a loathsome thing against her.”
He let her go. “Is this what you are thinking about while kissing me? Killing Phillip?”
She hadn’t meant for it to seem that way but, aye, it was true. It was what she was thinking about. “I am trying to keep a level head. Also, isn’t it better that I think about killing him and not kissing him?”
He stared at her as if she had just felled ten of his men. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, is it not?” she demanded.
“Aye, ’tis, but—”
“Do you disagree with me concerning Phillip and Berengaria?”
“No, but—”
“’Tis important to me, Nicholas.”
He pulled her close to him again and rested his chin on her forehead. “Mmhhnn…”
For her, this was the worst part. “We cannot kill him…and…he is still my husband.”
Nicholas shrugged his warm, wide shoulders. “We will go live in the Highlands, near my brother, Cain, and his wife, Aleysia.”
“Just like that?” She snapped her fingers at him. “What about Lismoor? You would be giving up the castle and your title.”
Her words drew a scowl from him.
“I do not care about titles.”
“What about the church?” she continued, not catching on to his deepening frown. “They will denounce us. King Edward will order our arrest.”
