She wanted to look up and smile at Michael. She didn’t need him to carry her. She wanted him to. “Perhaps,” she allowed in a weak voice.
He swooped down and fit his arms under her knees and under her back. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing. In fact, he told her so.
“You’re very light.”
“You are very strong,” she countered and coiled her arms around his neck.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked after a moment of staring into her eyes and seeing the truth there.
She grimaced and rubbed her belly. “No, I’m afraid not.” She didn’t want to lie to him but she couldn’t let him know that it was all a ruse to get rid of Sebastian. Michael was clever. He would want to know why she wanted Sebastian gone when he began talking about the Horsemen. She wanted no ties to them.
“I will carry you to your bed.”
His voice played like a melody across her ears. Before Sebastian had interrupted them, Michael had been telling her how he’d stoppedworking outa few months ago and was letting himself go fat. She’d moved closer to him and boldly reached out to feel his belly. He had not gone fat. He was wonderfully firm. She had wanted to feel more of him. She didn’t think he would stop her, though he’d told her he hadn’t had time for women and had not been with one in six years. She wondered how he kept their hands off him. She wondered how she would keepherhands off him.
“My turn,” he had teased and reached for her waist, wrapped tight in her stays. He had laughed and knocked on the stiff stomacher. “How do you breathe?”
“’Tis not about breathing. ’Tis about looking pleasing.”
“What’s pleasing to me is,” he had leaned in to whisper in her ear, in his deep, sensual, sorcerer’s voice, “feeling a woman’s skin beneath a veil of fabric, nothing thicker—or nothing at all.”
“Will you carry me up the stairs then?” she asked him now.
He smiled down at her. “Don’t think I can?”
“Well, you have gone so fat.” She slipped one hand down his arm and almost sighed. No man’s arms she knew felt this hard, this thick with muscle. She would love to see them bare. She closed her eyes for an instant to imagine it. When she opened them again, she realized he was carrying her up the stairs. She remained absolutely still, trying to keep herself as light as possible in his arms. She could feel his heartbeat, fast and furious, his breath pulled a bit more.
She looked into his eyes and lifted a brow at him. He took it as the challenge it was meant to be and hurried up the remainder of the stairs, delivering her to the top.
“Well done, Knight.”
He chuckled. “Why do you call me that?”
“Because you behave as if you are one—to me, at least.”
He was quiet for a moment, thinking something over in his mind. “Charlotte, do you believe in soul mates…like, people you are meant to be with?”
She thought about her answer before she spoke it. She used to think it was true. That Preston was the man she was destined to be with. “I used to believe in it. But I do not anymore.”
“Why not?”
They reached her room and she leaned down to open the door. The bed was the first thing she saw. She had not thought this through. She was in her room, alone with him…and her bed. A lick of fire coursed through her.
“I am feeling better, Michael,” she said in a quiet voice. “You can put me down here.”
Was it just yesterday that it was so hard to see any emotion in him? He’d laid his hard, stoic exterior aside for her, and what she saw on the inside was so terribly beautiful that it made her forget to breathe. His heart poured out from his fiery eyes. He said nothing but set her down on her feet.
She smiled. It was a shy smile. Arealshy smile. She felt many of them when she was with him. “Thank you.”
He looked at her, studying her, stripping her bare. What did he see? A terrified girl? A strong woman? A crafty thief? She couldn’t tell. His guard was up again.
“I’ll be outside the door.”
“Michael?”
He turned to look at her. Her knees went weak. “I feel better.”
“Oh?”
