A Calculated Risk by Katherine Neville (best time to read books .txt) 📗

the covers aside and grasped me by the shoulders. He bounced me up and down in the pillows as if he’d throttle me—laughing all the while, as if he were unhinged. Then he dropped me in the quilts like a bag of potatoes and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” I cried in alarm.

“I’m getting something you need—stay there, I’ll be right back.”

Maybe it’s a shotgun, I thought as he disappeared into the hall.

My stomach felt like jelly and my legs were weak. I jumped out of bed and paced around the room. A dozen emotions were warring within me—all of them unfamiliar. What in God’s name was I doing here? How could this be happening? I was so confused. What should I do?

Tor was gone what seemed an awfully long time. He returned at last, bearing a tray with cups.

“I thought I told you to stay in bed,” he snapped, setting down the tray. “Do you want to have pneumonia? It’s damp outside.”

“You sound like my grandmother,” I told him, crawling back into bed with some relief he’d returned.

“But I don’t intend to behave as your grandmother would,” he assured me. “Shove over—I’m getting in there, too.”

“What’s in the drink?” I asked, trying to chattily hide my dismay at the fact we were now side by side under the covers.

“It’s something good for your health and disposition—which could use some improvement, I might add.”

He handed me the cup, and I sipped.

“Say, this is wonderful, Granny. What is it?” I asked.

“Hot milk, honey, and brandy—an aphrodisiac. Wonderful for seducing young boys—I hope it works on you.”

He plumped up the pillows behind my head as I drank, then settled in and said, “I’ve another story for you.”

“Okay, what is it?” The milk was really wonderful and warm and sweet. I could feel its effects deep inside, like a soothing balm. It nearly calmed the hysteria that had been mounting.

“Once upon a time there was a little girl who preferred to act like a boy.…”

“This story sounds familiar,” I said between slurps.

“Only this time, it’s my story—not yours. Shall I proceed?”

“Go on.”

“She was wrong, you see. But though many had tried—no one had ever succeeded in showing her the advantages of being a woman.”

“That’s where you come in, I suppose?”

“Your feet are freezing,” he told me. “I told you to stay in bed. And stop wriggling around like that—I’m not going to torture you. This isn’t the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Let’s hear the end of the story,” I said. He was looking at me with that smile again. I tried to concentrate.

“This little girl had a friend she’d known for many years. They’d always behaved with great propriety toward one another. But he never knew—and she never knew—that they wanted to make love with each other. Not until they found themselves alone one night in a deserted house on a remote island—”

“I haven’t said I wanted to make love with you,” I pointed out, as much to assure myself.

“Oh, yes you have, my dear—though perhaps not in words. I know all the little things—I know how that confused mass of cogs works in there, the myriad tiny wrinkles in your gray matter. And believe me, too, I know what you’ve been afraid of all these years.”

I looked at him, there in the candlelight, and the fear came back at once in a hot gush. But I knew he’d only begun.

“You’re afraid of losing control, you see,” he said softly. “But control means nothing—even the control of one’s own soul—not if you have to build a fortress to defend it. It’s clear you’ve placed a value greater than gold on those walls of yours. Like it or not—they’re coming down tonight.”

I wanted to change the subject at once—I couldn’t even think of this.

“So what’s the end of the story?” I asked, my voice sounding falsely cheerful even to me. “How did the two friends wind up?”

“They made love—robbed a bank—and lived happily ever after,” he said with a smile.

“That’s not how my story would end,” I told him.

But he was looking at me as if my time were up. He took away the cup I still clung to and set it aside. Then he leaned toward me—eyes glowing, his lips inches from mine.

“I want you,” he said quietly.

“I’d have had a story with less sex and more action,” I said softly.

“I want you,” he repeated.

He turned my face to his, his hands buried in my hair. His warm breath, scented with milk and brandy, mingled with mine. He let my hair slide through his fingers, touching it as if it were watered silk.

“I want you,” he whispered again.

Taking one hand from my hair, he pulled the ribbon loose from the eyelets at the throat of my gown.

“What are you doing?” I tried to say. My voice was barely audible.

“What I’ve assured you you might rely on me never to do,” he replied with a wry smile. “I’m seducing you.”

“My God,” I murmured.

“Too late for faith,” said Tor.

He swept the hair away from my throat and buried his face in my neck as I felt the shock run like cold pinpricks through my nerves. He bit me there, and sucked the place, and the pinpricks filled with heat. When he leaned back to unfasten the other lace, he slid his palm over my throat and shoulders where the fabric fell away. I quivered as I watched him hovering over me, his skin bronze in the candlelight, his hair glittering like dark gold. He was truly so beautiful, I couldn’t bear it. All my resolve melted like ice in the sun.

I reached up, pushing his hand aside, and unfastened the top button of his pajamas, then one by one, the others in a row. He watched me without breathing, in a sort of trance, as he leaned on one elbow above me. His lips parted slightly, watching in silence, as I moved my hand over the hard chiseled muscles of his chest where his shirt had