He may as well, he mused, although he hated the side effects. The way it would leave him cold and remote in the middle of the greatest passion he’d ever known.
The next time he came to her was in silence, from beginning to end.
A scarce quarter of an hour before, he’d grimaced as he’d pulled out the stopper with his teeth. He had sworn never to take the potion again, but this time it was necessary. He had to make her want him, to bind her to him with desire so he could start working on making her love him. And he needed a clear head to do it.
Last night he’d almost made a fool of himself. He’d certainly lost control. Come close to spilling on her with both body and heart; foolish words of love and seed and hope for babies and a lifetime together.
So he tossed his head back and swallowed the bottle’s bitter contents, and waited.
When he could feel its eerie fingers unfurling through his body, only then did he go to her.
He stripped her bare and guided her to the floor. She made no move to stop him; she remained mute, with an unfathomable expression in her eyes. It was mute fascination, but he didn’t know that. Her eyes lovingly wandered over every inch of his body when he looked anywhere besides her face. She marveled at the sensation of cool floor to her back and hot man to her front, but he seemed somehow different this time as with his hands and his mouth he brought her to that shining place in the sky not once but a half-dozen times. Perfectly skilled, almost frighteningly controlled, while she lay aching beneath him.
She didn’t like it one bit.
When he turned away from her, she felt somehow cheated. As if he hadn’t really been there with her at all. So what if he pleasured her well? She wanted the same sun glowing in his eyes, the same uncontrollable, wild passion that burned white-hot between them.
“Hawk!” she called to his back.
He stiffened and paused a long moment. Muscles bunched in his shoulders and back. He seemed so untouchable.
“Oh. Never mind …” she said softly, her eyes luminous and brimming with hurt.
Hours later the Hawk rinsed his mouth for the fifth time and spat into a basin. Well, that had been a disaster of epic proportions. It had hurt him more than it had helped him. The potion had kept up his enormous erection and not allowed him to spill anything.
Was there such a thing as a fire that froze?
He would never take that potion again. Not with his wife.
When he’d finally gotten the foul taste of it out of his mouth, he dressed and headed for the village gathering hall to hear more cases. More decisions and more people with needs he must see to. And all the while he knew he’d be wondering if he, who ruled numerous manors, villages, keeps, and men, was ever going to be able simply to make his own wife say his name.
Sidheach.
That’s all he wanted.
Adrienne paced the room restlessly. What had happened this afternoon? She felt dirty, as if she’d been touched too intimately by a stranger, not been made love to by her husband. Not like the night before when she’d seen that look in his eyes, that warmth and tenderness along with the epic desire. He’d been detached somehow this afternoon. When he’d returned to their room to dress before he’d left again, he’d still been eerily distant. Had he done something, taken some drug to make him …?
Those flasks she’d seen. Lying in a leather pouch on the bed table last night.
Her jaw jutted as she stomped to the bed table. Not there.
Where had he put them? Her eyes flew to the clothes he’d dropped in the chair when he’d changed this afternoon. Rummaging through the pile, she found what she sought and dumped the little leather pouch. One empty, a full one left. Ha! That and the healing poultice he’d been using when he changed the bandage on his hand.
An empty flask. Hmmph! Well two could play that game, and he’d rue the day he left the other one just lying about. Wait until he saw just how cold she could be!
When the Hawk returned to the manor that night, he was unequivocally convinced he must have gone to the wrong house. His wife was waiting for him in the locked bedroom, completely nude, with a wild look in her eyes that made him quite certain he was dreaming, or lost or mad.
“Hawk,” she purred as she glided to him.
“Adrienne?” he asked warily.
His wife was so damned beautiful. And for an instant he didn’t care why she was acting this way. He was sick of the waiting and tired of the wanting. So he swung her up into his arms and kissed her, his hot mouth moving over hers hungrily.
Then he saw the flask lying on the floor by the bed, looking as if it had been dropped shortly after consumption.