Cassian (The Immortal Highland Centurions #2) - Jayne Castel Page 0,48

mouth thinned. Aila recognized the expression as a warning. The two maids shared each other’s secret now. If Aila didn’t want everyone to know about her and Cassian, she wouldn’t say a word about what she’d just seen.

Cassian stirred and stretched, wakefulness stealing upon him slowly.

Well-being filtered over him. His body felt free of tension, his muscles loose and relaxed. The aftermath of the night’s passion still ebbed over him like gently lapping waves.

Cassian’s eyes flickered open.

Aila.

He was alone on the bed. His lover had gone.

His brief sense of peace—a sensation that had eluded him for so long he’d forgotten what it actually felt like—dissipated, and Cassian sat up.

The fire in the hearth had gone out, although it wasn’t cold in the chamber. Nonetheless, his skin prickled as the memory of everything he’d done the night before crashed into him.

Muttering a curse, Cassian ran a hand over his face.

What’s wrong with you, man? Did he have no self-control at all?

No, when it came to Aila De Keith, he did not. He’d sneered at Maximus’s inability to stay away from Heather, and yet he wasn’t any better. Aila only had to fix him with that limpid look, and his resolve not to touch her melted.

And now you’ve gone and bedded her. He’d stolen her maidenhead, something she should have reserved for her future husband.

But at least he hadn’t planted his seed in her belly.

Swearing once more, Cassian rose to his feet and crossed to a small table where a jug of water and a wash bowl sat. Splashing himself with cold water, he tried to shove the images of last night to the back of his mind.

Aila was fire.

Had it been like that with Lilla?

With a jolt, he realized that, all these years later, he couldn’t actually remember. His memories of his beloved wife were of other things: the way she laughed when he teased her, how she sang to him in the evenings, and her habit of warming her freezing hands and feet on him in the winter.

He knew he’d loved bedding Lilla—but these days he couldn’t remember the details.

This morning, all he could think about was Aila.

She’d been a virgin, and yet as soon as the pain of that moment had passed, she’d met him with a hunger equal to his own.

Cassian’s jaw clenched. He’d let depravity get the best of him last night, for he’d taken her again and again—each time more wildly than the last. And each sigh she’d given, each low moan, had fueled a madness that had possessed him body and soul.

He’d rutted her like a randy old goat, driven by a hunger he didn’t even understand.

Had she left without waking him out of mortification? It wouldn’t have surprised him.

Cassian dried himself off with a scratchy length of cloth before hauling on his clothing. His mood was now dark, his brow furrowed.

Denial wasn’t good for a man.

Over the years, both Maximus and Draco had warned him that he couldn’t go on clinging to his wife’s shade. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t lain with women over the years, but he kept the act brief and emotionally distanced. He’d avoided intimate relationships.

“Lilla wouldn’t want you to live like this,” Maximus had said once, many years earlier when they’d run into each other in Perth. “You aren’t a cold bastard like me … find yerself another woman to spend some years with.”

Cassian had snarled back that Maximus wouldn’t know what Lilla had wanted, and that if he didn’t want a busted nose, he’d shut his mouth. With a rueful grin and shake of his head, Maximus had done as bid.

But he’d been right. Cassian had missed the connection he’d shared with Lilla. He’d been holding back for too long—and it had turned him into a lust-filled beast.

Aila hadn’t complained, yet she’d done a foolish thing appearing at his door like that, ready to seduce him without a thought about what it might cost her.

He’d need to make things clear next time he got a private moment with her. Aila had given him everything last night. She hadn’t wept or told him she loved him, but he’d seen her feelings writ clear upon her sweet face and in her soulful grey eyes.

But Cassian couldn’t return her feelings, and the sooner she understood that, the better.

Pulling on his boots, Cassian tore down his cloak from a hook on the wall and strode out of his bed-chamber.

He had to talk to her, but if he waited till later, the resolve