He stopped at the top of the hall. “Mistress Abigail, I believe you must have lost your way.”

She didn’t even pause in her steps as she looked over her shoulder and said, “No, I didn’t. Come.”

On she moved. He waited for a long moment even after she disappeared into his private sitting room. Which led to his bedroom.

He felt dizzy suddenly but not precisely fatigued. In fact, his heart had begun a serious pounding and all that activity within his chest put his booted feet in motion again. He was certain he shouldn’t be walking down this hall, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

He didn’t take many women to bed and never at the castle. Far too complicated. The Mastyr of Merhaine couldn’t allow for expectations to arise in any quarter.

But this, a human. Could he engage with Abigail and not get caught in a different kind of net?

He passed through the sitting room. When he reached the angled doorway of his bedroom, he pushed the door wide against the stone wall. He glanced down and saw her matching cream heels sitting side-by-side, close together, very tidy.

He scanned the bedroom but she wasn’t there.

He stood on the threshold, staring at his bed, his dresser, his massive closet. He had lived alone here for a hundred and fifty years. In all that time, he had never brought a woman into his private rooms.

He wanted to call out to Abigail, to tell her to leave at once. He even lifted his chin, parted his lips, but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe he was just too damn tired.

His heart beat harder now and in the distance he heard water splashing.

Was the woman bathing? His body responded, just thinking thoughts of Abigail in his copper tub. Her long red hair, her beautiful eyes, her pale skin, would look almost exotic in his tub.

“Gerrod. It’s all right. Come to me. Just this once. No pressure. No hidden motives. Nothing.” Then her soft chuckle as though she found what she said amusing.

For some reason, perhaps the soft but confident tone of her voice, his boots once more began to move. Some terrible threshold had been crossed in which his profound need, his fatigue, his despair overrode his fear of being involved with Abigail, with this human.

He moved into the bedroom. Looking through the archway into the bathroom, he saw that she sat on a stool at the lower end of the tub, near the faucet, and she had removed her gown. She wore an undergarment that also looked like a gown, but with thin straps. It covered her breasts and ended at her knees in a line of lace.

His desire for her rose, despite the fact that she was still essentially modestly clothed.

Essentially.

As he drew closer, he saw that her gown, which she had worn to the wedding, hung on one of the pegs to the left, opposite the tub.

He still hesitated. She had prepared him a bath. A great kindness, indeed.

He chose in that moment, not to over think any of it, not to have any expectations, not to try to take charge, not to do anything except to give himself over to this strange human.

He stood by the side of the tub and she rose from her stool. As she reached for the thick shoulder strap, she hesitated. She looked up at him. He nodded.

The moment she made contact with the silver buckle, he felt it again, his realm vibration, coming alive with her touch.

She snapped the large silver buckle that held the strap together. She caught one side and slid the rest off his back. She opened the coat wide, then spread her fingers over his left pec. Her lips parted.

“I can feel your vibration,” she said. “It’s powerful and seductive. It strikes me here in a steady rhythm.” She looked back up at him and removed her hand from his chest and put it between her breasts.

He nodded. “We are a world of frequencies. Even when I battle, it’s a frequency that I tap and I’m able to draw energy from the earth and from the air and form it into narrow beams that can do great harm.

“My personal frequency is a very different thing. When you touch it, as you just did, it’s as though all that I am, to the end of each extremity, begins pulsing toward the center of my being.” He laid a hand flat on his upper abdomen. “Here. Put your hand here.”

She laid her hand against his stomach and her brows rose. “I can feel it all up my arm.” Her lips were still parted as once more she met his gaze. “It’s very sexual.”

“It should be. It’s called the mating frequency.”

“Well, I won’t deny that it fills me with desire, the way I felt in the forest earlier. So, have all the women you’ve known enjoyed your frequency?”

She was smiling, thinking she understood, but she didn’t.

He shook his head slowly. “Never. I have to allow it to happen and I’ve never wanted to because it would mean a deeper connection. The women I have known couldn’t do what you seem to do so easily, to access my personal vibration, which makes you a mystery I cannot solve.”

She seemed truly shocked. “Then how the hell can I do this?”

“I do not know, Abigail. It worries me.”

She nodded several times but fell silent. Finally, she said, “Very well, we can’t understand everything right now but we’ll just have to make the best of it.” Then her smile appeared. His breath caught. He realized he loved her smile, that just seeing that bright display of even teeth, her expression full of nothing but good-will, eased his heart.

His own need for her grew. He was hard beneath his leathers, stiff with desire. Who was she that she could bring forth his frequency?

He removed the long leather, sleeveless coat. She took it from him and hung it on a peg next to her gown, as well as the shoulder strap.

She waved him to the stool. He sat down. She drew the rug close and knelt before him. She unbuckled his boots, another kindness. She leaned back and he slid them off, along with the thick socks. She took them from him and set them beneath his coat.

He unbuttoned the dozen small buttons that held the soft woven shirt together. He pulled the shirttails from the pants and let the garment slide from his shoulders.

Though he extended the shirt toward her, she stood staring at him. Of course she would never have seen him like this before and his pecs tightened and swelled, his shoulders and biceps flexed. He drew his stomach in tight. He was what the humans called ‘built’, muscled as all Guardsmen were.

Her pupils had dilated and through her slip he could see the taut beads of her nipples. She shared his desire.

She blinked a couple of times as though clearing her thoughts, then said, “You may remove your fighting leathers.” She knew that was what they were called. He almost smiled.

He met her gaze as he took them off. He was naked as he handed them to her. She folded them up but in so doing, some of the dried blood, and some not so dry from the nicks he had received, ended up on her arms and hands. Fortunately, he healed quickly and the various cuts were long gone.

She gasped, just a little, then squared her shoulders. She folded the pants and settled them beside the boots.

When he stood there, now fully aroused in front of a woman he desired, her gaze dipped to his erection then back to his eyes. She gestured to the tub and smiled. “Get in, Gerrod. And when you can tolerate it, sink beneath the water. I mean to wash your hair.”

He was sore from battling and very tired. He was also weak from blood starvation. He stumbled getting in, but righted himself only to find her hand on his back as if to steady him. The gesture moved something in his heart and suddenly he hurt so deep that he wished her gone, wished he had never met her, wished she had kept her kindnesses to herself.

How long had it been since he had known such attention and care? Yes, his people were good to him and showed him many respectful tender gestures. But he never let anyone get this close that after a battle, he might be soothed.

He sank into the water, pulling the woven clasp from his hair and let it drop to the stone floor. “The temperature is perfect,” he said. He didn’t look at her until she leaned over and slid her hands in the water as well and began rinsing the blood from her arms. Then she drew close, hovering above his lips. He leaned up slightly, which encouraged her so that she came down to him the rest of the way and kissed him, a soft warm pressure, and so very welcome.

He sighed when she drew back. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I have seen how you care for your people and I appreciate what you do. I have known you long enough, Gerrod, to understand that there is no one to comfort you. So I thought, just this once, I would do what I could, with no plan in mind other than to give you what I can this dawn, maybe to comfort you, if I could. But please don’t worry. I have no purpose other than that, no hopes or intention for sharing a future with you. Rest assured, there is no obligation here except to enjoy the moment.”

He nodded, closed his eyes and sank beneath the water, a sort of baptism. When he came up, she had moved behind him, having taken the stool with her. She washed his hair and it was one of the finest sensations he had ever known, her fingers scrubbing his scalp and working the soap through the difficult length. He rinsed by dipping again, but before she could apply a most necessary crème rinse, he rose up out of the bath and gestured to the shower. “This is my preference, but the bath was perfection.”

She smiled. He began making his way to his shower and turned on all three shower heads. He stepped inside and shifted, only to find, much to his shock, that she had dispensed with her slip and her bra and was now stepping out of what looked like a beautiful black lace thong.

His body responded once more. Couldn’t be helped on so many levels. He’d been in battle. A woman was what he wanted.

She didn’t join him right away, however. Instead, she went to the sink and was busy there for about a minute. Curious, he watched her, as the vertical jets powered against the sore muscles of his back. She had a now damp thong in hand and hung it between two of the pegs on the wall where her gown and his coat hung.

His chest tightened. There was only one reason she would have done so, that she meant to spend the day in his bed. It was such a practical, womanly thing to do, the way a woman who ran a successful business would always be thinking one step ahead, what needed to be done next.