Midnight Eyes by Brophy, Sarah (well read books .TXT) 📕

His eyes flew open in shock. “Imogen,” he mouthed silently, rolling over on the straw pallet, careful not to get himself tangled up in the chains yet again.

The sight of Imogen standing hesitantly near the closed door made him fear that he had finally lost his mind. He could only just make her out in the dim light that radiated from the guttering candle they allowed him at night. That single candle was the one concession they made to his erstwhile rank and he had never been as grateful for it as he was at this moment when it revealed Imogen’s face to his hungry gaze. It was a lifetime since he had last been able to feast himself on the sight of her and even in the imperfect light, she made his soul replete.

“Robert, are you there?” she whispered again, her voice tense with fear.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely as he pushed himself carefully into a sitting position. He cleared his throat and continued in a voice more like his own. “What the hell are you doing here?”

She hugged herself tightly as a tremor of relief flooded her at the sound of his beloved voice. Until she heard him a part of her hadn’t quite believed that he was actually safe. “I came to be with you,” she said gently.

“What?” he all but bellowed. “You traveled halfway across the country for a…a social call to a cell?”

“Oh, I thought you meant…” she stammered in confusion. “No, what I’ve actually come to do is to get you out of here, to prove to the king that you are innocent, to…” Her voice stumbled to a halt as she felt the growing anger that radiated from Robert and filled the cell.

“Are you mad? I told Matthew to get you out of the country, told him to get you the hell out of this mess. So what do you do? You throw yourself into the middle of it.” He let out a strangled sound of disgust and buried his head in his hands, lifting it again instantly, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Who brought you? You can’t have traveled all this way by yourself, so who the hell helped you in this folly?”

“Gareth and Matth-Matthew,” she stammered again.

“I’ll kill them,” he growled furiously. “I will kill them with my bare hands. I’ll tear them apart strip by strip.”

Imogen’s relief at finding him safe began to give way to a vague sense of being ill-used. She had come so far, braved so much…certainly not so she could stand there and let him vent his spleen, she thought indignantly.

“That isn’t fair. It’s not their fault. It was all my own idea,” she said with dignity, but ruined the effect by biting her bottom lip worriedly. “Are you angry because I’m trying to help you?”

“No, you fool,” he ground out precisely. “I’m angry because you have put yourself in danger. I’m angry because I feel guilty that it is for me that you have done so. I’m also bloody angry because there is not a single thing I can do to help or save you. Not while they have me chained to a goddamn wall.” He pulled hard on the chains, which clanked as if to emphasize his point, and he inhaled sharply as the iron manacles dug into the bruised and bloody skin of his wrists.

“You’re hurt,” Imogen gasped and instinctively moved toward the sound of his pain. She had taken only two steps when her foot snagged on a raised stone, and before Robert could shout a warning, fell down. Pain shot through her knee as it struck the stone floor, but she scarcely noticed. It seemed irrelevant when Robert was suffering so much for her.

She crawled to close the distance between them, only stopping when her hand touched the warm strength of his thigh. Robert watched with disbelief as she rested on her knees and started running anxious hands over him to check for hurts.

“You’ve lost so much weight,” she moaned as her hand moved over the bare skin on his torso.

“William isn’t much of a caterer.” He tried to sound carelessly flippant, but it came out in a husky murmur.

She whimpered as her hands moved up to his face and felt his nearly healed wounds through the beard that had grown during his captivity. “Pain,” she whispered. “So much pain.”

Her voice wavered as if she was the one in pain, and Robert’s anger evaporated in an instant. Without pausing to consider the wisdom of his actions, he found himself dragging her onto his lap and into his arms, wanting to comfort her. It comforted him as well. To hold her again was a miracle that he hadn’t dared even to pray for.

He held her as tightly as he dared. Reverently he buried his face in the perfumed waves of her hair and gritted his teeth as desire bit deep into his body and soul. The feel of the soft skin of her neck through her hair was like a call to his soul and he couldn’t stop himself from rubbing his face against her, his bearded cheek rasped quietly.

Imogen hesitated, terrified that she might hurt him, then slowly wrapped her arms around him, burying her hands into his hair.

“Oh, God, this has to be a cruel dream,” he choked out as he began to trail kisses with fervid haste along the line of her throat.

“If it is a dream, then may we never have cause to wake up.”

“Amen,” he sighed, and pulled her head down to his and smothered her parted lips in a searing kiss.

It was a kiss where spirits met.

Imogen knew in that instant that life and love were too precious to be wasted on the meaningless frivolities of doubts and fears. The only thing that mattered was right here, in the meeting and mating of their tongues, in the hands that tried to pull each other so close that she no longer quite knew where her body ended and