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Page 240
Silence once more. And then Thorn laughed. It was a genuine laugh, the most merry sound she'd heard from him since she'd arrived there.
''It's not funny." Warm tears ran down her cheeks. "I couldn't bear . . . I can't stand even thinking about . . . " She'd had enough. She ran toward the door, only to find her way blocked. "Let me go!"
She felt his strong hands grip her shoulders. "Tell me," he said quietly, "why you act this way. Why does it matter to you whether I am killed in a duel by this callow soldier?"
She knew the answer, of course. She'd done exactly what she'd had no intention of doing.
She was no smarter than her mother.
She'd fallen in love with an unreliable man. With Thorn.
But unlike her mother, she didn't have to tell him. Or act on it.
But was he unreliable? He had told her so from their first meeting, but he'd always come through for her. Maybe the man she loved was, like the fictional Thorn, utterly dependable. Still, she didn't dare reveal her feelings. He wouldn't want her love. And if he continued to maintain his unreliability, he might not, in fact, come through for her sometime when it counted.
"Your demise wouldn't matter to me," she lied, trembling with emotion. He had to feel it, too. He still held her shoulders.
"I do not believe you." There was a thickness in his deep voice, and he pulled her close.
She straggled, but he was too strong. He held her tightly against him. "What do you want from me?" she cried.
"I do not know." He sounded as bewildered as a lost child. But he reminded her of a child no longer when she felt the soft touch of his lips on one eyebrow. "Only this, I suppose," he whispered, then touched the tears on her cheek with his tongue. "And this." His voice was barely audible, and then his mouth fastened on hers.
Her mind told her to fight him, just as it told her to fight the idea of loving him.
But her mutinous body betrayed her. Her lips participated

 
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