Raven ducked her head, rubbing her temples. “I know you do, Mikhail, and I even understand to a point your need to do it; it’s just that I am always going to be me. I’m impulsive, I do things. I decide I want to fly a kite and the next thing I’m doing it.”
“Why did you not stay inside? I asked for time to come to grips with my terrible fear for your safety.” His voice was so incredibly gentle, it brought tears to her eyes.
She touched his coffee-colored hair with her fingertips, felt an ache in her throat. “I wanted to go outside on the porch for fresh air. I had no other thought, but the night just called to me.”
Mikhail glanced up at her, his dark eyes warm with his feelings for her. “It was my mistake, I should have set safeguards to protect you.”
“Mikhail, I am capable of looking after myself.” Her blue eyes were very earnest, impressing on him the truth of her words. He really didn’t need to worry.
Mikhail did his best to keep from smiling. She was too good, always believing the best of everyone. His fingers circled her small calves. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world, Raven. You do not have a mean bone in your body, do you?”
Raven looked indignant. “Of course I do. Don’t smile like that, Mikhail; I really do. I can be just as mean as necessary. In any case, what has that to do with what we’re talking about?”
His hand moved upward to her rib cage beneath the thin silk of his shirt. “We are talking about me needing to protect the one person who matters to me, the one who can only see good in everyone.”
“I do not,” she denied, shocked that he would think so. “I knew Margaret Summers was fanatical.”
His hand moved upward to caress the soft underside of her breast, to cup the weight of it in his palm. His eyes had gone black and deep with emotion. “You defended her, as I recall.”
He was taking her breath away with his absent, leisurely exploration of her body. It was more than physical; she felt him inside her, admiring her, even as he wanted to force her compliance to his will. She felt him in her body, stroking her mind, caressing her heart. She sensed his feelings for her growing and growing until they consumed him.
Mikhail sighed softly. “I am never going to get anywhere with you, am I? You have a way of disarming me. I am the leader of my people, Raven. I cannot have this. I have no choice but to resort to orders.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Orders?” she echoed. “You think you’ll give me orders?”
“Absolutely. It is the only recourse open to me that prevents me from being a laughingstock among my people. Unless, of course, you have a better idea.” There was laughter in the depths of his eyes.
“How do I divorce you?”
“I am sorry, little one,” he answered blandly. “I do not understand this word. In my language, please.”
“You know very well you speak English far better than I speak your language,” she said. “How does one lifemate split from the other? Separate. Break apart. No longer together.”
The glint of humor in the depths of his eyes deepened to total amusement. “There is no such thing, and if there was, Raven”—he bent very close, his breath fanning her cheek—”I would never allow you to go.”
Raven looked innocent and wide-eyed. The hand on her breast, his thumb stroking her nipple, was making it hard to breathe. “I was only trying to help you. Royalty has so few options these days. You have to worry about what the public thinks. You can rely on me, Mikhail, to help you ponder such issues.”
He laughed softly, tauntingly male. “I guess I must be thankful to have such a clever lifemate.” His fingers slipped a button of the white shirt free. Just one, widening the gap across her breasts to give him more room for his lazy exploration.
Raven’s breath caught in her throat. He was doing nothing really, simply touching her, his touch so gentle and loving she was melting inside. “I really am trying to understand your way of life, Mikhail, but I don’t think my heart can take it yet.” She tried to be truthful. “I know nothing of your laws or your customs. 1 don’t even know exactly what you are, what I am. I think of myself as human. We’re not even married in the eyes of God or man.”