"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 02 - The Jade Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

actual physical motions of loveтАФsweating and groaning and crying. And youтАФyouтАФ" She broke off her
words and looked at' him.
Blade stared at her, stunned and a little afraid. "Why didn't you wake me, for God's sake?"
"I couldn't. I tried. Don't you think I tried! But I was afraid of you, afraid of being smashed. I know
how powerful you are, and how gentle you are, at least always with me, but last night you were a
different man. I had never seen that man before and I did not like him. I hated him! You were a great
ravening savage brute, Richard, and I was frightened to death. Finally I just slipped out of bed and
watched from a corner until it was over."
"How long?"
"At least half an hour. When you had finally spent, actually spent, you sighed and rolled over and
went back to sleep like a tired baby."
He had had time to think now and knew that this scene was only an entry into anotherтАФto others.
This storm had been brewing for a long time and now it was going to break. He tried the light note.
"All it means, love, is that I had a particularly realistic nightmare, an erotic dream, and you had the
bad luck to witness it."
He smiled at her, so close, their eyes mirroring. The smile that J, with his acerbic tongue, sometimes
alluded to as thecoup de grace.
"It also means," said Blade, "that I am a lousy lover. A selfish pig that cares only for my own
satisfaction. A pig that rolls over and snores without even a goodnight kiss. Now I ask you, darling, is
that the Blade you know? Even if there were another woman, which there isn'tтАФand I swear that on the
Queen and my own sainted motherтАФwould I treatherlike that? Even in a dream? So you see it was only
a nightmare. Someone else's nightmare. Not me at all. I think we had best just forget it. Come sweets,
and give a kiss, and I'll pay you back threefold."
This time the quote did not work. The smile did not work. The famous Blade charm did not work.
Zoe turned her face away from his.
"I think we had bestnotforget it, Richard. The nightmare, yes. You are probably right and it was only
that. I am a little fool and there is no other woman named Taleen. Itisan odd name, though. To imagine,
dream up, even in a nightmare!"
Even the best, the sweetest, of them have nasty claws.
Blade sighed and closed his eyes against the moonlight, plucked a stalk of heather and chewed on it,
and silently goddamned Lord L and all the boffins, and computers, and J and M16A, and especially
damned himself as far back asOxford for having let himself be recruited there. He damned the concept of
duty and knew he could never refute it. Most especially he damned, to the nethermost regions of the
darkest pit, the Official Secrets Act. There was never any release from it. Not ever. Even if duty and
country and decency did not deterтАФthe Act did. They had you forever. You opened your mouth once,
one faint whisper, and they hung you. Even J would do it. And J loved him like a son.
Zoe was speaking quietly. "Until a few months ago, Richard, you were asking me to marry you."
And so he had been. He had loved her then and he loved her now. He gritted his teeth and was
silent. The gulls fluttered on their ledge. The moon sailed away to adventure. Blade waited. He might yet
get out of this one, but it was going to be a near thing. Christ! He didn't want to lose this woman.
"I wouldn't at first," she went on, "because of a number of things. There was no rush, I didn't know
very much about you, and I wasn't sure if I loved you enough for marriage. Then, when I was sure, and
loved you desperately, you stopped asking. Just like that." Blade groaned aloud.
Quickly she leaned to kiss his cheek. Her lips were chill and in her voice was a subtle note of change
as she said: "Poor darling. Does it hurt so much?"
She was not, he knew, alluding to any physical pain. She had her lovely little sharp talons in him now
and she was going to rend a little, just to even matters up.
"You disappear for long periods of time, Richard. You never give me any excuses, I'll say that for
you. You just disappear and then come back with strange marks and scars on you, and an odd look in
your eye, and you walk in and expect me to pick right up where we left off. And I do. I always have, so