Sixteen
They slept. At some point in the night, Sasha had must have decided she was no longer in the doghouse, so to speak, and had come up to sleep in the bed he’d placed up against one wall for her, but Amaal had slumbered so deeply, he hadn’t heard her at all.
At last morning light began to filter its way through the bedroom’s slightly sheer curtains. He stirred and looked over at the pillow next to him. Deirdre still slept, her long hair scattered across her shoulders like a remembrance of summer sunshine, with its warm brown tints highlighted in streaks of pale gold.
This was a moment he had been looking forward to for quite some time — to awaken in his bed, and to have Deirdre there next to him. He stared down at her for a long moment, remembering the sweetness of her flesh, the b
