“Come.”
She trailed after him under the trees and on to the flat narrow bridge; glanced uncertainly down at the water and then to the
end of the bridge where the walkway ended in an arched gatehouse and a short white wall with steep grassy banks on either
side.
“What‟s that?”
“Kastellet.”
A little shiver of pleasure and excitement ran up her arms. “A castle?”
“Citadel. Yes.”
Elaborate iron sconces flanked the archway, reflected on the water. “It looks really old.”
He shrugged. “A few centuries, no more.”
She wandered closer, peering through the iron gate with disappointment. “It‟s closed.”
She hadn‟t planned on sightseeing at four in the morning. She should get back to her hotel. Yet now that the way was
barred, the citadel took on the lovely lure of the forbidden. The moonlight transformed the smooth stone walls and tiled roofs
to a fairy fortress full of magic, just beyond her reach.
Morgan‟s teeth gleamed. “Then we will be undisturbed.”
Her pulse fluttered. “But the gate . . .”
In one smooth move, he crouched on the railing of the bridge, balancing on the balls of his feet. “Is not the only way
inside.”
He leaped for the bank.
Her stomach catapulted into her throat. “Oh, be careful!”
He landed without a slip, without a splash. Turning, he held out his arms to her. “Jump.”
She shook her head. “I am not the kind of girl who jumps into things.”
Ever. The thought made her vaguely resentful.
“What kind of girl are you?” His deep voice was cool and amused.
She swallowed. “I‟m more the look-before-you-leap, watch-your-step type.”
“I could change that,” he said.
She inhaled sharply. Her gaze swung from the three-foot railing to the eight-foot drop to the yards of swirling water
between her and the bank. Her hands clutched the railing. “It‟s too far.”
“I will catch you.”
“It‟s too dangerous.”
He didn‟t reply.
He didn‟t need to. She stood restlessly on the bridge, on the brink, on the edge, suspended in place and time.
“ I don’t live my life, ” she‟d told him in truth. “ I prepare for it. ”
Morgan waited below her in the dark, her personal adventure. She felt him in the beat of her blood like every rule she‟d
never broken, every risk she hadn‟t taken, every impulse she‟d denied.
Every man her mother had warned her about.
The water chuckled and flowed.
Gripping the top rail with both hands, she swung one leg over, feeling for a toehold on the other side. Her palms were
damp. Her heart thundered. She was about to commit trespass and God knew what else.
She hesitated. “What if someone sees us?”
“No one will see. Jump now. Jump. ”
The sky had lightened enough for her to see the pale blur of his face in the dark. With a breathless gasp, she let go,
launching herself across the moat and into his arms.
Sky and water whirled. Her ears rushed, her stomach churned, her breathing stopped as she fell—dropped— smacked —
into something hard and unyielding. Into him. His chest. He seized her, hauling her safely onto the bank, against his body.
Dizzy with her own daring, she tipped back her head, laughing in reaction and relief. “I did it.”
His eyes gleamed. “Not yet,” he said. “But we will.”
Her jaw dropped.
He kissed her open mouth, hard and leisurely, as if he had every right and all the time in the world. He tasted wild and salty