Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior (22 page)

“Then it will be my pleasure to initiate you in the rites of passion,” he said.

“But I don’t wish—“

“Shh,” he soothed, “I’m your lord. You’re my vassal. I didn’t ask what you wished. I would bed a woman tonight, and I’ve chosen you.”

Cambria swallowed hard. He certainly was matter-of-fact about the whole ordeal, and he wasn’t wasting much time. She felt as if she were poised at the edge of a waterfall, about to be pushed over. A torrent of emotions coursed through her—fear, anticipation, indignation, resentment—so rapidly she hardly had time to think.

Holden set his cup down on the chest. Then he leaned aside and blew out the candle, leaving the pavilion in deep shadow disturbed by only the vague glow of the moon.

Cambria resisted the urge to slip out the pavilion flap at once into the anonymity of the night. Then she scolded herself for her cowardice. She was on the battlefield now. Running away with no explanation would only postpone the confrontation.

She stood tall. Her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the meager light when she heard him circling close about her. She couldn’t see him, but she could sense his eyes burning into her, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to be devoured.

He came up behind her, his breath in her ear so sudden she gasped in surprise and dropped her cup. The red wine spilled onto the carpet and was absorbed like a smothered scream. He pulled the hood slowly from her head, twining the fingers of one hand in her hair. The other arm he draped possessively across her collarbone and shoulders. His voice was deceptively gentle.

“Do you know what is to come?”

She remained silent, in spite of the alarm ringing in her head. Without warning, he subtly tightened his hold and clenched his fist in her hair. He wasn’t hurting her, merely keeping her prisoner in his grasp. Nonetheless she struggled against the confinement, her fingers pulling at the taut muscles of his forearm.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he whispered. “You’ve been kissed before, haven’t you?”

She gave no answer. Her heart thrummed in her throat.

“And I’m going to touch you—your lips, your neck, your breasts—in ways no one has ever touched you before.”

With that promise, he forced her to endure that touch as he slowly ran the tip of his tongue up the side of her neck. A hot streak of lightning coursed through her body, as if a blade had done the deed. She shuddered, and a wounded moan issued from her lips unbidden.

He placed delicate kisses against her throat, and she fought against the dizzying sensation. He breathed against her temple and massaged the back of her head.

“You’re so warm…and soft…” He punctuated each of her attributes with a brush of his tongue against the various hollows of her ear. “Supple…and sweet…and beautiful.”

She writhed in sensual torment against him. Then he ceased, and she shivered involuntarily.

“Don’t…do that,” she gasped, fighting for a coherent thought.

She should be outraged. After all, her husband was being unfaithful to her with another. Yet that other was none other than herself. It was all too confusing, particularly when he was driving her half-mad with that nuzzling beneath her ear.

“Give me your lips,” he murmured against her cheek. “I would have a kiss.”

Her heart plunged fearfully—he might recognize her kiss. But before she could duck away, he turned her head to his and ran his broad tongue boldly across her lips. When she opened her mouth in surprise, he closed his lips over hers.

Never had she been kissed like this. The timid bussing she’d given him was nothing compared to this. He sucked gently on each lip, nipped at them as if tasting her. Then he deepened the kiss, drank her very soul from her and poured it back into her again. Even the passion of their wedding kiss paled against the purely erotic mating of their mouths now as his tongue tickled across, then moved languorously between her lips, parting them easily.

She felt as if she were under an enchantment. Her limbs remained rigid in their posture of resistance, but her mouth acted with a will of its own. His kiss demanded an answer, and she gave it as her lips sought his with an age-old hunger.

“Easy, my little nymph,” he coaxed, though there was strain in his voice. “We have all night. There will be more pleasure for you if we take our time.”

With great dexterity, no doubt from practice, he parted her cloak and quickly loosened the laced front of her kirtle. The cool night air filtering over her bared skin startled her for a moment. Then, before she could guess his intent, he slid a hand beneath her gown and traced the outline of the top of her breast with schooled fingers. She gulped.

Holden groaned. Her skin felt like silk beneath the pads of his fingers. What a fool he’d been to agree to that damned marriage document. He brushed a thumb across the fabric still covering her taut nipple, and she drew in a sharp breath. He tried, but couldn’t ignore the yearnings of his own flesh.

“Stop. You mustn’t…” Cambria began in a curiously thick voice, attempting to sound authoritative and failing miserably.

“Shh.” He stroked her again, absorbing her shiver with his own body. He could feel her resolve beginning to melt. Soon she’d be like molten iron on the forge, compliant to his will. That was if his own resistance held out, he thought wryly as a wave of desire flooded his loins.

When he moved his hand to seek her other breast, she moaned softly against his cheek. He placed tiny kisses along the line of her jaw, continuing to caress and tease her with his fingers. Then, sensing her imminent surrender, he gently dragged her back against his body, gritting his teeth as her buttocks pressed against the throbbing column of his manhood. Taking a step backwards, he pulled her down with him onto his chair, settling her across his knees.

“Now,” he told her in a voice he fought to keep steady as he twisted the wedding ring on her finger aright, “you will tell me, wife, why you’re here.”

It took Cambria a moment, reeling in a lusty fog, to realize what he’d said. Even then, she couldn’t for the life of her frame an appropriate reply.

“What?” she whispered at last. “You know? How did you know?”

He answered with more raw desire than he’d intended. “Did you think I hadn’t memorized every inch of you, watching you sleep beside me?”

The mist began to clear from Cambria’s mind. She drew a ragged breath. Part of her wanted to collapse in relief—Holden hadn’t been unfaithful after all—but that emotion was soon squelched beneath a landslide of other, far more powerful ones.

“You let me make a fool of myself,” she said as the truth dawned. Then anger ignited in her faster than a spark on a thatched roof. “You made me suffer in this damnably hot cloak…forced me to wait on your knights, hand and foot, when… You commanded me to your pavilion like a common—“

“Enough!” He halted her with a shake, realizing too late that he should never have stopped seducing her. He’d had her in the palm of his hand. Now, she was slipping from his grasp. “The fact remains that you’re here, garbed as a peasant, and I want to know why.”

Cambria fumed, struggling against his renewed grip. She felt utterly humiliated. She wished to God she’d never come. She should have just let him march off to his death.

“I don’t have to account for my comings and goings!” she snapped. “I’m the laird of Gavin!”

“Laird you may be,” he countered firmly, “but you’ve wed me, and now
I
am your overlord.”

She jerked against him. “Am I a prisoner?”

“Until you comply with my command and tell me why you’re here, aye.”

She clamped her jaw shut and gave him her most withering glare, even though it was wasted in the darkness. She’d be damned if she’d tell him why she’d come. He’d only laugh at her misplaced concern.

Holden whispered against her cheek. “Perhaps you came because you missed my kisses.”

Before she could retort with some cutting remark, Holden took her jaw firmly in one hand and pressed his lips hard against hers. Predictably, she squealed in outrage, kicking and swatting at him like a wildcat. But when he released her abruptly, she was forced to grab onto him to keep from toppling from his lap.

“Let me go!” she hissed even as she clutched at him for balance.

“Not until you answer me.”

She refused.

“Why have you followed me, Cambria?” Threat tainted his murmur as he trailed one finger down her throat, dangerously close to her breast.

“We had a bargain,
husband
,” she protested, batting at his roving hand, “or is your word worthless?”

“I’ve never broken my word,” he answered calmly, capturing her wrist. “Rest assured I’ve no intention of bedding you.”

Holden wished his body would believe that. It was taking every ounce of discipline he possessed to hide his increasing ardor. Wincing as Cambria squirmed against his loins, he trapped her other wrist and held both arms down with one of his hands.

Then, as swiftly as a falcon swooping down on its prey, he captured her by the hair, drawing her head back to press his voracious mouth against her neck.

For one crazed moment, as his teeth raked her fragile skin, Cambria thought he meant to bite her. Then his mouth slipped upwards, and she whimpered in dread as he neared her sensitive ear.

“This is a battle you can’t win, Cambria,” he breathed gently. “I have far more experience on this battleground. Sooner or later, you’ll surrender.”

Cambria shivered. God help her, he was right. His voice was honey-sweet seduction, and already her blood warmed to his touch.

She should never have come to his pavilion. She had to get away. Yet she was like a fly in his web, unable to do more than wiggle in his lap, and she blushed to think what she’d feel against her bottom if she did that.

He kept her head still as his tongue began to lave her ear tenderly, and instantly, all thought of escape spun away like maple seeds in the wind. She could neither stop her moan of sweet agony nor resist when he released her to slide his fingers under the neck of her kirtle and along the valley of her bosom.

He cupped one of her breasts beneath the linen, squeezing gently, slowing circling the nipple with his thumb. She protested faintly, a protest he silenced with soft words—words of encouragement, words of praise, words that left her breathless.

“I want to suckle there,” he whispered.

Her face grew hot as the blood surged in her veins. No one had ever said such a thing to her. It was unthinkable. Yet she quivered, imagining the subtle strain of his lips and tongue upon her breast. A shaft of desire as sharp as an arrow shot through her. She offered small resistance as he tipped her back against one arm, sliding his other hand across her ribs and drawing back the kirtle to bare her.

She felt the tickle of his rich mane upon her breast a moment before his mouth came down upon her nipple. He tugged gently at first, and then drew her firmly between his lips until she felt his power all the way to her toes. Nothing could have prepared her for the ecstasy of his tongue as it moistened her flesh and seemed to suck her will from her. To her horror, she actually groaned in complaint when he stopped to speak again. She was appalled to discover she’d tangled her own desperate fingers in his hair.

“Tell me, Cambria,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck, “why did you follow me? Did you think to betray me to the rebels?”

Cambria froze. His words struck like a clear bolt of lightning on a black night. She suddenly realized what he was doing. The knave was torturing her for information. He wasn’t here as her husband tonight. He was on a soldier’s mission.

She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. Her own husband didn’t trust her.

Cursing herself for believing he could possibly be overcome with lust for her, she growled with the fury of a trapped animal and thrashed upon his lap. Although the pain of this rack had been sweet, it had obviously been contrived to elicit a confession from her, and that she wouldn’t forgive. Now she had no intention of
ever
revealing why she’d come. He could rot in hell, as far as she was concerned. Somehow she had to steel herself against his persuasion. Somehow she had to resist him and maintain control of her body.

That control lasted a good dozen heartbeats after Holden reached down determinedly and lifted one of her legs over the far side of his own, inching her kirtle up over her spread knees.

Cambria knew she was in danger. She began struggling anew, trying to bring her legs back together, but Holden’s held them apart. When he pulled her back full against him, she was immobilized more from the shock of the iron-hard evidence of his desire beneath her than the bands of his arms around her.

Holden felt her stiffen. He’d hoped she wouldn’t notice the effect she was having on him. A woman could too easily have an aroused man at her mercy. Lord, he thought as he boldly stroked his fingers along her inner thigh, closer and closer to the soft down between her legs, perhaps he wouldn’t win this fight after all. It felt as if the seams of his hose were about to burst.

“Why?” he murmured raggedly. “Why have you come?”

Cambria arched away from his seductive touch and clamped her mouth and her eyes shut as his hand hovered but inches from her nest of woman’s curls.

“Answer me.”

Cambria’s pride screamed at her to resist. She opened her mouth to protest, but when his warm palm pressed down against her loins, the words that came out were not what she intended. “Ah, God,” she moaned, despising her own weak will. “Will you cease if I tell you?”

Holden bit the inside of his cheek. She was so hot and wet and tempting, he wondered who was the more tortured. He spoke with difficulty. “Tell me,” he replied, keeping his hand firm against her.

“I came, like I told you, to watch your back,” she whispered hastily, eager for release.

He didn’t release her. “At one time, you wanted a dagger in my back,” he reminded her, easing up slightly on the pressure. “You’re certain you didn’t come to aid the rebels?”

She frowned, only half capable of coherent thought. How could he think that? She was laird of her clan. Why would she aid the rebels? “That’s a stupid question.”