Page 115 of Desire's Ransom
Chapter 30
SEVEN WEEKS LATER
Temair advanced, studying her adversary carefully, scrutinizing him from head to toe. She could spot no shortcomings, no vulnerabilities. He seemed unflappable, unshakeable, unconquerable.
Her opponent approached her with the same assessing gaze. By the time he was through perusing her, she felt like he knew her every strength. And every weakness.
She gulped. Under his smoothly confident regard, she sensed her chances against his assault dwindling. This wasn’t a battle she would easily win. And if she didn’t, she feared a man of such power and skill would seize the advantage before she even had a fighting chance.
She took a deep breath, steeling herself against the temptation to simply yield to him before the engagement could begin.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he purred.
She shut the chamber door behind her and arched a skeptical brow. “Ye’ve been waitin’ since last night under the oak tree,” she corrected. “And the night before that in the stable. And the night before that by thelough.”
“True,” Ryland said with a wicked grin, “but iffeelslike forever. Besides, this is the first time we’ll be trysting as husband and wife.”
Temair smiled. She thought it felt like forever too. Gazing at her incredibly handsome bridegroom in his wedding finery, she could already feel her heart quickening and her body tingling with anticipation.
She still couldn’t believe how much had happened in the last several weeks. She’d gone from being a woodland outlaw, at the mercy of a merciless father, to the head of herclann, with the power to restore justice. She’d put her sister’s soul to rest, righted her father’s wrongs, and willingly wed an English knight.
An English knight who was laying siege to her even now, launching his first attack.
“Come to me, outlaw wife,” he growled, carefully lifted the wedding wreath of myrtle and lavender from her hair and tossing it onto the bed.
She countered his assault by running the back of her hand over his jaw, marveling at its freshly shaved smoothness.
He caught her wrist, turning his head to place a kiss in her hand. When he made a small circle in her palm with his tongue, her fingers curled reflexively.
Not to be outdone, she lifted her free hand to his ear, tucking his hair behind it to trace the delicate folds with the tip of her finger.
He shivered. Then he lapped at the webbing between the fingers of her captive hand.
She gasped as an erotic spark fired to life within her. Hooking the back of his neck, she pulled him close and murmured against his mouth, “I’m goin’ to rob ye, English.”
“Is that so?”
“Aye,” she said, licking at the corner of his lip. When he turned his head to kiss her, she pulled away. Picking up thebatashe kept at the foot of her bed, she spun it once and placed the narrow end at his throat. “First I’m goin’ to need yourbrat.”
He stiffened, wary of her weapon. “Mybrat?”
“Aye. Give it to me now.”
“You mean my mantle?” he teased.
“Aye, rogue, your mantle.” She was still learning his foreign terms.
With his hands harmlessly aloft, he stepped back from thebataand then dutifully worked loose the silver brooch holding the mantle together at his throat.
She held out her hand for the brooch, and he placed it in her palm. She wiggled her fingers for the mantle, and he offered it to her as well. She cast both onto the pallet.
She peered down at his feet. “I’ll have yourbrogsas well.”
“My boots? But they’re far too large for you.”
“Hand them o’er.”
“Fine,” he conceded with a sigh, removing them and casting them at her feet.
