by Nicole Locke
He’d have her as soon as the cursed mission was over. As soon as they had freed Margery and were far away. He’d find a place for them both and she could break goblets and raise children. His daughters would be wild and—
‘A man who...lies with me? Kisses me,’ she said. ‘No.’
One word, he immediately held up his hands and she stepped back.
She seemed as shocked as he felt.
‘I can’t simply trust you.’
Ah. She didn’t know how he felt and he couldn’t tell her, not yet. Not the way he wanted to. But he saw right through her defences. Soon, he’d let her see right through his.
* * *
This man was too potent. Too...everything. The first time Bied saw him, she couldn’t believe a man like him existed, with eyes like his and that way he dipped his chin to look at her.
There was more, too. She wanted to trust him, even though she had learned her lesson in the harshest of ways with men and accepting their help. Yet, she wanted to believe him that he’d help rescue her sister and her. Ridiculous.
‘You have your mission to do,’ she said.
‘Bied,’ he growled.
She firmed her resolve against him. ‘It’s true. You’re a mercenary hired by someone, but you won’t tell me why or by whom. And all of it is entirely too much and puts my sister in danger. Even if it’s to save kingdoms, it’s not worth risking her for.’
He stilled. ‘Why did you say that?’
‘You keep talking that there’s something more here. I might not be of noble blood, but we are in a Warstone holding. If it’s more than this, then what more could there be?’
His jaw tightened. ‘I won’t be distracted this time around. We both have our reasons to be here. If this between us was something simple, it would be possible to say no. Does it seem like something you can walk away from?’
‘We should walk away from it. I am a sister pretending to be a kitchen servant to save her. That should be my only role, my only want.’
At his expression, she hadn’t any more words to fight him off, so she turned her back to him. She’d crumble if she faced him now.
But she knew he faced her. Could feel his eyes taking in the tension in her shoulders, the way the gown stretched across her broad hips.
‘I’m a mercenary who is pretending to be an usher, but with you, Bied, I’m only a man.’
His voice was low, a roughened tenor that rushed the awareness she’d been trying to avoid through her. The wall she stared at wasn’t interesting enough to ignore the man or his words. ‘What has that to do with anything?’
‘I thought we were throwing out opposites.’
She was throwing out excuses. Reasons. So many. Oh, she’d had men before when she wanted them. But there was too much with Louve. Too much fascination with the wave of his hair and too much want when he gave a smile that lit his eyes.
‘Tell me,’ he coaxed.
‘Tell you what?’ Her voice, she was proud to say, remained as steady as always. As long as she didn’t turn, she could remain strong. He’d grow bored and leave.
‘What’s the opposite of man?’ he whispered. Why did she have to face a wall with only a few pans and some herbs dangling from it? Did he know her heart beat that much more with his every word? That each breath drawn became that much more difficult as desire tightened her insides?
Woman was the answer she almost blurted. She wanted him and more so now the longer they stayed in these deplorable kitchens.
‘Will you deny it?’ He enticed her. And from the press of his body against her, he unmistakably wanted her. ‘It’s been there since the beginning.’
She swallowed. ‘In the beginning I was drunken.’
‘But I wasn’t.’
That game! ‘Stacking goblets isn’t me.’
He chuckled and his breath rushed against her hair. ‘Yes, it is.’
How could he know?
‘What is it?’ Louve said. ‘You’re...still.’
It was nothing, she turned around again. When Louve kept his hands resting along her arms, slowly brushing them up to her shoulders and down, she thought about stepping away. She’d told him no, but she needed that touch. ‘I’ve had to work all my life.’
When he dipped his chin in that way of his, she continued, ‘I couldn’t do enough at home. I helped my mother and brothers in the fields and then in the kitchens. But there were some...obstacles.’
‘There usually are when you’re running a household.’
He probably couldn’t imagine what act she had to do to earn the use of her neighbour’s ox. She didn’t want to even think those thoughts now. Not when Louve’s hands had stilled and he was simply rubbing his thumbs along the crook in her elbows, which was both comforting and...making her breasts feel tighter, fuller. ‘I couldn’t do enough, I had to find work in the next village to earn coin. Every payment I made at the inn, I walked back to my home and handed it to my brother. It was a good time and we were able to pay taxes, I was making friends, I was welcome there. Then...’
‘You put thistles in someone’s braies,’ Louve said.
The comment was so far from her thoughts she could only stare.
Louve’s face turned absolutely innocent. ‘You poured a bucket of piss over someone’s head.’
She slapped a hand over his mouth. ‘No!’
When she realised what she’d done, she awkwardly pulled it away. Only to reveal a double-dimple smile, and her mind reduced to that one ridiculous word: glorious.
‘Did you...?’ Her voice was barely audible. ‘Did you do those things?’
He raised one knowing eyebrow. ‘I might have played a part.’
He seemed so proud of what he did, she knew he didn’t understand.
‘Well, I played a part, too, and it lost me my occupation. I was forced to go to the next village, then the next, and...here I am far away from my home.’
She could see from his expression, he understood then. He wasn’t from wealth or nobility, he’d had to earn his coin as well.
He squeezed her arms. ‘Don’t change. Don’t even think it.’
‘I have to, to stay. I can’t keep getting further away from my family—’
‘But you play here.’
Her heart dropped. ‘It usually takes me months before I become myself around people. Here, to get to my sister, I was different with the steward than I was with the servants and what you saw that first day.’
His blue eyes softened as she told him some of her past. Oh, there was heat there, too, and the promise of more. It was there, as well, in the way he kept touching her, as if he couldn’t stop.
She didn’t want him to stop.
‘How did you know it was me?’ When his brows turned in, she added, ‘You said earlier that you knew the game was me, but you’d just arrived.’
‘Because anyone who can stack goblets while drinking must have been practising for a very long—’
‘Stop!’
His eyes danced around her features as if he was mesmerised by her sudden laughter. Her whole body leaned into his expression and his hands settled close to her hips.
All the while, his eyes never stopped their roaming. From the tips of her ears to her scar under her chin, she didn’t feel as though any detail was too small for his interest. So his next words again took her by surprise.
‘Because there’s so much of you,’ he said. Then growled under his breath. ‘No, don’t turn away again. Stay with me.’
Whatever he needed to say, she’d let him, then walk right out. ‘I’m right here.’
‘You went away.’
‘I’m here, only my back is to you. Again.’ She turned a bit more so she couldn’t see him.
‘Turn the rest of the way. You face every other adversity and challenge. Face me and you can see that wh
at I’m to tell you isn’t any hardship. Bied, don’t you know what I mean? How much you give away. Your protection. Your generosity. Your heart. Even to me.’
She spun on that, the movement insignificant, but he was close, so she brushed her front against him. He stiffened then.
‘You,’ she said, ‘don’t have my heart.’
A quirk at his lips. ‘But I have all of your ire and you’re generous with that.’
Humour, and that dimple given away effortlessly, as if he had done it often in his past. ‘You like laughter.’
‘I do.’ He searched her features. She wondered what he saw there.
‘How can you jest, be a strict usher, a deadly mercenary and on a dangerous mission?’
He flashed a grin. ‘I can do many things at the same time. I also like to meddle and pry.’
‘What happens when you pry and interfere with me?’ she said.
He dipped his chin. ‘You look as if you want to throw something at me.’
She almost snorted.
Smile widening, he swooped closer and whispered, ‘But there’s something else, isn’t there? There’s something underneath or just behind, or beyond what you feel with me.’
She felt the way his voice rasped across her ear, felt what that heat did to her. ‘No.’
He pulled back. ‘You told me some of your family, surely that means something.’
‘I only told you a bit, you don’t even know all their names.’
He exhaled, straightened his shoulders. ‘If you mean it, if this is truly a no, I’ll leave, Bied.’
There was no light of humour in his eyes. He meant these words, and she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted it to continue, but it had to be temporary. He had his duties and she had her sister. Surely this was temporary. If so...they could have this night.
‘I do feel something else with you.’ At the ease in his expression, she added, ‘It’s annoyance.’
‘Oh?’ He walked around her, until he was again at her back. She was grateful to not be staring at the wide ovens, but nothing held her interest as much as this man.
‘Undeniably, annoyance,’ she said. ‘You ask me to turn and then you’re at my back.’
‘Does annoyance feel like this?’ He brushed his lips against the shell of her ear. ‘Or perhaps like this.’ His breath warmed the base of her other ear.
The kitchen blurred and then returned in focus. What did he want? She knew she didn’t want him to do that again. If he did she was certain to turn and he deserved a wait. ‘Not annoyance. Exasperation.’
A sharp breath as if she pleased him. In a blink, his teeth nipped around the shell of her ear and then he was at the other, whispering more of those words. ‘Exasperation goes like that...or is it more like this?’ This time, nothing was fast as he used his lips to nibble along the edges until her core clenched.
‘Displeasure!’ she bit out. Her voice caught between one breath and the next. She wasn’t in the kitchens any more. She was only with him.
He trailed off her ear, continued with the same press of his lips, the same light nip of his teeth, the flick of his tongue behind her ear and down her neck. She wasn’t moving now. She couldn’t as he angled closer, as anticipation gripped her.
He brushed his nose across the nape of her neck and rubbed his roughened jaw up along the other side back to her ear where he began that same maddening pattern with his lips, his tongue, his teeth which drove her absolutely mad.
As did the hum he did when he nuzzled into her hair. It felt as though he was touching her in more places than the innocent brush of his chin at the top of her head. They weren’t even talking. They’d merely spouted words that made no sense.
Yet all of it was too much, just like everything else with him. The way he used such simple contact, the way she felt now as he brushed aside some curl and stepped between her legs. Every touch maddeningly light as he pinched the laces of her gown between two fingers and lifted them into her line of sight.
She waited for the tug. It didn’t come. She no longer pretended she didn’t want his touch. He had to hear the shortness of her breath. With this too-tight gown, he had to see the thumping of her heart.
She could turn. In the past with men it was usually with much haste as they buried themselves between her breasts and then between her legs.
But Louve did none of that. Oh, she knew he wanted her. His own breath fell hot and fast against her bared skin. She felt the hard thump of his heart between her shoulder blades. The insistent length of him hotter and much lower than that.
He swung the laces before her. A tug, that’s all he needed to do. A tug, to unravel, to shove the gown to her sides and it would collapse at their feet. It might not even take that, the laughable fabric hardly wanted to stay on her as it was.
‘And this, Bied, what is this?’ he said.
She didn’t know. Were they talking of opposites? Or were these more useless words which held no meaning to her any more?
Grasping his hands, she forced the tug on the laces. Shoved his hands to the side and pushed the gown down herself. It fell in the front, but held up in the back, where his body pressed, where his leg held strong between hers.
‘Annoyance,’ she announced.
One hot, amused release of breath down her front and she didn’t need to know where his gaze went. Her chemise was pulled tight across her bared breasts. Her nipples beaded dark against the light linen.
A breath in, before he pulled away, just that bit, and she felt a pinch in her gown before the fabric gave out and finally tumbled between their bodies. Leaving her almost naked and him fully clothed.
Again, she thought to turn, but Louve’s stubbled cheek rubbing against the top of her head stopped her. His fingers snapping at the bindings of her plait, completely freeing her hair, extinguished any thought of forcing what she wanted. What they both wanted.
‘Not annoyance, my goblet smasher,’ he said. His voice deeper, raspy. Another indication that she wasn’t in this alone. ‘Annoyance isn’t the word now.’
He gripped the chemise in his fists. Waited, and slowly, she lifted her arms above her head. When he pulled on the fabric, she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck.
Dipping his head, he took the invitation. Their kiss no more than an open taste of tongue and lips and carnal need. When he pulled back, she didn’t release her hands on his neck.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, his voice no more than a rasp.
She leaned back that bit more, thrusting her breasts that he barely touched, rubbing her back against his torso.
‘Feeling you,’ she said.
He tugged on the fabric again. ‘That was my idea.’
The greediness of his hands, the hard bar of him against her back, all belying her effect on him. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but she wasn’t a slender maid. Though the chemise didn’t truly hide her, it hid some, and she hesitated releasing the last of her covering.
She’d never been this way before, never felt this doubt. Something inside her knew it was different with him than anyone else...and so she hesitated.
‘Bied,’ he growled. ‘I couldn’t last time. Let me see you now.’
Her fingers loosened at the need behind his words and she looked up. Dark hair mussed by her fingers, his lower lip damp from their kiss.
‘What do you mean you couldn’t last time?’
If possible, his eyes turned more heated. Lit with unmistakable amusement. ‘You think your friends took care of you that day? You think I allowed even for one moment that pup Henry to untie your laces and lay this lush body down?’
It was he. Louve had carried her to the room and removed her gown. ‘You? We’d just met!’
‘Under the circumstances, with your arms and breasts waving at me, we were more than acquainted.’ He flashed both dimples. With the da
rkness of his eyes, it was more than distracting. ‘You should see your expression. Trying to remember?’
‘I don’t think I want to.’
‘That gown was off you much faster than this one, Bied.’ He let go of the fabric and the chemise’s hem whispered against her shins to the floor again. ‘For I had you underneath me.’ His hands were rougher this time as they swept across the fabric to her skin underneath, as if the image he spoke of her beneath him was a bit too much.
It was a bit too much for her.
‘I worshipped those eight freckles across your nose, the way your chin tipped in defiance, the blush of your bottom lip.’ He leaned his head to rest on her shoulder, his breath, his lips telling her the story as much as his words.
‘I brushed that warm linen across already clean skin simply to have an excuse to touch you.’ His hands swept underneath her breasts. Held the weight of them as his thumbs rubbed across the sensitive skin, as his fingers swept over the tips and ever so gently, tugged. At her caught breath and the sound she could not hold back, he did it again. And again.
‘Madwoman that you were, spouting absurdities.’ His hands swept down her sides, over the curve of her belly and across the tops of her round thighs. He touched as much as was available to reach with her body pressing tightly back, with her leaning on him for support, for more.
‘I’ve wanted you ever since.’ He gave her more roughened caresses, more tiny tugs at her chemise. ‘Let me take this off. Let me have you.’
She didn’t want his fingers to stop the digging at her thighs, his palms kneading at her hips. This time, she grasped the chemise to yank it off, so she could feel those hands against her bared skin. But when the hem brushed the bottom of her breasts, most of her body bared for that touch, something stopped her. Something good. Something right.
She tilted her head to look up at him. Liked the knowing light in his eyes. Liked even more the promise of retribution because she held up her gown for his touch, but denied his eyes from seeing anything of her.