by Joanne Rock
“The wall would hide us from sight if we took a seat.” Graham seemed sure of himself here, his assessing eye missing nothing as he weighed the situation. “Why don’t we open the door to the house and sit on the threshold so if we need to retreat quickly we can?”
Arguing seemed selfish and—quite possibly—futile, so she followed him to the tall doors leading into an upstairs sleeping chamber. The house smelled musty and unused, no surprise since her youngest brother did not make use of the family home after their father had died. All the Welborne manpower had been spent keeping their valuable sister under lock and key.
Linnet had only been here once before, when her mother had been dying and her father had sent her from Welborne Keep as if she were as contagious as a leper. He had not minded when Linnet had begged to attend her mother since she was apparently as expendable as the wife he’d only wed for her wealth.
“Thank you,” she blurted as she sat beside him on the wooden threshold worn smooth by many men’s boots. Her own slippers had paced here countless hours as she prayed for her mother’s recovery. “I appreciate you bringing me here. I know you take a great risk to do so.”
“The risks are negligible for me. My line of work is all about taking calculated chances.” He reached into a flap of material on the back of his hip and withdrew a shiny metal object—a slender box with rounded ends. “I used my belt to pick the lock on my shackles last night, but only because I couldn’t reach my pocketknife.”
He flipped open a shiny blade from one end of the thin tool.
“A dagger that folds into itself.” The weapon was not thick enough to take into battle, but it was all the more useful for its sleek casing. “A cursedly clever device.”
“But wait. There’s more.” He reached into the narrow box and tugged out another tool. “Act now, and you also get a screwdriver.”
A tiny stick popped out beside the knife, followed in quick succession by a series of other implements of varying shapes and sizes, the likes of which she had never seen. Some looked to be for cutting, while others had a metal loop or a spiral of steel.
“You possess a treasure trove in this clever box.” She marveled over the miniature size of the items. “Any chatelaine would love such a prize.”
“Yeah, well, if I knew I was coming I would have stopped off at Wal-Mart for a whole case.” He let her study the tool and work the smooth hinges for a long moment before he drove home his point. “Between the screwdriver and the nail file, I can have you out of that belt in ten minutes, max.”
“I would like that, but I fear such a task would be better undertaken by a woman, or someone close to me.”
She picked at the folds of her long skirts, the overhang from the eaves shielding her face from the sun on their threshold perch.
“Because I might glimpse two square inches of your naked hip? Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to toss off the shackles and claim your life instead of worrying about what I might see?” He didn’t move closer or try to intimidate her into seeing his point of view. If anything, he seemed content to let his words be the more forceful persuasion while his well-muscled arms rested easily at his sides.
She couldn’t possibly consider his suggestion that she take off all her clothes for him to manipulate a lock positioned in the most private of places. Just the thought of such intimacy should make her shudder after the brutal way Kendrick had forced the foul restraint on her. But instead of repulsing her, the idea fascinated her with the raw power of sexual curiosity. Especially when she knew Graham’s hands to be so capable.
Slowly becoming aware of the long silence, she rushed to fill the air with some sort of response.
“Perhaps while I am thinking it over, you would be so kind as to explain this Walmart. Is he a silversmith in your land?”
“Linnet.” He took her hand in his in a touch meant to soothe, or perhaps just to hold her interest.
Little did he know, he was the cause of all her distraction. Now that they were behind the walls of the holding, her fears of her brothers had eased enough to make way for new worries. Her heart tripped twice before finding its rhythm again. She realized at that moment she wanted to kiss Graham Lawson LAPD, and she had no idea where he came from or what he was doing here.
Or when he might leave her to face an uncertain future alone.
“Perhaps if you allowed me to borrow your collection of tools, I could pick the lock for myself.” She’d meant to question him more about Walmart and the land of his birth, but she could not deny a keen interest in releasing the bands of her self-contained prison.
“I know you want to do this yourself, but I’m experienced with picking locks for reasons I don’t want to get into right now. I can get you out faster than you can say the alphabet backward and we’ll make sure you stay covered the whole time.”
“You spied on me while I was changing clothes back at Welborne Keep. Why would I ever trust you to play the chivalrous knight now?”
“That was before I realized the chastity belt was a barbaric attempt to control you instead of some weirdo sex game you played with a lover.” He squeezed her fingers lightly. “Now that I know how much of a head game this has been for you for three years, I would never try to sneak a peek or cop a feel. I just want to help.”
The warmth of his hands wore down her defenses, but the quiet sincerity in his eyes delivered the final blow to her resistance.
How could she say no to a man with eyes the color of an endless summer sky? She just might take flight if she stared into his gaze long enough.
“I like the idea of defeating Kendrick in this,” she admitted, freeing her hands from his before she agreed to anything else. “Why don’t we make a deal that if I agree to let you try unfastening the lock, you promise to tell me all about the lands of your kinsmen?”
He hesitated for the briefest of moments, causing her to wonder what secrets he kept.
“Deal. But you go first. I’m not saying anything until I spring you out of there and you’re running through the daisies like a ten-year-old.” He craned his neck to see behind them into the old bedchamber. “All we need is a place for you to lie down so we can get to work.”
THEY GOT AS FAR AS THE RAISED platform where a pallet could be placed in the bedchamber before Linnet spun on her heel and started doling out reasons for why they should wait to go through with his plan. Eyes wide with worry, she began running through a litany of excuses for delaying her release from captivity. The belt wasn’t all that uncomfortable. She didn’t want him to break “his steely miracle” called a pocketknife on her behalf. But when she launched into an explanation about not wanting to involve him in a scheme sure to ignite the wrath of her betrothed, Graham could keep quiet no longer on the subject.
“Don’t you dare be afraid for me.” He’d tried gentle persuasion and logic, but apparently he couldn’t afford to hold anything back in this debate. “If you want to be scared for yourself, go right ahead. That I can understand. But don’t back out of this because of some groundless fear for me.”
He stood over her as she sank to the platform where a bed should be. The fortified holding was all but barren inside, although a few rolled tapestries hid behind an oak chest at the foot of the raised stone pallet.
“The man I’m bound to is arguably the most fearsome warrior in the Lion-Heart’s realm. His sword prowess is legendary and his ruthlessness well known.”
“News flash, babe. My sword prowess is pretty freaking legendary where I come from, too, and I have ten years of experience keeping innocent people safe from bad guys. Creeps like Kendrick are the reason I went into law enforcement.” At her confused expression, he slowed down his tirade to explain. “Where I come from, I’m like a sheriff.”
“You serve your king?”
And wouldn’t his precinct commander just love that comparison?
“Something like that. The point is, if I ever meet your former fiancé, it’s going to be him who regrets the encounter, not me.
I happen to contain a lot of pent-up anger over men who abuse women.” He didn’t want to think about the cases he’d seen in the past, domestic-violence calls where he couldn’t do a damn thing to help women in dangerous positions because they wouldn’t help themselves by pressing charges.
“I haven’t been abused,” she protested, perhaps not liking the mental picture of herself as a victim.
“Bad guys don’t always leave bruises.” He’d missed a case like that right under his own nose once. An oversight he’d never forgotten because the victim had been his mother and he’d been too dazzled by the prospect of a dad that he’d missed how withdrawn and unhappy his mother had become over the years of a miserable relationship.
He’d learned the hard way that some men were better at hiding their predatory nature than others.
“Graham?” Linnet’s voice called him back from dark musings and regrets he’d never be able to right.
She stared up at him without fear now, her green eyes altered from nervous to resolved.
“I doubted you before when my brothers seemed to overtake you, but you escaped the brute strength of three men with cunning.” She smiled and dazzled the hell out of him. “I will not doubt you again.”
If she’d had any dragons to slay at that moment, Graham figured he probably would have faced the fire-breathing kind head-on for the chance to keep her smiling and safe.
“What about you? Are you going to keep underestimating yourself, or are you going to tell your fiancé to go to hell—not in so many words, but in your actions?”
Graham knew better than to get involved in a case, and that’s how he had to view this interlude with Linnet. In the time that he’d known her, she’d morphed from a fantasy woman to someone he needed to protect.
He pressed his advantage when she did not respond immediately.
“Besides, once I break you loose of the metal, you’ll be able to haul ass away from him if he ever shows his face around you again. Think how much faster you’ll be able to move without an impediment dragging you down.”
“You are a most unusual man, Graham Lawson. You’ve not only talked me into baring half my body to your talented hands, but now you have me believing I would be a coward if I did not do so.”
If he hadn’t been so hard-bitten by the image of Linnet undressing for the sake of his touch, he might have refuted her words. As it was, he promptly swallowed his tongue and began to wonder just who was making whom more nervous.
This woman was young. Not jailbait young, but if she’d been in the twenty-first century, she would be just barely out of college. Sure she was wise beyond her years, considering the life she’d led, but Graham didn’t want to start having more suggestive daydreams about her.
And considering the track record he had with women—his ex a fine example of the females he’d crossed paths with before—he really ought to at least consider that Linnet might be using him the same way his ex had used him to obtain her dream role and meet Brendan Jameson.
“I’m ready when you are.” He found himself reaching for his pocketknife in spite of his reservations, because she needed him to be strong and sure of himself when she started peeling off her clothes and not taunted by erotic thoughts.
Together they laid out the blanket she’d packed from her bedroom back at her brother’s castle. She’d brought food and wine, two clean blankets, some extra clothes that took up way too much room and the sex toy with the carvings he still needed to study. Graham had brought his sword along with a handful of other weapons he’d swiped from Welborne Keep. He didn’t necessarily need more blades since he could only swing one at a time, but he figured the less weaponry he left with the enemy, the better.
“I grow more milk-livered by the moment.” Linnet spun on her heel in a swirl of green and yellow skirts, her under- and over-dresses spinning around her ankles like Saturn’s rings. “I do not wish you to think me craven, but the idea of removing clothes is…That is, the last time I did so with a man—”
“Did he do more than…beat you?” As if that hadn’t been bad enough. Fury at the last man to touch her choked him, but he dug deep to keep his voice calm. Level. If she’d been raped, she would surely have emotional issues Graham couldn’t overcome with his limited knowledge of victim psychology.
“Nay. But as I said, there was a struggle and he—” she gulped air with increasing speed “—took his pleasure of looking and touching.”
Pain registered in her eyes, fleeting but obvious even to a guy without much in the way of sensitivity training. He probably shouldn’t confuse their strange relationship any more by touching her, but reaching out for her was so natural, so instinctive, he didn’t have time to talk himself out of it. He simply folded her in his arms to stop the subtle trembling of her body, to soothe whatever fears he could.
“Jesus, I’m sorry you had to go through that.” And how many worse things were women going through today in L.A. as the Guardians stole young women for God only knew what reason?
But he couldn’t help those other women right now. He could only reach Linnet and do everything in his power to make sure her misbegotten brothers and fiancé never got their hands on her again.
“It’s not frightening when you touch me.”
Her words were muffled against his chest as he held her, but Graham heard them all too clearly. The loaded comment called him from his noble intentions and made him consider less honorable ways to chase away Linnet’s fears. If touching her helped, he’d be all too pleased to oblige.
The attraction between them had been obvious from the moment he’d wrestled away the dagger she’d pulled on him when she’d found him in the wardrobe. Those intense moments of struggling bodies and heavy breathing had been—well—sexy as hell.
He angled back from her enough to cradle her face in his hand, tipping her chin so that he could meet her eyes. In his mind, he’d been about to tell her he would never harm her.
But somehow, no words issued forth when their gazes locked. Instead, he dipped his head as she arched up on her toes and their lips brushed in a moment of mutual insanity.
But oh, Lord have mercy, it was sweet.
She kissed with an honest-to-God pucker, so soft and sexy that he couldn’t resist flicking his tongue along her lower lip, forcing a surprised sigh from her and giving him total access to her mouth. He savored the taste of her—red wine and innocence—even as he told himself to pull away.
She wound her arms around his neck instead, pulling him tighter at the same time her breasts brushed his chest, the peaks cresting into tight points he could feel all too damn well thanks to the wonders of medieval clothing. No combination of spandex, cotton or lace could compete with her naked breasts beneath a layer of velvet and thin linen.
His fingers itched to cup the weight of those soft, full breasts in his hands, but he couldn’t take this kiss that far, not after all she’d been through.
He pulled back cold-turkey, the only way he knew to cure an addiction. But even with a few inches separating them, their shared airspace seemed to crackle with sparks they couldn’t douse.
“I don’t want to confuse the issue.” A stupid thing to say, but he’d be lying if he pretended he could think clearly after a kiss like that. “I mean—maybe touching will only complicate this for you when I want to make sure you know I can free that lock and let you go without touching you or leering at you. I’d never restrain you, Linnet. This has to be your decision.”
“I feel sort of restrained right now, because what I want to do is kiss you and you won’t let me.” She took a step closer, her green eyes still clouded with the same heat ruling him.
Professional instincts told him they were approaching this all wrong. He was messing this up royally. But his psych training seemed worlds away in this empty, echoing keep made of stone and wood, a structure that probably didn’t even exist in the twenty-first century. Linnet didn’t live in a world clogged full of self-help guides for every conceivable emotional problem.
Here in a world where the sword ruled and women had few options, maybe he wasn’t doing her such a disservice to show her the unselfish ways a man could touch a woman.
Praying he wasn’t suffering from a wicked need for justifying his actions, Graham pulled her down to the blanket-covered platform, situating her across his lap. Her green and yellow velvet skirts spilled over his legs and her silky hair fell over his arm, surrounding him in her softness.
“I want to kiss you, too.” For about three days straight. Preferably while he buried himself deep inside her. “But I would not replace one bad memory for you with another if you start to panic. Considering the scenario that got you into the belt, I think we’d be wise not to hold each other when I spring you of it. Does that make sense?”
“You fear I will think you are restraining me?” Her hip settled deeper into his lap and he thought he’d jump right out of his skin.
“Bingo.” With an effort, he uncrossed his desire-dazed eyes and focused on the matter at hand. “If I keep you here, maybe you will remember you can get up and walk away whenever you want.”
He needed to reassure her, to make this right for her, more than he needed to indulge his hunger. Maybe it had just been too long since his ex had taken up with Brendan, because he couldn’t remember a time in his life when sex had felt so important. So freaking urgent.
“It’s a good idea.” She wrapped her arms about his neck again. “I’ll hold on to you, but you won’t hold on to me. That way I’ll remember I’m in charge.”
A lesser man might have let out a wolf whistle at the thought of a medieval sexpot declaring herself in charge as she lifted her skirt. But Graham settled for gripping his pocketknife all the more firmly, imprinting the shape of the case into his palm as he fought for some measure of control.
A feat becoming more difficult by the second as Linnet brushed her hem higher and higher up her calves.