Scoundrel's Kiss

by Carrie Lofty

  "And you mind your tongue. Remember where you were not a week ago before we talk about good behavior."

  His glower pushed at her to step away, but she held firm. "What happened to 'no shame,' novice? Or are you planning to hold these last few days over my head?"

  He pinched his brows together, the look of a man in pain. "Forget I said anything. We should sleep through the day and leave for Ucles tomorrow afternoon, before the guards close the town gates."

  She exchanged a quick glance with Blanca, as well as an almost identical shrug. Ada shivered, seeing her sister in the young woman's poised movements and calm expression.

  Meg rarely had cause to become angry, but when she did, silence was her weapon of choice. Marble and iron held more warmth and showed more emotion than did Meg when she became cross. Except there at the last, during that final, fateful argument before Ada had left for Spain. Meg had laid bare every feeling, from fear and love to disbelief and pain. And why not? After what Ada had demanded—making Meg choose between her sister and her husband—she deserved no less than a tirade the size and fury of a thunderstorm.

  Suddenly breathless from the surge of guilt, she looked toward the door. "Are there baths down here, in secret?"

  "Yes," Blanca said. "Along this same corridor and to the right. We're closer to the source of the spring, so the water can be quite hot."

  Ada rifled through her satchel, past a bundle of scrolls and the chess set, and found her tortoiseshell hair comb and a small cake of lemon and olive oil soap wrapped in waxed linen. Jacob had remembered all she would need, and that shiver of guilt increased.

  Gavriel caught her arm. He stood tall and powerful—chest out, head up—his posture unlike any mincing clergyman. "You cannot go by yourself," he said.

  She flicked an appreciative look down his body and smiled. The rich brown color of his closely shorn hair, very dark, complimented the deep tan of his skin. "I didn't know you wanted to watch, or I would've extended you an invitation."

  He tugged hard on her upper arm until they stood together, hips almost touching. That same look of outrage darkened his sharp features, but something more primal lurked behind his eyes. "I merely want to guarantee you'll stay here."

  She looked at her gown. Fine embroidered linen of a dark red hue had been stained with all manner of questionable refuse, reminding her of the terrible ordeal of her withdrawal.

  "I want a bath," she said, hitching the satchel over her shoulder. "Nothing more. Let me wash away the filth of these last few days."

  He did not look at her shabby clothing, only at her eyes. "But I will be outside the corridor the entire time. You'll not try to leave."

  "And why would I try to leave when I have such charming company?"

  Gavriel paced the scant length of the secret underground corridor. Every time he passed the closed door that shielded his eyes from Ada and her bath, he glared at the solid oak. The very idea of her naked body stretched beneath the warm and enveloping waters of the bath threatened to send him to his knees. He could hack it open. He could bust it down. Or he could keep glaring until the wood caught fire.

  But no. He continued pacing. The litany of reasons why he had to remain in the dank and cramped corridor pounded against his brain like the strike of a hammer. It would be wrong and dangerous, a knife to cut down the last of his vows.

  Physical torture—he had known those terrible pains. But the torture of having guided Ada through the worst of her sickness, tending her every need and walking the narrow path between caring and distance, gnawed on his control. He deserved something. He was no saint. This test, this terrible test was more than he could endure. Any deity that claimed otherwise would never understand the failings of mortal man.

  He trudged to a stop in front of the door.

  How long had she been in there? Blanc a had warned her about the high temperature of the spring water. But had Ada taken heed? The picture of her naked, water-bound body had been an erotic vision moments before; now he imagined only danger. She was still fatigued and out of sorts—boiled alive and none the wiser.

  "Inglesa? Inglesa, answer me!" He pressed his ear to the door and held his breath, to no avail. After a few thundering whacks, he listened again. Nothing. "Ada, you're worrying me. Answer!"

  Indecision briefly paralyzed his limbs. He found himself staring at a knot of wood in the door, still waiting for the answering call that refused to come.

  Then vows and pride and modesty be damned, he yanked on the wrought iron latch and rattled it. Locked.

  "Ada! Open this door!"

  He sped back to the private room. Blanca lay asleep on the floor, curled into herself like a human wheel. He grabbed her key and drew Ada's jeweled dagger from its sheath at his waist, determined to make do when a battle ax would have better served his purposes.

  But Blanca's key opened the door to the bathing chamber. He prayed for a gasp or a scream of outrage. He hoped that a cake of soap would smack him between the eyes, hurled by a woman who valued her privacy.

  No such reaction greeted him.

  She had washed her deep red gown and kirtle. The wet garments decorated the stone floor between the door and a shallow well filled with steaming spring water. A softened cake of soap lay at the well's rim, clouded by popping bubbles.

  And Ada reclined there—entirely nude, hair wet, eyes closed, head back.

  Gavriel was by her side and on his knees before his next intake of breath. He cradled her brightly flushed face in his hands and patted her cheeks. "Inglesa, wake up. Do you hear me?"

  She moaned, lolling her head toward his thighs. "Wha—? Where am—oh!"

  She sat up in the shallow bath, arms crisscrossed over her bare chest. Water splashed the stones around the basin and dotted his hands. Scalding water.

  "You need out of this bam right now," he said. "How could you be so careless as to fall asleep? Do you want to be cooked like a chicken?"

  Dazed at first, her eyes regained focus. "Hand me that cloth for drying."

  He lowered his eyes and tried to keep them averted, no matter the tantalizing pull of her bared flesh. But gone was the milky white luster of her skin, replaced by an unnatural redness. He retrieved the length of linen cloth and handed it to her. Mostly covered, she used his arm to support her exit from the bath, her breath coming in accelerated bursts.

  "Now come," he said, leading her to sit on a stone bench carved from the subterranean walls. "Let me see your legs."

  "I've never known you to be so forward."

  "Crazy woman! What would have happened had I not come in?"

  She flinched and tightened the linen across her chest. "What you want from me?"

  "I want gratitude!"

  He hung his head. Failure pressed on him from all sides, mashing any idea of the man he thought he was becoming.

  "And this is your charity," she said. "Do you understand what this has been like for me? Gramercy for staying with me over these last days. Gramercy for pulling me clear of the bath. But if I have to swallow my pride and thank you one more time, my head will melt."

  "Better your head than your skin."

  He watched as his hands reached toward the supple muscle of her calf where it poked from beneath the cloth. That vicious pink looked all the more unnatural against the pale, sun-bleached linen. His dark skin offered yet another contrast. And then he was touching her.

  For the first time he found a reason to be genuinely grateful for his monastic life. Had he still been a warrior, his hands would have been covered with calluses born of swordplay and horsemanship. Instead, his hands were smooth and able to appreciate the fine texture and resilience of her leg with such clarity as to steal his breath.

  He looked up and found Ada watching him, her blue eyes darkened in the shadowed half-light. Her lips parted. She did not flinch or pull away, and neither did she appear to breathe with the strained effort he did. He wanted her to feel the same mindless pull toward temptation.

  He wanted her.
/>   "Is it badly burned?" she asked.

  "I—shall I?"

  The smallest grin tilted her lips. She glanced meaningfully at where his hands cradled the curve of her calf. "If you insist."

  Breathing deeply through his nose, he looked down at her leg. To his relief, he found no evidence of severe burns. The skin was puffed, and that unnatural shade of pink glowed in the mild torchlight, but Gavriel could find no blisters. He nudged the cloth aside and found the other calf and both knees in sound condition.

  "No serious damage," he said. "You are lucky."

  "And you? Can you say the same?"

  Gavriel's eyes turned impossibly dark. Arched black brows pulled together, concentrating like a man trying to see through brick, and Ada steeled herself against the need to look away.

  She had been with this man in close quarters and under deeply personal circumstances, but she had not been of any mind to see him. Really see him. And the man who knelt at her feet—her captor, her unlikely savior—was breathtaking to behold. Not even a master sculptor could recreate the sharp, strong bones of his face, the cut of his jaw and the straight length of his nose. But for a face hewn of so many harsh angles, she also found surprising softness in his full lower lip.

  Unexpected heat collected in her veins, turning her muscles to sticky dough and bathing her mind in a sensuous wash of pleasure. But unlike the lethargy of an opium high, these sensations built and bunched and intensified. For the first time in months, she did not crave the bitter taste of her tincture, which would only blunt the bright shock of her desire. Instead she craved the taste of him.

  She rubbed her upper arm but nothing dispelled that gathering need. Beneath her nervous fingertips, her skin felt especially soft.

  "I must dress," she said, surprised by the husky timbre of her voice. Her smile softened, melting along with her bones. "You can leave. Or you can stay."

  Panic blew across his features, making him seem younger and more vulnerable. The stern frown he had worn while scrutinizing her face altered slightly, the brows drawing up above the bridge of his nose. A look of pleading.

  Yes. His vows. Heat, flesh, and closeness had banished his vows from her mind. And now he silently pleaded with her to make a decision—not that he would have admitted such a thing.

  Her own decision made, Ada stood and looked down to where he still knelt, his fingers interlaced around the back of her calf. She had seen him kneel before, but now he submitted to her. Dizziness from her long, hot bath melded with desire.

  "Either way," she said. "You'll have to release my leg."

  "And if I don't?"

  She grinned, in part because of his question—a threat that sounded more" like teasing—and in part because his voice had roughened to sand. The smooth veneer of his confidence had eroded completely.

  'If you don't, I'll likely fell into the bath." He released her leg as if she were the fire now. A pent up breath pushed free of her lungs, just as a damp heat licked her inner thighs. "No matter," she said. "I believe you would have caught me anyway."

  She turned her back, inhaled, and dropped the cloth.

  Gavriel arose, his legs trembling like those of a newborn colt. She stood motionless in front of him with the graceful length of her bare back, buttocks, and legs his to see. She had not eaten regularly in days, and the bones of her spine and her ribs stood out. That should have been enough to temper his crippling lust, to send him away. But after closing the door, he drew closer.

  When one step separated his body from hers, Gavriel breathed the scent of lemon and skin warmed by the mineral-rich spring water. The more he breathed, the more lightheaded he became. He felt every heartbeat in triplicate: beneath his ribs, in his skull, at his groin.

  He brushed his mouth along the curve of her shoulder. She shuddered but did not pull away. The moist heat of his breath raised goose bumps on her skin and reflected back against his face. He waited, glorying in that intimate caress, knowing he would take her if he tasted her.

  She breathed with more urgency now. The sharp bones at the tops of her shoulders raised and lowered. He imagined her nipples would stand tight atop her firm breasts. What color would they be? Dusky or pink? In his panic at finding her asleep in the hot spring, he had not indulged in the luxury of studying her. Now he needed only to turn her around. It would be as easy as taking her arm and tugging.

  "Order me to go," he rasped.

  Ada looked over her shoulder. He let his eyes fall down the line of her brow and her cheeks and her chin. "I won't do that," she said.

  "Why not?" The need to touch her again burned like hell's fires. "No respectable woman behaves as you do."

  "We both know I left respectable behind some time ago."

  "Then you do this as a game or as punishment."

  "You're mistaken if you believe this involves you alone." She spoke with less deliberation and more speed. "Perhaps I do this simply to see what I'll do next. I hardly know who I am anymore. It makes me wonder."

  He reached out to trace the line of her shoulder blade but pulled back. "Wonder what?"

  "Am I the kind of woman to seduce you outright or will I wait for you? Either way, you've become a most welcome distraction."

  She turned, and Gavriel had his answer. Her nipples were pink.

  "Ada, don't—"

  "You think you've cured me because I no longer shake or cry," she said. "But in that you're mistaken. The need is still here. Right here." She clenched one hand over the other and pressed it to the hollow between her breasts. "It's like thirst or hunger or lust. A need. Can you understand that?"

  He could only nod, a weak one at that. A delicious and wanton angel stood before him, his own parable of temptation. The redness of the hot spring had faded, leaving the smoothest white porcelain skin—a feast for his eyes. But he wanted more. No matter his aims or his vows, he was a man who needed more.

  "I can understand," he said thickly.

  "Then help me, Gavriel. Give me something new to crave."

  Chapter 11

  With one breath, Ada was standing naked before him, as aroused as she ever had been. Waiting. Wanting him to be the man he tried to hide, a man of danger and strength. But that strength had lowly human limits.

  And with one more breath, she was in his arms.

  Their lips met. The raw, musky taste of him grabbed her tongue. But more than his taste, he was heat. Fire and flame and the deep growl in his throat The lengthy soak in the hot spring had muddled her body temperature, leaving her cold and seeking more of the warmth his body promised.

  Still kissing, still tasting, she wrapped her arms around his neck and threaded trembling fingers into his short dark hair. He matched her urgency, his hands clenching and kneading her backside. He brought one hand higher to press between her shoulder blades and crush their chests together. The coarse wool of his tunic grazed her sensitized nipples, magnifying the urgency of her need.

  Ada wiggled against his confining arms, but not to escape— to be closer, to let him claim her. The aching hollow between her legs made her greedy. Never had she felt such a consuming need to be with and near another human being.

  Bending into Gavriel's unyielding body, she closed her eyes and reveled in his foreign textures: the roughness of his tongue, the spiky softness of his hair, the rasp of his beard growth along her cheeks and lips. The hard length of his arousal. He squeezed her backside again, nearly to the point of pain, pulling her hips into the cradle of his. Only his breeches separated their questing bodies.

  The thought of that barrier—leaving them so close to what they both wanted, but still divided—drew a tangled groan from deep in her belly. He matched the sound, deepening their kiss with renewed drive. The hard thrust of his tongue and the nipping bite of his teeth tested the depths of her passion, daring her to keep up. The restrained power and tension coiled within his muscles added to her excitement How much longer could he kiss without taking? How much longer could she kiss without stripping him bare and d
ragging him to the ground?

  No, she could kiss him for an eternity.

  A masculine shout from the end of the corridor pushed them apart. They stood looking at each other and listening. Gavriel's lips were swollen. His broad chest heaved. He frowned and canted his head toward the door. And with a single blink, the passion that had clouded his dark eyes dissipated.

  "Grab your satchel and hide," he said, turning away from her.

  Suddenly aware of her nudity, Ada assessed the oval bathing room for possible places to hide and found none. Light from the torch illuminated every surface. Gavriel seemed to read her thoughts. He grabbed the torch from its wall sconce and pinned Ada with one more heated look before snubbing it against the stone floor.

  The room descended into black and revived old fears. The rhythm of her breathing faltered as panic overpowered the receding passion in her blood. She hated the dark. Darkness meant captivity, pain, and helplessness. Her limbs refused to cooperate. The buzzing in her ears grew louder and stole her sense of direction. She needed her clothes.

  Then a hand clamped over her mouth. She screamed, but the sound stayed close and low.

  "Inglesa, calm yourself."

  Relief sluiced over her skin and sank into her bones. She sagged against his chest, his arm around her waist

  "Someone is coming," he said in a whisper against her ear. "And you must prepare yourself."

  She peeled his fingers down from her mouth. "The dark."

  "The dark is no danger. I'm here with you. Now find your clothes and stand ready."

  For the second time in as many minutes, Gavriel had to let go. And no matter his aims for the future, he did not want to. Just when he had been ready to throw his vows to the four winds and lay Ada down, someone had discovered them. Clinging to her would do nothing to protect them from that menace.

  She dropped to the ground, and he heard her scuffling over the stones. He pulled her dagger free of the sheath at his waist and counted three steps to the door. Fingers along the woodwork, he found the latch, locked the door, and turned his back flat against the wall.