Medieval Rogues

by Catherine Kean

  Tongues tangling in a frenzied dance, she’d kissed him deeper. Deeper still. He’d urged her to lie down beside him on the straw while they’d kissed, and her whole body had felt afire with wanting. She’d squirmed, restless. How she’d ached to slide her hand under his tunic, touch his bronzed skin, and to feel his nakedness against her palm.

  And then, she’d heard voices. Her dazed mind had registered the conversation of three men, nearing the stable.

  “Miranda,” Bram had whispered, breaking the kiss and urging her to sit up. “You cannot be found with me.”

  “I do not care what others think. Bram—”

  He’d pressed his finger to her lips. “Go. Use the rear door. You must leave, if we want to see each other again.”

  She’d staggered to her feet, her first taste of passion still buzzing in her veins. Leaving him was the very last thing she’d wanted. But, as her thoughts had cleared, she’d realized he was right. She certainly hadn’t wanted any misunderstandings that would cause Bram to face punishment.

  “You will see me again,” he’d said with a mischievous wink. “Go!”

  Pulling straw from her hair, she’d dashed for the back door and out into the night, her last glimpse of Bram being of him tugging down the sleeve of his tunic to hide the ribbon she’d tied at his wrist.

  A shout, from right outside the cottage door, broke into Miranda’s memories. As a man farther away called a reply, the vision of young Bram vanished. With a shaky sigh, she reminded herself that the outlaw had offered no evidence he was the Bram she’d known.

  Her heart desperately wanted—needed—to know for certain.

  The surest way to find out was to ask him to recount what had happened between them that night long ago.

  Aye. She would ask him.

  With a warning creak, the cottage door opened.

  ***

  As Bram stepped inside and pushed the door closed, his gaze fixed upon Miranda. She stood behind the table, using it as a physical barrier between them.

  In her expression, however, he saw veiled yearning, as though in the time he’d been giving orders to his men outside, she’d considered what he’d told her and had begun to believe it.

  Hope fired anew the raging desire he still struggled to control. After setting her free, he’d forced himself to walk out, to take calming breaths, and to recover the honor that had formed the foundation of his life. Lust had threatened to rip his gallantry to tatters, a weakness he’d never experienced before. But then again, he’d never been so tempted to make love to Miranda.

  His body, aroused again, still wanted that hot, sweaty, magnificent joining.

  Tearing his gaze from her, he reminded himself why he’d come back into the cottage. Crossing to his leather saddle bag propped against the wall, he turned his back to her and grabbed hold of the hem of his tunic.

  Tossing the garment aside, he examined the linen bandages tied around his lower torso. If she was foolish enough to try and attack him while his back was turned, he’d easily subdue her. As he’d expected, fresh blood stained the cloth under his right ribs. He’d torn the stitches again on the slow-healing wound.

  A sharp intake of breath made him glance over his shoulder. She’d moved nearer, the high table directly behind her now. He’d caught her shy gaze traveling over his back and buttocks. Her lips parted slightly. He’d known enough women to recognize sexual hunger in her expression.

  “Does my body meet with your approval?” he asked. The first time they’d kissed, she’d studied his physique with such thoroughness. Was she comparing him now to what he’d looked like years ago?

  Meeting his gaze, she blushed. “I did not mean to stare. I noticed you are injured. You must be in pain.”

  Aye, he definitely suffered pain, and not just from the wounds cut by his deceitful brother. Bram reached into his bag for clean bandages and drew them out, along with a pot of ointment, then snatched up his tunic.

  She sighed, an anxious but also excited sound, and his loins strained against the center seam of his hose. Did she know of his rock-hard arousal? A wicked part of him wanted her to see exactly what she did to him.

  He faced her. Her gaze traveled over his bandaged chest as he started toward her, her inspection cautious but determined. When her attention dropped to his groin, her eyes widened.

  As he neared her, she tried to step backward, but she was already against the table. He half-expected her to dash away across the room. However, as though telling herself to stand her ground, she crossed her arms, lifted her chin, and stood firm as he halted before her.

  Reaching around her, Bram set the items he carried on the table. He concentrated on the task, a futile attempt to focus on something other than the intense throbbing of his manhood.

  His chest slid against her folded arms as he moved, and she flinched, but didn’t scoot away. He savored the scent of her that reminded him of a summer meadow.

  How curious, that she dared to remain so close. Had she decided to trust him? Or was she testing his restraint?

  “There is something important I must ask you,” she blurted.

  “Very well. Ask.”

  As she nervously drummed her fingers on her arm, the edge of her sleeve shifted to reveal reddened skin. He caught her right arm, eased it away from her body, and drew back the silk to bare more of her creamy flesh to his view.

  “Wait. W-what are you doing?”

  “I am not the only one in pain.” He indicated the red marks. Anger sparked in her eyes, and he added, “I would never leave a lady in discomfort.”

  “But you would tie that lady to a table.” She arched her brows.

  She looked so much like the Miranda from long ago, he chuckled. Her eyes darkened with hurt—she’d clearly taken insult from his laughter—and he felt her flare of emotion like an arrow driving into his heart.

  Reaching to the table, Bram took the lid off the ointment, scooped out a small portion, and then began to rub it on her skin, warming the herbal salve with his touch.

  Trembling in his grasp, she said, “I can tend to my wrists.” She tried to pull away.

  “I want to,” he whispered, and gently rubbed the ointment on her right wrist, and then the left. He sensed her wariness, but she didn’t try to stop him, a tiny gesture of trust.

  That small trust was a beginning. Now, he’d build upon it to rekindle the passion that had once flared between them. The truth of who he was lay in that desire.

  Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to the reddened skin of her left wrist. A gasp broke from her, even as he kissed her again, the herbal scent of the salve strong in his nostrils, the slickness of the ointment on his mouth. Kiss by kiss, he moved his way up her wrist by following the bluish line of a vein beneath her skin.

  “My wrists feel b-better,” she said.

  “Good.” Without asking, without giving her the chance to deny him, he pushed her sleeve higher and continued his sensual assault. A silent growl rattled in his throat, for with each kiss upon her skin, he marked her as his own, and bound her to him with passion.

  Soon, he’d win her willing kiss on the mouth.

  “What did you wish to ask me?” he murmured against her skin.

  “I . . .”

  His lips brushed the delicate crease of flesh at her elbow.

  “Oh!” she gasped, then shuddered.

  He lifted his head to catch the slumberous slant of her eyelids and glow of arousal in her cheeks. He linked his hand through hers and raised it to his lips before kissing her knuckles, a gesture of affection a knight would bestow upon his lady.

  Surprise and anguish registered in her gaze. He sensed her desire wavering, as though she stood teetering on the edge of a stone wall, torn between believing him and rejecting him. Refusing to relinquish the intimacy between them, he drew their linked hands to the side, then closed the space between them.

  As his body pressed tight to hers, he groaned. His manh
ood pressed into her lower belly, still shielded from him by her garments, while her soft breasts pressed against his chest.

  “Y-you are overly bold!”

  “Perfectly bold,” he whispered, kissing her brow, the side of her face, the slope of her cheekbone. A fierce shudder shook him. “I want you, Miranda.”

  “I am betrothed—”

  “To Bram Hawksley. ’Tis the name, aye, that has been announced in the marriage banns?”

  “Aye,” she breathed, while, with a little moan, her hand settled on his bare shoulder. Her light, warm touch . . . His gut squeezed tight at the pleasure.

  Looking down into her upturned face, he said, “I am Bram. I swear, upon my father’s grave, that I am the man you kissed years ago.”

  “Help me to believe you.” Her wet gaze pleaded. “I ask you to tell me about our first kiss.”

  “Then, you will believe I am Bram?”

  “If what you say is the truth.”

  “I would never lie to you. Your faith in me that night and what I wanted from my life . . . It convinced me to believe in myself. I would never spoil what was one of the most perfect moments of my life.”

  “Mine, too.” Her beseeching stare bored into him.

  Could she feel how fiercely he wanted to say the right words? To finally see acceptance in her eyes? “’Twas late summer. Nighttime,” he began.

  “Go on,” she whispered.

  “You came to me as I washed in the stable.” He trailed his fingers along her jaw, then cupped her face with his hand. “You were so beautiful in the torchlight. I saw hunger in your eyes. A need that matched my own.”

  Her lips parted on a low cry, a sound of desire that drove his need to a sharp pitch.

  “Tell me . . . more.”

  The throatiness of her voice urged him to press even tighter against her. He could barely think past the feel of her crushed against him, the wanting pounding in his veins, but he must. For her, he must.

  “We sat on the hay, laughed, talked.” He shuddered, the closeness of her intoxicating. “Then, we kissed.”

  “Aye,” she whispered, tears glistening along her lower lashes.

  He couldn’t bear it any longer. He had to touch her. He’d waited so long, dreamed for too long. Desire boiling in his blood, he reached down, slid his hands under her bottom, and lifted her so she sat on the edge of the table, her gown pooling around her dangling legs.

  Setting his hands upon her knees, he spread her legs.

  As he moved between her thighs, clenching his jaw at the brush of silk against his hungry loins, a gasp broke from her. “Do not be afraid, Miranda. Let me show you pleasure.”

  ***

  A tremor ran through Miranda as his hands slid under her gown to touch her bare calves. She wasn’t afraid. She couldn’t fear what seemed sinfully, deliciously right.

  His fingers skimmed up her legs, pushing up her gown as they went. She quivered at the cool air touching her newly exposed skin. Her pulse pounded in a wild rhythm, rendering her dizzy with excitement and yearning and hunger.

  Such sensations. Such joy, blossoming inside her. A tiny element of doubt, though, still gnawed at her. While his story rang true, he’d left out a significant detail, one he’d not have learned from the maidservant who’d found straw clinging to her gown. Neither would he have heard of it from her father, who’d demanded a prompt and truthful explanation from her the next morning, before he’d ordered her back to her uncle’s castle two days earlier than planned.

  “I gave you . . . a gift that night,” she said, her words broken by an intense shiver as his fingers trailed over her knees.

  His cheekbones darkened with a flush, he squinted at her. “Your heart?” His hands slid her gown higher. Like an invisible kiss, cool air touched her womanhood.

  “Not just my heart. S-something else.”

  He paused, his palms flattening to her legs. The warmth of his rough skin seemed to spread through every part of her body like liquid fire.

  His mouth curved. “The ribbon. ’Twas blue silk. You took it from your hair—”

  Tears blurring her gaze, she nodded.

  “—and tied it around my wrist.” He winked. “I took the ribbon on crusade, hidden in my scabbard. I vow it protected me, and brought me back to England alive. I would still have it, if my scabbard had not been stolen.”

  A sob broke past her lips. “Bram.”

  “At last, you believe me.” Moisture glistened in his eyes.

  “Bram. Oh, Bram.” Catching his head in her hands, she kissed him full on the lips.

  He kissed her back, urging her mouth to open, his tongue plunging deep. He kissed her to make her his forever. She sighed and swirled her tongue with his, telling him, without words, how much she’d missed him.

  “Miranda.” The way he growled her name sent a thrill shooting through her, even as his hands reached the top of her thighs. His thumbs—oh, mercy—brushed the downy hair between her legs, and she jolted at the shocking sensation.

  Even as she broke from the kiss, his thumbs swept into the folds of her womanhood. They glided over her flesh in a slow, gentle stroke, and she gasped at the delicious pressure, and the tingling heat, stirred by his touch.

  Even as reason fought to take control of her thoughts, one of his thumbs slid higher, to the secret nub where all the exquisite sensations seemed to coalesce.

  She gasped. “Oh—!”

  “Close your eyes,” he whispered. “Feel. I promise, you will enjoy it.”

  Before she could nod in agreement, he moved his thumb in light circles. Glorious, unfamiliar sensations began to crest. Quivering, her breath shortening to ragged little gasps, she clung to him. Her body hurtled toward . . . toward . . .

  “Bram!” Her body convulsed on a sharp, exquisite burst of pleasure. A cry tore from her lips.

  He murmured words she couldn’t understand, words lost in the shuddering bliss that carried her down, down, down, until, with a sigh, her head dropped to his bare shoulder.

  His strong arms enveloped her. Eyes closed, she inhaled the earthy, male scent of his skin.

  “Bram,” she whispered.

  “Aye,” he whispered back, just as a knock rattled the door.

  Chapter Four

  At the brisk rap, Miranda jumped. A blush spread across her face as she drew back from Bram’s embrace, her body still warm and languid from his intimate caressing.

  “Milord,” a man shouted through the door.

  “A moment,” Bram called back. He swore softly while his arms dropped from around her, and he stepped from between her legs.

  Miranda slid from the table’s edge. With shaking hands, she pushed at her bunched gown. Bram tugged the back so the silk fell in a smooth drape. At the brush of his hands, she fought a burst of tiny, hot shivers.

  Of all wickedness, her desire for Bram seemed stronger now than ever. Damp heat still burned between her legs, in the secret place where she’d found pleasure. How she ached to experience that spike of sensation again.

  “I am sorry for the interruption,” Bram said.

  “So am I.”

  His intense stare—a promise that he’d gladly bring her to pleasure again—sent fresh excitement racing through her before he turned away. Snatching his tunic from the table, he pulled it on and strode to the door.

  “Riders and foot soldiers have entered the forest,” the man outside said. “At least two score men.”

  Icy coldness slid to the pit of her stomach. Roden had come for her. Soon, men would die. Mayhap even Bram.

  “I will join you in a moment,” he said to the outlaw. “Tell the others to be ready to move.”

  Bram closed the door and faced her.

  Dread for what was to come heightened the chill inside her. “Do you plan to battle Roden?”

  “Aye. Today, in these woods, we will settle the matter of who should be lord of Dreyswell.”

  “Bram—” />
  “Roden will never yield the keep to me, Miranda. His deception has gone too far.” He crossed to her, his features hard with resolve. “The only way for me to get what is mine is to take it back. In blood.”

  Bram halted before her. The scent of him, masculine and wonderful, made her tremble. “You are already wounded. After finding you again, I could not bear . . .”