by Kris Kennedy
“Well,” she gasped, tucking her skirts in beneath her.
He turned to his horse, patted the creature, and began unsaddling him, all the while speaking to the beast in a gentle, soothing voice, a low masculine rumble that was not unpleasant to hear, especially as darkness had closed in hard down here beneath the trees.
At least he was kind to animals.
He dumped the saddle and all his packs beside the largest tree, then quickly dug a small pit a few feet away from Cassia. He lined it with stones. Still not speaking to her, he got to his feet and walked off into the darkness.
She half-rose off the log. “Wh-where are you going?”
“Firewood,” was his expansive reply.
Beast.
She was not about to show him fear so she gave a clipped nod and sat, half terrified, alone in the darkness.
Little rustlings moved through the brush behind the log, making her jump. Eerie creaks moaned in the trees overhead, making her duck.
“It is just the wind,” she told herself.
Something scuttled in the brush directly beside her.
She slid to the edge of the log and gave a startled cry when a splinter poked through her skirts, into her bottom. She carefully removed it and, straightening the fabric again, spotted something on her gown that made her heart grow cold.
Grass stains. And a small tear. The tunic was ruined. Ruined.
She narrowed her eyes and glared across the clearing. The Irishman had much to answer for.
Tightening her jaw, she listened to the rustlings in the underbrush all around, but held her seat with grim determination until a long wolf’s howl broke the night. Very close to hand.
She loosed a scream, which somehow formed itself into Máel’s name. She shot to her feet, shaking. Thuds and bumps sounded in the woods behind her and she whirled.
Máel appeared out of the trees, firewood in his arms.
Cold relief rushed through her chest.
He dropped the wood and took a swift step forward. “Did you scream?”
She carefully retook her seat. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I thought I heard my name.”
She sniffed. “Ladies do not scream the names of outlaws.” She paused. “I believe there was a wolf.”
“Aye, a wolf,” he agreed, gathering the wood he’d dropped.
“How…how close do you think they will come?”
He dumped the firewood by the pit, then crouched beside it. “They won’t come near the fire.”
“Oh. Of course.” She cleared her throat. “There were also…scuttlings.”
“Scuttlings?” he repeated.
“Yes. In the underbrush. Loud ones, such as would be made by a large creature. Very large. Possibly a boar.”
His face tipped up, lines of laughter around what was this time a full smile. And oh, was it not devastating in its masculine beauty?
“Boars don’t scuttle, Cassia. They run you straight down.”
She frowned. “That does not help.”
He said quietly, “No harm will come to you. I swear it.”
It was then she feared she might be in more dire straits than she’d thought earlier, when she whispered the name of the rogue who had engineered her doom.
For now, she realized her best chance lay in trusting him.
The flames crackled to life, flickering red-gold warmth over her knees and face. She edged her bottom as far forward as she could on her perch.
Still in a crouch, he pivoted on the balls of his feet and turned to her.
“Let’s see your ankle.”
Chapter 18
Máel watched as Cassia clutched a fistful of the damp gown in her hand and swept the fabric over her feet, covering them. “Let us not.”
More battle.
“You said your ankle was turned.”
“I lied,” she retorted, and he laughed.
Her cheeks flushed as her face turned, ever so delicately, away.
“While I believe you capable of lying about any number of things, my lady, you did not look to be lying. You looked to be limping.”
“It is of no consequence,” she assured him. “My ankles turn constantly; it is their way. I am quite well. And should it matter, I lie only when captured by brigands. I am otherwise a paragon of honesty.”
His gaze swept her damp, beskirted body. “Could you run, if you had to?”
“If I had to? Why?” She pushed up, lifting her rump off the mossy little seat. “Must we?”
“No. I simply wish to know if I have an invalid on my hands.”
She reached back with a slim hand and lowered herself down again. “I could run a mile if needs be,” she said proudly.
“A mile?” he mused. “’Tis an awful long way in a gown.”
She lifted her chin. He’d already learned this little movement was her refuge whenever she was indignant. Or exposed. “I could run, sirrah. Straight to any little village that might be huddled alongside this river.”
“That sounds like a plan, lass,” he replied softly. “Are you planning something?”
“Running would be futile and reckless and would make you angry,” she said primly. “We have an accord, do we not? I take you to your sword, and you release me.”
“An accord,” he repeated.
She placed her hand over her chest. “Most solemn.”
He stared at her hand, fingertips tracing the rise of her breasts above the tightly laced gown. She sat on the ground under feathery eaves. Firelight danced across her face, bounding shadow and russet light over her fine features. The long fall of her gown had a ring of wetness a foot wide, with splashes of creek water that went to her knees, so her gown, with its varied hues of pink and purple, was vivid as light. It clung like flower petals to her shins and ankles.
He stepped nearer, feeling as if he were stepping into the bedchamber of a faerie princess. Which was ridiculous.
So why did it feel as if he was stepping into the bedchamber of a princess?
He crouched in front of her. They stared at each other.
“Are you afraid to let me see your ankle, my lady?” he asked softly.
It was part concern, but a goodly portion dare as well. She was quite aware of the latter, for battle flared in her eyes. He knew the light; he’d seen it often enough in their short acquaintance. Cassia had a temper. He’d have to be careful of that.
But he did not wish to be careful. Even after the madness of the kiss in the tent, when he’d aimed directly for battle and she had responded, he still wished to rouse her spirit. He had no idea why.
Perhaps because it made her cheeks flush. Made her lift her chin, that delicate triangle of pale smooth flesh, and meet his eye.
Whatever else might be true, her fierce glare was comprised of one essential thing: spirit.
He should not want to see such a light in her eye.
Yet he kept maneuvering to provoke it.
“That is ridiculous,” she retorted. “I am not afraid. Have we not formed an alliance?”
“Oh, aye. A bandit’s alliance.”
“Precisely. And have you not assured me my safety is your utmost concern?”
“That I have. And did you not just say you lied about your ankle?”
She opened her mouth, then shut it.
“How do I, your vigilant captor, know if it is truly turned, or naught but a ruse to help you plot another escape?”
They stared at each other, then she said, “I do not plot,” with great dignity, and slowly lifted the hem of her skirts.
Máel’s breathing slowed, arrested by the sight.
Why? Why in God’s name should his breathing slow at the sight of one bedraggled slipper, laced up with silk ribbons, and the hesitant appearance of a woman’s ankle?
He’d seen far more sultry maneuvers than this clumsy reveal, danced by women in taverns and war camps and in the cold, misty distant reaches of the world. He’d known exceptionally willing women and exceptionally crea
tive ones.
But the sight of this slim, damp ankle being revealed to him from under pink and purple silk made his blood flow hot and heavy.
Dammit.
She was upending all his plans.
How did one wreak destruction upon an ankle?
She began unlacing her slipper, then lifted her bare foot and placed it on the log before her.
Máel stared at it grimly, for he knew a fated moment when he faced one.
Moments where the past and the future were swallowed up by the certainty of this one single moment. When you were submerged in the awareness that you stood at the edge of a precipice. That whatever happened next mattered.
If he touched her, he was doomed.
He reached out as if in a dream.
Chapter 19
Cassia waited for him to continue his mischief, to reach out and examine her ankle and test her mischief. To prove her false. But for the longest time, he didn’t move.
He simply stared at her ankle, as if it were some foreign object that baffled him. And in that pause, with her skirt hem lifted a bare inch, her cheeks grew hot and her heart began to hammer.
He reached out with his calloused hand, more shaped for a weapon than a woman, and ran a single finger, gloved to the knuckle, down her ankle.
It was bone—just skin and bone—but she felt scorched. The breath burst from her lungs, as if she were…
Aroused.
His hand dropped immediately. His gaze raked up her leg, her torso, lingering for half a second on her chest, to settle on her eyes. It was a weighted thing, this look. Heavy. Loaded. She felt buried under the desire she saw there.
“It requires bandaging.” His voice sounded thick.
“Indeed.” She was shocked to hear hers was just as thick.
Good heavens.
Still bent in a crouch, he shifted on his feet and rummaged through one of his packs. Honed muscles rippled as he moved. Swiveling back, he held a long length of rolled linen bandages.
She extended her hand for them.
He did not give them over.
“Sooth, sir, I can manage.” He still didn’t move. “If you will but give them to me.” She gave her hand a little shake, indicating she wanted the linens now.
“My lady, I have bandaged more limbs and wounds than you have heard spoken of in conversation. Allow me.”
It sounded like an offer, but it was clearly an order, and he expected to be obeyed.
She scowled. “Are we to argue about bandages now?”
“If you insist.”
Their eyes met.
“Well then,” she said mildly. She told herself it was wisdom that made her acquiesce. Care, self-preservation, the recognition that pitched battle would not only be futile, it would be dangerous.
But it was neither care nor clear sight, and it was certes not wisdom that told her to do as he bid.
It was the way he was looking at her. The way his hand felt when he’d touched her. The way her body had responded.
The hope that it would happen again.
And the knowledge that if she refused, he would never try to touch her again.
She had no reason to think such a thing of this man who had already done all manner of imprudent, improper, and ill-advised things, up to and including kidnapping her. No reason to think anything honorable existed inside him at all.
But then, she did not think it. She knew it, to the marrow of her bones.
If she refused, he would never touch her again.
My last chance.
She was in league with an outlaw now. And he wished to tend her ankle.
Propriety be damned.
She extended her foot and he curled his hand under the heel.
Her body, as if it had been waiting for this touch its whole life, blossomed like a fiery flower of desire. Petals of want cascaded down her chest and belly, cold and hot and shivery.
He pulled the cool, damp linen around the back of her ankle. Her head tipped back on a rush of air.
“This is bad,” he muttered. “You shouldn’t have run.”
“You said you were bound by nothing. I had no choice.”
“I also said you were in no danger from me.”
“I did not know I could trust the word of a brigand.”
Their eyes met. “I do not break my word,” he said, sounding so sure.
But all men did. It was their way.
“I am ransom, rogue,” she said softly. “My entire life has been ransom. I know its taste well. You are fed and fattened and fashioned just so. Then you are sacrificed.”
His eyes held hers, her foot resting in his cupped palm. “You have never been ransomed by me.”
He tore his gaze away and looked down.
She peered at his dark head, bent in focus over her foot. Who was this man, who had risked so much, so recklessly? This man who, by his own admission, was an outlaw, yet had marched into a tournament filled with nobles.
This man from an enchanted forest with a sword wrapped in legend, who had risked so much to hold onto something of his family.
This man her father wanted dead.
He began wrapping the linen around her ankle. She tipped her face up and parted her lips, hoping to hide the way her breath broke.
He tugged the linen under the arch of her foot. As if he’d uncovered a heretofore unknown root system in her body, shivers spread in corded pathways across her foot and up her legs, through her belly, straight to the hot, liquid center of her that was now pulsing in a very, very, very dangerous way.
If only he’d not been so gentle. That is what made her weak, the vast distance between the uncompromising hardness of him, and the tender way he was wrapping her ankle.
She loosed another broken breath.
He looked up. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” It was barely a whisper.
Her world had collapsed to a circle with his calloused hands and her ankle in the center, amber-red firelight dancing further out, making the strands of her hair almost glow. At the edge of her rim of vision, the dark shape of his body, kneeling before hers.
Her fingers curled into the log, pressing moss under her fingernails, but she was hanging onto something that had nothing to do with the shocking urges moving through her body. Hanging on could not steady her breath. Hanging on could not stop the tremors.
He wrapped the bandage around the hard bones on each side of her foot, then up—dear God, please, he was moving up—another inch. Another.
The breath burst from her body. He must have heard it this time.
His hands stilled.
She dared not look up. Dared only to keep breathing.
His hand stayed on her leg. More rushes of heat, like little shivery spells, as if his touch was a magical thing, carving pathways of desire up her thighs and straight through her body. Like a flaming arrow it coursed to the deep place inside her that shivered and pulsed and oh dear God, her knee started to tip out, as if welcoming him. Inviting his hand to slide up further.
She smashed her palm down on the rebel leg.
The movement broke the sorcery.
He jerked his hand away and got to his feet.
Chapter 20
Máel backed up with his hands in the air as if someone held a weapon on him.
Her innocent, feminine desire was the weapon.
Or rather, the way it made him feel.
He lowered his hands and looked at his open palms. They were not only scarred; they were dirty. Dirty hands on her beautiful body.
He dropped them. “Would you want a wash?”
Her eyes widened. “Where?”
“In the river.”
“It is night.”
He shrugged. “Bright as day out when you’re out from under the trees.”
He expected her to scold him, or at least scowl, but her face brightened.
“I would indeed.”
She got to her feet and took a limping step forward. His heart did a strange twis
t. Without thinking, he reached out and scooped her up.
One would almost think he wished to be holding her in his arms.
She gave a little cry of surprise but did not resist. This time, her body was not as stiff.
Her knees rested in the crook of his elbow, her spine curved against the other arm, and her hip pressed against his stomach…right on the erection that was stiffening his cock.
He had no idea how much experience she had with male desire, up close and personal, so there was a chance she might not detect it.
He realized, dimly, that he was constantly seeking ways to touch her. Teasing, baiting, testing; anything that might get a rise. Anything that might allow him to tread closer. Any reason to touch her. For each time it was like lighting him on fire.
Which made sense. Cassia was battle, and battle, for Máel, was both fuel and flame.
He wanted to burn her down. Loose the ties of her gown, spread her knees, bury himself inside her until she threw her head back in abandon…and mayhap whisper his name again.
He carried her to the edge of the river and set her down on the bank, beside a large boulder. He handed her a rag and a lump of soap.
“I will be back,” he warned. “Be quick, and don’t fall in.”
“I will not fall in,” she assured him with great dignity. The idea…
He gave her a long, silent look, then disappeared around the other side of the boulder.
Cassia delicately removed her overtunic and set it on a crag in the rock, listening to the sound of him moving only a few feet away.
One by one, items of his clothing began appearing atop the rock.
Her breath slowed down.
She heard the heavy slide of armor, then a sword belt plunked on the rock with a pling of steel. A moment later, a mail shirt. Two boots appeared on the bank of the river, then she heard the soft rustle of a tunic being removed.
A moment later, the tunic and a pair of hose appeared atop the boots.
He was naked.
Her spine jerked straight. She stared straight ahead, across the wide, gentle, moonlit river. The moon was so bright she could see everything.