Blood Sword Legacy 04 - A Knight to Remember Read Online Free Page B

permission to kiss me,” she stuttered. His eyes opened wider before they narrowed.
    “Do you play with a dying man’s heart?”
    She slapped him playfully and giggled. “You are not at death’s door. You have but two cuts and a bump on the head. In another day or two you will be fit to swim to Ireland.”
    His lips lowered to hers. She could feel the hard thump of her heart in her throat. Suddenly her lips were dry. She licked them. He growled low. “Are you as innocent as you appear?”
    She nodded, never wavering from his gaze. She felt him swell against her belly, and knew she played with fire. She did not care if she was burned. “Kiss me,” she softly demanded.
    And he did. A slow, deep, hot kiss that curled her toes and took her breath away. His long fingers dug deep into her hair, bringing her closer to him, so close she felt as if they were a part of each other. So close, she could feel the solid thud of his heart against her chest. So close, she had but to lift her skirt and—she tore her lips from his, her breath caught in her throat, she could not draw a normal breath. She pushed away from him and sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees.
    He lay there in all his naked glory, not bothering to cover his erection. It was all she could do not to stare. More heat infused her skin. She crab-walked backwards, then stood.
    “Sir, it appears you are most capable of fending for yourself. I must go. I will not return.” She flew from the cave, then into the darkness, and wanted with every part of her body to return. When he called her name, she stopped and turned. He stood naked at the cave’s entrance, his arm extended, his palm up.
    “Return to me, Rowena.”
    She shook her head and ran as fast as her legs would carry her back to the safety of Wendover.

    *

Five

    She tossed and turned, no position comfortable. Too many times to count, she moved to leave the bed, her desire to return to the stranger so insistent she nearly screamed her frustration. But she did not go to him. Not that night, nor the next morning, nor the next afternoon. But once the sun sank and the moon rose, like a Siren’s call, in her dreams, he called to her. And she went to him.
    She went to him, she told herself, because the food she had left for him had surely run out. She went to him, she told herself, because though he was out of the woods as far as his fever and wounds were concerned, he was not strong enough to hunt, or even defend himself. She went to him, she told herself, to help him return to where he had come from. She went to him, she told herself, because if she did not, he would perish.
    The cave was empty. Only the low glow of embers illuminated the space. But she did not need the meager light to tell her he was gone. A deep aching void opened up in her gut, paining her worse than any bellyache or any heartache she had ever endured. It pained her more than the day her father told her she would be going to the abbey where she would spend the rest of her life a virgin bride of God.
    Anger came swiftly. Did she mean nothing to him? She had saved his life! Did not that account for something? Of course it didn’t, she told herself. She was plain and boring, and he a virile, handsome man women fawned over. What interest did a man such as he have in a girl such as she?
    She moved into the cave and sank down onto the furs, bringing them to her nose. She inhaled deeply. They smelled of him. Clean, and potent, like the sea. Hot tears stung her eyes. She was a silly girl with foolish dreams of love. Foolish dreams she had no right dreaming. She flung the furs from her and angrily stood. Humiliation wrangled with her anger. She told herself it didn’t matter. It could not matter. He was a stranger. She was a noblewoman of a noble, albeit impoverished house. Women such as she did not cavort with pirates. Indeed, with any man unless she were properly wed.
    Still, the tears stung. And yet, despite it all, she yearned for him as she