Defiant Read Online Free Page B

was a stroke of remarkably bad fortune, since these men had seen her before, as she stood staring in horror when they dragged Father Peter by her, unconscious between their arms.
    If they saw her now, they would recognize her. Then they would take her. Mayhap kill her. And Father Peter would be lost.
    And Gog . . . her throat closed up at the thought of her all-but-brother in all this madness, Roger, barely fifteen, waiting for her in the woods outside the City. What would Gog ever do without her?
    She slowly shifted her gaze back to Jamie in wedged degrees, like the pointed crest of a sundial. The sound of bootheels hitting packed earth thumped inside her head with each pump of blood. Trembling rippled through her in the way of a river, with fierce currents, fear and fury mingling as they so often did, so that she could equally run or attack and not know which until she was already doing it.
    But in this moment, like a hand reaching out with a gift, came a new idea: Kiss him.
    And so she did.

Four
     
    T hey were each leaning half across the table, staring, angry and aroused—at least Jamie was; Eva simply looked murderously intent—when she put her hands on his shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed him.
    He went still. Her lips skidded over his, exerting no more pressure than breath itself.
    “What are you doing?” he said, but he kept his voice low, and he did not pull away.
    Her lips formed whisper-words of reply against his mouth, making him acutely, infuriatingly aware of her as an object of unadulterated lust.
    “They are here,” she whispered. “The squinty-eyed men.” Her slim hands gripped his shoulders more tightly. “I do not think they would like to see my face again.” She trailed her mouth over his, delivering small, miniature kisses from one end of his lips to the other, as if his mouth were a track she was skipping along.
    “What do you mean ‘again’?” he demanded, but he asked it against her lips.
    Their eyes met, their heads tipped back slightly, their lips barely a breath apart.
    “I am of the belief that they saw me. For a moment only,but this is something that would knock on even their silly skulls. They will say, ‘Why is she here, when she was there?’ and I will have no answer for them.”
    Jamie shifted his gaze. A thick-chested man behind the counter was speaking to the brutes, then pointed toward the door next to their table.
    “I suppose you cannot do something terrible just now, such as poke out their eyes?” she asked, sounding desperate.
    “No,” he said in calm, measured voice. “That would draw attention.”
    Eva swallowed. “Indeed.”
    Then he moved, startling her, which was odd as they were already so close. He splayed his fingers and shoved them deep into her hair. Then he tilted her face up to his.
    Leather. Night air. Cold steel. Masculine muskiness. He was all these, swirling together like smoke. Then he bent his head and kissed her.
    It was a very definite thing, this shifting of who was kissing whom. No longer was she perpetrating the act. He had taken over, leading her down his dangerous path, and it was all hot, breathy kisses, and broad, competent hands on her hips, and . . . fire.
    Burning, heated fire roiled in her groin, and so she followed him as if he were a shepherd. Let him lower their bodies back down to the bench, let him ravish her with lips that moved like dancing light over hers, so soft she had to inhale them to be sure they had occurred.
    He tipped his head to the side, thumb by her jaw, long fingers brushing the hollow under her ears. He was moving breath and skillful, sinful lips, washing her through like sun into the water. Why not simply press his lips against hers, as she’d seen others do? As she wanted him to do. Why . . . this?
    Oh, because of this.
    He licked her. Slid the tip of his warm, wet tongue across her panting lips—when had she begun panting?—and sent a dizzying cord of heat through her body.
    And there she was,