Heather Graham Read Online Free Page A

go from here. She hadn’t been his choice for a wife; her memory, especially now, seemed far more keen than he could ever fathom. As seconds flew between them, she felt the years cascading past, the pain, the anguish, the Black Death, the loss of so very much to them both.
    “No …” she whispered.
    “Damn you,” he told her.
    She tried to wrench away. He would not allow it.
    “You will remember who you are.”
    “And to whom I belong?” she cried in protest.
    “Aye, lady, indeed!
    His lips touched hers. They burned, they were fire, like his eyes … they ignited the seeds of desire deep inside her, aroused her mercilessly. His palm cradled her cheek, his lips and tongue caressed her mouth. She closed her eyes, aware of nothing but her senses for several seconds …
    Dear God, no, he would never forgive her this time!
    His lips broke from hers.
    She struggled from a fog, trying to remind herself that she knew him well, that he held her in contempt and distrust for this night’s work, and that she would be made to pay.
    “Please …”
    She heard the word, and was surprised to realize that she had issued the plea herself.
    For a moment, he was equally startled. “Ah, lady? Beg mercy, would you?”
    The taunt in his voice brought her eyes flying open full upon his.
    “Not in a—”
    “In a pig’s eye?” he suggested, using her term.
    “You are the worst of knaves and I’ll never beg anything of you!” she promised, pushing wildly against his chest to free herself.
    But his hands were suddenly upon her wrists. His eyes were burning into hers once again, and they were dead still together while the flames snapped and crackled in the hearth.
    “Indeed, milady, tonight, by God, you will please me! For I want everything that I have remembered, the hungers of so many nights appeased. Aye, please me. Ease away the rage. I demand it!”
    She found herself up and in his arms, and falling into the softness of the bed that had awaited them, his body wickedly hot as he pressed her nakedness down into the coolness of the linen sheets. Again his lips caught hers. With pressure now, with fierce demand. She tried to twist from his assault, felt the liquid flame as his tongue pressed past the barriers of her lips and teeth, entering into her, filling her sweetly. His hands raked over her naked thighs and hips, rose to cover and caress her breasts. His weight held her still; his hands commanded a magic of equal power, his lips seduced with ruthless hunger. He rose above her, casting aside tunic and shirt with an urgency that tore the latter, yet he didn’t seem to notice. She swallowed again, feeling the tremors fill her that had from the start when she gazed upon his body. He was bronzed and scarred upon the shoulder and chest, incredibly beautiful nonetheless, for his taut muscles were temptation in themselves, the copper sheen of the fire that danced upon them as haunting as the flicker of flame that drew a moth to a fire’s deadly heat.
    She would not touch, she would not fall, she would not burn in the flames …
    But she would, for he drew her hand to his chest, where it lay upon the thunder of his heart, the softness of the crisp red-gold hair. And she met his eyes still when he drew her hand ever downward, enclosing her slender, trembling fingers around the great shaft, life and fire itself. His body shuddered massively, yet his eyes pinned her still and when she would have gasped and drawn her touch away, his fingers curled around her own and a half-smile curved his lip.
    “Lest you forget!” he whispered, and she discovered herself meeting his eyes, trembling within, and longing for him in the most traitorous way. Yet his gaze held her until he eased himself downward, parted her thighs, met her eyes once again. She cried out, trying to twist away again, knowing his intent. There was no escape. He ravaged her intimately with tongue and touch until it seemed that she plummeted into an abyss, writhing, gasping, and