The blush blooms over my cheeks.
“It’s against the rules for you to see me, you know.”
“Is it?” His brows arch in amusement, but when he steps closer to me, his look turns dark, and downright hungry.
“Well it’s a good thing I make my own rules in my own castle.”
I shiver, panting, trying to catch my breath as the nearness of him and the heat of the room send my head spinning.
“We—”
I gasp as he steps right into me, and when his large hand reaches up and takes hold of the cloth in my hands, my heart jumps into my throat. His fingers curl over the edge of the cloth, and when I feel the backs of his fingers brush against my bare skin beneath the towel, I pant, my blood like fire in my veins.
“Show me, little queen,” he grunts. He starts to pull the cloth away, like he’s about to strip me bare, right here, before we’re married. And for some reason, it goads me. It sets off the sass in me. He’s beautiful, and the heat of his closeness has me panting, the feel of his fingers on my skin sending me reeling. But there’s that rebellion in me—the one that doesn’t want to “submit” to a man. Even if I know I’m supposed to. Even if he’s going to be my husband, and soon.
Lord Ballentyne tugs at the towel, making me gasp sharply as he almost yanks it from my fingers. But I tighten my grip, pursing my lips as I grip the cloth tighter and yank it right back against me.
“No, my Lord.”
A fierce shadow crosses over his face, and I tremble at the way his jaw tightens and his eyes blaze. His look lands on me like that of a beast hunting its prey.
“No?” he grunts, that growl still teasing through me.
“No” is a word I can tell he’s not used to hearing.
“You aren’t used to that word, are you, my lord?”
He pauses, eyes flashing fire at me through the torchlit steam of the room.
“I am not,” he growls. I gasp as his hands reach right past the cloth, and when they land on my waist and grip me tight, I tremble. I want to show this man that I’m not some item to be bartered for. I want to show him that I can be as defiant as can be. And yet, there’s another part of me. A baser part of me. A wild, wicked part of me.
…The part of me that wants to let him take what he wants, as wicked a thought as that is.
His powerful, rough hands grip me tight, and when he pulls me into him, drying cloth and all, I whimper softly as my head drops back and my eyes look up into his.
“You’ve got a fire in you,” he purrs lowly. “Like the fire on your head.”
His gaze hardens for a second, heat teasing across the divide between us.
“But you will be mine.”
I shiver at the intensity in his words, and yet, that steely resolve in me hardens.
“That is yet to be seen, my lord.”
His brow arches, and for a second, I almost think I see something like anger in those eyes at my defiance, and at the way I’ve sneered out “my lord.” Except as the heat in his eyes grows, I realize I’m seeing the wrong emotion. I don’t see anger.
…I see hunger.
“Is it now?” He purrs. He raises one arm, the drop of his tunic sliding down to the shoulder to reveal rippling, hardened muscles and a swath of black ink etched into his skin.
Tattoos.
I’ve heard of them, but the only people who wear them are the Viking marauders who pillage the coasts from time to time. To see them on a lord…
I shiver, and Lord Ballentyne smiles a hard, thin smile.
“Now, it was my thinking that as you will be my bride in a few hour’s time, it very much was decided that you were mine.”
“Not yet I’m not,” I throw back, pursing my lips, hoping to God that somehow this reckless defiance covers the tremble teasing though my body.
Lord Ballentyne’s grin only widens, like he’s amused.
“But you will be mine.” The growl rumbles through his muscled chest, almost like a reminder to me of how powerful and fierce a man I’m speaking to… a foot apart, with me in nothing but a slip of cloth covering my nakedness.
His eyes narrow, his jaw clenching as his gaze sweeps over me again, sending a heated tremble through my core that brings a blush to my face.
“Show me, my little queen.”
I swallow thickly, not even daring myself to speak as I shake my head.
“No.”
His growl rumbles through him again, a fierceness sparking in his eyes.
“Show me.”
I take a shaky breath.
“And if I say no again?” I spit back.