She heard his boots scrape against the floor. “I know you sleep not,” he said and sighed wearily as he slid to a sitting position near enough to the fire that golden shadows were cast upon his face. “I brought you something.”
She didn’t move, but through slitted eyes watched as he opened his bag and removed a tunic—shimmering green silk trimmed with gold velvet.
“Something to replace the tunic you tore up to bind Robin’s wounds.”
Unable to ignore his kind gesture, she pushed herself to her elbow and shoved a handful of hair from her face. “Is this what you want me to wear when you return me to Holt?” she asked, unable to keep the sting from her words.
His lips flattened.
“So that he will want me? So that he will take me as his bride?” She couldn’t help the hurtful words, and they tumbled out of her mouth in rapid succession, one after the other, meant to wound as she’d been injured.
Tossing the tunic to the floor, Wolf leaped to his feet, strode to the pallet, and yanked her from the covers. His fingers held her fiercely, digging through her chemise to her upper arms and dragging her to her feet. “Understand this, woman,” he said in a voice that was nearly a growl. “I want you not to return to Holt, and if there was a way to keep you from him, I would. But there is none. In the eyes of the land and the church you are his wife; you pledged yourself to him and there is nothing I can do about it.”
She hoisted her chin upward and narrowed her eyes at him. “Then let me go,” she demanded, knowing that deep in her heart it would kill her to walk away from him. “Leave me to my freedom.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Aye,” she said without hesitation, though deep in the darkest recess of her heart, she knew that what she truly wanted was to stay with him, to be his wife, to become an outlaw’s woman. Shame burned up her spine, but she could not lie to herself. This man touched her as no man ever had and none ever would again. She was as certain of that single damning fact as she was of her own name.
“You vex me.”
“As you do me.”
“You test my will.”
“You try mine.”
“I cannot have you here with me.”
“I know. Oh, dear God in heaven, I know,” she said, and her skin, beneath the tense fingers holding her in a death grip, tingled. Her flesh, where his breath brushed over it, heated; her heart, trapped deep in her ribs, hammered anxiously.
His eyes were as tortured as her own condemned soul. “God have mercy on me,” he muttered roughly as his lips crashed down on hers, hard and hot, unforgiving and filled with want. Desire trumpeting through her body, Megan sighed, opening her mouth to him, feeling her bones turn to jelly as together they fell upon his pallet.
Passion turned her thoughts around. She would not listen to the doubts swiftly slipping from her mind. Though he was a murdering outlaw, she wanted him. Despite the fact that he could cause her to act like a shameless kitchen wench, she hungered for him. Even though she would be banished for the rest of her life, constantly reminded that she was a wanton harlot, she could not resist him. That she was married was of no consequence; this man, this Wolf, was her one true love.
His kiss was deep and anxious, his moan as fierce as the tide at midnight. Sliding the neckline of her chemise over her shoulder, he pressed warm lips to her bare skin. With a gasp, she quivered inside. In the firelight, his face was composed of deep angles and grooves, dark shadows and golden slopes, and he was anxious as he kicked off his boots.
“I want you,” he admitted, his countenance fierce, as if in the saying of the betraying act he would have to fight. He untied the ribbon of her chemise, letting the soft fabric fall open so that he could view her breasts in the firelight. “But you are Holt’s wife.” He traced the rim of her nipple, that dark ready circle, with the tip of his finger.
“It matters not,” she gasped when he found the hard button and rolled it between his finger and thumb.
“Yes … yes, it matters.” But he pulled her close and clamped his mouth to her breast, kissing, teasing, tasting, laving while she writhed against him. Heat boiled through her blood, and deep in the very depths of her, where she was untouched, she felt a new tingling and warmth, a dark yearning that only he could fill.
She didn’t protest when he yanked down her chemise, baring her torso to the shadowy light, looking down at her with the savage possession of one who was used to taking rather than asking.
“You are sure, m’lady?” he asked, his voice ragged as he skimmed the hated flimsy garment down her legs. She lay naked before him, her skin flushed with desire, the nest of curls at her legs dewy with a craving she’d never before felt. She nodded.
“You want me, little one.”
“As you want me.”
“Aye,” he admitted, taking her hand and placing it on the front of his breeches. Through the fabric, she felt his manhood, stiff and upright.
Her throat went dry and she leaned upward, kissing him and sliding his tunic over his wounded shoulders. “Show me.”
His lips locked over hers and he rolled her onto her back. Pressed into the rugs, she welcomed his weight as he rubbed against her, his breeches rough upon her skin, the dark hairs that swirled over his chest tickling her breasts. Her skin was afire, her senses alive, and he dragged his mouth from her lips, past her chin, along her neck, and lower, pausing at the circle of bones at the base of her throat.
She bucked as he kissed her breasts again and slid ever lower, his tongue rimming her navel as her fingers clenched in his thick hair. She could scarcely breathe, and her heart was pounding in a wild, uneven cadence as he slid his hands down her legs, slowly and lazily, drawing them up as her mind swam in the warm whirlpool of his love. Writhing against the pallet, she caught her breath when his fingers first touched her in that most private of places and then gently probed, moving slowly at first and then faster as the heat within her grew. She cried out in lust and fear, moving with him, letting him take her on a ride she’d never felt before.