He wanted to tasteher.He wanted to thrust his tongue into her mouth and his fists into her hair. He wanted to pull her up against him and ease the ache in his loins. He wanted to see her eyes hazy with desire and feel her tremble beneath his hands.
He wanted her.
Dunstan told himself it was the memory of the camp, the brush with death, that made him want to seize life, however briefly. But as he stared down at her, he knew that the need plaguing him could be assuaged by no other woman. He wanted only this one. Now.
She was staring up at him like a trapped doe, and he could hear her breathing, quick and shallow. Dimly, he suspected that his own was coming loud and harsh. Tightening his grip on her arms, Dunstan tried to gain control of himself, but only when she flinched under his hold did his mind clear enough to return to him. In that instant, the flashing, hot moment was gone, the spell broken.
She blinked, as if suddenly released from some dark place—perhaps the same that had possessed him. “Dunstan de Burgh! Must you always bruise me?” she complained shakily.
He let go of her. “Come, we must be off,” he said roughly. Turning away, he strode forward without even waiting to see if she followed. His groin ached so painfully that he felt like seeing to himself. That would certainly send the wren scurrying for cover, he thought grimly. His lips curved at the image of touching himself in front of her, but his amusement fled swiftly, to be replaced by a swift surge of blood rushing through his body, heating him anew. By faith, of all the women in the land, why did this single female affect him so?
Clenching his jaw, Dunstan marched forward. To him, this bizarre attraction to one insignificant female was simply one more complication for which he had no time. Mentally, he tried to calculate how many more days he would have to spend in her company. If they could just reach Wisborough today, then he could find horses for them and perhaps an inn where they could spend the night. He would welcome a warm, soft bed in which to rest his bones. Unbidden, an image of Marion stretched out upon a feather tick, with her body loosely gowned and her hair spread out around her, came to his mind.
Dunstan swore aloud and turned his head round to glare at her.
She was walking with head bent, despair etched across her usually composed features, and Dunstan felt a sharp pain inside himself, as if someone had lanced a wound he did not remember taking. He shuddered for a moment, uncharacteristic indecision making him pause. Then, with a growl of annoyance, he reached out, unable to stop himself from touching her.
He saw her swift glance of surprise, those great dark eyes of hers wide and rich as the finest velvet, as he took her hand. He had only meant to comfort her, but the moment his ungloved fingers contacted the butter-soft leather that covered her own, the air sizzled between them as if a storm were brewing. Her dark gaze flew to his again, startlement followed swiftly by a heart-stopping languor that made him want to toss her down upon a bed of grass and thrust into her.
She wanted him, too.
The thought sent his head reeling, but all the connotations were lost in the shrill call of a bird overhead. Distractions. Complications. Dunstan thought of his dead men and cursed himself for a randy fool. Like as not, he would find his pleasure followed by an arrow in the back when his enemies discovered him taking his leisure upon her. And the wren… As much as he desired her, he did not want her life lost because of his own carelessness.
Dunstan dropped her hand, swearing silently this time, and trudged on.
CHAPTER TEN
Marion huddled in her blanket, watching Dunstan under lowered lashes. They had spoken little during the day’s long, tiring march. She had nursed her anger, and he had kept his thoughts to himself. Like a wolf, he had prowled restlessly forward, growling under his breath and maintaining his distance, except for a few odd occasions when he had suddenly reached out to her. At those moments, Marion could have sworn she saw dark desire flashing in his forest eyes.
She told herself she was imagining things.
The man had enough on his mind, between his grief and trying to keep them alive, without her putting dangerous thoughts in his head. Besides, he did not even like her. He did not even believe her. That stung, and Marion swallowed against a lump rising in her throat. His disbelief stood between them like one of Campion’s walls—tall, cold and impregnable.
Although it pained her, Marion was not really surprised by the Wolf’s attitude. That he had listened to her story at all was a small wonder. Dunstan de Burgh was not a man for half-truths or half measures. He liked things plain and simple, and with a sad smile, Marion knew her life could hardly be described in those terms.
Exhaustion rolled over her aching body in waves, threatening to drown her, but she struggled against it. Focusing on Dunstan, she watched him, marking with her eyes the dark spill of his hair, the high curve of his cheek, the muscled contours of his great body. And slowly, like a nameless fever, the strange heat that sparked between them roused her flagging body.
He would not light a fire, so they had eaten what food they had packed and made their bed at the foot of some trees. He sat leaning against a trunk, his legs spread before him and his eyes closed, and Marion felt a sweet familiarity at the sight. She concentrated on details to take with her when she left him: his thick lashes in repose against his skin and the shape of his hands, large but gentle, their backs dusted with hair.
Marion swallowed back a sound of shock at the sudden rise of her bodily humors. What was it about his hands that made her feel like shivering? She wondered if the rest of his body was covered with that fine coat of hair. She had never seen any part of his flesh uncovered, save for his hands. Perhaps that was why they seemed so exciting to her. They were naked without his gauntlets, and they had the power to daze her with one touch.
Tearing her gaze away from his fingers, Marion noted the rise and fall of his massive chest and wondered how soon he would be asleep. Despite her aching feet and tired body, she had to stay awake until she was certain that he slept, for it was then that she meant to make her escape.
The thought held no joy for her, only a numbing inevitability. Where once she would have been thrilled to outwit him, now Marion only felt an absurd longing for what could not be. Ironically, of all the pain that fought for a hold upon her, the impending loss of Dunstan was uppermost. The return of her memory made all her griefs fresh and new, from the deaths of her parents to the slaughter of her train, but her love for the Wolf was so overwhelming that to leave him would cut more deeply than aught else. Yet she could hardly stay with him just to be delivered to her enemy.
No matter how much she loved him, Marion refused to die needlessly for him.
And now, knowing the truth about her uncle, she was certain that death awaited her at Baddersly. Although she could not prove that Harold Peasely was responsible for last night’s slaughter, she knew for certain that he had murdered her own train that autumn morn, a lifetime ago, when she had sought to leave him.
Closing her eyes, Marion called back those days after the death of her parents when she had been grief-stricken and lonely. In the bleak years that followed, she had become a shadow of herself, isolated and fearful of her uncle’s increasingly difficult moods and violent behavior.
Like someone removed, Marion thought of the woman she had been then and wanted to weep for her. That woman could not have held her own against the de Burgh brothers, and she would never have had the courage to argue with the Wolf of Wessex. If he had slammed her up against a tree, pinning her with his body and his dark green gaze, she would have fainted away.
With a wry smile, Marion thought perhaps it was best that she had lost her memory, for how else would she have found this new woman inside herself? She closed her eyes to find an image of Dunstan forming in her mind, warming her even in the chill of the night. If she were truly brave, she would offer herself up to the Wolf and let him devour her….
Marion jerked awake and stared across at Dunstan’s shadowed form in the darkness. How long had she dozed? She cursed her weary body as she scanned the blackness that surrounded them, but perhaps it was not too late to make her escape. Listening to the Wolf’s breathing, low and even, Marion waited, her own breath caught perilously, until she was sure he was asleep. Then she rose, slowly and stealthily, to make her departure.
Maybe this time he would not follow her. After all, he was needed back at Wessex, and had more pressing concerns than one wayward woman. If only he would just let her go and get on with his life…Marion turned as quietly as possible and took a step away from him.
