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‘Maybe I did,’ he said against her hair and breathed in her clean scent of sun-warmed hair.
Her direct gaze met his. ‘You are admitting to a mistake?’
‘I’m far from perfect.’ He put her from him and tried to regain control of his body. He would not become like his father and allow a woman to have power over him. But equally he didn’t want to be cold and remote. ‘I want you to enjoy our time together.’
‘Why?’
‘Because your pleasure will increase mine.’
‘You certainly know how to make a woman feel special.’ Her eyes rolled. ‘I understand that you’re sorry it happened that way, but it did. Perhaps it is for the best. I won’t tell anyone that you did not perform up to your usual standards. You may rest assured, your reputation as a peerless lover will remain intact.’
He stared at her. She was deliberately twisting his words.
‘Don’t provoke me.’
A blaze of passion flitted across her face, turning it from pleasant looking to totally irresistible. ‘Why? What can you do to me that you haven’t already done?’
‘What have I done to you?’ he rasped with the last vestiges of his legendary control.
‘Do I have to make a list?’ She tried to force her features into a scowl. ‘You know as well as I and I don’t have time!’
His final grip on his self-control slipped and he grabbed her, roughly lowering his mouth to hers, stopping her words. His body shook with need for her.
She gave a small cry and her body became pliant against his. Her lips opened more fully and allowed him entrance.
He drank from it, plundering its depths. His hands crushed her body to him, trying to bend her will to his. He needed more. Last night’s pent-up passion and frustration poured out of him.
She gave a little moan in the back of her throat, but it was enough to shock him back to where they were and what he’d been about to do. Outside the storeroom, he could hear the swords clanking as his men continued with the training. Silently he cursed. He’d nearly done it again. One taste of her and he behaved like the worst sort of raider, taking her as roughly as before.
‘Tonight. My bed.’
Sayrid’s fingers explored her mouth. Her lips ached, but the place deep inside her ached more. She wanted him to continue. Her mind raced with all the excuses. ‘Excuse me?’
‘The next time I take you, I intend for there to be a bed so that we can both enjoy it. And I’ve no wish to spoil your new dress.’
‘The next time?’ Her heart thudded in her chest. ‘You mean there is to be more than once?’
‘You didn’t think I’d be content with only once?’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘Be in my bed tonight or suffer the consequences.’
Her heart soared. She had had it all wrong and her stepmother had been mistaken in her predictions. Her husband knew precisely what she had been and he wanted her for more than the legal consummation of the marriage. And her stepmother had been partly wrong about their joining. It had hurt, but not with the searing pain that she had predicted.
‘And the consequences would be?’ she asked in a husky whisper.
‘Severe, but ultimately immensely pleasurable.’ Hrolf regained a small measure of control. Taking Sayrid in this storeroom was not how he behaved. It had been bad enough that he had taken her so swiftly the first time, but he had needed to be inside her. Since then he’d been unable to get her and her response out of his mind. He kept coming up with new ways in which he wanted to enjoy her. He wanted to open her up to passion and have her an equal partner in bed sport. ‘I was generous last night and allowed you time to recover. Losing your virginity can be painful. You would have been too sore to enjoy it properly.’
‘You would say that.’ Her tongue moistened her lips.
Inwardly he groaned. He wanted her, but it would have to wait. He had to put duty first. ‘Do not seek to challenge me on this, Sayrid, but know I will find you wherever you choose to hide. And I will carry you to my bed. Naked if I have to.’
He turned on his heel and marched out of the storeroom.
* * *
Sayrid lay under the furs in the large bed, trying to breathe normally and not panic.
Waiting here seemed like a better option than being carried out of the hall. Naked, with her back exposed for all to see.
The torchlight highlighted the various tapestries which now hung in the room. Where her father had favoured gory battles, these tapestries had an altogether different subject. The tips of her ears burnt as she realized just how intimate the tapestries were.
Hrolf appeared in the entranceway with a set face. The lines around his mouth relaxed slightly as he spotted her.
