“Aye,”I murmured, barely audibly, but he smiled.
“Say it,”he growled, pushing his fingers farther into me, stretching the unyielding tightness, finding the sensitive trigger he had already memorized.
“I want you,” I gasped unsteadily as the heat of his inspiration darkened and flared within me.
Smugly satisfied by my admission, he withdrew his touch. In a deliberate, contemplative movement, he held his fingers up. I was mortified to see that they were glistening with the effects of my own desire. Watching my eyes, he slowly licked his fingers. “Sweet, sweet Stella,” he said.
I was throbbing from my knees to my navel, wondering if I might crumple to the floor.
He surprised me by kneeling down on one knee before me. He looked up at me with an expression of assurance: he would allow me my hesitations, as always, but he would get his way. The humor in him lurked in his eyes, a detail that only succeeded in exciting me and also vexing me further. “Do you trust me?”
“Aye,” I whispered. I found that I did. Mostly.
“Good. Surrender to me. ’Tis, in fact, your only option.”
Kade placed his hands on me, curling his fingers around my thighs in a gentle yet bold clasp. Then he leaned his head closer, kissing between my thighs,where I was saturated with devastating lust. His teasing mouth kissed lightly, erotically restrained, touching me only once with the slow, carefully placed glide of his tongue.
But then he rose, keeping his hands secure on my body, and he lifted me into his arms in one easy movement. He carried me to the bed, settling me gently upon it. He sat next to me.
“I’m going to blindfold you, lass,” he informed me, pulling a length of white fabric from a pocket; it must have been what he retrieved from his trunk. “It will add a certain...mystiqueto the proceedings, don’t you agree?”
“Why?” I said, my voice sounding undisguisedly flustered. I no longer feared him, yet the beastly streak in him had risen. My husband’s restraint had been tested, his dominating masculinity bruised by a weak, timid interloper—an affront that had riled him to his depths.
“’Tis best if you’re kept in the dark, so to speak, at least for now.”
“I don’t want you to blindfold me. Let me see.”
He held up the white cloth, turning it in his hands to fold it into a thick, opaque strip. Holding it at eye level between his fists.
“Nay,” I said, reaching to hold the center of the cloth as he held it. “There’s no need.”
“AndI,” came his low reply, “saidaye.” His words were disconcerting, but his smile calmed me, and whenhe bared his clenched teeth with a playful growl, I almost laughed.
I could handle whatever he gave to me, I told myself, not entirely convinced of my own hopeful strength even as I steeled the turmoil raging within me. I could handle him, but I wanted toseehim.
He made a move to affix the blindfold, but I fought against him, climbing on top of him, straddling his hips. I knew there was no way he would allow me to escape him. So I drew closer to him instead of farther away. He held my wrists tightly in his hands, lifting us, laying me back on the furs. He was so much stronger, his manipulations seemed entirely effortless.
“Stop fighting me, wife. You can’t win. I’m going to blindfold you, and then I’m going to take you over my knee. For allowing yourself to be touched by another man, no matter how innocent the exchange may have been. I will simply not allow it.” Reading the anxiety in my eyes, he said again, “Trust me. I’m not going to beat you, lass. This is a small, inviting pain that only makes the pleasure more intense. I daresay you’ll offer no protests once I begin, little wife.”
His intentions were to blind me and punish me and control me entirely. And I wanted all of it even as I wanted to lash out at him, to somehow even the imbalance. “You...youbig man!” I yelled at him.
He did not immediately react. But then his mouth quirked into a slow smile. For a moment, he lost all trace of his warrior’s mask. His tough, bold, impenetrable demeanor was temporarily lost, allowing his youth andhis beauty to shine through. When the touch of happiness lit his features, he was shockingly, devastatingly handsome.If only he would smile more,I thought.Then he began to laugh. It was a real laugh, and I realized I loved the sound of it. “‘Big man’?” he said. “Is that the best you can do?”
I contemplated him shyly, somewhat overcome by this new side to him: this beautiful, exuberant side that stole my breath. His laughter was infectious, and I smiled along with him. But then I remembered that I was trapped underneath him, naked, powerless and furious.
“I’ll have to teach you some slightly more colorful language, lass. You’re too pure for your own good. That, of course, is an issue I plan to remedy once I’ve made good on my oath.”
I was becoming accustomed to his gentle, lurid taunts, laced as they were with the special breed of humor my husband had claimed as his own. “What is it you wouldpreferI called you in the heat of anger?” I asked him sulkily.
He laughed again, and the sound of it fed me a hazy warmth, as if a stray ray of summer sunshine had stolen its way into our chambers. I felt comforted by his laughter in a way that was unfamiliar to me, even as I lay naked underneath him in all his war garb and glory. “Good God,” he mused. “That’sthe heat of your anger? We’ll have to work on that, too. I’ll have to be more clever, and think of a way to really get your sparks flying. A few ideas are coming to me even now.” He pausedmomentarily, as though overwhelmed by anticipation. He brushed the back of his fingers along my cheekbone. “My beautiful, feisty, tantalizing wife.”
His eyes held mine at the weighty clarity of the phrase and the affectionate tones of its delivery.My wife.
“Tell me what words youreallyuse to describe me when you think of me,” he said, sitting up slightly to remove one of his weapons belts. And another. His eyes never left my body.
I watched him as he placed his arsenal to the side. “Nay,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to offend you.”
He pulled off his tunic, revealing his carved muscles, his sun-burnished skin. Without his weapons, he was free to lay his warm body more heavily over mine without danger of injury. The long strands of his hair fell in a soft curtain to frame our faces. Even as he held his weight with his arms, I felt unequivocally dominated. With him, I could admit, the feeling wasn’t at all unpleasant. “Tell me,” he rasped in a lightly menacing tone.
