Page 127 of Forbidden

The need in him was all the greater for being so fiercely chained.

“Are you certain this isn’t the place?” Duncan asked. “I’m told a woman’s knees are quite sensitive.”

The words were accompanied by another immaterial caress that made Amber gasp, for she distinctly felt Duncan’s mustache as well as his breath between her knees.

“Did you like that?” he asked.

Amber nodded, making candlelight twist and twine like a lover in her long hair.

“I can’t hear you,” Duncan said.

“And I can’t feel you,” she said, watching him through half-lowered eyelids.

“Are you bargaining with me, wife?”

“Aye.”

“Then tell me precisely where you ache and I shall soothe you.”

Amber started to speak but her voice dried up.

“I…cannot,” she whispered.

Duncan saw the color rising from her breasts to her cheeks and understood.

“I keep forgetting,” he said in a low voice. “You fly so high, so quickly, yet you were a virgin only hours ago. Forgive me.”

“Only if you touch me.”

Duncan’s head came up. He looked into his bride’s eyes and saw his own hunger reflected.

Yet he wasn’t touching her.

“You want me,” he said.

The surprise in Duncan’s voice made Amber want to laugh and pummel him at the same time.

“Haven’t I been telling you just that?” she asked.

“But I thought it was my desire coursing through you.”

“Sometimes, dark warrior, you have a very thick skull.”

Duncan smiled and skimmed the back of his hand lightly over the triangle of dark golden curls.

“Is this where you ache?” he asked huskily.

The sound Amber made was ragged. The flexing of her knee was a silent invitation for greater intimacy.

Yet Duncan wanted more. He needed it. He had to be certain to his very core that Amber was seduced by her own desire rather than overcome by his.

“If you want me within your warm keep, you must open the gate yourself.”

There was a hesitation, a broken sigh, and Amber shifted her legs.

Duncan unfastened his mantle and cast it aside.

“More,” Duncan whispered.