Page 37 of A Knight’s Vengeance

No one had dared.

She shrieked and clawed and scratched at his jerkin. The fabric softened her blows. Grinding his hips against hers, he pinned her flush against the wall. Where they touched, the heat of his body scorched.

Elizabeth squeezed her lashes shut. His scent enveloped her, and her head reeled. Somehow she must endure this torture. She must maintain a prudent detachment until he lost interest or she wriggled free. With a strangled sob, she let her hands fall to her sides.

She sensed tension warring within him, the desire to crush her spirit with his strength. Yet, he did not. His kisses slowed, gentled, and as his tongue flicked into the corner of her mouth, she gasped. The skin across her chest tingled, a similar sensation to when he had kissed her hand in the market.

An unfamiliar ache blossomed inside her.

He nibbled her bottom lip. Taunted. Coaxed. Dared her, with the glide of his mouth and tongue, to meet his sensual challenge.

A muzzy haze clouded her thoughts. In her mind, she wept in self-reproach. He knew of the tremors running through her body.

Tremors not due to fear.

She moaned. Her lips parted. Despite the warning shrilling inside her, she began to kiss him back.

He growled. The pleasured sound stirred a primitive hunger. Molten heat flooded through her like sunlit water surging across glistening sand, slowing to a swirling eddy, and then returning a moment later on another cresting tide. His tongue slid into her mouth, and she sighed.

He released her hair. His fingers caressed her neck, and then slipped down her shoulder blade.

His palm brushed her breast.

She stiffened. Shock slashed through the haze of wondrous sensation, then indignation. De Lanceau meant to do more than kiss her.

As he had no doubt planned, she had melted under his onslaught like a lusty tavern wench. He could not conquer her will, so he would subdue her body instead.

This man was her sworn enemy.

She betrayed her father by wanting de Lanceau’s touch.

Resentment drowned her last glimmerings of pleasure. De Lanceau hesitated. He lifted his lips from hers and stared down into her face, his heavy-lidded gaze intense.

Protecting her bruised arm, she braced her palm against his chest and shoved with all her might. She kicked his shins and scratched with her nails. He swore, yelped, and she broke free.

Elizabeth darted behind the bed. “You rogue!” With the back of her wrist, she scrubbed her mouth, desperate to erase the taste and feel of him.

“I did not hear you protesting a moment ago.” He dragged a hand through his mussed hair and glared at her.

“You will pay for your boldness. My father will see you punished.”

De Lanceau’s eyes glinted like steel. “Consider what happened fair warning, damsel. Next time, you will not escape unscathed.”

CHAPTER 8

Geoffrey strode into the hall, his clipped strides shattering the near silence.

Dominic glanced up from where he sat by the hearth. “The first adventure, milord?”

With a savage roar, Geoffrey slammed his fist down on a trestle table. Stoneware mugs bounced into the air with a dissonant clink. The scullery maids setting out bread for the evening meal shrieked and glanced at one another. He scowled in their direction, and, after frantic curtsies, they disappeared into the stairwell.

Aware of Dominic’s grin, refusing to acknowledge it, Geoffrey grabbed a mug, sloshed in some ale, and downed it in one gulp. The drink cooled his burning throat.

Every muscle in his body felt as taut as a drawn bowstring.

Because of her.

Dominic rose from a carved oak chair. He raised an eyebrow and his gaze dropped to the scratch marks on Geoffrey’s jerkin.