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His eyes held hers, her foot resting in his cupped palm. “You have never been ransomed by me.”
He tore his gaze away and looked down.
She peered at his dark head, bent in focus over her foot. Who was this man, who had risked so much, so recklessly? This man who, by his own admission, was an outlaw, yet had marched into a tournament filled with nobles.
This man from an enchanted forest with a sword wrapped in legend, who had risked so much to hold onto something of his family.
This man her father wanted dead.
He began wrapping the linen around her ankle. She tipped her face up and parted her lips, hoping to hide the way her breath broke.
He tugged the linen under the arch of her foot. As if he’d uncovered a heretofore unknown root system in her body, shivers spread in corded pathways across her foot and up her legs, through her belly, straight to the hot, liquid center of her that was now pulsing in a very, very, very dangerous way.
If only he’d not been so gentle. That is what made her weak, the vast distance between the uncompromising hardness of him, and the tender way he was wrapping her ankle.
She loosed another broken breath.
He looked up. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” It was barely a whisper.
Her world had collapsed to a circle with his calloused hands and her ankle in the center, amber-red firelight dancing further out, making the strands of her hair almost glow. At the edge of her rim of vision, the dark shape of his body, kneeling before hers.
Her fingers curled into the log, pressing moss under her fingernails, but she was hanging onto something that had nothing to do with the shocking urges moving through her body. Hanging on could not steady her breath. Hanging on could not stop the tremors.
He wrapped the bandage around the hard bones on each side of her foot, then up—dear God, please, he was moving up—another inch. Another.
The breath burst from her body. He must have heard it this time.
His hands stilled.
She dared not look up. Dared only to keep breathing.
His hand stayed on her leg. More rushes of heat, like little shivery spells, as if his touch was a magical thing, carving pathways of desire up her thighs and straight through her body. Like a flaming arrow it coursed to the deep place inside her that shivered and pulsed and oh dear God, her knee started to tip out, as if welcoming him. Inviting his hand to slide up further.
She smashed her palm down on the rebel leg.
The movement broke the sorcery.
He jerked his hand away and got to his feet.
Chapter 20
Máel backed up with his hands in the air as if someone held a weapon on him.
Her innocent, feminine desire was the weapon.
Or rather, the way it made him feel.
He lowered his hands and looked at his open palms. They were not only scarred; they were dirty. Dirty hands on her beautiful body.
He dropped them. “Would you want a wash?”
Her eyes widened. “Where?”
“In the river.”
“It is night.”
