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His dark brows drew together over his eyes. “Waking you from a bad dream.”
“No.” She shook her head and arched her spine to increase the space between the two of them.
“What are you doing here? With me?”
“I thought that obvious.” He blue eyes gleamed down darkly at her. “Sleeping. At least I was until you screamed in my ear.”
“You cannot sleep with me,” she protested, wincing at the squeak in her voice. Clutching the blanket to her chest, she sat up.
“We only have one tarp. And with the weather as it is, I thought it sensible to take what warmth we could from each other. I don’t relish the feel of cold ground beneath me.”
Sensible. Her lips compressed. Glaring at him in suspicion, she wondered why he had not mentioned the specifics of their sleeping arrangements before she fell asleep. _Before _ he crept beside her like a thief in the night.
As though he read her mind, an angry glint entered his eyes. “You needn’t look at me as if I’ve sullied you. I was sound asleep with no designs on your person until _you _ woke me.”
Astrid continued to glare at him, fingers tightening on the blanket as if he would rip it from her.
“Jesus, lady,” he snarled, lying back down on the bedroll. “You really hold a high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”
She watched him as he settled onto his side, his back to her, suspicion still centered tightly within her chest.
“I’m going back to sleep, Duchess,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Do whatever you like.”
She stared at the rigid line of his broad back for several moments, suddenly feeling the fool.
Could he not simply be as he presented himself? Honest and considerate. He’d had plenty of opportunities to molest her. Instead he had only aided her.
Clearly, it went beyond her power to trust another soul. But was it any surprise? The most important people in her life—her mother, her father, Bertram—had failed her in some way. And when her turn had come, she had failed Portia.
Not liking the realization that she trusted so little, that she was so jaded she imagined everyone disingenuous, that she herself was not to be trusted, she settled back down. Positioning herself on her side, she tucked her cheek on her forearm, the heat from his body radiating toward her.
She held herself motionless, listening to rhythmic sounds of the night, the steady fall of his breath, deciding that she had overreacted.
“Astrid,” she whispered, a peace offering of sorts.
Moments passed and she assumed he had not heard her until he spoke. “What?”
“Astrid. My name is Astrid.” _Not Duchess. _ An empty title that meant nothing. Had brought her nothing. That rang with mockery when he said it.
“Good night, Astrid,” he murmured at last, the rich rumble of his voice softening her name, making it sound almost pretty when she had always thought it rather harsh. Whenever her father had said her name it sounded like an epithet on his lips.
Sighing, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax, letting her back brush against his…and telling herself she took no pleasure in the hard length of him so near her, touching her.
That the warmth of another—a man—was not something she missed. Something she never had before.
Something she now craved.
Chapter 10
An arctic cold arrived around dawn. With a shiver and several groggy blinks, Astrid lifted her head and assessed the mist-shrouded surroundings.
She and Griffin no longer slept with their backs to each other but, in this early morning cold, sought warmth and cocooned together. Her upper body was pressed against his, br**sts cushioned on the warm wall of his chest.
Cheeks flaming, she attempted to slide her leg out from between his but found it wedged tightly between rock-hard thighs.
His voice purred in her ear. “If you wanted on top, you only had to ask.”
Her gaze collided with his heavy-lidded blue stare. Heat scored her cheeks. Her hair had come loose in the night and she blew at the blond strands falling in her face.
Pressing her hands on either side of him, she pushed herself up, opening her mouth to reprimand him, well accustomed to putting gentlemen in their place.
His hand came up, seizing her by the back of her head and dragging her down to him, smothering her words with the hot press of his mouth.
His lips claimed hers, warm and soft, a tender caress that seemed at odds with such a rough man.
He angled his head, taking more, trailing the warm tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips in a quest for entrance. She gasped and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, gliding it against hers in a sinuous dance like nothing she had ever experienced.
A lick of heat twisted in her stomach, thrilling in its strangeness. Frightening.
She relaxed against him, melting into his hard length, her blood simmering, liquefying her bones.
He tasted good, so good, like the way he smelled. Of wind and woods and man. For an insensible moment, her hands curled into his shirt, pulling him closer, mashing her br**sts into his chest.
He growled against her mouth, rolling her beneath him, settling himself between her thighs.
Even with her skirts bunched between them, she felt the hard ridge of him, prodding and insistent against her belly. He shifted lower, rubbing against her groin, the very center of her—a place that throbbed with desperate intensity, a burgeoning ache that demanded satisfaction and made her squirm in need.
Her fingers clenched the warm wall of his chest, clawing and twisting the fabric of his shirt. Her h*ps rose, thrusting against the delicious hardness of him.
His lips lifted from hers on a hiss of air, just long enough for him to grit a single word against her mouth. “Duchess.”
His lips fell back on hers, ravenous, his tongue delving past her lips…still, that feverish utterance struck like an arrow to her heart, reminding her of who she was. Who he was. Only one day widowed and she was rolling around on the ground with a man she barely knew? Without dignity. Without pride. No better than her mother. Easy pickings for some silver-tongued devil’s misuse.
She shoved him off her, disentangling herself from the solid strength of his arms. Scrambling back, she put distance between them. Hugging her knees to her chest, she glared at him in the light of dawn.
He rolled onto his side, watching her with a lazy, seductive gaze that fired her blood…and indignation.
“Don’t think that my gratitude runs this far,” she hissed, rubbing the back of her hand over her mouth as if she could wipe clean the burning imprint of his kiss.
He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes turning hard, the gleam of desire fading.
“Gratitude?” he echoed.
“Yes. Accepting your assistance does not grant you free use of me.”
“I don’t recall forcing you to crawl atop me.”
“It was unintentional, I assure you—not an invitation!”
“And when we kissed? I heard no protests. Far from it.” One of his dark brows winged high.
“You certainly did not hesitate to rub yourself against me.”
Heat flooded her face. “I did not!”
He laughed cruelly. “The sweetest whore never responded so readily.”
“Oh!” She lurched forward, swinging a fist at his face.
He caught her hand and hauled her against him. “Enough,” he growled, squeezing the breath from her. “Your virtue is safe with me. I don’t make it a habit to force myself on unwilling women.” His lips twisted. “One word of advice, though…if you are unwilling, you best learn a little restraint. Otherwise, you may find yourself on your back and getting more than you bargained for.” His hand splayed wide on her waist, fingers digging through her garments, searing into her flesh. “Understand?”
She nodded fiercely.
Chuckling, he released her. Astrid dropped back on the tarp, glaring at him as he rose to his feet and strode from the clearing.
She trembled with fury. Restraint, indeed. As if she needed lessons on restraint. Her whole life had been about restraint. More than the likes of him would ever know. She was not about to change now.
They broke camp quickly. The sun breaking over the horizon did little to chase off the chill, and she burrowed into her cloak as they advanced through trees and gorse thickening all around them, encroaching on their trail and slowing their progress.
When they finally stopped at a sun-dappled glen late that afternoon, she eagerly slid off her mount, not waiting for his assistance, unwilling to risk him putting his hands on her.
A brook burbled nearby. She followed him, ducking under low hanging branches, heeding his warnings of the rocky ground as he led their mounts ahead of them through the heavy undergrowth.
At the brook, she lowered herself to the ground. Succumbing to mad impulse, she stripped off her boots and stockings. With a covert glance at him, she dipped her aching feet in the frigid water, hissing at the first contact.
He grimaced over the back of his mount at her. “You’re braver than I.”
She shrugged. “Doubtful. I can’t even swim. This is as bold as I get.” Frowning, she thought back to her youth, to a day when she was seven. “My mother loved to swim. She tried to teach me. Once.”
She shook her head, resisting the memory of her mother’s face, tight with frustration that her daughter did not share her spirit of adventure, that despite all her efforts Astrid had turned out as dull and remote as her husband.
“Once?” he inquired.
“I didn’t take to the water as she hoped.” Rubbing her chin, she shook off the memory. Looking up, she found him watching her with a thoughtful expression on his face, almost pitying.
Shrugging, she added, “I did not inherit my mother’s adventurous streak.”
“I don’t know about that. Not many ladies that would hare off to Scotland to bring their errant husbands to heel.”
Shrugging again, she clawed a small pile of pebbles into a mound on the ground beside her with focused concentration. “I wouldn’t call it a sense of adventure. Obligation perhaps.” She tossed a pebble into the dark waters before her. “I had to stop him from ruining another woman’s life.”
Tossing another pebble, she watched it plop into the water before shooting him a glance.
He squatted beside her. Plucking a pebble from her little pile, he hurled it, and she watched it splash in the brook with more force than her efforts.
She brought her knees to her chest, propping her chin and taking care to cover her toes beneath the hem of her skirt, mindful that she not reveal even an inch of flesh. She dared not. Not after his wholly unfair remark about her needing to learn a little restraint. Her. It was too absurd to believe.
Glancing sideways, she studied his hands as he selected another pebble. They were broad with a sprinkling of hair, the veins running beneath the tanned surface manly and intriguing. She remembered the feel of those callused palms on her. Their texture had been erotic, rough and arousing against her skin.
She squeezed her eyes shut in a tight blink before turning her attention back to the swiftly moving waters, willing herself to stop feeling this way around him. In truth, to stop _feeling _ at all.
To return to the Astrid she knew, the Astrid in control of her emotions, who never let things like anger and desire rule her. Cold. Like her father. Stronger, she had always believed, than selfish, emotional creatures like her mother who thought only of their own pleasure and happiness.
He began to speak, then stopped suddenly.
His eyes changed, grew hard, scanning the landscape like a hawk.
All at once, he reminded her of the man she first faced on the roadside, the primitive who had shot three men dead without blinking an eye.
“What?” she whispered. “What is it—”
His hand sliced the air, the gesture silencing her. Her heart beat faster, the pulse at her neck a furious pounding beneath her flesh.
