The Warrior

Catching her hand, Ranulf grinned and brought her fingers to his lips. “You like your play rough, wench?”

“No . . . you know I prefer gentleness.”

His eyes darkened. “As do I. I learned long ago that gentleness can win over a wench where force cannot.”

Bristling at his impossible arrogance, she pulled her hand from his grasp. “You think women weak, simply because our bodies are more fragile than yours.”

Ranulf grunted, his good humor fading. “I have good cause to know a woman’s strength—and viciousness. Your sex has weapons no man would think of wielding.”

Ariane hesitated at hearing the harsh scorn in his voice, remembering Payn’s tales of the scandals that had haunted Ranulf’s life. She wondered if he would divulge any more about his past, or if it pained him too much to dwell on it. “Did some woman use her weapons against you?” she asked quietly.

Bleak pain flared in his eyes and died so swiftly she wondered if she had imagined it. Frowning, Ranulf absently twined his fingers in a lock of her hair. “I have no wish to speak of it.”

A few days ago, Ariane might have retorted with a stinging reply, but that was before she had learned of his torment. Now, helplessly, she pressed her mouth against an old battle scar on his chest, feeling his heart beating sure and strong beneath her lips. His beautiful body was like a blade of the finest Damascene steel, forged by the sufferings of his past. And yet, even a sword could be broken.

Unaccountably, Ariane felt a fierce wave of tenderness assault her, an almost desperate urge to draw this strong, vital man into her arms, to hold and protect him and keep him safe from harm.

She raised herself fully upon one elbow, searching his harsh, handsome face, trying to read his features. Even as she looked down, his gaze slid to her mouth and darkened.

She recognized that heated look—an expression of his insatiable lusty appetites, and yet there was more to it this time. A question, a wariness, lay in the amber depths, as if Ranulf had suddenly recalled who she was, a noblewoman who could never be trusted not to deal him more hurt. She wanted desperately to erase that doubt from his eyes.

Even as she had the thought, though, his hand rose behind her head to capture her nape, his fingers twining

in her hair to draw her mouth down for his kiss.

Weakness and warmth flooded Ariane at the tender pressure of his lips, at the sensual thrust of his tongue. Trembling, she struggled against the fierce wanting, denying herself as much as him. Her hands came up to resist him, her fingers spreading against warm flesh, softly furred. “My lord . . . have you not had enough?”

“Enough? Nay. I will never have enough of you.” When still she hesitated, he raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Do you deny that you want me, lover?” Ranulf demanded softly, knowing the answer already.

She could deny him nothing. Her need for him during the past two days had grown into an urgent clamoring that could only be quelled by his lovemaking. Even now, after a wanton excess of passion, her body throbbed, while the moist haven between her thighs ached for him, for the ecstasy only he could give her.

He had branded her his own in these past few heart-shattering days, marked her forever. For all her tender girlhood fantasies of Ranulf, she had never guessed how devastating the reality would be. The Black Dragon had seduced her very soul from her body.

And yet she could not allow Ranulf to know how deeply he affected her. She would be his slave in truth, then. No, she could only try to hold her own with this magnificent, self-assured warrior and pray it would be enough to keep her safe.

Boldly, Ariane reached down to cup his groin. She smiled at his sharp inhalation as she took his swelling manhood in her hand, her slender fingers curving around the pulsing crest as he had taught her. “Do you denyyou want me, my arrogant dragon?”

His eyes blazed with fire. To her startlement, though, he rolled over her, pinning her with his weight. Kneeling between her legs then, he slipped his arms beneath her thighs, drawing them nearly up to his shoulders, opening her to his view. His golden eyes gleamed as he scrutinized her succulent pink flesh, still slick with the seed of his last possession.

“Ranulf . . . you needn’t prove your mastery.” She shook her head as if to deny her need, but her own voice betrayed her, and her words caught in a gasp as he lowered his head and tongued her.

She dared not look down to where the dark crown of his head was moving between her thighs.Wicked, Ariane thought as the sensual stroking of his mouth made her shudder.Sinful.

And then she gave no more thought to sin or pride, but surrendered to the tender, pagan assault of her dragon lord and the blazing heat he kindled in her anew.

When Ranulf finally, reluctantly, emerged from the solar the following morn, leaving Ariane to sleep off her exhaustion, he resumed his duties as lord with a vengeance. To atone for the sloth of the past days, he put his men through a strenuous practice in the training field that had even his most seasoned knights drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, as well as covered with mud from the recent spring rains.

“I had hoped you would burn your fever for the lady from your blood,” Payn rasped as he bent over his sword, chest heaving, “but I can see your lusts are as hot as ever. Your loins yet drive your head.”

Ranulf grinned, refusing to be provoked, and wiped his sword with his leather gauntlet before sheathing it in its scabbard. “My lusts are no excuse for these lazy whoresons to grow fat and unfit. King Henry may summon us at any moment, and I would be ready.”

“We will be, unless you kill us all first,” Bertran grumbled.

“Mayhap we should beg the lady to take him back so he will show us mercy,” someone else chimed in, a comment that was met with ribald male laughter.

“Aye, a far more pleasurable pastime awaits you in your solar, milord.”

“—where you can use your sword to better effect.”