Claiming Her

“And I do not punish men for defending what is theirs.”

It was an impressive litany of the restraints of a warrior.

Katarina was not impressed. “Do you not punish men for defending what is theirs? That is most noble of you. And what of women, sir? For I have found there are so often different rules for them.”

He watched her a moment. “I do not follow many rules, Katarina.”

Whoosh, directly through the center of her belly. With her name strung on the end like a pearl, in his rough, dark lilt, it had sounded like a promise.

“Ah,” was all she could conjure up, a sad reply to the admission of his mutinous nature.

“What ‘happened downstairs,’” he said softly, “is what I’d expect from someone with wits enough to see that their opponent was distracted, for even an instant, and the bollocks to seize that moment.”

Something that carried chills in its pockets swept over her. It was not so much coldness as a slapping sort of alertness, like drawing the furs off a slumbering body in winter. A splash of cold water in the heat of a fever. Alert, aware, awake.

“I do not disapprove.”

Oh, now she saw the danger. Felt it as surely as she felt the heat from the fire he’d lit. Now, when he was far too close.

“Then you are a man different from any I have ever known,” she said quietly.

“That I am.” His eyes never left hers. “As for most men, Katarina, they are fools. I rarely do the things they do. I proceed where they stop, I sail when they waver, and I take the castles they negotiate over.”

A thread of chills scalded across her breasts, hardening her nipples. Why? Why when he spoke of such mercenary, acquisitive arrogance, why did she feel as if he’d touched her with a feather on fire?

“I think you are the same,” he said.

She curled her fingers around the edge of the dressing table. “I see.”

“Do you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Yes.

He pushed out the chair opposite him with the tip of his boot and extended a palm toward it. “Sit with me.”

“Why?”

“To negotiate.”

She could not help it; she laughed. “Negotiate? Over what? I have nothing.”

He just nodded toward the chair.

“Aodh Mac Con, you have my castle, my men, the coffers, the coin. You tell us what to do, and we shall do it. What more could you possibly want?”

“You.”

Her heartbeat slowed. “Pardon?”

“I have a proposition.”

“What sort of proposition?”

“The sort where you marry me.”

The long hot trail of chills started in her belly this time, and spread across her skin like a tide washing in.