Forbidden Warrior (Midsummer Knights)

She swung her hand out. “I would, but alas, I see no chessboard in the outlaw’s tent.”

For the longest time, he just looked at her with those astonishing blue eyes, leaving her feeling...waded through.

Then he shoved to his feet. She scrambled back a few steps, but when he unsheathed a blade, she gasped.

He merely glanced at her, then bent and slashed the knife tip into the table, dragging it along in horizontal lines and vertical ones, creating...squares.

A board. He'd carved a chessboard into his little table.

How clev—

Destructive. How terribly destructive of him.

“You have a knack for destroying things.”

His eyes slid up. “I didn't destroy it. I made it serve two purposes.”

For a second, they stared at each other, then he dug into one of his innumerable pouches and pulled out yet another, smaller pouch. The man was laden with the things. As if he carried his whole life on his back, in these little moveable satchels and bags.

He began pulling out a whole host of little whittled men and figurines. An army of them. An ark of human and animal shapes.

He laid them on the small table.

“But these are beautiful,” she exclaimed, touching each piece as he laid it on the makeshift board.

He watched in silence as she lifted each one and hefted it in her hand, testing its weight, the sturdy, heavy feel of it. She ran a lion-shaped one over her cheek to feel the silky smooth, well-sanded surface.

She looked up to find him staring at her. Hurriedly, she set them down, her face hot.

“I an fond of beautiful things,” she explained, embarrassed to be seen so greedily touching and feeling.

“As am I,” he agreed, his tone a veritable well of double entendres as his gaze slid across her face.

She very much enjoyed entendres, double and triple if possible. Unseemly as it was, in the tent of this man she was bound to oppose.

“Which is the king?” she asked.

“The stumpiest one, of course,” he said, taking it from her hand and setting it on the table.

She was about to chasten him when she realized it would do nothing to stem the tide of his many outrages. Additionally, she knew a moment of glee, a cool, almost giddy feeling that rode through her belly when he called a king ‘stumpy.’

It was just the sort of thing an outlaw might do.

He set up the board, then flipped over his little stool and settled it in front of Cassia. He extended his hand, inviting her to sit. The entire thing was done in silence.

She brushed her gown to the side and, bending her knees primly, sat.

They played in silence. Of course. She drummed her fingers restlessly on the table as he examined the board.

After a moment, he slid his gaze up.

She stopped drumming and asked sharply, “Do Irishman never speak?”

“When we’ve something to say.” More silence.

She sighed. “It is customary to engage in conversation when you are in the company of another person.”

“Is it now? Perhaps you should tutor me.”