Outlaw (Medieval Trilogy 3)

“I … I cannot,” she insisted, trying to push away, but he was strong, and as she twisted from him, he slid his arms around her, his hands cupping both her breasts as he held her close to him, and he kissed the back of her neck, leaving a trail with his tongue. Through his breeches his hard, stiff member was pressed against the valley of her rump. “Wolf, please—” she murmured, and he turned her again, looking into her eyes, searching her face before he kissed her with all the passion that seared through his blood. Her resistance was without conviction, and soon her arms wrapped around his neck and she was clinging to him, her breasts rising and falling beneath the chemise, her mouth such soft, sweet wonder.

He dragged them both to his pallet, and there, nestled in the furs, she gazed up at him, her eyes filled with surrender as his heart beat a wild, primal cadence. Slowly, he untied the ribbons of her chemise, parting the light cloth, exposing exquisite white flesh.

With a finger, he rolled the fabric back until both her breasts were visible, straining upward, a slight image of tiny veins beneath her skin, her glorious pink tips hard and wanting. He thought she would blush or turn away, but she stared straight into his eyes, and when he lowered his head and brushed a feather-light kiss across one sweet bud, she sighed deep in her throat. “This is wrong,” he growled, and again the dark nipple puckered expectantly.

“Aye, we cannot.”

“We mustn’t,” he agreed, but lowered his mouth around the sweetness of her skin and touched his teeth and tongue to the ripe, willing mound.

With a cry, she arched her back and he caught her, big hands splaying over the curve of her spine, holding her tight as he suckled, like a hungry babe, wanting so much more, feeling her tremble with her own desire.

“Wolf,” she cried, and it was more a plea than protest. His groin was tight and he thought only of lying with her, of thrusting into the warm, moist haven that was hidden between her legs, of coupling with her far into the night. Still kissing her, he moved, rolling atop her, spreading her legs with his knees, gazing down at her naked breasts and beautiful flushed face. It would be so easy to love her . . .

And then what? She was married to Holt, a woman pledged to another. In that instant, that small flame of nobility, the one he’d tried so desperately to extinguish, sparked in his brain and he knew that he could never have this woman; no matter what, she was married to another man. No matter that Holt was his sworn enemy, no matter that she’d never loved him, no matter that she’d never lain with him, ’twas a sacrament he couldn’t break. With all the effort he could gather, he rolled off her and away, landing on his feet and swearing roundly.

“For the love of Christ, what am I to do with you?” he asked, breathing hard, squeezing his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose as he willed the wild heat roaring through his blood to cool.

“I thought you were going to ransom me,” she said saucily, though she was dying inside. What had she just done? Nearly given herself to this man—this criminal who had told her that he was sending her back to her husband for a few coins?

Shame colored her cheeks, but she stiffened her spine as she tossed on the old tunic and shook her hair off her face. “If you’re going to sell me, Wolf, be done with it!”

“I told you, ’tis not the money.”

She tied the strings at her neck and said, “I believe not a word you say.” A tic developed under his eye, and she should have felt some sort of satisfaction for vexing him, but the truth of the matter was that she was wounded inside. She’d never felt such longing, such craving for a man, and the way she’d acted like a hot-blooded wench, writhing and wanting him to lie with her, brought fear deep to her heart. ’Twas not wise to give a man such power. ’Twas not wise at all.

“Father … please, wake up,” Cayley said softly as she took Ewan’s hand in her own. She knelt in the rushes by his bed. His two hounds lay next to him, their ears perked, their suspicious eyes trained on her. Each day, Ewan appeared weaker. His skin was cool and paper thin, his eyes mere slits.

“Has … has Megan returned?” His voice was but a rasp, far from the loud bellow that used to announce his arrival. It had been long since she’d seen him stand without a cane or heard him tell a ribald joke, which had always earned him an elbow in the ribs from his wife.

“Nay, there is no word of Megan, but Rue told me that you refused your dinner.”

“I have no hunger.”

“Please,” she pleaded, but his eyelids closed again and he drifted off, as he did often when she visited. His breath was so shallow it barely ruffled the soft hairs of his moustache. She couldn’t imagine life in the castle without him. Who would she turn to? Who would perform the duties of the lord? So many people depended upon him, and she loved him with all her young, willful heart. Please, Father, do not die. Stay with me here at Dwyrain. I have no one else. … And that was the sad truth. If Ewan died, then her only family was Megan, the sister with whom she’d spent so much time arguing and fighting. Even the love of her life, Gwayne of Cysgod, no longer visited. There were ugly rumors that he was betrothed to someone else and Cayley felt disappointed, but not the great heartrending sorrow she had expected.

With all the trouble in the castle, she felt as if the very walls of Dwyrain were tumbling in upon themselves, just as it had been foretold by that snake of a prophet. If only she could have one chance at that pathetic worm of a man, she’d spit in his face and curse him to hell. He was the reason for all of the trouble at the castle, not Megan.

Please, Lord, see her safely home.

The terrifying thought that Megan might already be dead crossed her mind, but she pushed the idea firmly aside. Megan was too strong, too stubborn, too cursedly defiant to die. And surely the outlaw did not steal her from within the castle walls just to kill her. Or did he?

Nay, she wouldn’t believe it. When she conjured up the face of Wolf, for he was now blamed for the kidnapping, she envisioned strong, forceful features, a countenance set by fierce determination, a powerful enemy, but she did not consider him a murderer. And soon he would be found. Holt wouldn’t rest until he was flushed out and captured.

She should have felt a flicker of hope in those thoughts, for she had once trusted Holt, believed in him as her father did, thought him a capable leader and honest man. But lately, she had discovered her first misgivings. He surrounded himself with men she did not trust. Connor, a knight who kept Holt’s counsel, was a hard-hearted man with eyes that missed n

othing, and Kelvin of Hawarth was a simpleton who appeared to enjoy other people’s suffering. Jovan, the apothecary, was reputed to be a miser who would sell his own daughter’s virtue for the right price, and Cayley had seen him once in Holt’s company.

Holt himself was more than troubled and worried over Megan’s disappearance. In his agitation, he showed another side to himself.

“Oh, Father, you must wake up and take your place as baron,” she said, desperation and fear clutching her throat. For the first time in her life, Cayley felt as if she could rely on no one but herself, and that feeling scared her half to death. Were the situation reversed and she the one captured, Megan would have known what to do. Megan had always called her weak, and now, finally, Cayley understood why. She didn’t have the first notion how to help her sister.

There was a soft knock on the door and one of the dogs growled low in his throat. The other lifted her nose aloft, sniffed the air, and snarled. Cayley, who had been kneeling at her father’s bedside, climbed quickly to her feet just as Father Timothy entered. One look at the bed and he sighed, crossing himself as he said a quick prayer for the baron’s recovery, keeping a wary distance between himself and the sharp teeth of the hounds.

“He is no better?”

Cayley shook her head. “Nay.”

“Mayhap ’tis his time,” the priest said as he moved closer, and one dog leaped to his feet. With lowered head, the fur on the back of his neck bristling, the male growled a low warning. His mate, a bitch with dark spots, pulled back black lips to expose her wicked fangs. Her eyes never left the priest’s soft throat.