“Who is he?” I asked Annie when I gathered my senses, then clarified, “What is he?”
She narrowed her eyes, as if reluctant to talk about him, then said, “A warrior of the clan. A dangerous man. You keep away from him.”
One of the other women laughed. “Though I hear he’s a devil under the sheets.”
“Aye, and what would you know about it, Maggie Fitzroy?”
My face turned red, though not from embarrassment. The thought of anyone else having him made my blood burn in my veins. I’d never known jealousy before but I now understood why it could drive a person mad.
“You keep away from him,” Annie said. “I mean it, you’re far too young and sweet to go near a brute like that.”
I thanked her, and sought out Matilda, barely able to pay attention as she gave me her advice, before making my way out of the town center and onto the path home.
And that should have been the end of it, but when I came to a crossroads, and saw muddy hoofprints heading in the opposite direction, it gave me pause. I considered the road ahead, then cast my mind back to my dream.
A feeling in the pit of my stomach told me something had changed. Something within me. And try as I might to shrug it off, I could not.
My mother and father had always forbidden any mention of men as it related to me. Marriage and love and all it entailed, all the mysteries of the bed that I so longed to know, did not seem to be my destiny. My sisters could marry but I could not, and I was unsure why but without prospect I dared not challenge my parents on the subject.
But a man like that, I thought to myself, swallowing hard and feeling my cheeks flush. A man with such strength, such passion, such intensity. My family would be powerless to stop a man like that from taking me as his own.
Wouldn’t they?
And I liked the thought of that very, very much.
Being taken.
There would be a beating in it for me, I was sure, but instead of taking the path toward home, I turned in the direction of the hoofprints.
Bors
I rode hard up the King’s Highway that led out of town. Any other time, a good hard ride would have cleared my mind of all other thoughts. But this time was fucking different. She was fucking different. All my thoughts were for her. Those eyes, that face, that body. She was perfection itself.
I’d never much considered my ideal woman. Never cared.
Now? I’ve seen her. Been close enough to touch her and I can’t fucking get her out of my mind.
Mid-night black hair hung to her hips and, Jesus, those hips. All I could think of was grabbing them, holding hard and slamming inside her watching the swell of her tits bounce as I drove in and of out her.
She came barely to my chest and I could have scooped her off the ground with little effort and taken her away with me. Oh, how I wanted to take her away with me.
Green eyes unlike anything I’d seen before seemed to look into my soul and tell me for the first time in as far back as I can remember, there is more to life than pain. There is care and comfort and I needed her to be the one to give it to me.
My reaction to her stunned even me. I’d lived long enough—and hard enough—to have had my share of women. I’d enjoyed the pleasures they provided but never before had I desired one with such intensity, such unbridled fury to possess… to protect. To have. To own. In the moment I locked eyes with her, the truth became clear:
I wanted her to be mine. And I needed to be inside her.
If it weren’t for the look in her eyes, and the all-consuming protective need it induced in the pit of my stomach, I would have taken that beautiful girl right there, staring into those eyes that reminded me of a spring meadow. Consequences and onlookers be damned.
I shook when she looked at me as though the ground under my feet had shifted. The fear in the washerwoman’s voice was right—I had no place forcing myself on a girl like that. She was way too goddamned pure for a brute like me.
She was young too. Far too young for my years. Mine multiplied by war and fury. I was older than I should be and yet young enough to still long for things others took for granted in life.
Worse still, I knew now that all my best-laid plans meant nothing. My intentions had been simple: find a nice widow, settle down, have a quiet life. No more. No less. I hadn’t considered love, I just wanted simple. I wanted to be done fighting.