The Harlot (Taskill Witches 1)

Pain flashed through her, her flesh heightened to sensation from the scrubbing as it was. Tossing back her head, she glared at him over her shoulder. “Throw me back in the gutter if that is all you think I am worth. I have pledged to you that my word is good.”

“While you are with me you will follow my instructions. If I discover you dallying with that cursed fop again our agreement will be annulled.”

How wildly handsome and possessive he looked. Jessie could not help herself; she laughed in his face. “You’re a fool. He was not interested in me. If you opened your eyes you would see that he prefers a man in his bed and would no doubt rather it was you he sat with down there instead of me.”

Confusion altered Gregor’s expression and he paused.

Jessie, however, did not. The ability to hold her tongue had completely gone. “And tell me this while you are doling out the punishment here—why weren’t you upset with Morag? You do not want to see me with another man, but you wanted to see me with her.”

“That was different.” His frown deepened.

“It was no different. I could just as likely find favor with Morag and decide to run away with her.”

That appeared to rile him even more, for he grabbed her to him and his lips were tightly compressed as he looked down into her eyes. “You will run away with no one.”

“I will if I choose to. You are not my keeper.” Even as she said it, she wished he were. That had been the problem when she left the room, and it was still her problem now. “It is no worse than the fact that you want me to seduce your enemy,” she snapped. “Aye,” she added, when she saw him jerk back. “Think on that, Gregor.”

Fury lit his eyes. “That is vastly different. I am preparing you for a task, a job you are being paid for.”

“Yes, a task I am being paid for. It is what I do, Gregor. I am a whore.” Her eyes smarted. The emotions that she had kept deeply buried were unraveling. “You will never scrub that fact away.”

He glared at her.

She shook her head. “You are willing to pay me to be such, but you cannot stand the notion that I might toy with another man out of choice. What sense is there in that?”

The cloth in his hand fell to the floor. “You wanted that…that fop?”

No, I wanted you, you fool. Mired in vexation, Jessie found that her true and deeper emotions—the ones she would not reveal to him—were barely in check.

“What if I did,” she spat, and then turned her face away from him, hating that she cared what he thought of her, hating that she knew he was blinding himself to the truth. They both were. She was a whore, and he would try to forget that while it suited him—while he wanted her to warm his bed. It was what men did with whores. He was no different. In fact, he was worse, because he chose to blot out what he was training her for, as well.

An ominous silence surrounded them.

She tried desperately not to shiver, but she couldn’t help it.

Gregor moved to her back.

Jessie kept her gaze averted.

“Turn around.”

She did so. He pulled off his shirt and rubbed her dry, his lips tightly compressed. Fury poured from him still, but his verbal admonishments seemed to be shelved for the moment. The small amount of heat that he rubbed into her bones made her shiver all the more. He wrapped her in the linen, lifted her into his arms and carried her to his bed.

As he did, she noticed how fast he breathed, and felt the barely restrained tension in him. His naked chest was hot to the touch, luring her. At her center, her body flamed for him. It made her want to kiss his feet, to beg for him to hold her as he had before.

“This must be done,” he informed her, then dropped her onto the bed.

“Gregor—”

He put his hand over her mouth, silencing her.

Jessie swallowed.

Looming over her, stripped to the waist, he gazed at her, his eyes glittering darkly in the faint light from the candle that flickered nearby.

Her cunny turned molten.

Pulling the shirt from beneath her, he twisted it tightly in his hands, turning it to rope.