He was holding her too tightly, too close to break away. Reaching up, she grabbed a handful of his thick locks and tugged.
Lifting his head just enough to meet her eyes, he looked his question.
She managed to find enough breath to ask, “Don’t you want to know the rest of what I thought about?”
He stilled. Not a freezing type of stillness but one even more absolute, a predator holding perfectly steady so as not to frighten its prey. Not a cold-blooded stillness but an elementally hot-blooded one, one that set their pulses pounding.
His eyes, dark and intense, bored into hers; he searched, confirmed—went to answer…and hesitated.
She felt that hesitation like a rein snapping taut, holding him back. Tilting her head, she studied his face, then returned her eyes to his. “What?”
He held her gaze for a moment, then pressed his lips tight, closed his eyes, and murmured, “I…don’t know if I dare.”
Charles not accept a dare? She could barely believe her ears.
As if expecting that, he opened his eyes and looked at her—wordlessly warning her not to say what she was thinking.
It was her turn to look inquiringly at him.
He heaved a deep sigh and rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t know what you might be about to say, but…” After a moment, he raised his head and met her eyes. “You do know that I’m not entirely sane when it comes to you, don’t you?”
It took a minute of searching his face, his eyes, for her to be sure she’d correctly interpreted what he was not very clearly trying to tell her. The look she bent on him was chiding. “Charles, you won’t hurt me—you never have.” He opened his mouth; she cut him off. “Yes, all right, except for that once, but that was inevitable, as you should by now realize—I don’t hold that against you. I do wish you’d forget it!”
Especially if that sensitivity was going to interfere with what she had in mind. Before he could respond, she sank against him, let her fingers trail across his cheek to his lips, followed her fingers with her eyes.
His hold on her firmed again.
“Please…?” She infused just the right amount of coercion into the word.
He sighed, then drew breath. “So what else did you imagine?”
“Well, if I was the lady of Restormel Keep, then obviously”—she lifted her gaze once more to his eyes—“you were my lord.”
He swore softly in French. “Do you really want to venture there”—bending his head, he nipped her lower lip—“lady?”
She laughed softly and drew him back to her. “Oh, yes.” She breathed the affirmation over his lips, then kissed him voraciously, then drew back. He let her, just.
“So,” she said, moistening her lower lip, her gaze lowering to his lips, “you’re my lord, and you’ve just returned from chasing brigands, and I’ve been waiting for you here.” She swayed in his arms, swishing her hips side to side against him. “You’ve just ridden in and come up, ordered my ladies from the chamber, and here I am, in your arms.” She lifted her gaze to his. “What would you do next?”
His eyes had darkened, their expression more intense; the planes of his face seemed harder—more, indeed, like the lord of legend she’d painted him.
“What I do next…would depend on a number of things. Such as…” One hand slid down and around; cupping her bottom, he jerked her up and to him, so the vee at the junction of her thighs cradled his rigid erection. His eyes held hers, watching her reaction as he evocatively rocked. “Have you been obedient? Or not?”
Her nerves were already unraveling with anticipation; it was an effort to cling to enough wits to respond appropriately. Holding his gaze, she arched one brow haughtily. “Me? Obedient? I’m part Viking, remember?”
“Ah. I see.” His gaze, hard and ruthless, raced over her face. “So you haven’t yet been tamed?”
“Oh, no,” she affirmed. “Not yet.”
She pretended to push him away, to wriggle from his hold; he didn’t budge. Relentlessly he held her close, pressed her to him; on a gasp, she turned her head as if spurning him. Locking her to him with one arm, he raised a hand to frame her face, not gently yet as he forced her face to his, there was neither violence nor the threat of it in his touch.
He looked down at her, deep into her eyes.
She glimpsed him behind the ruthless mask, sensed his hesitation. “Don’t stop.”
A whispered plea, it sent a faint shudder through him.
His lids flickered, then he locked his eyes, intent and burning, on hers. Slowly bent his head. “I’m not even sure I can.”