“So your sisters’ lives will be unchanging for the forseeable future. Is it yours where you sense a change?”
She looked at him levelly. “Of course. I am married now and, if you have your way, will soon be bedded.”
“My way? Come, do not tell me that you do not wish it also?”
How could she deny it? She not only wanted the feelings that he engendered within her, but she needed to be bedded so he would leave her for a few days. “Yes. I do.”
“Tonight, then, my lady?”
She bit her lip, turned away and nodded. She’d thought she’d be transferring the power to this man when he’d arrived only days before. She couldn’t have had any idea as to how she’d feel now. Empowered, able to hold this man at bay, able to draw him in when she wanted to. He wanted her. And he would have her tonight because she had no choice—not for the demands of her body, but because she needed to take the silver to Blakesmere Priory for safekeeping as soon as possible. With each passing day the danger that her silver would be discovered, heightened. She could not delay.
His hand slid across her thigh. No-one could see. And immediately her body reacted, a low throbbing where she wanted him. She turned to him slowly, gripping his hand. One more nod was all it took and he rose.
Everyone turned around and watched as she rose. There were a few quiet cheers and murmurs of approval. Such a small thing she thought, as she walked with him, hand in hand, through the crowded hall to his bed chamber. But it signalled to everyone that their future was together. The massive candles flickered through the great hall and the fire roared. Everything was as it always had been but now everyone knew they were sealing their betrothal vows. She was married in their eyes and her future was forever changed.
She stepped into the stairwell and he closed the door and drew her to him in a deep kiss. All thought of the people on the other side of the wall vanished under the power of his kiss. Breathless they pulled apart and he took her hand and they ran up the stairs and into the solar.
CHAPTER NINE
Saher opened the solar door and Rowena paused. The candles had already been lit and the bed lay ready. She pulled her hand away from his and walked to the window. There was no light from the moon or stars. The trees and pastures lay clothed and unrevealed. She shivered under the chill of the night air and pulled the wooden shutters closed.
“Cold?” His hands swept up her arms and enclosed her. She shut her eyes as she felt the shivers subside, giving way to a liquid heat inside. She leaned back against his hard body, breathing him in. She felt his groan travel through her skin, sending tingling sensations to the tips of her fingers and toes, heightening her own arousal. His hands slid from her arms, to her waist, and spanned her flat stomach before moving up to cup her breasts that felt heavy with need, desperate for the wet heat of his mouth over them.
Impelled by the desires of her body, she slid her hands down the front of his thighs, which tensed under her searching fingers. She shifted them further up his legs and felt his sharp intake of breath as her palms cupped around his hard shaft. She drew back, alarmed both by her own audacity and his response. But he turned her in his arms and kissed her until her fears were submerged under the onslaught of sensation that his tongue set in train all over her body.
He drove his hand into her hair and held her face against his as first his lips gently moved, caressed and open her mouth. She’d never been kissed like this before. Stolen kisses at parties, maybe, and then with the boy she’d thought she’d loved years before, but not in such a passionate way, not in such a way as if he were sensing every movement and taste of her own, savouring it as if it were the most exquisite food—a food he needed and would not be without. A food he was hungry for.
The thought cast away the last remaining shreds of fear and she slid her hand around his neck, intensifying the kiss, building that coiling and broiling flutter of sensations that charged throughout her body. She felt the wet heat of her desire, throbbing between her legs.
“You are beautiful, my lady.” His hand caressed her skin, the curve of her waist and the plump contours of her bottom. His other hand joined it in its exploration and they tucked under her and pulled her up to rub against his hard erection.
She shook her head. “Do not flatter me, sir. I am here, with you now. We both know I am not beautiful.”
“Oh, Rowena,” he breathed as he kissed her lips, the tip of her nose and each of her closed eye lids. “Do not bother denying it. Because I will surely not bother defending such an obvious thing. You are beautiful, whether you gainsay it or not. And do you not feel how ready I am for you, how my body needs you? I wanted you from that first moment I saw you.”