A Knight's Reward (19 page)

Anticipation rippled through him.
I care not that you are dressed in commoner’s garb. I know the delicate silk of your naked skin. I have caressed it. Tasted it. Kissed the sun-warmed patch below your—

“Nay!” she cried, as if attuned to his wanton cravings. She twisted in his hold, darting sideways faster than he imagined possible.

Her hands curled at her sides, she stood several steps away. Her eyes glittered, not with fury, but passion.

“Come back, Gisela,” he whispered.

“Do not touch me again.” A sobbed plea.

A lie
.

“I must,” he answered, closing the space between them. “No longer can I deny myself.”

She stepped backward. “Nay! To touch me—”

“—’Tis all I have wanted to do since I first saw you in the stable.”

“’Tis dangerous! I will not allow you.”

“Aye, Gisela, you will.” He closed the last paces separating them.

The backs of her thighs hit the sewing table. She flinched. “Oh, God,” she said, looking frantically for a place to run.

Dominic stepped in front of her. He took her face in his hands and gently, but firmly, tipped it up.

Her eyes huge and wet, she stared up at him, tears glistening like rainwater on her face. Her hands came up to clutch his arms.

Lowering his voice to a husky rasp, he said, “Never will I regret wanting to kiss you. Or, for desiring you as I did years ago.”

Moisture brimmed along her lashes. “Dominic—”

“You are
mine
, Gisela. You always will be.”

“Walk away,” she said on a sob. “Forget me.”

“Never.” He pressed a tender kiss to the hair tangling over her brow.

She thrust her shoulders back, fighting him even in her desire. Misery shadowed her gaze like a black cloud obliterating the sun. “
Please!
Trust me when I say—”

“Trust me, Sweet Daisy.” Coaxing her chin upward even more, he leaned his body against hers. With a gasped protest, she dropped back to sit on the table’s edge. The wood squeaked at her weight.

Before she could squirm away, he nudged her legs apart with his knee. Cloth whispered, the sound akin to an impassioned sigh.

A flush stained her face. “You are a bold man.”

He smiled. “Aye.” What irony, that days ago, when she’d tended his ribs, she had stood in a similar fashion between his legs. Then, she had treated his physical discomfort. Now, he must tend her. He wouldn’t ease bodily pain, but would assuage her emotional torment rooted in their parting long ago.

“Dominic, if you do not let me rise this instant—”

He chuckled. “You will what?” He kissed her temple. “Beat your fists upon me?”

She glared at him, but reluctance defined the set of her mouth. “I could not hurt your sore ribs.”

“Scratch my eyes out, then?”

Desperation lit her gaze. “How could I wound you? How, when I still . . .” Her voice faded. She bit her lip, obviously trying to stifle her unspoken words, and looked away. “Oh, Dominic.”

“Mmm?” He waited, holding her face in his hands. He kissed her eyebrow. Her eyelid. The salty path streaming down her face.

“Dominic,” she moaned.

“Sweet Daisy.” Dipping his head, he brushed his lips over hers. A tender memento of the love they’d once shared.

The instant their mouths touched, awareness catapulted through him. The stunning force of it snatched his breath, made him draw away for the barest moment. He shuddered, humbled by the sheer power of the physical connection.

The fierce passion between them remained, despite their years apart.

Gisela is yours, as she was before
, his mind whispered.
Prove that then, now, and always, she is the purest half of your soul
.

She, too, must have felt the jolt of desire. She went very still. Blinking tears from her damp lashes, she looked up at him with longing and reticence. Then, her gaze fell to his mouth. Yearning darkened her eyes.

An answering need coursed through him in a swift, potent surge. He kissed her again. His mouth swept over hers, urging her to kiss him back. Asking her to return the pleasure he offered her. Demanding she acknowledge the desire between them.

A ragged cry broke from her. She seemed unable to resist any longer, for her eyelids closed. Her lips parted, accepting all he offered. Taking, yet giving in return.

Their lips moved in perfect rhythm. As perfect as years ago.

Give. Take.

Nibble. Suck.

“Gisela,” he groaned. His tongue slid into her mouth. With a hungry sigh, she curved her body to meet his thrusting tongue. Her fingers, clutching his arms, curled into his tunic sleeves. Her grasping fingertips dug into his skin.

“Gisela.” He kissed her faster. Deeper. Never could he devour enough of her sweetness. He bent closer, his hands sliding from her face into her hair. His fingers buried into the silken strands, holding her head firm, holding her closer to his body and heart.

Their sighs and kisses echoed in her shadowed shop, the melody of their long-ago love.

She tore her mouth free, her breath coming in harsh pants. “Dominic.” In her voice, he heard both delight and despair.

“Shh.” His hand slid from her hair to sweep over the curve of her shoulder. “Gisela, I have missed you.”

“As I have missed you.” With a hesitant touch, she caressed his face. Her gentle fingertips trailed over his healing bruise.

He smiled and kissed her thumb. Then, dipping his head, he kissed her cheek, her jaw, the velvety line of her neck.

“Nay,” she breathed, her head listing back. “Wait!”

He blew on her neck and was rewarded by her gasp. Her hand fluttered, a feeble attempt to stop his sensual barrage. Resisting a grin, he caught her fingers and kissed them before pressing little kisses along her bodice’s edge. He savored her soft, scented skin that obliterated all but the pleasure of her.

He nibbled a path back up to her mouth. Ravenous, seeking, her lips meshed with his. He kissed her with matching fervor. When a pleasured purr rumbled in her throat, he skimmed his other hand down over her shoulder to her bodice. Sliding his finger between the fabric and her skin, he touched the upper swell of her breast with his fingertip.

She tensed. With a strangled cry, she drew back.

Panic widened her eyes. Her breaths sharpened with urgency. His heart constricted, compassion and tenderness melding with his desire. Did she hesitate because they’d been apart so long? Did she believe, somehow, that she no longer measured up to the young maiden he had loved? That he wouldn’t find her pleasing?

In his eagerness, he hadn’t wooed her enough to vanquish her unease. To show how much she still meant to him. He lifted his fingers away, then squeezed her hand still entwined with his. “’Tis all right, Gisela.”

She shook her head, her hair spilling over her shoulder. “We should not be kissing or . . . caressing.” Shifting her bottom on the table, she tried to scoot sideways.

He didn’t budge. Resisting a grin, he noted she could not escape him unless she slid backward on the table. In that instance, he would simply grab her skirts and yank her forward again.

Shoving her free hand to his chest, she said, “Please move aside.”

“What happens here, now, is between us.” He softened each word. “Only us.”

“You do not understand.”

How distressed she sounded. Her tone was vastly different from the dulcet coaxing with which she’d seduced him in the meadow. However, he sensed that passionate lover still lived on, in her thoughts, memories, and secret dreams.

“No matter what happened while we were apart, our feelings are still true,” he murmured. “You cannot deny that.”

She gnawed her lip. Her fingertips pressed into his tunic. How close her hand was to catching the linen on his necklace pressed against his skin.

Anguish shivered across her face. Again, she pushed at him.

“Touching you,” he said quietly, “is merely acknowledging what is true.”

“Nay, touching me is
wrong
.”

“Why?” How he loved her skin’s luscious softness. Of their own initiative, his fingers moved in lazy circles against her flesh, as though he traced a flower’s petals.

She trembled. “Dominic.”

“You are mine, Sweet Daisy.”

“But—”

“
Mine
. Then, now, and forever.”

While he spoke, he skimmed his hand down over her bodice. His mind flooded with the delicious memory of her breast molded to his palm. A groan of intense longing burned inside him.

He cupped her breast.

His thumb met a hard ridge beneath the fabric.

Shock plowed through him. At the same moment, a gasp tore from her. She recoiled, her body so rigid, she might have been stabbed in the back.

He wrenched his hand away, staring at his palm. Blood pounded hard at his temple.

What had he felt?

Merciful God,
what?

A scar? Surely not. Yet, he well knew of such wounds. While on crusade, he’d tended injured knights, even stitched their skin closed to encourage healing. He’d helped Geoffrey survive near-mortal wounds that now were only scars.

To think of her enduring such pain . . .

“Gisela?” In the silent room, Dominic’s anguished whisper sounded like a scream.

Raising his head, he looked at her. She sat with her arms folded over her bosom in a defensive posture. Her beautiful face contorted with grief.

“What happened to you?” He forced each word through his teeth.

She met his gaze with a blank stare. “Will you move away now?”

“
What?
”

“I said, will you move away now?”

His shock disintegrated, became cresting anger. Fury blazed—that she seemed so distant. That she held within her such terrible anguish. Above all, that she’d suffered through such an injury.

“I will not move.” He tried to speak calmly and keep his fury tightly leashed, but he couldn’t stop his tone from roughening. “Tell me what happened.”

Shrugging, she looked across her shop. Her body trembled, but she held herself taut, pride in the thrust of her chin. The pride of a woman who had faced . . . unspeakable horror.

Tears scalded his eyes. What had she endured? What had happened to his Sweet Daisy?

Vile possibilities seared through his mind. Clamping his jaw, he struggled to keep a clear mind and not make false assumptions. “How were you wounded? In an accident?”

A bitter laugh broke from her. “Nay.”

Someone had intentionally cut her
.

Dominic’s stomach twisted. Bile scorched the back of his mouth. He wanted to vomit. Scream. Slam his fists into the wall and smash it into splinters.

“Who hurt you?” Disbelief pounded like an anvil against his skull. “
Who?
” Shocking realization crashed through him. “Your . . . husband?”

She flinched with such force, the table jolted. “I told you before, I have no husband.”

“The man you wed. He hurt you?” Dominic repeated, his voice rising. “
Did he?
”

He waited, unable to breathe. Scarcely able to see past the red haze flooding into his line of vision.

Silence strained, as tight as a thread about to snap.

She nodded.

A roar tore up from Dominic’s gut, ripped through him, exploded from his lips with such ferocity, he reeled. “Gisela!”

She flinched again. “Now you know, Dominic. I am flawed, for the rest of my living days.”

Her flat tone cut worse than a dagger. Did she hold herself responsible for her husband’s cruelty? How could she? The man was clearly a monster.

Dominic’s hand itched to seize a knife, to face her former husband man to man, to gouge a wound of equal size on the bastard’s body. How could he have disfigured a woman as beautiful as Gisela? Or any woman?

“Let me see your scar.”

Her watery gaze snapped to his.

“Let me see. I must know what he did to you.” Even as Dominic spoke, his hands reached for her crossed arms. He eased them away from her body.

He half-expected her to fight him, lash out at him, even. Yet, she sat motionless, resignation in the set of her mouth, while he eased his fingers inside her chemise, next to her skin. He gently drew aside the fabric to expose her breast.

God’s. Holy.
Blood!

A puckered scar sliced the swell of her flesh. The pinkish gouge ran in a near-diagonal line, down her breast to the center of her rib cage. Not a light grazing of the knife, but a deep cut—the twisted bastard’s mark of possession.

Oaths flew from Dominic’s lips.

She struggled. “Dominic—”

“Who is he? What is his name? Where will I find him?”

“Dominic!”

He clutched her shoulders. “
Where? Answer me!
”

At the same moment, over the rage thundering in his ears, he heard the shop door creak open. A woman’s startled cry. A child’s gasp.

“Mama?”

Chapter Twelve

At the sound of Ewan’s voice, Gisela jumped. Oh, God, she could only imagine how her and Dominic’s encounter appeared to her son—and what thoughts must be racing through his mind.

Stifling a dismayed cry, she wrenched out of Dominic’s grasp and yanked her bodice to cover her breast. She shoved him away. This time, he didn’t attempt to thwart her, but moved in a graceful back step-turn that somehow conveyed the interruption had rattled him as much as she.

Dragging his hand over his mouth, Dominic faced the open doorway where Ada and Ewan stood. A flush stained his cheekbones. A muscle twitched in his jaw, and she sensed him trying to quell his frustration.

If only she could appear as controlled. Her emotions seemed as fragile as tattered parchment.

Forcing a smile, Gisela slid off the table. “Ewan.”

Her little boy stood pressed against Ada’s skirts, his expression a gut-wrenching blend of shock and rage. Her hand pressed to her mouth, the older woman gaped.

Gisela swallowed down bitter regret. While she was immensely glad of the interruption, she had never, ever wanted Ewan to discover her and Dominic having a disagreement. Months ago, she’d vowed to protect her son from strife. Today, she had failed him.