The High Sheriff of Huntingdon (33 page)

He slid up,
c
o
v
e
rin
g
her, his hips resting
between
her
legs as he
threaded
his hands through her
thick
hair.
“Did
you
like that, my pretty
little nun?”
he
murmured.

She couldn’t catch
her
breath. Her
face
was wet with
tears,
and
she
was
lost,
confused. “You’re
a
monster,” she gasped.
“A
devil,
a
cruel,
rapacious beast…” His
mouth
stopped
hers, and without
hesitation she
kissed
him back,
fi
e
rcely, her arms
sliding tightly
around
his
neck,
holding
him hard
against her body.

He
lifted his
head. “We’re
not
finished
yet,”
he said.

“No,” she answered.

He lever
ed
his body away from hers
a
few
scant
inches,
and she
felt chilled
to
the
bone.
“No?” he echoed in
a
mocking, reasonable
voice.

She was
a good, holy woman,
a keeper
of
the faith,
one who had
never
blasphemed
in
her life.
“God damn you,”
she said.
“Yes.”
And
s
h
e
pulled him back against her.

5

Alistair
Darcourt had
bedded many women
in
his life, so many that he’d long ago lost count.
But all
those faceless,
nameless women
hadn’t had the power
to
move him
like the small,
slender woman lying
beneath
him,
staring up
at
him
with
a
mixture of
anger
and desire
.

He threaded
his long
fingers through
her
silken hair
,
molding her
skull
beneath his hands.
S
o fragile, so
de
ceptively
meek.
He’d
been
a
fool to
marry—he
simply
should
h
a
v
e
taken
Dunstan Woods
for
taxes.
Sir
Hugh
of Gaveland wouldn’t
have
dared to defy him, and
the
woman who’d
already begun
to twist
and
turn
into the fabric
of his life
would
still
be safely
in her convent.

He could send her back.
Keep her immured
there, away
from
the
sight and touch
of
men.
It was almost
an
acceptable
alternative.
As
long as
no other
man
touched her,
he could
forget
about
her.

But priests were men, despite their
vows
of celibacy.
And he’d
seen
his
own cousin’s reaction
to
her.

He
had two choices. He could bed her,
take her body until
he
tired of it. He could
get sons
from her,
wear
her out,
and
then
send
her
back
to
her
convent,
or
stash
her
in one
of his own
smaller
houses, away
from temptation.
Or
h
e
could save himself
a gr
e
a
t
of trouble
and
simply kill
her
now.

P
eo
ple
said he
h
a
d
witch’s
eyes: his
mother’s
eyes,
an
eerie
golden color
that
could
look into
people’s
souls
and
fe
rr
e
t
out
their secrets.
They were
nothing compared
to
the limpid blue of
his
pale bride. She
lay
beneath him, her white
-
blonde hair fanned
out
around
h
e
r
.
The cool
intelligence in her eyes disconcerted him, particularly when she made
no
e
f
f
o
rt
to disguise her
confused
desire for him.

“
A
r
e
you
going to do it?”
Her voice was
little
more than a whisper,
but
unnervingl
y calm.

He
pressed
a
g
a
i
n
s
t
her,
w
on
d
e
r
i
n
g
if she even rec
ognized his arousal.
From
the
faintly shocked
expression in
her
eyes,
he
d
e
c
i
d
e
d
she
had a fairly
good
notion.
“I
thought
we
already
made
that
clear.
”

“
I
m
ea
n
are you
g
o
i
n
g
to kill
me?”

It was almost enough
to
un
m
an
him.
“What makes
you
say
that?” he
countered
cautiously.
He
wanted to
kiss
her.
He wanted to
c
o
v
e
r her soft
mouth
with his
and
drink
deeply. He
wanted
her body, her heart,
and
her soul.

“Do
you
deny you were considering
it?”

“I
don’t have
to
deny
anything.”
Damn
his mother!
She must
have
dosed him when he didn’t realize
it.
There had
t
o
be something
to
e
x
p
l
a
i
n
his
mindless
reaction to the pale
wench. “You’re
my bride, and my property.
I can
do
anything
I
please with
you.”

She d
i
d
n
’
t
even
flinch.
Lying
naked beneath him,
her
body still racked
with
faint
tremors of
reaction
from
what he’d just done
to
her,
she accepted
that information
with
out
pause. “If you’re going
to
kill
me,
you might consider doing
it now.”

She
sounded so reasonable
as she
discussed her death.
He
didn’t want her reasonable. He wanted her
panicked,
silly, dismissible. Not fascinating.

“Why?”

“Because
if
I
die
a virgin there’s
a
g
o
o
d
chance I’ll
be considered a martyr. Perhaps even
a
saint, eventually.”

“Ambitious,
aren’t
you?”

Her lashes
were
surprisingly dark,
fanning
over
those
clear blue eyes.
“‘I always
h
a
v
e been. At the very least,
if I die
a
vir
g
i
n
I’ll be
guaranteed a swift
entrance
to
heaven.”