A Knight and White Satin. Jackie Ivie

She watched his eyes flick to her breasts before returning to her face and tried unsuccessfully to stop the blush. Again. The man was maddening. And dense. And thick-witted. And didn’t even know what rejection was. She swallowed.

      “For what?” she asked with what she hoped was a tart tone. It didn’t help that it warbled slightly.

      He sucked in both cheeks and started unlacing his gloves. They were leather crafted and worn to his elbows, tightly fastened to his arms for warmth, and that gave her added moments of time as he pulled at the laces…first the left, then the right. He wasn’t watching his hands, though. He had his chin lowered a fraction and was favoring her with his unblinking stare.

      That was too much impact, and she knew he was fully aware of it.

      “Our consummation,” he finally said, and yanked first one glove off and then the other, turning them inside out with the motion, before swatting them back into shape against his thigh.

      This time he had to hear her gasp.

      “I…thought you wanted…an accounting,” she replied in chunks of words.

      She watched him pull at the immense silver disk of his waist, making sinew bulge in his lower arm with the motion. The claw prong on his belt gave up the fastening and he dropped it, making a heavy thud of sound on the thick white rug at his feet.

      “First I secure the right. Then, I’ll see to the accounting.” He plucked the tucked end of his plaid from the back of his waist, and just kept watching her as the material began unwinding about his waist.

      “You never had the right!” And God curse the squeak in her voice as she said it!

      His lips lifted, making a smile on one side of his face. And then it was gone. As was his feile-breacan. Dallis watched with eyes that didn’t seem to belong to her anymore as he tipped to one side and pushed the kilt band from his shoulder, allowing the entire mass of woven wool to fall in a puddle at his feet, covering over the silver glint of belt.

      None of him was diminishing. She could tell from the way his shirt fell from humps of muscle in his chest that he’d gained even more size to his frame, and more brawn. And more power. Her breath caught, held, pained her, and then escaped. And then she had to gasp another one in.

      “Since when has that put a stay on me?” Payton finally replied.

      Then he was crossing his arms, grabbing fists full of the garment and pulling it from where he had it tucked into his trews and over his head with a motion designed to shock her into stillness and lock her tongue since the shirt clung to sweat-damp skin on his upper body and nothing else.

      Payton Dunn-Fadden was a mountain of brawn, shadowed by the winter light into hills and dales of shadow; he had ropes of tendons pounding in his lower belly with what had to be his heartbeat; and he had a thin line of hair starting at the center of him and running downward…to where every thought on her stalled at the mis-match of plaid due to his size and condition.

      His clan sett had been sewn into a type of trousers, molding about his lower legs before coming together in a knotted swath of material about his lower hip. There wasn’t enough material to hide him. Dallis didn’t move her eyes from his face, but that didn’t stop her from seeing…and feeling everything on her body respond. It was starting with the thump in the bottom of her belly and then it was spreading. Fire flicks of shivers were followed by an ice-melt of reaction, and then that was tempered by the fire again. The ice. The shivers. Then the heat. It was covering her entire frame and making a trembling nobody had warned her about. She’d never seen an aroused man before, especially one of his size, and it just wasn’t fair. Caruths learned from the time they were born of battle and loss and what a female faced should she be taken; rape and ravishment included. But not one soul had told her about what would be happening to her. Nobody. All of which was a huge hole in her education.

      Dunn-Fadden was very aware of what he was doing to her and she didn’t even know why she had such certainty of it. It was in the flick of his eyes when he ran them to where the pinprick darts of her nipples were trying to shove their way through the satin she’d tightened, and then he moved his gaze back to hers.

      He stepped free of the mass of discarded garments and put a hand out toward her. Even from half the span of room away, she felt the menace and backed even farther into the stone at her back, earning the chill that contact caused as well.

      “Now, come off that perch like a good lass.”

      Dallis shook her head.

      “Please.” He said next.

      The oddest humming was running through her ears, making the word have a melodic and muted cast. Dallis shook her head again.

      “I’m na’ a patient man,” he said next.

      Dallis shook her head again. He sighed. And then he was coming for her.

      The wall had no give to it and that left her only two choices to escape him: left or right. The headboard would impede her on her left, so she chose the footboard, with a slide of her body and then a lunge. She didn’t get there. She was screaming as he grabbed at the satin and yanked, pulling with one hand and reeling her in like a salmon caught in the burn. It was made easy for him with the way Dallis clung to the material, digging her nails into the fabric and halting her cries for the fight, just before finding out his chest was just as hard and unyielding as it had looked when she was slammed against it. The only good thing looked to be that the samite had wadded between them, creating a barrier of material to keep the scorch of his skin from hers.

      He wasn’t breathing hard while she was sucking for air and then shoving it out rapidly, making her dizzy with it. And he was chuckling. Then he was holding her glued to him with one arm, while the other hand was busy lifting a hank of her hair and then, God help her, what had to be his tongue was on the back of her neck and sending a blizzard of tremors all over and then through her. There was nothing to hold to, either. Her hands were still gripping the white satin and they were now trapped together where he had her molded to him. Her legs weakened, trembled, and gave, dropping her weight. Payton shifted as he felt it, going to a knee on her mattress and placing her in the depression made by their combined weight. She collided with the bare flesh of a thigh against her backside and then even that was altered as he reached his conquering arm lower, gathering a handful of her rump in order to pull her up, lifting her so securely against him, it was difficult to breathe and impossible to move.

      “Nae…please.” She huffed the whisper between breaths that were difficult to take from the position he had her in. And then he made it immeasurably worse, by putting his entire mouth against skin and sucking his way along her jaw until he’d reached her chin, the movement forcing her head backward and making her bow slightly over his bent leg.

      He grunted his amusement, feathering the breath across her gapped lips, and that was even more tortuous, she decided.

      “Nae…Wait,” she whispered again.

      “For what?” He’d disconnected his mouth enough to say that and with the words against the moisture he’d just put on her chin, came even more shivers, making it immeasurably more vibrant.

      “The…door,” she stammered out.

      His left hand, the one that had been holding her head and pinning her in position for him, was moving, sliding over her shoulder and then down an arm, and back. Again. That was tempered by his huff of amusement as he lifted his head to look at her. He smiled, genuine amusement filling incredibly blue eyes, and Dallis couldn’t halt the widening of her own as her heart lurched so queerly and completely it frightened her.

      “Ignore it,” he replied finally.

      Then he was shadowing his eyes with his lashes and lowering his head, lifting her again, using the hand at her rear to hold her and the one at her shoulder to make certain of it. Dallis only had time to gasp in a breath before his lips were on hers, fully, completely, and totally.

      Time stalled. Her breath was right behind it. And her hands were like twittering baby birds as clenched fingers of material fluttered