A Knight and White Satin. Jackie Ivie

of tupping. The act of it.”

      He had such amazing blue eyes! Eyes that looked akin to pools of warmth, holding such depth and soul it was difficult to gaze into them! Dallis blinked.

      Since she’d come of an age for a betrothal, Dallis had been warned of the beauty of the Dunn-Fadden clan. Everyone was. She’d thought it a story to make the girls shiver in anticipation of their own wedding bed. More than one of the older matriarchs of the clan had told her to stay from the spell of their beauty, since that’s all a Dunn-Fadden would ever claim. That, and poverty.

      And here that beauty was. Right before her.

      “I would na’ have it bandied about that my firstborn be a bastard.”

      “What?” She wasn’t pretending the confusion. It sounded in her voice.

      He smiled slightly. “Our offspring. Their legitimacy. Due to your maidenhood. Despite your age, you still possess it?”

      “My…age?” She was bristling, and that had the exactly right effect on her senses and her emotions.

      “Doona’ take offense. A man wishes a maiden to wife. ’Tis just…you’re just…Uh…well….” He stopped and swallowed and looked sheepish.

      “Don’t say it,” she warned.

      “You’ve some years to you,” he finished.

      “Payton Dunn-Fadden!”

      “What?” he replied.

      “I am na’ auld! I am definitely na’ too auld! And you have nae right to infer such! None!”

      She’d gone into a sit, pulling her legs under her and he hadn’t stopped her. In fact, he wasn’t doing anything except grinning. Widely.

      “What?” she finally said.

      “Good. You’ve conquered your fear.”

      “I’m na’ a-feared.”

      “We’ll work on the lying tongue later.”

      “What?” Her voice was raising along with her torso and she had to keep the satin against her skin with one hand since it was locked under her legs.

      “You were a-feared. And now you lie about it.”

      She slapped at him, losing the satin on one side at the same time. It didn’t help that he caught her hand midslap, and then used it to pull her off balance, right up against him, shoving her entire backside into view since she had nothing at all to cover it. He held her in place with one arm about her torso, while the other trilled down her back, cupped her buttocks and then slid to a thigh.

      Dallis gasped at the shock, and then she was warm with the blush. And then she was just all-over warm as he continued stroking her, to the midst of her back…down over her curves and nearly to her knees with his reach.

      Payton grunted a guttural sound and then huffed a sigh. “As I said a-fore. Nice. Pleasing. Womanly…Perfect.”

      “Get your hands…off me,” Dallis replied, but she had to swallow midsentence to get it out.

      “How about my lips?” he inquired.

      The sound she made wasn’t an oath, but it was close.

      “I’ll take that for an aye,” he murmured and then brought the captured hand to his lips and proceeded to touch his tongue to the fingerpad of her index finger. Then, he moved it to her middle finger, then to her ring finger, and Dallis had wide eyes on him the entire time, while needles of sensation ran down her arm to her elbows, moved from there to her back, and made everything heated again. Everything.

      “You doona’ wear the ring?” he asked finally when he’d given off sucking at her fingernail and pulled back a fraction.

      “What…ring?” The throaty whisper couldn’t be hers, and yet it was.

      “The one I crafted. Designed. Paid for. Meant for all time to be put on your hand. For all to see. You belong to one man. Me.”

      “Oh. That ring,” she replied with a flat tone.

      He looked heavenward for a moment before lying back, making the bed groan more than she was as he pulled her atop him. Dallis locked the satin to her with an arm as she moved, bringing it with her and creating a barrier even as she split her legs to straddle him. Then he just lay there, holding her with hands like talons and heaving great breaths that moved her up and down with each of them.

      “Aye,” he finally replied, moving his gaze back to her face from her exposed bosom where the material didn’t reach. “That ring.”

      “Oh.” She was failing. In everything. Dallis should have registered that as her legs quivered and then slackened and then squeezed to him without her giving the order.

      “Why doona’…you wear it?” he asked, lifting a brow with the question.

      Dallis shook her head on the reply.

      “Why na’?”

      “’Twas Dunn-Fadden clan. It bore the Dunn-Fadden seal.”

      “True,” he remarked, putting his mouth in a bow position with the word. Dallis concentrated on that, rather than the hard abdomen she was perched atop that kept thumping with each heartbeat against her inner thighs. And then she had to ignore the hands that were sliding around her torso, using the pressure of his forearms against her thighs to keep her from moving. She felt his movements at her buttocks, fumbling with the material he still wore. She caught a breath. Shoved it out. Caught another one.

      “You are Dunn-Fadden clan,” he remarked through his teeth.

      Dallis’s eyes flew wide as heat touched her backside, scorching and branding and owning her so that her entire body broke out in a sweat of tremors.

      “Always. From this day forward. Ever. Mine.”

      The blue of his eyes darkened, warning her as much as the pressure of his hands lifting her fractionally, holding her for raw moments filled with harsh breathing and the shake of his arms while he shoved the white satin aside, and then she was yanked swiftly down atop him and impaled.

      Dallis sucked in on the scream as pure fire tore through her, branding and owning her, and then she started beating at him, silently and viciously and repeatedly, not even seeing through the blur of red in her vision. And she was sobbing. Dallis Caruth never cried. She’d have died first.

      “Hush, love. Hush.”

      There was more he crooned in a low timbre of voice that was accompanied by his hands; he held her to him with one and the other wiped at her cheeks with the satin. And all the while he was rocking beneath her, slowly and gently and to a rhythm only he heard.

      “Cease this,” she whispered.

      “Oh, nae. Na’ now.” He was smiling as he said it and then he was crooning nonsensical words again, and rocking hard enough to make the bedstead creak with it.

      “Please?”

      “Never.”

      “But…you hurt me.”

      “Could na’ be helped, love. You had a maiden wall to breach, and I’m na’ a small size.”

      “You’re still hurting me.”

      One side of his mouth lifted. His hands continued moving her forward and backward. “Give it time, love.”

      “How…much time?”

      The pain wasn’t as intense, nor did it burn anymore, but it was definitely tender and raw and his movements were making everything jumpy and sensitive.

      “A bit,” he answered.

      “But you hurt me,” she repeated.

      This time the huff of amusement was hard enough to cool her belly with the force he gave