Silver Flame. Hannah Howell

smooth chest. He robbed her of all ability to think, infected her with his intense passion.

      “I tremble like some untried lad,” he said with a groan as he picked her up and tumbled her onto the bed.

      She was torn between excitement and embarrassment when he hastily removed her chemise. The poor garment barely escaped being torn. A deep color flooded her face when he sat astride her to stare at her. When she tried to cover her nudity with her hands, he grasped her wrists and pinned them to the bed. Yet beneath her pained modesty, she felt a hot pride in the delight he so plainly found in her form.

      Gamel’s gaze moved over her slowly. As he had thought, her skin was a pale golden hue all over. She was slender, delicately built, yet had all the curves and sweet tempting softness a man could want. Despite her lack of height, her legs were long as well as taut and shapely. Releasing her wrists, he slid his hands down her sides to test the smallness of her waist and the gentle swell of her hips. He trailed one hand over her leg before lying down in her arms.

      Cupping her face in his hands, he brushed his mouth over hers, murmuring, “Ye are far more beautiful than I had envisioned.”

      A moan escaped her from low in her throat as he hungrily possessed her mouth with his. That sound tore at his insides, feeding his already crippling desire for her. When he stroked the inside of her mouth with his tongue, savoring the sweetness there, she wrapped her arms around him. That sign that her desire could match his left him shaking inside.

      “Aye, Catriona, aye,” he murmured as he cupped her breasts in his hands, edging his kisses toward that tempting fullness. “Touch me, even though it threatens to make me rush when I would go slow.”

      He felt her hands clench upon his back as he flicked his tongue over her hardened nipples and heard her murmur, “I am Sine.”

      “Sine?” Only briefly was he able to tear his gaze from how her lovely breasts swelled beneath his caresses.

      “Sine Catriona. My full name is Sine Catriona. Ah, sweet heaven,” she cried as he closed his mouth over the tip of one breast to draw upon it slowly, delighting in the taste of her.

      Lifting his head, Gamel stared at the dampened nipple, only to bend and take another draw upon it before turning his attention to the other. “Sine Catriona,” he murmured. “Farthing calls ye Catriona, so I will call ye Sine. God’s teeth, but it must be a sin for a woman to taste so sweet.”

      Sine Catriona thought a little frantically that it must be a sin for anything to feel so good. She wondered if all trace of sanity had fled her. Instead of pushing him away or trying to talk him out of what he was doing, she held him close. She arched toward him as he continued to feast upon her breasts, stroking the rest of her body with his long, lightly callused hands. Even if she had wanted to, there was no way she could hide the intense pleasure he gave her.

      The way he caressed her inner thighs seduced her into parting them for him. He trailed kisses toward her stomach as he slid his hand down to the silver curls at its base. A shudder went through her at his intimate touch. She held him more tightly when he groaned and pressed his face against her abdomen, his breath coming in harsh gasps.

      “Pardee! Ah, Sine, ye are already hot with welcome. The mere feel of your warmth and I am near spent. I cannae wait any longer,” he muttered, his voice hoarse and unsteady as he made ready to possess her.

      He covered her mouth with his even as he joined their bodies with one swift stroke. His kiss stifled her cry of pain as she felt him tear through her innocence. When he yanked his mouth from hers, his trembling body tense and still, she met his look of shocked disbelief.

      “Ye were a virgin,” he whispered in a rough voice. “How can this be?”

      What pain he had inflicted swiftly faded and she shifted her body in a silent plea for what his stillness denied her. She needed to say something, so she quickly lied, “Farthing suffered a grievous wound years ago.”

      “So, he cannae and willnae ever taste what I have tonight.”

      The deep satisfaction in his voice annoyed her. That irritation briefly flickered through the passion she was unable to control. He did not know she was lying. In a way he was savoring the mutilation another man had suffered.

      “Nay, but that doesnae change the fact that I am his.”

      “Mine, Sine Catriona,” he muttered as he began to move and all her senses delighted in it. “Mine.”

      Passion chased all thought of argument from her mind. She clung to him, a soft cry escaping her as she wrapped her limbs around his lean, strong body. The fleeting thought that she was far too wantonly vocal in her pleasure did nothing to halt her cries. His name was often on her lips as his movements grew more frantic, the kisses he pressed to her throat and face more fevered.

      He slid his arm beneath her hips, holding her close as his body bucked with release. Her name was an exultant cry upon his lips. At nearly the same moment she tumbled into desire’s final, blinding grip. She held him as tightly as she could as it took full hold of her. Long after he lay sprawled in her arms, she still squirmed with the pleasurable effects of it all.

      They lay together, spent, for a long time. But gradually sanity returned to her, and with it came shame. She closed her eyes and averted her face when he cleansed them both of the remnants of her innocence. The loss of her purity did not trouble her as much as her enjoyment of that theft did. When Gamel returned to bed, she tried to avoid his touch, but he would not allow it. He tugged her into his arms with a gentle but inescapable firmness. She ruefully admitted to herself that she liked being there.

      “Sine,” he whispered, “how was I to ken that ye were a virgin?”

      She looked at him with faint curiosity. “And would ye have let me be if ye had kenned it?”

      “Nay,” he answered with quiet honesty as he eased the covers down her body.

      “Then what matter?” She inwardly cursed the heat which flickered to life within her as he lightly trailed his fingers over her breasts. “I am still in your bed through a bargain.”

      “The bargain was necessary to remove ye from Farthing’s bed.”

      “That makes it justifiable? But I am here. I abide with you this night.”

      “Not just this night, Sine Catriona. Ye are mine.”

      Something in his tone thrilled her, but she denied it. She did not even allow herself to think on whether she wanted to be his or not, or if he meant as leman or wife. None of that mattered, nor could it be allowed to matter. When she had fled from her father’s murderers, she had vowed revenge as well as retrieval of all that had been stolen from her and the twins. Nothing could interfere with that, not even a beautiful auburn-haired man who set her blood to boil with but a touch.

      Gamel bent his head to softly kiss the erect tip of each breast. “Ye are mine, Sine Catriona. Say it. Admit it,” he ordered, framing her face with his hands.

      She watched his head against her breasts, then met his jewel-bright gaze. Behind that commanding tone lurked a hint of desperation.

      Though it puzzled her, she knew he was right. She was his. To admit that did not mean she vowed to stay with him. It simply acknowledged the bond that existed between them. She knew that bond would hold no matter who or what came into their lives.

      “Aye,” she finally said. “Aye, I am yours.”

      Beneath her hands she felt a fine tremor pass through his body as he kissed her. The matter of possession was clearly important to him. She wondered how much or how little emotion was behind that need. A man’s desire to possess could be such a shallow thing, no more than a point of pride. Sine wondered why the possibility that his was should make her so sad.

      She also felt a bit guilty. He now believed she had promised to stay with him. It was going to be an agony to walk away from him when dawn lightened the sky, but she would walk away. All she could hope for was that he was either too proud or too busy to hunt her