The Christmas Knight (16 page)

A quiver rippled through her body and Ranulf felt his self-control slip as he slanted his mouth over hers again and again, his tongue stroking, caressing every corner of her mouth. Her honest desire for him was ripping away all his carefully constructed defenses, creating an urge to satisfy swelling primal needs with more than just a kiss.

Other women had toyed with him enough to get him physically aroused, but this was much more. Bronwyn wasn’t trying to excite him. It was the other way around, and he was succeeding. In Bronwyn’s arms, he was a man, whole and strong and desirable. With her, he found real passion and its effect was intoxicating. Every nerve ending was alive with the sincerity of her response and he wanted more.

Immersing his left hand in her soft hair, his right traced the contours of her neck as his mouth continued to make slow love to her with his tongue. She was perfection. The softness of her skin, her smell, how she tasted, responded to his every caress. And the more he touched, his need to know every inch of her and feel her body next to his only grew.

Bronwyn heard a sound and realized it was coming from her. His lips had hypnotized her and the light touch of his fingertips was transporting her into a realm where all realities and concerns drifted away. She had entered into a place where torture and delight were indistinguishable, where her whole being strained toward the fulfillment of a desire she didn’t understand. “More…” she heard herself beg just before his mouth again sought hers in another mind-numbing kiss.

Ranulf knew he was dangerously close to losing control, but her rapacious plea drove him to continue. Just one more touch, one more discovery, and then he would stop. Ever so slowly, his fingers trailed down the veins of her neck and then along the collar of her chemise, tracing their way to the upper part of her breast. Detecting the buds peaking up under her attire, his thumbs flicked lightly over the firm nipples.

When he felt her body respond to his touch, he circled the small mounds round and round, until she was quivering under the assault. Nothing could have been more arousing. His body demanded fulfillment, leaving him a choice: He could either stop, or pick her up and haul her upstairs.

As his lips released hers, Bronwyn closed her eyes and drew in a slow deep breath, marveling at the speed her heart was thumping. She could deny it, but she had wanted this to happen. Their first kiss had introduced her to the sensations of passion and desire, and she had longed to know more. Even now, she could still feel his hands as they cupped her breasts, kneading them until she was aching and hot for something she could not define. She would have yielded to his guidance, resigned her values, and permitted him every advantage under his touch. And all because she needed him for some inexplicable reason. Ranulf was who she had been looking for and never been able to find.

“Why?” she sighed in a raspy whisper, needing to hear that he felt something akin to her own shaken emotions. “Why did you kiss me?”

Ranulf froze. He didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t say, “Because with you I am whole. With you I know who I am. With you, I become a man in every sense of the word. Because when I am with you, I am not afraid.” Such honesty would scare even the strongest of wills and passions. So he opted for something far diminished from the full truth. “Because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he replied.

Bronwyn felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

Beauty. That was what drove him. And if that was what created Ranulf’s desire, whatever passion that sparked between them would be instantly extinguished the moment he met the real Lillabet.

Bronwyn cast him a slight smile that did not reach her eyes and slipped off his lap. Ranulf watched as she retreated to the hearth, pretending to warm her hands by the fire. He knew instantly he had said the wrong thing.

It had been years since he had been with a woman and he couldn’t remember ever truly trying to woo one. He had never wanted to before. Less than a minute ago, he had been given both opportunity and motive to convince her that his desire for her was real, and deep, and not just lust being satisfied. And he had failed miserably.

Ranulf rose out of his chair and glanced behind him. The room was empty but three women were whispering in the passageway, leading to the kitchens. All refused to look at him, trying to hide their expressions behind their hands. The back of the large hearth chair had hidden him and Bronwyn, but even a small child could have figured out what they were doing. He probably should be grateful as they most likely kept anyone else from entering the room, but right now he wanted complete privacy, not just a limited audience.

Ranulf signaled for them to leave and accompanied the gesture with a look that made it clear that no one else was to enter the Hall until he said so. Then he moved in behind Bronwyn and pushed her hair aside, giving him access to her neck. He bent his head and lightly kissed her nape. She stiffened. “Don’t, angel,” he whispered against her skin. “Don’t pull away from me. Please. I want you and you want me, too.”

Bronwyn wanted to resist, to walk away and protect her heart, but her body defied her will, succumbing to her more primal desires. What could it hurt? She knew the truth. This would be the last time. And it would have to survive a lifetime.

His lips created a line of searing kisses down her neck as his right hand stole around her waist, reacquainting itself with her body. Slowly it moved up to cup her breast and Bronwyn felt the last of her defenses crumble. Encouraging him, she leaned back and allowed his fingers to slip underneath her neckline, sending a shock wave through her entire body. At the same time, his left hand started its own descent. Lightly massaging her shoulders then biceps, his fingers moved lower until they grazed her forearm where she had slashed it earlier, sending sharp stabbing fire through the limb.

Bronwyn let go a sudden shriek and, with a jerk, pitched herself forward. The realization of what he had been doing, what she had been allowing, washed over her. She could feel Ranulf’s eyes boring into her back as she covered her face with her hands to hide her tears, humiliated. Her sudden reaction had been instinctive, an attempt to stop the agony. Even now her arm throbbed angrily, but eventually that pain would diminish and disappear. The shame she would carry for life.

She had practically invited him to touch her and would have let him do much more if it hadn’t been for her arm. She knew it and he knew it. What he didn’t know was why she pulled away. No doubt he believed her to be a tease, or even worse, a child afraid of what was to come. And she was afraid, but not of what was about to happen, but of what never would. For she was not Lillabet and Ranulf was not her intended.

Ranulf stood immobile, unable to move toward her or step away, until he knew her frame of mind.

It wasn’t hard to guess. She had been the one to realize what was happening and stopped him before he ruined her. Although he intended to marry her, this was not the way he wanted to get Bronwyn to the altar, through tricks and ploys. He raked his fingers through his short hair and berated himself for being too eager, too impulsive. What had he been thinking?

Despite Bronwyn’s suggestion that she was like the other women he had bedded, she wasn’t. And he didn’t want her thinking that he regarded her as such. But how does one say, “When I hold you in my arms, I lose all reason?” He could have sworn she was in the same state.

Her response had been genuine, even welcoming. Yes, he had gone too far, but she didn’t have to scream. She could have just pulled back or asked him to stop. Then again, maybe she had just remembered the farce she was playing, and what they were about to do was far beyond that of sisterly intervention. They needed to talk and she needed to confess to her ruse so he could make it clear that they were to be wed anyway. Soon.

“We need to talk.”

Bronwyn pulled her arms around her chest and hugged herself, keeping her back toward him. “About what?”

“About us.”

“What about us?”

“Look at me,” he ordered and reached out to her shoulder, gently compelling her to obey. “You are not unintelligent. We cannot be in each other’s company without—”

“It was just a kiss, my lord,” Bronwyn finished, glad her voice sounded steady and not what she was truly feeling.

Ranulf’s gaze narrowed and he could feel his composure disintegrate. She could belittle what had happened between them but it would do no good. He may not have had her, but he had seen and touched enough to know she had never been with another man. And she never would be. “It was far more than a kiss, and before we share too many more of those, we need to be married.”

Bronwyn’s jaw dropped. She hadn’t considered this as a possible outcome. But she should have. She gulped. “Because of a kiss?”

Ranulf’s brows shot together. She seemed really incredulous. “Yes! I mean, no. I mean because of what’s bound to happen next, and do not pretend you don’t understand.”

Bronwyn cursed her foolish, selfish desires. Of
course
he wanted to get married. He thought her to be Lillabet. Telling him that he was not obligated to her, but her sister, was out of the question. Her only option was to get him to understand that he wouldn’t be marrying anyone. That he didn’t need to. “I refuse to marry you out of obligation.”

“And I wouldn’t want you to!”

His emphatic response was not what she had expected. Hadn’t he come north with plans to marry Lily, regardless of her feelings on the matter? “You wouldn’t?”

“Hell no!” Ranulf bellowed, throwing his arms up in the air in obvious frustration.

Bronwyn swallowed, wishing she could be herself but knowing she couldn’t. “Well…good, because I would never marry a man I didn’t love.”

“No one’s asking you to!”

“
You
are! You and the king.”

“Forget that,” Ranulf countered. He stepped in close and seized her forearms in a grip that didn’t evoke pain, but kept her from pulling away. “None of that matters. What is happening between you and me changes everything.”

Bronwyn shook her head. “Not to me. It was just a kiss,” she lied.

“I don’t believe you,” he rasped just before he crushed her to him with a savage intensity.

Her hands curled into fists and started to push against his chest, but they soon flattened and began to knead the muscles underneath. Encouraged, Ranulf thrust his tongue into her mouth, hungrily pressing his lips against hers. She instantly succumbed, and he soon lost himself in her softness. Her breathing became erratic, and once again he could feel the wave of need and desire overcome his reason. His grip increased, squeezing her arms pinned between them.

Bronwyn cried out, “I…can’t!” The pain shooting through the injured flesh was intense and crippling. The moment she was released, she swung around to cradle her arm where he could not see. The burning sensation refused to fade away, and she struggled not to tear.

Ranulf was behind her, and after what seemed like an eternity, he broke the deafening silence. “Do you think I am a fool? Do you think I am unfamiliar with the games you play? I found out at a very young age that fate is pitiless and women like yourself are its ally.”

Bronwyn opened her mouth to explain that her cry was not against him, that she had been in pain, but her voice broke. His words were cruel, meant to hurt, and their aim had been true. Ranulf was not the man she had believed him to be.

She spun back around, letting anger mask her pain. “
You
stopped
me
.
You
kissed
me
. It was you”—she swallowed—“who touched me.”

“Well, put your fears aside, woman.
You
shall not have to endure
my
touch again,” he sneered, the vehemence he suddenly felt for her unmistakable.

She watched as he did a slow, deliberate pivot and walked away from her. Taking a deep breath, Bronwyn aimed her own stride toward the back staircase when the Hall’s doors sprang wide open.

A shadowed figure with a purposeful stride entered, “Who the hell ordered the servants to keep everyone out? You know better than most, Ranulf, the dangers of a hungry mob.”

Tyr halted his advancement just as the doors swung back closed. Something was going on, and it wasn’t good. Bronwyn was obviously trying to slip out of the room and Ranulf was bent over one of the tables, leaning on his knuckles—something he only did when he was confounded or highly annoyed.

Tyr arched a brow severely and pointed his finger, waving it so that it bounced between them. “What’s between you two?”

“Nothing,” Ranulf growled.

Tyr shifted his jaw and slid his tongue across his teeth as he tried to decide if or how he should rebuff Ranulf’s clearly false statement. He and Bronwyn looked as if they had done something awful, but it was hard to say what or who had been the culprit. Usually Tyr avoided Ranulf when he was in one of his rare emotional moods, but today was different. Today, his friend had displayed an assortment of feelings—frustration, confusion, compassion, guilt—none of which Tyr could remember Ranulf exhibiting in the past year, let alone all at one time, or twice in one day. Whatever was happening between his best friend and Bronwyn, Tyr intended to personally watch it unfold.

Stepping over a bench, he sat down and pointed to the food that had been placed out on the tables, getting cold. “Where’s the meat?”

“That woman refuses to serve it during Advent,” Ranulf grumbled, wagging his thumb toward Bronwyn, but not actually looking at her.

That woman!
Provoked, Bronwyn marched up to Tyr and hissed, “I already told his lordship that there were plenty of geese he could eat. He and his men just needed to hunt them. With so many unexpected extra mouths to feed, it would be beneficial to all if at least some of his soldiers contributed.”

Tyr’s eyes darted between the two hostile figures. “Well, then why don’t we go hunting tomorrow?” he offered cheerfully, knowing that a sunny disposition right now would rankle his friend.