The Knight (3 page)

When his breath returned, he said, “Of course, I came. You know I can’t stay away from you.”

The pink bloom of her cheeks rose with delight, his words obviously pleasing her. “But it’s dangerous. The English are looking for you. If they see you—”

“They won’t see me,” he said flatly, and then smiled. “Not until I want them to.”

Though his voice brokered no argument, he knew he had not completely allayed her fears when her fist came up to her mouth. For as long as he could remember, she’d nibbled on her thumbnail when she was worried. But since she hated the “vile habit,” he took care not to point it out.

She gazed up at him, her big blue eyes wide with worry. “Are you planning something, James?”

He cocked a brow. She knew very well that he was. “As long as Clifford keeps filling my hall with Englishmen, I’ll keep emptying it.”

Joanna knew better than to dispute his claim of ownership of Douglas Castle. All the hatred he’d once borne the English king who’d killed his father had been transferred to the man Edward had given his father’s land to: Sir Robert Clifford, the English baron and trusted military commander of both the dead King Edward and his son, Edward II. Twice James had destroyed Clifford’s garrison, and twice Clifford had replenished it with more men. The last time Clifford had come to the castle himself to see to its fortification.

This time James intended to take back Douglas Castle for good. He’d rather see his family stronghold razed to the ground than have it occupied by thirty English whoresons. Too bad Clifford wasn’t here now. James would see the English devil straight to hell. If Boyd didn’t do it for him first. If there was anyone who hated the Lord of Clifford more than James, it was Robbie Boyd.

She eyed him warily. “What are you going to do?”

What he’d done twice before: use guile and cunning to trick the enemy and then destroy them. “Empty the larder,” he said with a hard smile.

She paled and her eyes flew to his. “You swore nothing like that would ever happen again. You said—”

“I know what I said,” he snapped. It wasn’t her place to draw lines in the sand about what was acceptable or unacceptable in warfare. Hell, Wallace was said to have made a belt out of the skin of Sir Hugh de Cressingham, the hated English commander whom he’d defeated at Stirling Bridge. But the horrified way she’d looked at him after that “Douglas Larder” episode, as if she didn’t know him…

It had pricked his conscience, damn it. He would have promised her anything not to have her look at him like that, and
that
scared him. He couldn’t let anyone—even Joanna—interfere with his plans. He would take back his father’s lands from the English, restore his patrimony, and see the house of Douglas raised to dizzying heights. He didn’t care how much English blood needed to be spilled to do so. “I will show your Englishmen mercy, unless they give me cause otherwise.”

She heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m glad. They fear you enough.”

It wouldn’t be enough until every English soldier fled Scotland in terror. His eyes narrowed, the spark of something dangerous taking hold. “Why do you care so much about them, anyway?”

She gazed up at him quizzically. “It’s not the English I care about, it’s you.”

“So there is no truth to the rumor I heard that the captain of the guard has been finding excuses to stop by Hazelside?”

The heat that flooded her cheeks made him see red.

“I was ill one morning,” she explained. “Sir John witnessed it; he was only being kind.”

James looked down at the beautiful face tilted toward his and felt a flash of anger so intense and irrational it stole his breath. Jo was his, damn it.
His.
If “Sir John” de Wilton—the commander of the English garrison—were standing before him right now, he would be a dead man. “Don’t be naive, Jo. The Englishman wants you. What man could look at you and not want you?”

She was beautiful. The face of a cherub with a lush body built for sin. But it was so much more than her physical appearance. Joanna Dicson was sweet and good and kind. She was his heart and the keeper of his soul. Without her, he would…

He couldn’t even contemplate it. Joanna had been at his side for as long as he could remember. She was a part of him—the very best part of him. And God willing, she would be by his side for the rest of his life.

Any prick of conscience he might feel about what he’d done had been eased by that thought. He would take care of her. Forever.

She reached up and cupped his stubbled jaw in her hand and gave him a tender smile. “You’ve no cause for jealousy, James. Sir John has a sweetheart back in England. And even if he didn’t, the only man I want is you. I love you.”

The warmth of her words spread over him, soothing the red haze and allowing joy to blossom in its place. Love. Aye, she loved him. And he loved her. How could he not?

Good intentions forgotten, James drew her into his arms once again and kissed her. He groaned at the contact—at the flood of sensation. Her lips were warm and soft, and so incredibly sweet. No honey had ever tasted sweeter.

He knew he didn’t have time for this, but he just couldn’t seem to stop. That was how it had always been between them, hot and out of control—as impossible to harness as wildfire. Now that it had been unleashed, he wondered that they’d been able to keep it contained for so long. The raw power, the intensity, the sheer devastation of it, surprised even him. He’d never felt anything like it before and knew he never would again. This kind of passion was once in a lifetime.

His lips moved over hers hungrily—ravenously—drinking her in with each wicked stroke of his tongue. He wanted to devour every last inch of her, leaving no part of her unpossessed, unclaimed.

She was his.

And she knew it. She surrendered to the passion without hesitation. Nay, surrendered wasn’t the right word. Welcomed. She opened her heart to him, and he reveled in it, savored it. She took him in, as if she would never let him go.

He prayed she never would. He needed her, and he was only beginning to realize how much.

It was happening again. Joanna felt the strange sensations flooding her and knew she would be helpless to resist. Not that she wanted to. That had been the problem from the first. When James was holding her, touching her, and kissing her like this, she never wanted it to end. She
liked
it. Liked not just the way he made her body feel—all hot and prickly and sensitive—but also the way it made her feel in her heart: protected, cherished, and…
loved
.

Most of all loved. James loved her. How could she have let Thom make her doubt him for an instant? She put all of her guilt into her response, opening her mouth and kissing him back with every bit of the fervor and passion that he was giving her.

Though Joanna was tall for a woman, James still towered over her by nearly a foot, and she had to stretch on her tiptoes just to slide her hands around his neck to hold on. And hold on she did. It seemed the moment his mouth touched hers, the bones in her legs dissolved. Actually all of her bones dissolved. She turned into a melty puddle of heat and sensation.

Her skin flushed. Her body tingled from the sensitive tips of her breasts to the intimate place between her legs. The fleeting memory of another sensation—one that had left her shattered and weak—teased the fringes of her consciousness.

A low moan of anticipation escaped from deep in her throat. She increased the pressure of their bodies, melding her curves into the hard contours of his chest and thighs.

The last few years of warfare had wrought many changes in James, but by far the most noticeable were those to his body. The lean, lanky build of his youth had transformed into rock-hard muscle and granite planes. He was still lean, but all vestiges of youth were gone. He was a man, with the solid, muscular build of the fierce warrior who’d struck terror across the Marches. She shuddered a little, remembering how it had felt to squeeze those muscles beneath her palms.

Even his face had changed, though not from any scars. Unusually, James’s face bore no marks of the warfare that had consumed all of their lives. Rather, the boyish good looks had hardened. Become sharper. More dangerous and ruthless. He was handsome, but that wasn’t the word that came to mind when you looked at him. He was imposing. Fierce. Determined. From his size, to the piercing dark eyes, to the set of his square jaw—that was what she saw. But somehow it only added to his appeal.

Indeed, he looked more like a ruffian than a lord or knight. He wore no fine wool surcoat or tabard emblazoned with the arms of Douglas over his mail. Actually he hardly wore any mail at all, only a coif under his helm to protect his neck. Otherwise his armor consisted of a basic black leather
cotun
and chausses dotted with bits of steel, more suited to a Highland warrior than an important lieutenant in Bruce’s personal retinue. But heavy armor did not lend itself to the agility and speed required for the quick style of attack that James was becoming famous for—modeled on the Norsemen who had terrorized Scotland’s shores years ago.

As a youth, James had been somewhat fastidious in appearance, and though the English had dispossessed him of his lands and robbed him of his lordly robes, essentially forcing him to live like an outlaw in Ettrick forest, vestiges still remained. He always smelled clean for one. Beneath the cool brace of the wind on his skin and the warm scent of leather, she could detect the fresh hint of his soap. And the black hair that had given rise to his epithet might be longer, but it was still neatly trimmed and combed—except for that one wavy, untamed lock that fell across his forehead. He was freshly shaven as well, though the shadow of his beard was already dark a few hours later. She could feel the rough scrape as he kissed her.

And God, how he was kissing her. The stroke of his tongue in her mouth sent shudders of sensation rippling through her. She could taste the spiciness of the cloves he liked to chew on.

She whimpered as he deepened the kiss, pulling her closer and holding her more firmly against him. Their bodies locked. The thick slab of his erection pressed insistently against her belly, and her body responded with a swell of heat between her legs. He wanted her, and the proof of that want, big and hard against her, made her quiver.

The first time she’d thought the fit impossible. He was too big, and she was too… innocent. But he’d proved her wrong. The memory of the initial pain was a distant one, fading beneath the far greater memory of pleasure. Pleasure that he would give her again. But it wasn’t just the pleasure she craved, it was the closeness. She wanted to feel joined to him again. Wanted to feel him inside her—filling her—forging the bond that bound them together forever.

James fought to take it slow as control quickly spiraled away from him. He wanted to give her more pleasure than she’d ever dreamed of, for God knows what she did to him was beyond his wildest fantasies.

Just the press of her body against his was incredible. The soft crush of her breasts against his chest, the gentle sway of her hips to his groin…

She drove him wild.

A flood of heat washed over him, and he pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. Her hair slipped from its binding, pouring over his hands like a silken waterfall and filling his nose with the heady scent of the roses she used in her bath water. She always smelled good. Like a hot apple tart pulled from the oven, he couldn’t resist inhaling and drawing the sweet scent deep into his lungs.

But it was her response that undid him. The circling of her tongue, tentative at first, and then bolder as she met his determined strokes with her own. The soft whimpers of pleasure that quickened and grew more insistent. The gentle sway of her hips against him that turned into a base grind. Every primitive instinct in him had been stoked to the point of no return. Like a boat headed over a waterfall, there was no turning back.

Seton and Boyd were going to have to wait.

She was making erotic little gasps deep in her throat. Her hands clutched wildly at his arms and shoulders, his muscles flexing with restraint underneath.

A haze descended over him. All he could think about was the woman in his arms and the incredible sensations she wrought in his body. Nothing else mattered.

His hands filled with the soft flesh of her bottom, her legs, her breasts. God, those breasts! She had the most spectacular breasts of any woman he’d ever seen. Full and round and topped with the rosiest tips. He cupped the soft, ripe flesh, running his fingers over the taut peaks until she arched into his hand.

They were both breathing hard, and he was perilously close to spilling in his braies, but he was determined to make it better this time. The first had been a frantic fumbling, a frenzied, youthful explosion of long-repressed lust and passion. Yet amazingly, despite the initial pain, he’d managed to give her some pleasure. This time he wanted to give her everything. The lass was born for lovemaking.

He forced himself to slow and lowered her to her knees with him, breaking the kiss only long enough to tear the plaid from his shoulders and spread it on the ground behind them. For now, nature’s bower would have to do, but one day he swore he would give her the fine bed with the silk linens and bed hangings that she deserved.

When he returned what the English king had stolen from his family.

Something must have flickered in his gaze.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He gazed down into her upturned face, into the big blue eyes soft with passion, the flushed cheeks, and kiss-swollen lips, and felt a hard lump of emotion in his chest.

He reached out, cupped her velvety chin in his hand, and shook his head. How could anything be wrong when they were together? “I just wish I could give you more than a plaid under the trees.”

She smiled. “I don’t mind. It’s beautiful here. When you are gone, I come here, and it makes me feel closer to you.” A blush rose up her cheeks. “I think of it as our place.”

Her sentiment touched him. They’d been meeting here for years, but he knew that was not the reason. It was because of what had happened last time. Trust Joanna to always see the good—even in something that could be viewed as illicit. Determination rose hot and heavy inside him. “One day I’ll build you a palace like you deserve.”