He gave the slightest shake of his head. “Anger and desires are not always guided by the best thinking, Adalia. It is best to avoid them. Logic needs to control action.”
“The best thinking? No. But logic in one’s head does not make a life complete.” She stared at the calm lining his eyes. He was dismissing her. Dismissing the possibility of how half the world actually worked—with passion.
How could she make him understand this? Needs were not the only thing in life—far from it. Her palm suddenly thumped onto her chest. “Then explain desire. Desire has the ability to speed my heart—spike a tingle down my spine. Desire can do that when a paltry logical thought in my head cannot.”
His mouth quirked into a frown. “What are you talking about, Adalia?”
“I am talking about you understanding that life cannot be ruled solely by this.” She tapped her own temple and then stepped in, closing all space between them as she looked up at him. The anger still running rampant under her skin pushed her voice nearly out of control. She had to make him understand this—understand her. “Don’t tell me that when I am pressed up against a wall, and my naked flesh is pricking under your hands, and you slide into me, pounding, that those moments are not desire, Toren. That they are guided by logic and need.”
“You play a dangerous game here, Adalia.”
“No, I am making a point.”
“Which is?”
“That your logic cannot always control your desire. That you have no more control over your desire than any lesser man.”
“I emphatically disagree, Adalia.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Why do you insist on pushing this so?”
“Because you refuse the notion, and that makes you unequivocally right in your mind. So I want you to admit you stoop so low as to feel such a thing as desire. Feel something you cannot control with logic. Admit that your body craves mine. I freely admit to wanting you, Toren.” She pushed herself closer, her breasts pressing into his coat. “That I want your fingers trailing into every swell of my body. Your tongue circling my nipples, your teeth teasing them into hardness. That I want your shaft long and hard reaching the deepest parts of me. That I want you to control every moan I make. That I want to beg. That I want you to beg.”
Her eyes narrowed at him. She could see him fighting it, his jawline pounding with every beat of his heart. She could feel him fighting it, the rock-hard bulge in his buckskin breeches straining for freedom, jabbing into her belly.
“Admit it, Toren.” She swiveled her hips against him. “Desire rules you just as much as it does me. Only I know what to do with mine—that I openly desire our bodies together makes it that much sweeter when it happens. I get to anticipate. Imagine. It makes me feel, and that is just as valid as your logic. Even more so.”
She took an abrupt step backward, air rushing between them.
The last vestiges of his control slipped from his face.
“Admit it, Toren.”
He rushed her in one step, picking her up and crashing her against a stall wall. Her back flat against the wood slats, he kept one hand under her backside, both supporting and trapping her while his other hand came up to her neck, holding her still as his mouth captured hers.
His lips, his tongue demanding access, shocked her.
He had never kissed her before.
For all that his lips and tongue had explored every part of her body, he had never kissed her. Never.
The fury of it sent a tinge of fear down her spine. Fear that lasted only a second before being overtaken by a craving that commandeered her body—a vice that demanded satisfaction.
She opened her lips wide to him, letting him plunge, plunder, taking the essence of her. His hand shifted along her neck, his fingers slipping up, deep into her hair, to cradle the back of her head, controlling the angle of her mouth.
His teeth raking against her lower lip, claiming it, he dragged her to the left against the wall, setting her on top of the flat plank capping the adjoining half wall of the stall. The movement freed his hands to dive downward, then shove her skirts upward and free the fall of his breeches, yet his mouth refused to break contact, giving her no reprieve to breathe air.
He slid into her hard. His skin under her skirts hot, pulsating. She had shoved him way beyond his boiling point and unleashed something primal that had only one mission.
Take her. Make her body his.
And she loved it. The brutal strokes, blurring the line between pleasure and pain. His mouth on hers, exhausting every bit of air she managed to inhale. His scent filling her head. Her fingers buried along the back of his head, gripping his dark hair for balance. Thrust after thrust, her backside lifted off the ledge with only his hands gripping her hips to hold her solid against the onslaught.
Without warning, without build, her core shattered. Harsh and raw, it shot unyielding shocks through her body that she had not prepared for. Ravaging her body in carnal waves that she could not control. Over and over her body shuddered, her screams swallowed by his mouth.
Swallowed, until he sped, the growl building from deep in his chest. One final, savage drive into her body and he shuddered violently, his grip wrapping around her waist.
His lips withdrew from her mouth, his face burrowing into her neck as each shudder of his explosion shook his body from head to toe.
His breathing finally slowing, she untangled her fingers from his hair. Her own gasping breaths had quelled, but her words remained breathless. “A dangerous game indeed, Toren. I would call that a game I just won.”
He chuckled into her neck, his breath hot and steamy on her skin. “I think that would qualify as a draw, as I am just as much a winner.”
“Desire has its place?”
“Possibly, Adalia. Possibly.”
Victory. At least one.
{ Chapter 11 }
“I was thinking a fire eater today.”
Toren took an inordinate amount of joy in watching the twins’ blue eyes grow wide.
Josalyn hopped in her chair. “A fire eater? What is that, Uncle Toren?”
Half of his face lifted in a grin as he leaned to his right toward her along the small round breakfast table. “I am not entirely sure, Josalyn. I have only heard of them—I have never seen one. But presumably, a fire eater eats fire.”
“But however do they do that? Is it a dragon?” Mary asked from across the table.
“I imagine he opens his mouth and in goes the fire.” He shifted to the left to lean toward Mary, mocking big, smacking bites with his mouth. “And then he chomps it down.”
Mary giggled. “Oh yes, please. Let us do that today, Uncle Toren.”
A hesitant smile on her face, Adalia set her fork down along the edge of her plate. “Where have you produced a fire eater from?”
Toren looked to her as he sat straight in his chair. “There is a gypsy troop that is traveling through Dellington. The fire eater is their main performer. And now that the rain of the past week has let up, they plan to perform today.”
Adalia’s look flickered to Josalyn and Mary, her eyebrows drawing together as her gaze landed on him. “In Dellington? Do you think that wise?”
Toren knew exactly where Adalia’s mind was spinning. For as much as his wife lauded the necessity of passion and anger and joy as the meaning to life, none of those things extended to the girls if there was the slightest modicum of danger afoot.
But he had gotten her to agree to let the girls learn to ride in the past fortnight. That had been a monumental feat in itself. Both Josalyn and Mary had been quick learners on their ponies, and they were already quite steady on their sidesaddles.
He glanced at each twin. They stared at him, eyes pleading. He met Adalia’s hard gaze. Using the twins against her was questionable, but he was not above it. “I do think it wise. I think we have two boisterous squirrels that are dressed up as little girls that need to get beyond the borders of this castle before they explode.”
“Ye
s. Oh yes, me,” Josalyn chimed in, her head bobbing up and down. “I am a squirrel, Auntie Ada. I need to go. I truly do.”
“Yes, me as well.” Mary put her fingers to her mouth, nibbling at an imaginary acorn, giggling. “A crazy squirrel I am, and I need to scurry about.”
Adalia laughed. The smile stayed on her mouth, but her green eyes held worry as she looked at him. “You are positive it will be safe?”
“Yes. Not a soul knows you and the girls are even here at Dellon Castle. And there has been no indication from London of anything out of the ordinary. Other than your friends, no one has been beating down the door at the Alton town house, looking for you. Your butler has been assuring everyone inquiring about you that you have retired to Glenhaven House in Derbyshire.”
His fingers tapped the white linen cloth atop the table. “All that is aside from the fact that I will have an appropriate number of men with us in Dellington.”
She wanted to resist, he could see that. But then her look drifted down to the twins. Their pleading blue eyes were all it took.
She sighed. “Fine. Fire eater it is.”
The fire eater wasn’t a he at all. It was a she.
And she was magnificent. Ball of flame after ball of flame, she ate fire from a long stick—most impressive, as long as one ignored the patches of her scalp by her temple where hair had been scorched off.
The rest of her long, dark hair pulled back in rows of tight braids, she danced and swung and ate fire for an hour, with the twins enraptured every single one of those minutes.
Walking away from the gathering at the edge of the village where the gypsies had set up camp, the girls bounced along between Toren and Adalia, their cheeks flushed with excitement.
Closest to Toren, Mary grabbed his hand and tugged on it. “Uncle Toren, how does someone learn to do that—swallow the fire?”
He shrugged, looking down at her, reflecting her wide smile. “Travel with a gypsy troop and apprentice, I imagine.”
“Do not put ideas into their heads, Toren.” Adalia’s sharp tone made him look at her above the twins’ heads.
“But it does sound like a wonderful adventure, Auntie Ada,” Josalyn said. “To travel and eat fire in front of all those people—can you just imagine the fun—a true adventure.”
Adalia shot him a scathing see-what-you’ve-done look, and then glanced to Josalyn, nodding. “A great adventure, indeed. The lands and the people you would meet. But you would also have to sleep in that tiny wagon. Did you see that behind the fire eater? I do not imagine it is nearly as comfortable as your big bed.”
“I could be happy in a wagon, Auntie Ada.”
“I am sure you could be, Josalyn. But you are still too young for such adventures. You must remember to bring this topic up again when you are sixteen. Maybe then we can consider fire eating as a possible course for you.”
“Me too, Auntie Ada, me too,” Mary chimed in.
“Of course, sweetheart.” Adalia’s arm went around Josalyn, squeezing her to her side. “But until then you are sticking close to my side, for I could not bear to be without you two, agreed?”
“Yes, Auntie Ada.” Both girls sang out their agreement.
Toren watched her profile as she chatted with the girls. The smile came so incredibly easily to her face—especially when she was with the girls.
But he knew how to make his wife smile in his own way. And he had found himself unwilling to go without her in the past weeks. Ever since the argument in the stables, night after night, he’d found he could not deny himself her body.
Every night his body started aching for hers before the sun disappeared from the sky. The anticipation of her skin bristling under his fingertips and the soft moans vibrating from her chest had driven him to distraction night after night.
Having a wife was far more beneficial than he would have ever guessed.
A rogue tendril of hair fell from her upsweep to tickle her cheek, and she brushed it aside, her green eyes catching him.
Her lips parted, her hand going to her throat.
“Parched?”
“I have been since we started watching the fire eater.” She shivered. “Just watching her I was smacking my tongue.”
Toren chuckled, looking ahead on the main road into the village. Some villagers had set up makeshift booths, capitalizing on the opportunity of more people traveling through to the area to see the show.
He pointed ahead to a robust woman hauling a heavy pot to a ledge. “There, I can find lemonade for the girls, as well as something for us before we move back for the puppet show, and then maybe we can visit the fortune-teller.”
The girls squealed in agreement.
Adalia looked ahead, her fingers going above her brow to shield her eyes from the sun. “Perfect.” She looked around, and her eyes landed on a shaded, grassy knoll beside the milliner’s shop. “I do regret forgetting a parasol. Shall we come with you, or can we wait in the shade?”
“I believe I can manage the feat.” He loosened his hold on Mary’s hand, and she ran around to Adalia’s free hand and grabbed it before they veered off to the left.
Minutes later Toren had procured three goblets, two of lemonade and one of ale, balancing them in his hands as he was looking at the selection of hot pies. The girls would be hungry soon—as was he.
A scream, muffled, floated through the air, not enough to give anyone around him pause. But it rang like a bell in his head. Adalia.
Dropping the goblets to the ground, he tore up the main road, whipping around the corner of the milliner’s shop to the grassy knoll. Empty.
His eyes were frantic, and a breath passed before he saw the edge of a skirt fly through the air behind the building.
Sprinting up the hill and around the back of the shop, he found Adalia wildly swinging a knife. The knife landed, cutting into the upper arm of a blackguard who had Josalyn tucked under his arm, the girl kicking and screaming.
The knife’s hitting flesh wrecked her momentum and made Adalia stumble. Seizing the second, the man swung, smacking Adalia brutally across the cheek.
It sent her flying to her knees, the knife spilling from her hand.
Mary. Where was Mary?
Toren spotted her in the next instant, cowering around the far corner of the building, watching—terrified, yet not willing to run from her sister.
Without another breath Toren attacked, snatching the bastard’s arm and twisting it behind his back before the man even saw him coming.
Snap.
An insane fury took hold of his body, and the crack of the man’s bone spurred Toren to twist it even farther.
The blackguard wailed, dropping Josalyn to the ground as he tried to free himself from Toren.
Toren would have none of it, twisting harder, shoving the man to his knees, inflicting as much pain as he possibly could.
Yet it wasn’t enough.
He went for the man’s throat.
“Your Grace, we have this.”
His fingers wrapped around the man’s neck, squeezing.
“Your Grace. Your Grace.” Words he barely heard, muffled and miles away.
He squeezed harder.
Tugging, someone tugging him away.
No. Someone yanking him away.
“Your Grace.” The yell in his ear made Toren pause.
He looked up over his shoulder only to see they were surrounded by four of his men, one of them pulling him away from the bastard who had grabbed Josalyn.
Where the hell had they been a minute ago?
His hands flew wide, fingers stretching straight as he shoved off from the bastard.
Toren jumped to his feet and kicked the man in the rib cage as he went past him. “Get this filth to the gamekeeper’s cottage.”
Two of his men picked up the blackguard and dragged him with no kindness past the next building and out of sight.
Adalia had crawled across the ground to grasp a sobbing Josalyn in her arms, shielding her from everything,
whispering in her ear as her hand stroked the girl’s blonde head.
Toren ran to Mary to pick her up and balance her on his side, her arms tight around his neck. He moved to Adalia, stopping in front of her.
“We need to leave.”
She looked up at him, terror etched in her face. “You . . . you said we were safe.”
“I was wrong.”
{ Chapter 12 }
The girls were finally asleep, their hiccupped breathing the last remnants of their tears. Hazard lay between their beds on the floor, his ears nervously perked, as they had been since they had arrived back at the castle.
Toren listened to the sounds through the open door, soft murmurs that held promise of a better day tomorrow, before Adalia stepped out into the hallway and clicked the door to the twins’ room closed.
Her fingers shook on the doorknob, the first slip of the steely facade she had worn since gathering Josalyn in her arms.
Calm, comforting, she had let nothing but the warm presence of reassuring safety show in front of the girls.
Toren, on the other hand, had been a raging oaf. Furious beyond the pale on the journey home, pacing in the girls’ room as Adalia had tried to soothe them to sleep.
It wasn’t until she caught his eye with her glare, pointing to the door, that he realized he was doing the girls more harm than good by staying in their room. So he had continued his pacing just outside their chamber, watching the three of them through the crack he had left the door open.
Her hand leaving the brass knob, Adalia stretched her fingers wide, shaking them in attempt to still the quaking as they dropped to her side. Her head down, she took five steps around and past Toren before she stumbled to the side, catching herself on the stone wall of the hallway.
He was to her in one stride, grabbing her around the waist. For an instant he thought she would fight his touch, shove him away as he deserved.
Instead, she fell back into him, her body turned to jelly, all strength deserting her.
“I failed you—them.” The words, a low, brutal whisper, dragged themselves from his throat.
“No.” She lifted her arm, motioning down the hall.
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