by Chandra Ryan
“I don’t giggle.” Alex pretended to be offended. “Young girls may, but ladies do not giggle.”
Robert’s face grew serious. “Ladies also wouldn’t be caught in a window seat with a man to whom they weren’t joined. Did you know that?”
“Yes.” Alex wasn’t sure whether to meet his gaze or to look away. She could take a punch or even a beating, but she felt balanced on a tightrope, and one word from him would push her over.
“I thought you did.” Robert paused. “So why are you really here? Be honest with me, Alex—not only does it save time, but I hate guessing games. I don’t know how you feel about them.”
“I’ve never played.” Alex’s voice was suddenly hoarse, so she cleared her throat and looked at her skirts. It was true, she hadn’t. If a man wanted her, he asked Stephen, and if Stephen had something to gain, she undressed and did whatever was required. She had no idea how to convey her own interest, because she had rarely felt it before, and because it had been quite irrelevant when she did.
I’m making a spectacle of myself. I can’t just say out loud that I—that I want him. What if he still thinks I’m a spy, not to be trusted? And why should he be attracted to a mare?
The last word slapped cold sense back into her, because no respectable man would want a woman who had been used by countless other men. She swallowed, composed herself and looked back at Robert.
“Very well, I’ll be honest with you,” she said, her voice as strong as ever. “I think I was a fool to come here, not to mention forward and indelicate. I apologize for disturbing you.” She rose to leave.
Robert took her hand, his fingers closing around her wrist. Alex froze, uncertain whether to pull away or pretend that she hadn’t noticed.
“Sit down, Alex.” She obeyed, but he didn’t release her hand. “Forward and indelicate—what does that mean, exactly? What did you have in mind?”
Robert, don’t do this to me! She stopped herself blurting that out with an effort of will, and she hoped he couldn’t feel the corresponding rise in her pulse rate. Fine, if there was a battle to be fought, she could start it right now.
“What did I have in mind?” She glanced down at his hand. “Nothing that wasn’t in yours, obviously.”
He smiled, and she felt him stroke the back of her wrist with his thumb. “I’ve always liked that about you, Alex—you don’t crumble at the first tap.”
“You call that a tap?” Alex tried to ignore the light, rhythmic movements along her skin. She had taken threats and blows and magic, so she wouldn’t let Robert disconcert her again.
“What do you consider a tap?” His voice was low and husky, and Alex felt her thoughts disappear while her skin prickled. She had to make him stop stroking her.
She grasped his hand and lifted it off her wrist, only to find that she couldn’t let go. The ridged scar and the calluses on his palm felt rough against her fingertips, but his touch had been as gentle as if she were a kitten. Slowly, feeling that this was a dream which might end unless she was careful not to disturb it, she raised his hand and held it to her cheek. His palm curved to cup her face.
“That’s a tap,” she said.
“And are you close to crumbling?”
“Oh, no.” She had never felt so nervous, and her heart thudded wildly. “That takes more than just one tap, remember?”
“I remember.” Robert tilted her jaw upwards as he leaned closer. “May I give you another?”
Alex couldn’t reply. She could barely think any longer, not when Robert was so close that she could have tipped her head forward and met his lips with hers, and in the next moment, that was what she did. Her eyes lidded as she simply let herself feel him, the tickle of his beard against her skin, the firm straight mouth against hers. It was the most chaste kiss she had ever had. Then he deepened it.
Alex gasped at the first touch of his tongue on her lips, lightly flicking against them, and when her mouth opened, Robert kissed her harder. His arm went around her waist, drawing her against his chest, and she felt the sudden softness of his hair under her hands as she buried her fingers in it, holding him to her. When his tongue brushed hers, she shuddered in startled pleasure, then returned the slow intimate touch with a desire that was rapidly burning out of control.
Most men had not bothered to kiss her first, but Robert did, tasting and exploring her mouth hungrily. And with any other man, that would have left Alex cold and untouched, but now her own passion met and matched Robert’s. There was no need to feign her reaction. She slanted her mouth beneath his to take his tongue deep, drowning in the heat, a low longing sound in the back of her throat.
Robert broke the kiss, gasping, but before Alex, equally breathless, could recover, he was kissing her again. The corner of her mouth, her cheek, her earlobe, which he took into his mouth. She moaned when he found her ear, breathing into it, his beard brushing her skin like a fox’s pelt. Then his mouth covered hers again and Alex softly sucked his lower lip. She heard him groan even as he pushed her away gently.
“We have to stop,” he said.
All her desire chilled. “Why?”
Robert swallowed hard and looked away. “Alex, I don’t want you to think you have to do this. You don’t owe me anything.”
Him: hunter turned lover. Her: lover turned prey…
Summer-set
© 2009 Karalynn Lee
At Prince Kaen’s court, Ryuan holds a place of honor…and fear. He is wolf-born, and although he uses his shifter abilities to hunt down criminals who threaten the realm, he is considered more beast than man. Only in the chase and killing of outlaws is he truly free to be himself.
While tracking a rogue sorcerer, he encounters Calanthe, who not only is unafraid of him, but dares to tease him. Intrigued—and unaware that she, too, is driven by a purpose—he offers her a drink of water from his hands. It is an offer of more than a simple sip.
Calanthe accepts, for she has been sent by the sorcerer to distract Ryuan however she can, even with her body. Instead she finds herself giving in to the urge to make this grim warrior smile, then to something deeper. A summer of romance, rain and lovemaking.
When Ryuan awakes to find he has lost both her and the sorcerer’s trail, he lets his wolf-born side loose with renewed determination. He will serve his prince and kill this sorcerer once and for all. But now, his true prey is Calanthe…
Warning: This title contains explicit sex, earth-shaking confrontations, a hero who could rip your heart out, and a romance that will put it back in.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Summer-set:
He had been hunting a man into exile when he first saw her. She was lifting water from a well. Against the dimming sky she was a seductive foretelling of the night, with her smoke-dark eyes, earth-dark skin and raven-dark hair, falling free down her back as no respectable woman would wear it. Gold glinted around her neck with the last of the sun’s light.
Ryuan scented no danger, so he turned human. He wore nothing but a chain about his neck, from which dangled a signet ring. It identified him as well as his name would.
She looked up at his approach and her eyes caught on that telltale signet. Then her gaze slipped lower for a moment before she caught herself. She unhooked the bucket. “Water, my lord?”
Grown men blanched at the sight of him, knowing him to be wolf-born, while women turned away from his nakedness. She seemed unfazed. Intrigued more than thirsty, he cupped his palms and let her carefully pour water into them so that he could sip. “My thanks.”
“You’ve been on a long road.”
And no one ever spoke to him about his hunts. They were his business and the prince’s, the execution of law, not fodder for gossip. “You know who I am?”
Her eyes flickered to the signet again. “The prince’s hunter. Lord Ryuan. No other man would be fool enough to wear that. And nothing else.”
Her forthright manner was more refreshing than the drink she had offered. “Your name?”
“Calan
the, my lord.”
“And what do you know of my journey so far, Calanthe?” He let suspicion harden his voice. He didn’t want her to be in league with the sorcerer, a sentiment that surprised him, but how else would she know of the path he had taken to track the man?
She wasn’t oblivious to the danger she was in—he heard her pulse grow faster—but she answered readily enough. “It started at the capital, did it not? Perhaps it’s shorter as the wolf runs, but for the rest of us, it’s more than a tenday away.”
He relaxed, chuckling at how he had overlooked the obvious. “My apologies for the interrogation. My journey did start there. And it has been long, even as a wolf.”
“And you are parched in either form, I’m sure. They always warn us about the hungers of the wolf-born, but they should mention the thirst.” She smiled and gestured for him to cup his hands again.
He did so, but this time he watched her instead of the flow of water. Her hands, like her figure, were slender and graceful yet strong. There was a sureness to her that he liked—not the arrogance of the court women, but an unaffected confidence that his presence did nothing to diminish. She spoke easily of him in his wolf-shape, made light of the wild-mind.
He wondered what this woman would be like in bed. Just as bold and teasing? A touch careless, though, in her attitude.
“You shouldn’t discount danger so easily,” he said. “Not from me, but there are men in this area who would part you from that gold.” There were lawless men in these parts. Ironically, it had been the death of one of them that had brought him here. Ryuan would deal with them if he encountered any, but for now he had greater prey to pursue.
“With the prince’s hunter here to serve justice?” She shook her head. “Surely there’s nowhere safer right now.” Was that a trace of banter in her voice, as though his prowess could be questioned?
“I am on hunt,” he said. “I won’t be lingering long.”
“You spurn my hospitality, my lord?” She tilted her head and looked at him in wide-eyed appeal, still playing her game of innocent challenge, and yet the thought of spending a night with her was a temptation.
It had been long—too many nights spent curled as a wolf in dens he had dug. There had been a court woman the night he had left the capital, but he had already forgotten which one it had been. Those were empty rituals of pleasure, enjoyable but always the same: some woman seeking the thrill of bedding one of the wolf-born, perhaps also trying to win the prince’s favor.
Calanthe would be different. He would stay a night, he decided, if this woman were willing to share more than a roof.
Ryuan nodded to the bucket and said, “I won’t spurn more water.” But this time, after she poured and set the bucket upon the rim of the well, he kept his filled hands still and said, “But I interrupted you just as you were pulling this up. You too should drink.”
There were two choices for her here. He was curious which one she would take.
She looked at him with a sudden awareness that hummed between their bodies. She wore her hair unbound, so she was neither a shy maid nor a wed woman and would know his words for an invitation. He didn’t move at all, though. There were simple ways out for her—she could deny thirst, or reach into the bucket with her own hands. That she was a free woman did not mean she was any man’s.
She was still unafraid, he was glad to see. Her pause was to consider him, and as her gaze moved over him, he felt himself stirring. An expression he couldn’t read passed over her face. Then she said gravely, “A generous gift, my lord. Offering water which I gave to you.” But the corner of her mouth quirked, and she slid her palms beneath his to steady them and drank from his hands.
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