Free Once Upon a Knight by Jackie Ivie Page B

haze in front of his eyes, coloring everything, and a pounding from his nether regions into each thigh, and from thence to his entire body. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. He had to get as far away from her and her things as possible, or he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. And this had never happened to him before.
    He didn’t bother with options. He knew her rooms were on the third level, or what would be the third level if they’d constructed their castle with an eye to measurement and quality. Vincent saw the odd striping of the grass and dirt below what looked to be a little over a two-story leap, and then he swiveled and scanned upward. The crenellated top of the tower hung out, and there were outcroppings of rocks and jutting wood where they’d put another floor above this one. Up. He was going up.
    Vincent grabbed on to one of the awning rocks and swung out, putting himself into a crouch in order to spring upward the moment his boots touched stone again. He didn’t hear or feel the rip of his kilt until he was already swinging out and reaching up for a wooden floor joist.
    The wolf was in deadly earnest as it leaped up again, snapping with jaws that would have reached the naked flesh of a thigh if Vincent hadn’t already caught and hung from a beam. From there it was a matter of using his arms to pull himself up. He wasn’t willing to risk any part of his body near her window until he was well above the beam and looking down. He could have sworn the wolf shook its head, too.
    It didn’t matter. Vincent didn’t give her pet another thought. It was survival of the fittest now. Every living thing knew that rule. Vincent slid along the beam, garnishing slivers in the bottom flesh of his thighs and buttocks and wishing it pained more.
    The wood he was atop was rough-hewn and weathered, but it was stout and solid. It bore his weight well when he was standing atop it and reaching for a poorly cut stone that was part of the tower floor. It was a small matter then of hand and foot coordination and effort, and then he was lying full-out on the floor of the tower, looking at a darkening sky and heaving for each breath.
    It had worked, too. Vincent watched the myriad of stars come out to litter the sky, felt the cool caress of the new night breeze, and started to feel the itch and irritation of wood slivers. All of which was better than the raging lust and desire he hadn’t been able to stop.
    He wasn’t deserving of this torment. He was beginning to wonder if the bargain had been made against him, rather than her. But why? He hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Lately, anyway. And just how had they found such a tempting, winsome, exciting, smart lass? And why had they made the bargain the way they had? Get the lass to love him and then leave her? Without taking her? How had they known Vincent would be craving the one thing he wasn’t allowed to have?
    And why was that becoming the foremost thing in his life and starting to reflect in everything he thought and did?
    Denial. That was the problem. He needed a wench. Any wench.
    Just not that one.
    “Damn.” Vincent said it to the night air and lifted onto his knees. He thought his family had a certain fondness for him, and yet look what they’d done to him. They’d done this! They’d caused him to be craven and desperate and aching. Vincent looked down at himself in disbelief as he realized the truth. No irritation of wood slivers or chill caress of night was working. He didn’t want just any woman.
    He wanted that one.
    He rubbed at the aggravation of itching flesh all along the backs of his legs and into his buttocks and knew there was nothing for it. He had to find his way into a burn or the loch. He needed the water to relieve the sting of the slivers, and he needed the cold on his ardor.
    No wonder he stayed clear of his entire clan.

Chapter Seven
    If Sybil had ever screamed, it would have sounded like the noise she made once she unlocked