Free Lynn Wood - Norman Brides 03 by The Promise Keeper Page B

more he attempted to free it.  Fresh annoyance lent added strength to his impatient yank on the restraining chain. His frustration quickly dissolved into stunned horror as Michel watched the source of his irritation fly high into the air and land with a loud plop in the rushing stream a dozen yards or more from where he stood shivering in the icy water. 
    Michel cursed louder at this latest disaster and set off in desperate pursuit of the stone he’d moments earlier been doing his best to free himself from.  It wasn’t a particular fondness for the ancient amulet that sent him racing down the stream. It was the realization his twin would cut off his own male jewels with the dagger he made a gift to her of if he lost her precious inheritance.  He didn’t even want to conjure his grandmother’s reaction when he revealed to her he had managed to lose an heirloom of her house that had been in her family for over a thousand years.
    In the shadows beneath the thick branches lining the path to the stream, Elena watched with wide eyes as her rescuer set off with a resounding splash after the strange, blue stone he wore around his neck.  Her lips twitched as she witnessed his mad dash down the stream in a race against the swift current carrying his prize away faster than he could keep up with. A giggle emerged at the memory of his panicked expression when the stone had flown high into the air and then entered the water.  She wondered if the stone was a keepsake given him by a lady admirer.  If so, she was glad of its loss. 
    Her eyes went dreamy as she indulged in her pleasant fantasies.  If Prince Michel was to be the new king, then he was supposed to marry her, not whoever made a gift to him of the stone. She found the prospect much more to her liking than that of becoming Baron’s Raulf’s reluctant bride.  She’d made a point to keep an eye on her future husband so he didn’t disappear as suddenly and unexpectedly as he entered her life.  If he decided he didn’t care to be king, and who could really blame him given the curse accompanying such a life, she was determined on one thing.  Prince Michel saved her when he rescued her from her kidnappers.  Her life belonged to him now.  She was never going back to the city, at least not without him. 
    Elena turned away from her hiding place and set off in the direction of the camp.  Prince Michel might not know it yet, but his former life was slipping away as surely as the odd stone he wore on a woman’s slender chain around his neck.  Whoever had given him the token was part of his past and no longer had any place in his present.  No, as far as Elena was concerned, she was the young prince’s present…and his future.
    She blushed at the memory of what that future might hold for her.  She had never seen a naked man before and she barely managed to swallow her surprised gasp where she hid in the thick growth of trees along the river bank when the prince removed his clothes and the new sun streaked over his naked form as he slid into the icy water. His unscarred, bronze skin stretched tight across his broad shoulders and framed the thick rope of muscles in his arms and chest.  His thighs and legs were equally muscular and even his backside was the same bronze color as the rest of him. 
    Her face had heated up to a fiery blush, and her breath caught in her throat when he shifted his position and stepped sideways into the rushing stream.  For a brief moment she caught sight of his stirring manhood resting between his thighs. She was not so innocent she was unaware of how a man mated with a woman. The prospect of such a joining filled her with terror when she thought of Baron Raulf thrusting his manhood into her untried flesh, but she could not summon any of her previous horror at the thought of sharing such intimacies with Prince Michel.  No, far from fear, she felt a strange thrill of anticipation coursing through her, leaving her breathless when she dreamt