Free Ronan's Bride by Gayle Eden Page B

a heavenly gown, clean, sweet smelling, surrounded by sun—awaking in rags, dirty and soiled. Everything, no matter how rich, was a rotting cell.”
    His hand came out and his finger traced her ankle. “He did not pleasure you, not even the wedding night?”
    “He rutted. After the beating,” her tone was tight, “I was little more than a girl. He was brutal and…I want not to think of it.”
    Thumb brushing he said, “Then 'tis gone. Past and dead.”
    Sefare buried her face again, her voice muffled between the fur, but hearable when she said, “I want to know how to fight again. I want to feel that same confidence when I hold a weapon. Moreover, I want to find the courage I once knew, no matter what I undertake. I will not turn back to what I had to become. I’d rather die.”
    Seconds passed before she felt him extend over her back, his arms holding his weight and powerful long legs outside hers. His fingers in the half gloves filtered through her hair as he held her head in his hands, kissed it, and husked, “That I can give you. Anything else…I...”
    She lifted her head slightly, so that his hands fell away. His scent and heat, the sheer muscle of him, even held lightly from her, was oddly reassuring. “I know we cannot hide here forever. None of us can conceal everything for long. I realize that fate has thrown us together, not choice. I know it takes more than force and desire—to break down walls built over time. I do not ask, nor expect, beyond what you have given me. Your vows have already given me more than you realize.”
    Ronan rolled from her and lay on his back beside her, his hands resting on his stomach.
    The rain and storm raged, and fire crackled. Sefare turned her head and saw his eyes closed, thick lashes resting together. Easing up a bit, she could see his long musculature stretched out, the booted feet crossed, and for a moment she simply skimmed him visually, his frame longer than hers and virile in its strength, potent.
    She drew her gaze to his face, the lips and chin exposed, as well as most of his nose, which was strong with flared nostrils. Her hand lifted.
    “Don’t…”
    His soft voice drew her gaze to his eyes again, finding he had not opened them but somehow sensed her movement.
    She merely touched his lips, lightly, marking their shape with her fingertips before she drew her hand back. Sefare lowered her head and lay simply watching him, until the rain and fire; the soft silence lulled her to sleep.
    * * * *
    Ronan lay there a bit longer, indulging a need that surprised him. He was hard again, his sex straining and thick, scrotum tight and skin flushed. After he’d left her in the kitchens, he’d gone back to that overhang, unlaced his trousers and head back, senses full of her, mouth tinged with her flavor, he’d fisted his sex and stroked himself, then climaxed, before repairing and sliding down on his haunches, head in his hands…while he cursed every weakness that made him touch her to start with. He also mentally cursed his body, that turned to a series of hungry bands, squeezing erotic thoughts into his head, and raw hungers out of his very pores.
    He had wanted females before, fantasized in the manner it took to release his seed, and the tension. But he’d never in his life felt the war of tenderness, hunger, need, those compulsions to draw more moans and cries, more trembles, from one woman’s lips. What had built from yester eve, and what built watching her on the field, seemed to explode in the storm. It took everything in him to be mindful he was covered and masked for a reason. However, nothing, once he felt her softening, could have kept him from tasting her skin, suckling and kissing. From the core of him, he’d needed to taste that nectar.
    Ronan sat up, studying her in asleep, on her side, her upper torso nude, and the linen loose around her hips. He gazed at her longer, eyeing the contrast between the ermine and her white blond hair, her milk white