Free Linna : Historical Romance (The Brocade Collection, Book 5) by Jackie Ivie

over it. That’s why she’d been shot.
    Linna stopped that thought . A quick flash of what her own mother had done went through her consciousness, but she thrust it aside, just as she’d done since it had first happened. She wasn’t going to deal with it. Ever. It was getting easier each time, too.
    She looked back at him . “I’ll never be a faithless wife. Never!”
    He tipped his head and looked her over . Then, he nodded. Her lips thinned. “What of you, Raoul?” she asked.
    “What about me?” he asked, leaning in and emphasizing each word.
    “Will you hold to the same standard?”  Linna couldn’t believe she’d found enough voice to utter it. He was so close to her now, he was stealing every breath the moment it left her body and inhaling it for his own. And then he was keeping her from gaining the next.
    “What ? Never to touch another woman?” 
    The breath from the words reached her first, since she couldn’t hear a thing over the pounding in her own ears . She nodded.
    “Christ.” 
    He pushed himself away with a shove from his shoulders and stepped back. Linna undulated slightly at being released. She hadn’t known how tautly she’d been holding herself. She only hoped he wouldn’t notice how unsteady she was now. She couldn’t even find her voice as he speared her with another piercing look.
    “You dare to ask such a thing of me?”
    “I...uh—” Neither word made sound.
    “You think such a thing is possible?”
    “I—” she tried again, but he interrupted her.
    “You’d shackle me in such a fashion ? Deny me husbandly rights  then torture me with what I’m missing? Are you that heartless?”
    “I...wouldn’t...torture you,” she whispered.
    “You’d be with me. At my side. Flaunting each and every part of your body. It would be torture. I guarantee it.”
    He was pacing the floor in front of the table, stopping at each end to dart a look her way . Then, he’d turn back. Linna wasn’t capable of moving her eyes from the sight.
    “Well, you’re demanding it of me,” she finally replied.
    “You don’t know what you’d be missing. I do. There’s a world of difference.”
    “So ? I wouldn’t like being betrayed either.”  She said with a toss of her head.
    He spun around to face her . “You’d deny me? When you won’t let me touch you?” 
    His scowl was making her heart beat faster . Yet when she opened her mouth to reply he interrupted. “Think before you speak, miss. I want you, I’ve not had a woman in weeks and look at me! Does this look like I can stop it?”
    Linna rocked in place . She knew exactly what he was referring to. He couldn’t hide his arousal. It wasn’t possible he was of the same species as Luthor Evans or even Drake. He was much too immense...in every sense of the word.
    He was going to have her, by force if necessary . He was going to finish what they’d begun this night. If she didn’t give him permission to see others, she was going to lose the bargain before it was made as well as her innocence.
    “Very well, Raoul.”  She said it with a throat that choked the words off . “I agree. You may visit other women...when you—you...the um...need...becomes too great.”
    “What?”
    His lips had curled into a semi-snarl. Linna’s head pulled back despite her every effort to the contrary.
    “If you need a —a...well, that sort of thing...with a-another woman, then...I’ll not stop you.”  She almost got all of it out before he reacted.
    His hissed curse was especially loud as he launched across the tabletop at her, sending them both over the other side.
    Raoul swiveled just before they hit, taking the brunt of the fall. The jolt still jarred her as much as the man beneath her did, mauling her neck and chin with his mouth. Linna had hers open to scream  then remembered that she couldn’t. She couldn’t struggle. She couldn’t react. She’d made a pact. She tried to shut her mind to it. She slammed her eyes shut and vowed to