The Ranger (16 page)

He cursed his carelessness in not putting the document away properly before he’d gone to the loch. He’d thought to be undisturbed. But he should have known better. It seemed there was no place he could be free of her.

His face was hard as he took a step toward her and held out his hand.

She hesitated—obviously not eager to relinquish the map—and looked at it again, holding it up to the candle he’d placed on the table beside his bed. “What are these marks?”

His stomach dropped, realizing she was seeing the shadow of the writing on the back. He caught her wrist in his hand before she could turn it over.

“Leave it alone, Anna.”

Leave me alone
.

She gazed up at him, their eyes locking in the flickering candlelight. “I can’t.” Her words seemed to shock her as much as they had him. A befuddled frown gathered between her brows. “Don’t you feel it?”

He didn’t want to hear her, didn’t want to acknowledge what was impossible. She was Lorn’s daughter. They were on opposite sides. Damn her, he didn’t feel anything. “I thought I made myself clear on the ride back from the village.”

Her eyes flashed. “I heard what you said. But I felt something different.”

He felt a spark of rage and jerked her against him. “What you felt was lust.” He molded her to him, letting her feel the hard power of his body. “Is this what you want, Anna?”

She gasped and tried to break free, like a bird fluttering in a cage, but he wouldn’t let her go. Not this time. She’d tormented him long enough. She needed to learn that this was not a game. That her interference was dangerous in more ways than one. It wasn’t just the threat to his mission. She was a lady, and what he wanted from her was something she could not give.

“Let go of me.” Her eyes searched his face wildly. “You’re scaring me.”

He slid his hand around her throat, quieting the flutter of her pulse with his thumb. “Good.” God knew she scared the hell out of him.

Then he lowered his mouth to hers and gave in to the desire that had been twisting inside him like a maelstrom waiting to unleash.

Arthur crushed her mouth to his, kissing her hard, wanting to punish her for doing this to him. Tempting him. Distracting him. For being so damned sweet. He wanted to teach her a lesson.

But at the first touch of her lips, he felt as though he’d been slammed in the chest with a hammer. The hard shock of sensation felled his anger in one swift stroke. Desire washed over him, filling him with an intense yearning.

Jesus
. She tasted like heaven. Her lips were so damned soft. Her skin so damned fragrant. And her hair—God, her glorious hair—he let the silky waves wind through his fingers. It was unreal.

She
was unreal. An angel sent to torment him.

He groaned and relaxed his hold, softening his kiss, and eased into her again. Slow and easy this time. Cradling her against him and molding his lips to hers gently. Drawing. Tasting. Savoring the exquisite sensation of her mouth moving under his.

It was incredible. Even sweeter than he could have imagined—if he’d ever dared let himself imagine this. From the first moment he’d cast eyes on Anna MacDougall he’d wanted her, but he’d refused to allow himself to think it possible.

Hell, it wasn’t possible. It was wrong. Dangerous. Doomed. He shouldn’t be doing this. But he couldn’t make himself stop.

It was only a kiss, he told himself. Something he’d done countless times before. Nothing he couldn’t control.

But it didn’t feel like any kiss he’d had before.

Feel
. That was the difference. Usually he didn’t. For him, a kiss was a means to an end—something expected before the main act, not something to evoke pleasure in itself.

But kissing her was bringing him pleasure. Too much pleasure.

Something was wrong with him. His body wasn’t reacting the way it should to a simple kiss. He was on fire. And why the hell was his heart beating so fast?

Lust was something that could be controlled. Managed. Other women had made him hot, but not even when he’d been a squire about to swive his first maid had he been this consumed by need. He was hard. Aching. Hotter than he’d ever been in his life.

At least lust was understandable. What he didn’t understand was this other feeling. The feeling that swelled in his chest and made his heart feel as if it were going to explode. The feeling that gave him the overwhelming urge to protect her. To treasure and take care of her.

The feeling that made him want to hold on to her and never let go.

The intensity of his reaction should have warned him. But he was too busy reveling in sensation, inhaling her sweet perfume, winding his fingers through her silky locks of hair, and savoring the softness of her skin against his, to listen.

All he could think about was the woman melting in his arms who could never be his.

For one heart-stopping moment Anna feared she’d pushed him too far. The look in his eyes before he’d kissed her had terrified her. She caught a glimpse of a man she’d never seen before. Not the remote, controlled knight, but a wild, untamed warrior. A man who was far more dangerous than she’d realized.

The fierceness of his kiss shocked her. It was as if all the dark energy she’d sensed simmering under the surface and held in check exploded in one fell embrace. She could feel his anger in the punishing harshness of his mouth.

Perhaps she should have been scared, but even if he were angry and out of control, she knew he would never hurt her. How she could be so certain she didn’t know, but she was.

Then before she could react, before the shock had faded from her limbs, before she could think how good he tasted—like cloves and something dark and distinctly male—everything changed.

He groaned, and it was as if all the anger seeped out of him. The kiss meant to punish now entreated. The embrace meant to crush now cradled her as gently as if she were a babe. Where he would have ravaged with passion, now he devastated with a tenderness of which she could never have imagined this big, fierce warrior capable.

It was ... perfect.
He
was perfect.

Each stroke of his mouth on hers unleashed a firestorm of new sensation. The brief kisses she’d exchanged with Roger were nothing like this. They didn’t make her feel as if she’d just walked into the bread oven. They didn’t make her tingle in places she shouldn’t think about. They didn’t make her heart flutter and her knees weaken. And they certainly didn’t make her think of ripping off his shirt and splaying her hands over the bare skin that would be forever etched in her memory.

He was so big and powerful, his muscular body hard and imposing as a wall of granite. The proof of his warrior profession was branded on every steely inch of flesh. But she’d never imagined how good steel could feel pressed up against her. How warm a man’s chest could be. How safe and protected she would feel. How she wanted to sink into him and never let go.

And what he was doing with his mouth ...

It felt like a dream. His lips were too soft. His kiss too tender. Surely this wasn’t the same man? How could the implacable warrior who looked at her with such indifference kiss her with such feeling?

He even smelled like something from a dream. Like soap with a hint of salt from the loch.

But it wasn’t a dream. In her dreams she didn’t feel so strange. She didn’t know what was happening to her. She felt faint. Drenched with heat. Sensitive and achy. Every nerve ending on edge. It felt as if her body was not her own.

Pleasure had taken hold and would not let go. All she could think about was how good it felt. His talented mouth. The subtle scratch of his jaw against her chin. The weight of his hand on her waist. The gentle caress of his fingers. With each teasing brush of his lips on hers, the sensations only intensified. Building. Making her yearn for something more. Something she didn’t understand but desperately wanted.

Arthur was trying to take it slow, but the little sounds she was making were driving him half-crazed. But even more than he wanted to sink into her, he wanted to bring her pleasure. So instead of ravishing her senseless, he coaxed with long, slow strokes of his mouth.

And she responded.

God, she responded. Tentatively at first, and then with his persuading, more boldly.

With an enthusiastic little moan that went straight to his groin, she slid her arms around his neck and opened her mouth.

A growl of pure masculine satisfaction tore through him at the instinctive response.

He wanted nothing more than to plunge into her mouth, to take what she offered, but conscious of her innocence, he slid the tip of his tongue between her lips for one deft flick before quickly retreating. He felt her shock but didn’t give her time to think. His tongue swept inside her mouth again, longer this time, letting her get used to the sensation. And then when he felt her relax against him, he showed her what he wanted. Circling his tongue against hers, he slid deeper and deeper into her mouth.

Her eager response nearly broke him. Desire, held long at bay, broke free in one torrential storm. He could feel her nipples harden against his chest, digging into him, egging him on.

He groaned, feeling the demanding tug in his groin, and sank into her.

She kissed him back, molding her sweet little body to his. The instinctive movement of her hips against his cock was almost too much. The sensation too intense. His blood spiked. His heart hammered. The reins of control began to slip through his fingers as desire took over.

His kiss grew wilder. Harder. More insistent. He covered her breast with his hand, her startled gasp smothered by his groan. The spike of pleasure was beyond belief. He’d been dreaming about her breasts for weeks, and now to have them in his hands ...

They were incredible. Big, soft, and full in his palm. Rubbing his thumb over the taut peak of her nipple, he teased and plied until a soft moan escaped from between her lips and her back arched into his hand. Naked. He wanted her naked.

God, she was sweet. So responsive. He couldn’t seem to get enough.

He was spiraling down a tunnel of sensation. Quickly moving to a place of no return. He wanted to make her come. He wanted to touch her with his hands, taste her with his mouth, and fill her with his cock. He wanted her weak and wet.

He wanted to make her his.

He liked to think he would have come to his senses—that he would have managed to find the control that had never eluded him before—but he would never know.

The dog did it for him. Probably deciding he’d been neglected for too long, the puppy started to whinge. It was enough to penetrate the haze.

The shock of reality was like a bucket of cold water. All at once, Arthur realized the madness of what he was doing. He broke the kiss, pushing her away more harshly than he intended.

She gasped in surprise.

For a moment, they simply stared at each other in the candlelight, the heaviness of their breathing damning proof of what they’d just done.

Christ
. Disbelief mixed with incredulity. What the hell had just happened? He’d never lost control like that, ever.

A kiss, damn it. That was all it was supposed to be. A simple kiss to teach her a lesson. It didn’t mean anything. He’d kissed dozens of women. It was nothing that should have affected him, and nothing that should make him feel this ... rattled.

And he
was
rattled, more rattled than he wanted to admit. Touching her had been a mistake. What the hell had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. He’d been angry. Tormented. Pushed beyond reason by her teasing and flirting.

But even as he was condemning himself as a fool, when he looked at her swollen lips and flushed cheeks all he could think about was doing it again.

And that rattled him even more. Enough to make damned sure it never happened again. “Was that enough to satisfy your curiosity, my lady?”

She blinked, confused. “W-what do you mean?”

He took a deep, ragged breath, trying to calm the fierce pounding in his chest. “It means that you have that dog to thank for letting you leave here with your virtue intact.” He held her gaze, his eyes hard and unyielding. “But I can damn well assure you that if you keep up this game of yours, the next time you might not be so fortunate.”

She flinched as if he’d struck her. “How can you say that? How can you kiss me like that and act as if it doesn’t mean anything? As if you didn’t feel—”

“What I felt was lust. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s something more.”

He wouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

She took a step back, her eyes dampening with tears. His chest started to throb and burn.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you deliberately trying to be cruel?”

His fists clenched against the nearly irrepressible urge to comfort her. He was doing it for her own good—for them both—protecting her from an impossible situation. “I’m merely giving you a warning. Your little game is over. Whatever you were doing here, it ends now.”

She gazed up at him mutely, searching his face for something she would never find.

“Take your dog,” he said, his voice oddly rough, “and go.”

Without another word, she scooped up the puppy and fled. He watched her, feeling as if the room had suddenly grown darker.

Only belatedly did he remember the map. He looked down. It was there, at his feet, where it must have slipped from her hand—landing the wrong side up. Had she looked down, she would have seen the notes on the back. But somehow the disaster that he’d avoided didn’t seem to come close to the one that he hadn’t.

*     *     *

Anna barely made it out the door before the tears of hurt and humiliation burst through the dam of pride. She wouldn’t let him see how badly he’d hurt her. Devastated—not only by the kiss, but also by the cruel rejection that followed—she took refuge in her chamber. She was fortunate that everyone seemed to be at the evening meal, as she was in no state to see anyone.

Pleading a headache to her maid—who took one look at her face and must have known she was lying but was friend enough to go along with the pretense—Anna feigned sleep when her sisters returned. The last thing she wanted to do was answer questions or talk about what had happened. She didn’t even want to think about what had happened.