What Price Love? by Stephanie Laurens
Settling the mare, she squinted at the distant horse men. She couldn’t get too close; she might not recognize Harkness, but given he’d been working with Rus, he would almost certainly recognize her.
She needed to locate Lord Cromarty’s string, but until she knew more, she didn’t want anyone from his lordship’s stables other than Rus knowing she was in Newmarket.
Straining her ears, she listened, but was too far away. Twitching the mare’s reins, she trotted around to a knoll closer to the string but more directly downwind.
Again she sat and listened. This time, she heard. Closing her eyes, she concentrated.
Familiar lilting accents, a gently burred brogue, rolled across her senses.
Breath catching, she opened her eyes and eagerly scanned the men before her. She fixed on the large man directing the exercises. Harkness. Big, dark, and fearsome. Her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her—she’d found Lord Cromarty’s string!
Her heart lifting, she studied the two men beside Harkness; neither was Rus. She was about to shift her focus to the circling riders—so much harder to study as they rose and fell with their horses’ gaits—when a shifting shadow in the clump of trees to her right drew her eye.
A horse man sat on a powerful black standing in the lee of the trees. He wasn’t watching the exercising horses; his attention was fixed on her.
Pris cursed. Even before she took in the lean build and broad shoulders, and the dramatically dark, wind-ruffled hair, she knew who he was.
Abruptly, she wheeled the mare, tapped her heel to the glossy flank and took off. She raced down the knoll, gave the mare her head, and flew, hooves pounding, away across the Heath.
He would follow, she felt sure. The damn man had doubtless been following her all morning, perhaps even all yesterday morning. By now he would know she was searching for one particular string. Thank the saints she’d noticed him before she’d done anything to distinguish Cromarty’s string from all the others she’d observed.
A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed the big black was thundering in her wake.
The mare was fleet of foot, and she rode a great deal lighter than he, but the black was like its rider—relentless. It came on, heavy hooves steadily eating up her lead.
Leaning low over the mare’s neck, she urged the horse on, streaking across the lush green. The wind tugged at her curls, sent them rippling over her shoulders. Shifting her weight as she swung around a stand of trees, she tried to think of what she should say when he caught up with her.
Would he wonder why she’d fled? Would he guess her real reason—that she wanted him far from the string she’d been watching? But no—their last clash, especially those moments behind the wood, were reason enough for her to flee him. And he knew that, damn him! She recalled all too well that instant before his friend had arrived when he’d decided to try a certain method of persuasion that, to her immense shock, had had her heart standing still.
With a peculiar, never-before-felt fear, and an unholy anticipation.
No. She had a good reason not to want to fall into his hands again.
But she didn’t want him thinking about that last string. Remembering it enough to go back later and check. She had to convince him it was just another string like all the others she’d viewed, not the one she was searching for.
She glanced behind her. He was even closer than she’d guessed. Stifling a curse, she looked ahead—she was rapidly running out of Heath. The stands of trees were getting larger; she was heading into more wooded terrain.
He was going to catch up with her soon, but she would rather any catching was done on her terms. As for making sure he didn’t focus on that last string…she might not want to fall into his arms, but there was one weapon she possessed that, in her experience, was all but guaranteed to rattle his brain, to fog his mind and cloud his memories.
She wasn’t keen—wielding that weapon was neither smart nor safe—but desperation beckoned.
The last thing she wanted, the very last thing Rus needed, was Mr. Caxton, Keeper of the Breeding Register, calling at Lord Cromarty’s stables.
Dragging in a breath, she gathered the mare in, let Caxton bring his mount up on her right flank.
She picked her moment, swerved hard and sharp, swinging around a clump of trees large enough to qualify as a wood. The black was less maneuverable; the rapid shift in direction left him careening on.
Curses erupted behind her as Caxton wrestled the beast around, but then she whipped around the wood, streaked along its rear, rounded it again, returning to where she’d started; by then he’d followed and was on the other side.
Hauling the mare to a halt, she slid from the saddle, snagged the reins on a branch, grabbed her skirts, and pelted into the wood.
She raced through the cool shadows, grateful it was reasonably clear under the trees. She found what she was looking for roughly in the wood’s center, a huge old tree with a wide, thick bole. Panting, she whisked around behind it, drew her skirts in, and leaned back against the trunk.
She closed her eyes, fought to catch her breath. Caxton would either find her, or he wouldn’t.
The minutes stretched. She couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of her heart. There was light enough to see, sunbeams lancing through the canopy to dapple the ground; the air was cool, sweet with the scent of wood and leaves.
Her heart slowed, steadied. She strained to hear. All about seemed still. Unthreatening.
A twig snapped, close, on the other side of the tree.
A second later he loomed at her shoulder. Real, larger than life, twice as handsome. Sinfully beautiful and darkly dangerous.
He looked down at her, leaning against the tree, her hands gripping her skirts, then arched his brows, arrogantly unimpressed.
She didn’t stop to think. Straightening, she raised one hand, reached for his nape, came up on her toes, and drew his lips to hers.
And kissed him.
Dillon’s thoughts stopped the instant her lips met his. It was as if he mentally blinked, and when he opened his mental eyes there was nothing there…except for the beguiling sweetness of her lips shifting seductively against his. Delicately tasting, subtly yet evocatively tempting.
His eyes were open, but he couldn’t see. He tried to bring his vision into focus, couldn’t. Instead, he let his lids fall, surrendered, and accepted he was caught, somehow trapped in the moment, that her bold and totally unexpected attack had caught him unawares and snared him.
His lips gave under hers, eased, shifted; he started to respond to her blatant invitation, his arms rising to hold her, then instinct reared and he caught himself. Tried to pull back, free—tried to find the will to do so.
The clasp of her small hand at his nape tightened; she stepped closer, her lips taunting. Her body brushed his, sinuous, sirenlike. Her other hand rose, came to rest splayed against his chest, then she slid it slowly upward, over his shoulder to twine about his neck as she moved closer yet.
He felt the change in him, the sudden surge of driving need he recognized, yet didn’t. This was desire grown unusually strong, unusually forceful, born of lust heightened by her beauty, colored by a primal need to dominate, to subjugate, lashed to life by her cool contempt—a medley of deeper passions she’d effortlessly stirred, and seemed determined to unleash.
More fool she.
But if she wanted…so did he.
He played out his inner reins, lifted his arms, and closed them about her. Gathering her more definitely against him, he felt the hitch in her breathing, was even more aware of the unadulterated need that seared him. A need to conquer, to possess. To meet her challenge head-on, and triumph.
To put her in her place, beneath him once again.
He did as he wished, and kissed her back. For long moments, he toyed with her, a give-and-take that remained at the level she’d initiated, neither light nor unmeaningful, yet not threatening, more promise than action. A superficial sensual landscape, one where sex
She was comfortable enough there, sufficiently in control. Able to duel with him.
He mentally smiled and ruthlessly took control, backed her against the tree, parted her lips, surged into her mouth, and laid claim. Crashed through her outer defenses and engaged her, tasted her, not the sweet but the sensual, the more intimate self she’d until then kept guarded.
Shocked, Pris tried to draw back only to feel his arms lock about her. Like steel, they caged her, trapping her, the tree a solid wall at her back, his body an even more intimidating barrier before her. A threatening barrier. As if to demonstrate, his hands, palms and fingers strong, spread over her back, then he drew her even more definitely into him, against a body far harder, far stronger than her own. One mind-numbingly masculine.
He surrounded her, alien and powerful—and intent.
Her body responded, but not as she wished. Instead of fighting to break free, her limbs melted, her muscles turned to jelly. Clamping her hands on his shoulders, fingers sinking into heavy muscle, she struggled to hang on, to cling to control, or at least to her wits, but he wouldn’t allow her even that much—angling his head over hers, he mercilessly plundered her mouth and sent her wits careening.
Some part of her continued to struggle, to frantically look for some way out even while her senses reeled, even while her mind was overwhelmed, all thought submerged by the waves of sensuality he sent pouring through her.
She tried to draw a line and hold to it, tried to dig in her sensual heels, but he ruthlessly, relentlessly undermined her, and drove her back—into deeper waters. Waters into which she’d never before stuck a toe.
His lips were commanding, demanding, forcing her to scramble to appease, to placate. His tongue dueled with hers, and he constantly won, seizing as his reward the right to caress, explicit and knowing, until shudders of plea sure racked her spine.
She was breathing all but entirely through him, helpless in his arms, unable to retreat. To call a halt, to step back from the engagement she’d started, to break away from what it had become.
There was heat and fire in him; with him wrapped about her she couldn’t mistake it. Couldn’t miss the rigid evidence of his desire so flagrantly impressed against her belly. Yet there was a coolness behind all he did—that aloof control that despite her best efforts, her fond hopes, she hadn’t rattled or rocked in the least.
Even while he engaged with her, even while he set her wits spinning, her senses whirling, he was watching her. Steering her.
He wasn’t lost in this unfamiliar world. He wasn’t out of control—he was dictating.
This, she suddenly realized, was a lesson—a warning.
As if he sensed her realization, his hands, until then splayed firmly across her back, shifted. One rose slightly, holding her pressed to him while his other hand slid slowly down, over her hips, then lower.
Even through the velvet of her habit, she felt the sensual assessment in his touch, the blatant possession.
Far from reacting with contemptuous fury, her traitorous body and even more traitorous senses all but swooned. Heat raced over her skin, prickled beneath his palm as he fondled, then more explicitly caressed.
His head angled over hers, his lips pressing hers farther apart; the ruthless yet languid thrust of his tongue became even more openly intimate, more devastatingly erotic.
She couldn’t stand against him—couldn’t stand against herself, the self he connected with, that he could command. That he’d called forth and turned against her.
Her defenses crumbled; all resistance—in her mind, in her bones and sinews—simply faded away. On a shattered sigh, half-tortured moan, she surrendered.
Dillon knew it; he had to wage a war with himself not to react. Not to brace her against the tree, lift her skirts, and sheathe himself in her wanton heat.
He closed his eyes tight, sank into her mouth, and fought to leash his demons, his almost overpowering need to have her, here and now. Fought to convince himself that what he’d already taken, what he’d already enjoyed, was enough. For now.
He’d won, triumphed, but he hadn’t expected the battle to rage so far. Recognizing her tack, he’d responded in the only way that, in the heat of the moment, he’d deemed possible—in kind. But he hadn’t expected her to meet him and match him on field after field, hadn’t expected her to defend so recklessly, to hold against him until they’d come to this—this critical point in passion’s dance; he’d expected her to yield long since. He hadn’t expected to have to press her so hard, to have to wield his own sensual weapons so strongly, not to this extent.
To the extent where he was inwardly shaking, racked with volcanic yet unslaked desire, raked by passion’s claws.
A self he didn’t recognize, one driven by hot desire, reminded him she’d started this. He’d called her bet—shouldn’t she pay his price?
With her locked against him, her slender body and lush mouth fully yielded, all his, the temptation to ravish her—to deal with what she’d started in the most appropriate way—whispered darkly through his mind.
Yet now she’d surrendered and was no longer fighting him, there was a subtle innocence in her responses; no longer screened by her determination to counter him, she—the woman within—seemed so very vulnerable.
He might wish—that harder, darker side of him might want—but he didn’t have it in him to harm her.
Drawing back from the kiss required effort; they’d traveled too far along passion’s road to simply stop and step away. He needed to draw her back to the world, needed to force himself step by step back from a precipice he’d never before faced.
The realization that that last was indeed true helped.
Eventually he lifted his head. He looked down at her lips, swollen, slightly bruised; he hadn’t been gentle. He shifted his gaze to her eyes, watched as she drew in a breath, then her lashes fluttered, and rose.
Revealing eyes brilliant and dark, deeper than emerald, the veil of ebbing passion slowly fading.
He studied those eyes, tried to ignore the compulsive beat in his blood, still painfully attuned to her, aware to his throbbing fingertips of the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her velvet jacket as she fought to catch her breath.
There was comprehension in the eyes that stared back at him, eyes that, like his, would never be distracted by superficial beauty, that would look past it, search deeper, and see.
They both knew what had happened, what had just occurred, what question had been decided. She’d thought to challenge him, had risked doing so knowing that at the least she’d learn which of them was the stronger on this plane.
She’d hoped she’d be able to manage him, bedazzle and hypnotize him with her not-inconsiderable charms. She’d wantonly rolled the dice—and lost; he saw the knowledge in her eyes.
He couldn’t stop a cynical, arrogant smile from curving his lips. “I believe that answers that.”
Her eyes flashed, temper flaring, but, still recovering, she made no reply.
He looked into her eyes for a moment longer, then, very slowly, released her. “Might I suggest we’d be wise to return to the horses?”
It would definitely be wise to get some distance between them.
She looked away, toward the horses.
He forced himself to step back, let her slip from between him and the tree; silent and, he judged, slightly dazed, she started back to the edge of the wood.
Without a word, he fell in beside her.
Pris struggled to get her limbs to work, to get her mind to function, struggled to assimilate all that had happened and all that hadn’t. There’d been a moment there…she slammed a mental door on those thoughts. If she dwelled on what she’d sensed, she’d never be able to deal with him—and deal with him she must.
He was striding beside her; she didn’t dare glance at him—she was still much too quiveringly aware of him, of the impression of his body against hers, of the insidiously dangerous thrill of be
Thrill? What was the matter with her? Being kissed by him had obviously warped her mind.
She frowned as they neared the edge of the trees, frowned even more definitely when, glancing about, she realized there was no convenient fallen log, no stump she could use to regain her saddle.
He’d noticed. With a curt wave, he gestured her to her horse. He followed, still close. Steeling herself, she halted by the mare’s side and swung to face him.
Finding herself looking at his neatly tied cravat, she forced her gaze up to his eyes, just as his hands slid about her waist and gripped.
And it happened again. Heat flared, then spread from where he touched; desire and more rose like a wave and surged through her. And him. His eyes locked on hers; the expression in his face, all hard angles and austere planes, perfectly sculpted, classically beautiful, stated very plainly that he wanted her. But…
Although desire flared in his mink-dark eyes, it was harnessed, controlled. He studied her for a moment, then evenly, rather coldly, said, “I would suggest, Miss Dalling, that if you have the slightest sense of self-preservation, you will not again attempt to sway me using yourself as bait.”
Her temper flared. Haughtily, she raised her brows.
His features resembled cold stone. “Regardless of what men you’ve previously bent to your will, be under no illusion. If you offer yourself to me again, I’ll take.”
It took considerable effort to meet his gaze and stare him down, considerable effort to stop herself from reacting to the unsubtle threat. She hadn’t needed to hear it; if she’d learned anything in the last minutes, it was that he was one gentleman she’d be wise to avoid.
She had every intention of doing so, as far as she was able. She pointedly glanced at her horse.
Lips set, he hoisted her up. He sat her in the saddle, held the stirrup for her—as if he were accustomed to assisting ladies in that way.
She wondered who…then resolutely turned her mind from such unnecessary questions. “Thank you.” With a chilly nod, she gathered the reins and wheeled the mare.