Page 24 of Marin’s Promise

“More than simply speaking to Nan and the other servants,” she surmised.

He nodded. “It will keep everyone safe. Yer people and mine.”

“And give you exactly what you want without the risk of having us revolt.” She gave a knowing smirk. “Aye, I know that is why you seek my permission. You know your men are fickle in their loyalty, and you know eventually my people might rise up if your numbers lessen.”

Damn but the woman was too clever for her own good. “People will die on both sides.”

“And you may lose all you have purloined.”

He stared at Marin, who was as stubborn as she was lovely. “It will keep us all from loss.”

She folded her arms over her chest.

“Will ye help me?”

“Nay.” Her brows drew together, and her face went pink. “I will not let you stand there and gloat about how in one day you have managed to acquire what one man took a lifetime to garner.”

Her words plucked at a nerve Bran had not realized he had. If her people did revolt, if they took back Werrick, Ena would die. A band of tension worked its way around his chest. “Ye will help me,” he said in a low, threatening tone.

“Or what?” Her chin angled toward him with defiance. “Will you hit me? After all your reassurances we would be left unharmed. Will you be a liar as well as a thief?” She tensed. “And I warn you, I will hit back.”

Anger lashed through Bran. He fell prey to her goading and it only served to increase the ferocity of his rage.

“I dinna hit women.”

She scoffed. “Due to your noble character, I presume.”

He stared down at her. His blood boiled to scalding in his veins, and his breath came hard and fast. “Ye're the most stubborn and maddening woman I've ever met,” he growled.

A wicked grin curled her sensual mouth. “Such knowledge brings me great delight.”

The emotions snapping through him were too overwhelming; her face too alight with the passion of their argument for him to ignore. He wouldn't hit Marin, but he certainly could kiss her.

* * *

Marin had wontheir little battle. It was as evident in Bran's glare as it was in the pounding of her heart. His eyes were bright with something unsaid and his stare was so intense, it reminded her of when she'd gone to him. His kiss, his touch, both played out in her mind more often than they ought to, and they were doing so again now.

“Will you hit me?” she asked. Her voice came out with a throaty quality, a note of sensuality she had not intended.

“Nay.” He slid his hands to her face. “No' when I'd rather kiss ye.”

His mouth came down on hers and Marin's world blossomed to life in a wave of undeniable anticipation. His lips were softer than she remembered, the rasp of his beard over her sensitive skin rougher. His hands, the delight at his touch far more thrilling. She ran her hands over his shirt where his chest was firm with muscle beneath.

It was all too easy to recall the lines of his body, the strength shadowed by the light from the hearth. She opened her mouth to him, and his ready tongue swept against hers. A whimper slipped from her throat.

He growled at the sound she made, and it sent lovely shivers running through her. His hands slid from her face, delicately brushing down the naked skin of her neck and collarbones before skimming down the length of her body to her waist. He pulled her to him, against the wonderful solid wall of his body. And she melted.

She leaned into his strength with a sigh shared between their kisses, her hands moving over his powerful back. The desire humming through her drew her hips toward him in a slow, eager rhythm he all too easily matched. She ought to push him away, she knew, to be firm in her defiance. But these kisses were heaven, and they awakened in her something she had thought never to experience: desire.

His palm swept up to brush the side of her breast and gently cup it. Marin arched her chest toward him before she knew what she was doing, her entire being transformed by the power of need. He sucked at her bottom lip while his thumb played over the swollen bud of her nipple. She cried out with pleasure, but he muted the sound with a hungry sweep of his tongue.

He kissed her mouth, her chin, her neck, his mouth suckling, his teeth ever so gently nipping. Tingles of bliss danced up and down her spine. Her breath came in panting gasps.

Bran cupped her bottom with his free hand and drew her hips flush with his, where the hardness that had been there the night before now strained between them again.

Marin was not so ignorant of the ways between a man and a woman that she did not know what the column was. A trill of power shot through her. She had caused that. His want of her. His yearning.

His leg nudged against hers and she found herself parting her knees for him. His thigh pressed into the wild thrum of lust at her cleft. He straightened to kiss her once more, gliding his hand up her lower back to catch the back of her head in his large palm. Somewhere in the distance came the ring of thin metal hitting the ground. She paid it little mind, her mouth impatiently tasting his with greedy abandon.