Page 143 of The Pirate Queen

“You kept it?” she asks.

So that’s what she’d been looking at on the desk. The small kitchen knife he’d exchanged for his dagger in Moycullen.

“I promised I would give it back.”

“Why was it on your desk?”

“As a reminder.”

“Of what?”

“You,” he says, then moves so quickly she doesn’t have time to jump from his lap. She’s simply dumped onto her feet as he stands. His own dagger is in hand now, and he edges her backward toward the sleeping chamber.

How many nights has Richard lain awake, dreaming of having Gráinne here alone? More than he can count. And never once did any of those fantasies feature them with blades in hand. Perhaps that is his fault, a lack of imagination. Or a failure to remember the girl he used to know.

Gráinne lifts her little blade and slides it under the tie at his neck, where the edges of his leine are secured. She flicks with one quick slice and the garment falls open at his throat.

“So this is the game you’d like to play?” he asks.

“You did say that you wanted me to enjoy this, did you not?” She shoves him and he stumbles backward a step. “And you need not be so gentle with me as you used to.”

He dives for her, and she parries. But her mistake was using the kitchen knife instead of the larger one in her boot. She is smaller anyway and has no leverage, so it is no great feat to herd her into his sleeping chamber. Once they are both across the threshold, he kicks the door shut. Their boots make scraping sounds across the worn wooden floorboards as they circle each other.

“You look flushed,” Richard tells her. “Overly warm. Perhaps you should take off your clothes?”

Gráinne lunges at him, the tip of her blade catching the hem of his shirt. She tugs it from his trews, leaving a small hole. “You first.”

“Twist my arm,” he says, then yanks the shirt off with one hand.

The color rises in her cheeks as she watches him throw it to the corner of the room. She’s distracted, so Richard lunges, meaning to grab her with his free arm. But she twists out of the way.

Around the room they go, slashing and deflecting. Once, their blades meet with a clank, and the resulting spark brightens her eyes. She pulls back a step, then slashes again, but Richard blocks her with a forearm. This time, when Gráinne tries to twist away, he catches her at the waist and moves her backward until she’s pressed against the bed.

Richard is gentle, very gentle, as he lightly runs the tip of his dagger across her collarbone, then down to the ties of her bodice.

“An eye for an eye.” He winks. Then cuts the first tie. Then the next. Then all of them, until her bodice slides open and hangs loose on her shoulders.

“No one has that many eyes,” she says with a grin.

Gráinne’s leine is new. Bright and crisp, without a single stain. But it is linen and therefore thin and her form is clear beneath.

It makes him dizzy, the sight of her.

So she knocks his legs out from under him.

Richard goes tumbling to the floor, then dodges to the side in a half roll. He lands on his back and then she is on him again. Only now she straddles his waist. With her free hand she grabs his left wrist and pounds it against the floor.

“Will not be so easy to disarm me,” he says, lifting his hips in a halfhearted attempt to dislodge her.

“Won’t it?” she asks, gripping him tighter with her thighs.

When he curses, Gráinne leans over him, her face but a few inches from his. She smiles in triumph at his obvious distraction. Then she reaches forward, brushing her mouth softly over his, and pounds his knife hand against the floor again.

“Forfeit,” she demands.

“Never.”

Richard uses his free hand to lift the side of her skirt, to run his fingers along her calf, then upward over her knee and onto her outer thigh.