It was dark and warm, the scents of horses and straw wonderfully clean. Simple and like home.

He released her to close the door and Diantha sank against the wall, trembling. Wyn’s boot steps receded into the blackness. But he would not leave her—she knew this—no matter how furious. And finally, as she gulped in air, her lungs filled and her body shed its shock, her anger and hurt rose anew.

He returned, the white of his shirt and neck cloth visible first, then all of him, and she saw again the blood on his face. Her anger deflated. She reached out. “What did they—”

He gripped her wrist, flattened it to the wall, and he covered her mouth with his.

She drank him in, needing his anger, fueling hers with the pain inside her and such profound relief.

This was wrong. She loved him, but she could not be hurt by him again. Years of blind trust in her mother had taught her when to relinquish love so that she would not suffer. She wrenched her face away, struggling to breathe between the wall and his hard body.

“Defend yourself,” he growled, biting at her lower lip, and a moan escaped her. “Defend your actions tonight, your willful, reckless involvement in a matter that was none of your affair.”

“We saved you.” His hands moved along her arms and she offered no resistance. Everything in her was alive, feeling him, wanting him. His hands on her, rough and purposeful, were a dream. “You were in shackles.”

His palms came around her face, his fingers sinking into her hair, discarding the bonnet, jarring her jaw upward. Red marks circled his wrists. She gasped and he caught her mouth anew. He kissed her, long, deep, not allowing her breath and she clung to his shoulders until her legs got wobbly. She broke free to drag in air. He trailed kisses along her jaw, his hand moving along her neck, drawing her cloak open. She pushed at him with a feeble palm.

“Wyn, I—”

“You are mine, Diantha,” he uttered against her throat. “Mine.” No softly whispered words of affection or even relief, but gravelly possession like that night at the inn. His palm slid from her shoulder, around her breast, and their groans met in the darkness. He pressed his thigh between hers; she allowed it. Her body wanted this, but her heart was weeping.

“No. I cannot do this. Not after you were with a—a woman of ill repute last night.”

His hands swept into her hair, casting pins loose, holding her immobile. “I wasn’t with anyone last night, except you, in my dreams.”

“You weren’t?”

“How could I be with any other woman when I want only you?”

“But you said—”

“I lied. I lied.” He punctuated each utterance with kisses that fused her to him further. “I lied to make you refuse me, and I got what I wanted, but now I want you.” He tugged hard at her sleeve. Her breast bulged in the straining bodice. He touched her, sweeping his thumb beneath the fabric and over the nipple, and she felt his pleasure rumble in his chest beneath her palms. “And I will have you.” In one powerful move he swept her up into his arms. “Now. In a stable where, I think, you need to be had.” He took three strides, the stall door swung shut behind them, and he pinned her to the wall before her feet again met the floor.

She gasped for air. “I don’t want this.” But his hands were everywhere on her, and she was whimpering in need, pushing his coat off his shoulders. She had to feel him, to touch him one last time, anger tangling thickly with desire and desperation. “I don’t.” She spread her hands over the muscles of his chest and was weak inside with longing.

He pulled her hips hard against his. “I need you, Diantha.” His hands moved up her waist, curving around her breasts. “I crave you.”

“I suppose I should be flattered you consider me in the same category as brandy.” She tore at his waistcoat, tasting his jaw with her lips, pulling his shirttail from his trousers, seeking his skin, the taut, hot perfection of this man. “I won’t marry you. If you ask me again I will—”

“Have me.” He took her to the ground, pressing her into the sweet, fresh straw with the weight of his body. She rose to him, to feel him. Her skirts skipped up her calves then her thighs, gathered in his hands.

“You make me insane.” His voice was husky. Beneath the layers of fabric his hands surrounded her behind.

“Ohh, God.”

His mouth covered the soft part of her breast as his hand sought her below. He groaned touching her. She thrust herself to him, the hunger twining fast and desperate this time, the ecstasy of relief and need tumbling through her. He was not gentle; it gave him pleasure to caress her so, she thought, and she wanted that. She wanted to please him. She wanted to love him entirely.

“More,” she pleaded upon a whisper. “But I don’t— I don’t want you inside me. I don’t—uh—” Her body undulated beneath his touch. She threw her hand out to the wall, her eyes half closed and the beauty of her face exquisite as her pleasure grew. “We are not to marry,” she gasped, “and I don’t want you to get me with child. So, don’t—” The remainder of her protest was lost in a moan of pure feminine acquiescence as he slid his finger into her.

“Don’t put my hands on you?” Driven by her hot, primed beauty, his other hand moved to his breeches fastenings. “Don’t give you this?” Upon every thrust of his finger the creamy swells of her breasts above her bodice jerked upward, a luscious pink aureole peeking out. Wyn bent and drew it into his mouth. “My Diantha.” He sucked the peak, bit, and she moaned, meeting his hand faster, and he had to be inside her.

He grabbed her hips and dragged her under him, pressing her to his needy cock, kissing her neck, her throat, feasting upon her silken skin, the luxury of her breasts. She pushed at his chest with one palm, grabbing him closer with her other, her hand sliding down his arm.

“I said—”

“You said more.” He must have her. Hands beneath her skirts, kissing her breasts then the curve of her waist, he descended, pushing quantities of silk and lace out of the way.

“What are you doing?”

“Having you in a stable.” He pressed her thighs open.

She struggled to push her skirts down. “I told you I don’t want you to make love to me.”

He grabbed her wrists. “Because you fear me getting you with child only?”

Her breaths were fast, eyes wide and bleary with passion. “Y-Yes.”

“Now tell me the truth.” He stroked across her femininity, her eyes closed upon a moan, and then he did what he’d wanted to do since he spent a night in a stable loft fantasizing about her.

She was sweet, her scent, her texture, and exquisitely wet. He tasted her, drew her pleasure with his tongue and she gasped. But she allowed it, gripping straw in her slender hands. He used his lips, his teeth, until she called his name, but he wanted more. He could not take his fill. He sank his finger into her.

“Oh, stop.” Her back arched, her knuckles white against the wall, eyes closed and head thrown back. “I want you to— I want— Unh!” She contracted against his tongue to a stuttering series of soft cries. Then again, harder, her groans deeper and breaths short until she was whimpering her pleasure like sobs. “I need you.”

He moved up between her legs and brought himself against her. He bent and breathed her in, the satin of her curls brushing his cheek. “Ask me.”

“Please!” She moved against him, her thighs clutching him close. “I will beg if you like.”

“A lady need only ask once.” He thrust into her, again, and again, until he was fully embedded. She moaned, gripping his back with her hands, and, desperate for relief, he took her. The mattress of straw was a bed for the tight gift of her body she gave him. He lifted her hips and gave her pleasure until he could only thrust blindly, be inside her as deeply as she could take him, her decadent thighs spread, all of her open to him.

“Wyn.” As she shuddered around him, he came. Beyond reason and control he filled her so deep that no one could ever again deny she belonged to him—not he, not she. And he uttered a curse, perhaps a prayer, that he could be a man worthy of this woman’s heart.

Hauling air into his lungs, he bent his mouth to her neck, her breasts, the damp contour of her throat. She pressed her body to his, and he could not leave her yet. He was exhausted, and he was exactly where he wished to be.

Eyes closed, she allowed him to caress her. “I did not know it could be done quite like that. With a man’s mouth,” she said between slowing breaths.

“I bloody well hope you didn’t.”

“A gentleman should never swear in the presence of a lady,” she murmured. “Rule Number Seven.”

“When you speak of ‘a man’s’ mouth rather than mine in particular, naturally it concerns me.”

Her lapis eyes opened. “No other man has touched me like you have. You know that.”

“I do.” He brushed her lips, which were tender from his enjoyment of her, and her hand came up and around his jaw tentatively, then into his hair. Gently she explored the wound on his temple with light fingertips. There was no pain there now, only the pleasure of her caress.

She drew away first. He stroked a damp curl back from her brow and her lashes dipped. But this quiet, sated woman was not all of her. Given her fight, their affinity would not last for long, and he must see her to a safe place now.

He pulled back and fastened his breeches as she pushed her skirts over her legs and tucked her beautiful breasts back into her gown. The darkness surrounded them, the muffled silence of horses in a nearby stall, and the distant Watch calling the hour through the muting fog.

Wyn watched her. “How did you make him do it?”