Salome at Sunrise by Inez Kelley Read Free Book Online Page B

lowering.
    “Do we stay like this for a purpose?”
    Appalled at himself, Bryton yanked his head upright and hurriedly dropped her hand. “No.”
    He jumped to his feet and strode toward Jester, stomping the grass with too much force. What the hell was he doing? He was not going to be entranced by some magical skirt. He swiped a fast hand across his mouth, wiping away her near kiss and the fuzzy longings from his mind.
    He did not need the swish of her dress to tell him she followed. He could feel her. Each tiny hair on his body stood and quivered at her nearness. The muscles in his thighs grew taut and he had to battle the urge to stop abruptly, see if she would slam into his back. Shame soured his gut when he realized if she did, he’d spin around and pull her even closer.
    “Are we finished competing then?”
    That musical voice—the lullaby of a sultry dream tinged with naked flesh and sated sighs—grated on his raw nerves. He wrapped his hand around the bone handle of his dagger and turned. Salome crashed into his chest. Too many summers of being a protector sprang into action and his arms went around her, keeping her from falling, inadvertently tugging her higher to him.
    Wrong crushed against right and his senses spun. She was too short, too soft, too fragile next to him. There was no fragrance of peach, no sugared-wine sigh. What he held was foreign and alluring. Unique sensations poured over him. Her skin burned with sun-kissed warmth and graceful fingers tightened into his tunic. Blood and desire swooped low, and his groin ached. The reaction was horrifyingly familiar.
    He wanted her.

Chapter Three
    Bryton thrust her away, gently, afraid of breaking those birdlike bones. “You’re clumsy for a spell.”
    “You are ill-tempered for a charge.”
    Teeth ground on teeth as he clenched his jaw. She could make a dead man itch. “Salome…fly away. You’re irritating me.”
    “I believe the very grass upon the ground irritates you. You do not lose well. If it were within my design to deceive you, I should have let you win one of those competitions. Are all men this…fragile?”
    “Fragile?” Birds shot from the top of a nearby tree at his shout. Every shred of manly pride growled like a tiger and his face flushed hot. “Pick something, anything. Set a task—that does not depend on speed—and I’ll prove how fragile I am.”
    Her slender neck craned to watch the birds’ flight. The look she settled on him then was an impish taunt. “Very well. Perch there, on the branch where those minnow birds flew from.”
    Blood flavored his mouth with the tang of copper. “I don’t fly.”
    “Then I win.”
    The smug satisfaction sparkling in her gaze bathed his vision a furious red. He jerked his dagger from its sheath and thrust it at her. “Pick a target and we’ll see who has better aim.”
    The tiny twitch in her brow when she looked at the blade rushed empowering blood through him. He’d never been bested at knives. He could strike a man’s heart at thirty feet five times out of six. She was going to lose this round.
    Salome swallowed and grasped the handle. She nibbled on her bottom lip then turned, facing the open field. She lobbed the blade like a ball. It hit the dirt with a bounce four paces away and Bryton’s jaw loosened. Batu could throw farther and he was but three summers old.
    Dust billowed as he yanked the fine metal from the dirt with a grimace. A quick snap sent the blade hurtling toward the tree trunk where it embedded with a hushed thunk . His throw was easily five times that of her pitiful attempt but he felt no triumph. He felt rather like a bully who’d kicked a puppy.
    Salome grinned as if he’d sprouted wings. “You won. Do you feel better now?”
    “No.”
    A sigh sagged her shoulders. “You are a difficult man, Bryton Haruk.”
    “Can you use a bow? A sword?”
    “No.”
    “You’ve absolutely no training in fighting at all, do you?”
    “No, I told you this. I am not a