The Wolf and the Dove by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss Read Free Book Online Page B

like slaves’ armlets, jerking her to him and crushing her against him in a powerful embrace. Ragnor had been lean and hard, well muscled, but this was like being thrust against an iron statue. Aislinn’s lips half parted in surprise and her startled gasp was abruptly silenced when his mouth swooped down upon hers. The men hooted and howled encouragement, and Ragnor was the only one who found cause for dissatisfaction. With reddened face contorted by violent rage, he watched and his hands clenched at his sides to keep from tearing them apart.
    The Viking crowed. “Ho! The wench has met her match!”
    Wulfgar’s hand moved behind Aislinn’s head, forcing her face to slant against his, and his lips twisted across her mouth, hurting, searching, demanding. Aislinn felt the heavy hammerlike thud of his heart against her breast, and she was aware of his body, hard and threatening, pressed tightly to her slender form. His arm was clasped around her waist in a merciless grip and behind her head she felt his hand, large and capable of crushing her skull without effort. But somewhere in the deepest, darkest, unknown recesses of her being, a small spark was ignited and flared upward, awaking mind and body from their coldly held reserve, and singeing, scalding, fusing them in one whirling mass of sensation. Her whole consciousness was stimulated by the feel, the taste, the smell of him, all pleasurable and acutely arousing. Her nerves flooded with a warm excitement and she stopped struggling. As if with a will of their own her arms crept upward around his back and the ice melted to a fiery heat that matched his
own. It mattered little that he was enemy nor that his men watched and crowed their approval. It seemed there were only the two of them. Kerwick had never possessed the power to draw her from herself. His kisses had aroused no passion within her breast, no desire, no impatience to be his. Now, clasped in the arms of this Norman, she was yielding helplessly to a greater will than her own, returning his kiss with a passion she had never known she possessed.
    Wulfgar released her abruptly and to Aislinn’s utter bewilderment he did not seem at all disturbed by what to her had been a shattering experience. No amount of force could have brought her down so low. She felt shame and realized her own weakness to this Norman’s rule, weakness based not on fear but on desire. Aghast at her own response to his kiss, she struck out at him with the only weapon left her, her tongue.
    “Nameless cur of Normandy! In what gutter did your sire seek your mother?”
    There were sharp intakes of breath in the hall but reaction to her insults flickered only momentarily across Wulfgar’s brow. Was it anger she saw? Perhaps even pain? Oh, that was doubtful. She could not hope to wound him, this iron-hearted knight.
    Wulfgar raised an eyebrow at her. “Strange is your display of gratitude, damoiselle,” he said. “Do you forget your request for a priest?”
    Violence drained from her, and Aislinn was appalled at her own stupidity. She had sworn the graves would be blessed, yet by her own idiocy the dead men of Darkenwald would lay dishonored. She gaped at him, unable to utter a plea or apology.
    Wulfgar laughed shortly. “Fear not, damoiselle. My word is my oath. You shall have your valued priest as surely as you will share my bed.”
    Laughter swept the hall at his words, but Aislinn’s heart gave a sickening lurch.
    “Nay, Wulfgar!” Ragnor cried in a burst of rage. “By all that’s holy, you shall not trespass here. Have you forgotten your oath to me, that I should choose as my reward anything that pleasures me? Give heed, for I choose this maid as payment for capture of this hall.”
    Wulfgar turned slowly and deliberately to face the furious knight. He spoke with wrath rumbling low in his voice. “Seek your reward in the fields yonder where it is being buried, for that is what your payment shall be. Had I known what price I was to