Page 14

Chapter

Twelve

Grahame

“ Y ou dare tell me what to do in my own house?” Adara demanded as she stalked through the door, yanking it closed behind her, her straw-coloured nightdress swirling around her knees as she moved.

Bearing down on him, her eyes widened for less than a heartbeat when she saw that he was without a tunic.

“How dare you come barging in here! What if I was pleasuring myself?” he shot back, aiming for humor to disarm her. He hooked his hands on his hips.

Adara halted mid-step, her face leaching of color. Hungry grey eyes climbed the length of his body once then settled on his waist, as if looking for proof of his claim. It was so unlike her detached demeanour, he didn’t bother to hide the laugh that barrelled out of him.

“Same Adara, always so gullible.” He smirked, tossing his head so his hair would stop curling over his eyes.

She tracked that movement, too, her full mouth opening and closing, tripping over a retort.

“You were not …” She trailed off, crossing her arms over her bountiful chest.

It was unfortunate because her forearms shelved her breasts in the most enticing manner, and the glide of her nightdress over her ample hip only made him think of how good she would feel in his grip.

He couldn’t stop staring, yet if he did not, his best part would, indeed, think it was time for the pleasure he alluded to.

Grahame rolled his eyes. “Perhaps I was plotting your demise, or chewing my toenails, or building my strength by trying to lift that chest over there.” He pulled his arm up to flex his muscles, but Adara was onto him.

Her stormy gaze locked on his face and didn’t waver. “Are you married?”

Confusion swept through him. “Pardon?”

She took a step forward, those distracting hips swinging. “Are you already married? To someone in Hyrstow? Did you promise marriage to me, knowing full well it would not be binding, just to free your friends?”

If smoke could have shot from her nostrils, it would have.

Dark eyebrows drawn down, pouty mouth more-so, her words were nearly a growl.

Grahame swallowed around the wave of affection that hit him.

The stubbornness that peeked through was why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place.

This was the version of Adara he knew: impulsive, gullible, strong, and demanding.

He had never cared when she was that way with him. In fact, he found it delightful.

“Why, ’Dara? Jealous?” he taunted, invoking the name he used to call her for good measure.

She moved so quickly he could barely hold her off. Suddenly, her hands were pushing at his chest. Before she could kick her knee between his legs to ensure he couldn’t father children, he took hold of her upper arms and shoved them behind her.

“All it takes is one scream from me for Hagan to come in here and run you through,” she snarled.

Her breath tickled over his neck while her ample bust pressed his chest, her teeth close enough to bite through his throat if she tried hard enough.

Restraint had never been Grahame’s strength, and he begged for it right then.

Adara molded to him was something he had dreamed of, though never like this.

He squeezed her tighter, trailing one hand down her arm to snag both of her wrists.

It forced her chin up. The look she gave him was feral.

“You wouldn’t do that to your soon-to-be-husband, would you?”

A bitter laugh escaped her. “You have no idea what I would do to a husband.”

“You’re right. I do not. Did you kill the last one?” he asked in a singsong voice.

She struggled then, thrashing against his grip. He couldn’t resist tightening his hold on her wrists, just to incite her anger. Wild, she pushed at him with her chest. He laughed. This feeling of challenge, the verbal sparring—he’d missed it. Missed her. Too damn much.

“Let me go.”

“Never,” Grahame said darkly. She smelled too good. Clean and perfumed, as if she’d slicked herself with rose oil. His lower half thickened. “We are to be married. I will never let you go again.”

Adara released a little shriek then leaned forward.

Before he knew it, teeth sank into the flesh above his heart.

Pain wrought through him, hard and fast. He released her in surprise, but she held on, clenching her jaw around his skin.

Grahame smashed his lips together so as not to shout.

It would not do to have Hagan come in and slay him.

Right before she drew blood, Adara let go.

“Christ, what in the bloody hell?” he growled.

A crown of teeth marks etched his flesh.

“Do not,” she panted, wiping spittle from her mouth with the back of her hand.

The murder in her eyes did nothing to calm lustful outrage that swirled inside him at having her so close.

“Speak ill of me in my house. I may need a husband, but you cannot use your pretty smiles and slick jests to risk all that I have built.”

The pain of her bite ebbed then throbbed, sharp and stinging. It made him want to work her into a rage. “You think my smiles pretty?”

Adara clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “I think it is no secret your smiles are pretty. What I’m doing here matters, Grahame. To me, to those in my care, to the earldom.”

“Your earldom. Not mine.”

Grahame rubbed at his chest, turning from her so he could re-orient himself. In their meeting at the gates, Ridley had been clear: he would back off to ensure Yrsa’s safety, but Grahame had to get her out. Ridley would remain camped outside Clayton house until she was freed.

Grahame closed his eyes. He could not let his friends down.

Tipping his head back, he sucked breaths through his nose to gain a sense of calm.

His chest throbbed, and his lower half didn’t seem to understand that the nearly naked woman in his room wasn’t for him.

Ever. Calm was impossible. However, there was something about being in Adara’s presence that made him feel more alive than he had in years.

Despite the flame kindled in him, especially in such a state of undress, he had to win.

When he turned, he ensured his face was impassive. “Free Yrsa. That was the agreement.”

Adara canted her head as she regarded him, her proper mask of regality back in place.

“Not until we are wed.”

“When will that be?”

“Tomorrow, if it suits you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Not going to ensure dear Father is in attendance?”

Adara scoffed, shifting her weight to her other foot.

It caused his attention to snag on her legs, bare and shapely, her feet strong and lithe.

He told himself he was examining how she’d grown and was resolutely not interested in the curve of her calves, or how they would feel in his hands. If they were chilled or warm.

“I care less for my father now than I ever did when you knew me. The sooner we marry, the better. That way, when we travel to his keep in a fortnight, I will already be wed. He won’t be able to change that.”

Grahame swallowed, dread trickling through him. “What if he does not care?”

Adara pursed her lips. She paced toward him, then back to the door. Her backside had no right looking so good as she strode away.

“He will,” she threw over her shoulder. “He has to.”

“’Dara,” Grahame said, trying to keep up.

Her plan was full of folly. The Earl of Bernira was known for his cunning and cruelty.

He could kill Grahame with ease and marry her off to whomever he wanted.

Grahame would forfeit his life for Yrsa, but he did not want to die at the hands of these cold, terrible people.

At one time, Adara had been his safe haven.

He never would have guessed she would put him in such a precarious position.

Before she could make it to the door, he gripped her upper arm, whirling her around. Her eyes were lined with silver, her breaths short. As if the fight had melted from her, she let him hold her arm without protest. And while her lips trembled, Grahame couldn’t help but stare at their fullness.

They stood there for long moments, gazes scouring one another, drawing and exhaling the same breaths.

Her arm was strong yet soft beneath his fingers.

Thick, dark eyelashes fluttered as she took the measure of his face.

He wondered if she saw every age he had been, just as he could imagine hers.

If she felt as lost and hopeless as he did that they had missed so much time together.

“Grahame,” she breathed.

He couldn’t stop himself. When he was younger, he had sworn a vow to himself that if he ever saw Adara again, he would profess the manner in which she’d snatched his heart and kept it with her.

He had imagined saying something poetic.

Something along the lines of “How does it feel to have two hearts rather than one, as you’ve kept mine all this time? ”

Now, with her body so close and her lips parted in a manner he wanted to taste, Grahame couldn’t force the words out. She had changed. As much as he craved her, he was simply a pawn. One she would risk the life of as if he were nothing.

Before his lips could skim over hers, he pulled himself away, dropping her arm as if it were a flame.

“Good night, Lady Clayton.”

Her eyes shuttered as she bit that tasty-looking bottom lip of hers.

Without a glance, she turned and exited.

No further sounds came from her room. Grahame knew because he remained awake most of the night, trying to forget that the very grown-up version of Adara, clad in only in her nightshift, was just a wall away.