Page 37 of White Horse Black Nights

Anticipation blooms in my chest. I’ve already touched my master’s bride during this sparring lesson far more than is appropriate, and now she’s asking for more?

I can tell myself it’s for her safety as much as I want—it doesn’t mean I don’t also jump at every chance to feel her soft flesh. I am truly fucked by how much I like touching her. A better man would tell her that it’s enough, and she can continue fighting lessons with her husband as her guide.

But I’m not a better man.

“Down,” I command, tipping my chin up.

She readily complies, lowering to her knees while keeping her round eyes on me. She sinks onto her bottom, then leans back onto her elbows in a submissive, reclined position, looking up at me expectantly through her long lashes.

Fuck. I could be hung for the sick thoughts going through my head to see my master’s bride splayed out like that on the ground before me.

With a dry throat, I drop to my own knees, straddling her waist as I brace myself over her with one arm. She’s kiss-close beneath me, her lips parted as her breath rises and falls shallowly.

I say hoarsely, “A man, especially an aroused one, will be most vulnerable in his groin. That’s where you’re going to want to hurt him. He’ll expect you to struggle, so he’ll be on guard. The best thing you can do is put him at ease. Don’t fight him—at least at first. Make him think you want it.”

She scowls deeply at the suggestion. Disgust laces her voice as she says, “No man bent on rape would ever believe a woman wants it.”

Oh, little violet, I think, recalling all the vile conversations I’ve overheard in army barracks.You don’t know men.

“He will,” I vow darkly, so serious that the scowl melts off her face. “Men have an astounding capacity to lie to themselves if it’s something they want to hear. Make him think you want it, and then, once his guard is down, you raise your knee up like this, as hard and as fast as you can.”

I reach through my straddling legs to grasp the back of her knee, then pull her leg up to meet the underside of my crotch. She complies, shifting her hips beneath me to get a better angle. With her body fondling all around my groin, it’s all I can do to keep my breath from giving out. I get no perverse pleasure from pretending to force a woman, but I sure as hell am drowning in arousal to have Sabine Darrow between my legs.

“If you have a knife, now would be the time to draw it.” I take her hand and place it over my bare abdomen, above my soft inner organs. “Stab him on his lower belly. Here.”

Her fingers blaze a path against my bare lower stomach as she feels for the place I indicate. I silence a groan rising in my throat. I’m not the only one warring with myself over all our touches and strokes. Sabine tries to hide it, but her body betrays her. She shows all the signs of a woman in heat: shallow breath, dilated pupils, the sharp, sweet smell of lust between her thighs. Maybe she gets as confused between fighting and fucking as I do. She can’t have ever been in this position with a man before, so her innocent body doesn’t know what to do with itself.

“Now, try it,” I bark hoarsely, and pin both her wrists to the dirt above her head. Her coiled braid drapes around her face like a garland, her eyes searing up at me.

She drives her knee up to my groin. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to jostle things that shouldn’t be jostled. I free one of her hands, and she grabs a stick to act as a knife and presses its point against my lower abdomen.

“Good,” I bark. “Again.”

We go through the motions time and time again. Once Sabine masters the initial moves, she quickly wants to advance. She starts trying to distract me in various little ways so she can roll away, but I easily thwart her every time. She grows frustrated the more I foil her, her pulse thumping in her veins, her breath coming in little huffs.

“A man won’t go easy on you,” I challenge, perversely enjoying her frustration. “Neither will I.”

She temporarily stops struggling, letting her body sag against the dirt as she scowls up at me. We’ve been wrestling enough that her wiggles have awoken every part of my body, and it’s a damn battle to keep my focus on teaching her to fight instead of training her to do what I really want: wrap those pretty little lips around the specific body part she keeps battering with her knee.

“Had enough, my lady?”

She narrows her eyes. I think she’s about to concede defeat, but then her attention shifts to something behind my shoulder. A wrinkle of uncertainty forms in my brain. God, not a fucking wildcat again . . .

Before I can look, a chipmunk jumps on my head.

I’m so startled that I release Sabine’s wrists so that I can swat at the little devil, but Sabine uses the opportunity to shove me over. I’ve fought men with ten times her strength, so realistically, her effort does nothing, but I let myself tumble backward. Even I have to admit her trick was clever, and she deserves a prize.

Triumphant, she climbs over my chest to straddle my hips, victoriously pinning my wrists to the dirt over my head as she grins down at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Congratulations,” I murmur, unable to tear my thoughts away from all the dirty things I could do to her in this position. “I thought you didn’t want to use animals.”

“I knew you wouldn’t hurt it this time.” To hold my wrists down means she has to lean so far over me that her long hair drapes my scarred chest like silken chains. She raises a cocky eyebrow. “You let me win, didn’t you?”

Without thinking, I say hoarsely, “Yeah, well, I would let you do anything to me, beyond what even the most depraved gods could conceive.”

Her expression softens with surprise. Her big round eyes blink down at me, aghast. Our faces are only inches apart, both our lips parted. I know I said the wrong thing, but fuck it. It’s true. To feel her sweet body on mine, I’d happily let her stab me. She could knee me in the groin until the sun rises. I’d take any and all of the pain she wants to dole out just to have her touch.

A soft whimper escapes her sweet lips.

---