Bolton suddenly opened his eyes and she stiffened. He languidly raised himself up on his elbows, and looked down her body, cool and assessing.
“Anxious, are we?” he asked. “No riding clothes? I could insist you wear whatever feminine items Annie can find.”
Isabel tensed, knowing that if he forced the issue, she would remain in the castle. She could not give in to him. But after a moment, he shrugged and threw the blankets aside. He stood up, and once again he had no qualms about his nakedness. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him flaccid. She turned quickly for the door.
“Hold.”
There was a husky note to his voice that sent bumps rising along her skin, made her breath quicken. She halted but didn’t turn.
“In return for allowing you freedom from the castle today, I deserve a reward.”
She clenched her hands behind her back. “You did not allow me freedom. You ordered me to go.”
“A kiss,” he said, ignoring her words. “Come here, Angel.”
She wanted to refuse. Yet didn’t this make him the first to surrender, to admit he needed something from her? She lifted her chin and strode toward him, eyes alight with triumph. Yet her heart pounded, and she felt light-headed.
Bolton studied her as she stopped before him.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
“But you said?—”
“I demanded a kiss. I did not say I would do the giving.”
“Then you ride alone this day, Bolton. A day’s freedom is most certainly not worth such suffering.”
He suddenly caught her face between his big hands and forced a kiss on her. She kept her mouth firmly closed. His body brushed hers.
“Open,” he said against her lips.
She gritted her teeth and disobeyed him, trying to pull away.
Her world spun as he turned her around and pressed her onto the bed. She opened her mouth to shout her outrage, but he took advantage of her thoughtlessness and invaded her defenses with his tongue. Isabel was pressed into the soft mattress, surrounded by pillows and the hard, aroused length of his body. She couldn’t get enough air as he suckled her lips and stroked her tongue with his.
With her last strength, she finally broke the contact, gasping, “You claimed merely a kiss!”
“And so it was.” He threaded his hands through her hair and pulled at the leather tie. “Wear it down,” he ordered.
“It will hamper my riding,” she insisted. He combed through her curls with his fingers, sending little tugs along her scalp.
“You had no trouble with your hair as the Black Angel.”
“That was so you’d know I was a woman and could still best you.”
He chuckled, and Isabel felt the rumble clear to her belly, and out along every inch of her skin.
“You could have been hooded and fully masked, and I’d have known you for a woman.”
“But I am not shaped like most women,” she insisted, then bit her lip at what she’d revealed.
Bolton propped himself up on one arm, and ran his other hand up her hip. “Not shaped like most women?” he murmured.
Did she hear teasing in his voice? She was insulted, then suddenly breathless as his warm palm slid up her ribcage and over her breast. She remembered what his hands had done to her, what he’d made her feel.
“Not shaped like most women?” he repeated, his voice lower, huskier. “I think I should decide that.”
His thumb began to trace circles across her breasts, and she shivered as he concentrated on her nipples through her clothing. She closed her eyes tightly. She told herself to fight, but her hands felt languid and heavy, unresisting. She told herself to submit, to let him prove his lust for her. But the sensations that swept through her body were frighteningly overpowering.
