Charlotte Boyett-Compo- Wyndsheer Read Online Free PDF Page B

very sore. She winced as she felt what must be stitches running along her scalp.
    “I sutured it,” he said.
    Her head ached even worse as she sat there trying to dredge up what had happened from the murky well of her memory, but it refused to come. Everything was a complete blank and when she tried to remember her own name, she couldn’t. Tears swam across her eyes.
    “I don’t know who I am,” she said, her lips trembling.
    He looked around at her soft cry and removed his hands from the dishwater, took up a towel to dry them as he came back to the bed. He flung the towel over his left shoulder then sat on the edge once more.
    “Mairi,” he stated—pronouncing the name as mah ree—then reached out to run his fingers down her cheek. “Your name is Mairi.”
    His hand was warm and she turned her face into the cup of his palm, feeling the roughness of calluses against her flesh.
    “And who are you?” she whispered, staring into his gentle eyes.
    There was a moment’s hesitation then he lifted his chin. “Jamie,” he answered. “Jamie MacGivern.” The right side of his mouth hitched upward more with a spasm than a smile. “Your husband.”
    There was a quickening in the lower part of her body as her womb clenched at his words. “M … my husband?” she questioned, hearing the blood pounding in her ears.
    “Aye,” he said then got up from the bed to go back to the basin.
    Something elemental twisted inside her and she smiled. This handsome, sensual man with the sexy green eyes was her husband? It went a long way in explaining what she was doing naked in his bed, allowing him liberties like bathing her without protest.
    “How did I hurt my head?” she asked.
    “Fell,” he told her and he took up the cast iron skillet and wiped it clean with a rag.
    “Oh,” she said, trying to remember.
    “You were out three days,” he said.
    Her eyes widened. “Three days?”
    “Fever,” he said as though that would explain everything and with the way she felt, she accepted it at face value.
    Jamie was watching her from the corner of his eye. He had kept her drugged for three days while the searchers combed the mountainous terrain searching for her. He knew when they had passed within fifty feet of the outcroppings that hid the cave and he knew they were still about, hoping to find her even though he’d methodically pointed all clues to her whereabouts toward the jagged cliff overlooking the river.
    In those three days he had bathed her and cared for her, drizzled the potent narcotic down her throat, and slept with her naked body pressed firmly to his. Time and time again he had taken her—as he would again this night—but this time, she would be aware, would experience the heady delight he intended for her to enjoy.
    “My head hurts,” she told him.
    He nodded and reached for the bottle of aspirin he kept on the shelf. There would be no more of the narcotic to dull her senses unless she proved to spurn his advances and should that happen, mixing that same narcotic with a bit of goat’s milk would insure her ready participation.
    She took the two aspirin he shook into her hand from the plastic bottle and accepted the glass of water he held for her. Smiling her thanks, she took the analgesic and most of the water.
    “Lay down, lass,” he told her, taking the glass from her.
    She slid down in the bed though she never took her gaze from his face. As their eyes met, she felt her womb twist for he was looking at her as though he wanted to devour her. And she was shocked to find she wanted him to gobble her up.
    “Jamie?” she questioned--caught and held by his lustful look.
    Jamie put the glass on the nightstand and sat down on the bed. He leaned over and took her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue deep between her parted lips and when her hand curled around his neck, he deepened the kiss, slanting his mouth forcefully over hers. Her tongue met his and he groaned, his hand going to her breast to knead it