Only With Your Love Read Online Free PDF

stabbing blue that she flinched. She had never met anyone with eyes that color except for…
    Griffin slashed the rope that bound her wrists, and all thought was driven away by excruciating pain as blood began to pump through her arms. The strained muscles of her shoulders exacerbated her agony. Celia swayed unsteadily, her ears buzzing.
    Swearing at her, Griffin hooked an arm around her narrow waist. “Damn scrawny woman,” he muttered, sliding the knife back into his boot. “Would you save your swooning for a more convenient time?”
    “I-I’ll try to restrain myself, Captain,” she said.Although her tone was meek, there was a thread of sarcasm in it.
    Frowning, Griffin pushed her at Risk. “Take her, Jack. And don’t make free with your hands, or I’ll take your hide off in strips.”
    “Aye, sir,” Risk said obediently, pulling Celia to the chair beside him. Folding his hands and resting them on the table, he gave her an angelic smile.
    Griffin shrugged out of his sleeveless black jerkin and dropped it on the table. Fishing out a short length of rawhide from his pocket, he tied back his wild black hair. Celia watched him with wide eyes. She had never seen anyone like him before. His body was well-conditioned for battle, tall and rangy, but tough and muscled. His hands were huge and callused. Her father would call such a man “full of gristle”. There was a frightening alertness in those shocking blue eyes.
    “Wh-what do you want with me?” she whispered. Soft as the question was, he heard it clearly.
    “Call it a debt I have to honor.” He stood over her, settling his hands on the back of her chair. “And I always take care of my debts,” he murmured, staring down at her. She shrank away, feeling she would shatter into pieces if he leaned one inch closer.
    “I-if you take me to New Orleans,” she said shakily, “the Vallerands will reward you for returning me un-unmolested—”
    His eyes glinted with amusement. “If I do take you there, you’ll be received the same whether you’re molested or not.”
    “But the Vallerands would not want—”
    “And you think I give a damn what the Vallerands want,” he interrupted, his gaze travelingover her body. She froze as she felt his fingertip touch the tip of her ear and slide around the delicate curve. He tickled gently behind her earlobe, as if she were a prickly-tempered cat. “Well, you have nothing to fear from me, my little bag of bones. When I lay with a woman, I like some cushion to her.”
    Risk snickered, while Celia jerked her head back to avoid that teasing fingertip. Although she feared Griffin as much as she did the others, there was something about him that provoked a far deeper sense of outrage. Not even Dominic Legare seemed as casual in his cruelty as he did.
    Griffin stared at the woman with new interest. She had the translucent skin of a child, softly rounded cheeks, a little snip of a nose. Her mouth was formed with the fashionable rosebud prettiness he usually had no taste for. Long, silky lashes framed her luminous brown eyes. What caught his notice, however, was something oddly inappropriate for such a conventionally pretty face, a mixture of intelligence and dignity that gave her distinction.
    Griffin looked over at his second-in-command. “Has Legare chosen his man or not, Jack?”
    Risk squinted at the other side of the room with his one eye. “’Tis hard to tell, with the pack we have in here, all gathered ’round—ah, wait, looks like Pounce. Big bear of a man—just might have some reach on ye.”
    Griffin responded with a noncommittal grunt, pulling his knife from his boot. The well-sharpened blade gleamed brightly. Tossing it up in the air, he caught it expertly by the hilt. “Pity there’s not room for the cutlass,” he said. “So much quicker that way.”
    “Show them a bit of fancy work,” Risk urged,excitement on his face. “Let Legare’s men see why we’ve followed ye to hell an’ back,