Teresa Medeiros Read Online Free PDF

come up with a threat vile enough to stifle this chattering harpy.
    She flinched, but the cowed look in her eyes was quickly replaced by defiance. “Or you’ll what?” she demanded, resting her hands on her hips. “Carry me off to your castle and ravish me? Chop my saucy little head off?” She shook that head in disgust. “I can’t believe Mama thought I’d fall for this chauvinistic crap. Why didn’t she just hire a mugger to knock me over the head and steal my purse?”
    She marched away from him. Ignoring the warning throb of his muscles, he drove the horse into her path. Before she could change course again, he hefted his sword and nudged aside the fabric of her tunic, bringing the blade’s tip to bear against the swell of her left breast. Her eyes widened and she took several hasty steps backward. He urged the stallion forward, pinioning her against the trunk of a slender oak. As her gaze met his,he would have almost sworn he could feel her heart thundering beneath the blade’s dangerous caress.
    A mixture of fear and doubt flickered through her eyes. “This isn’t funny anymore, Mr. Ruggles,” she said softly. “I hope you’ve kept your résumé current, because after I tell my father about this little incident, you’ll probably be needing it.”
    She reached for his blade with a trembling hand, stirring reluctant admiration in him. But when she jerked her hand back, her fingertips were smeared with blood.
    At first he feared he had pricked her in his clumsiness. An old shame quickened in his gut, no less keen for its familiarity. He’d striven not to harm any woman since he’d sworn off breaking hearts.
    She did not yelp in distress or melt into a swoon. She simply stared at her hand as if seeing it for the first time. “Doesn’t feel like ketchup,” she muttered, her words even more inexplicable than her actions. She sniffed at her fingers. “Or smell like cherry cough syrup.”
    She glanced down at her chest. A thin thread of blood trickled between her breasts, affirming his fears. But as her bewildered gaze met his and the ringing in his ears deepened to an inescapable roaring, he realized what she had already discovered. ’Twas not her blood staining her breast, but his own. His blood seeping from his body in welling drops that were rapidly becoming a steady trickle down the blade of his sword. Horror buffeted him as he realized it was he, and not she, who was in danger of swooning. The sword slipped from his numb fingers, tumbling harmlessly to the grass.
    He slumped over the horse’s neck, clutching at the coarse mane. He could feel his powerful legs weakening, betrayed by the weight of the chain mail that was supposed to protect him. Sweat trickled into his eyes, its relentless sting blinding him.
    “Go,” he gritted out. “Leave me be.”
    At first he thought she would obey. He heard her skitter sideways, then hesitate, poised on the brink of flight.
    His flesh felt as if it were tearing from his bones as he summoned one last burst of strength to roar, “I bid you to leave my sight, woman. Now!”
    The effort shredded the tatters of his will. He could almost feel his pride crumbling along with his resolve, forcing him to choke out the one word he detested above all others. “Please …”
    Swaying in the saddle, he pried open his eyes to cast her a beseeching glance. Sir Colin of Ravenshaw had never fallen before anyone, especially not a woman.
    And in the end he didn’t fall before this one either.
    He fell on her.

CHAPTER5
    T abitha lay utterly still, afraid to breathe. In her most daring fantasies, she had wondered what it might feel like to have a man on top of her. To lay hip to hip, thigh to thigh, her tender breasts crushed against his brawny chest, his face nuzzled in her freshly washed hair.
    She sniffed lightly, unable to resist satisfying her clinical curiosity. Her father always walked around in a cloud of expensive aftershave and the handful of men she’d dared to