Spellbound by Jaimey Grant

story. You are far more intelligent than that, are
you not?” Her tone mocked him.
    He felt like slapping her.
“Who is he?” he asked again. He was close enough to smell her
subtle fragrance, roses and woman. He grew incensed at the idea
that she might be willingly giving to another man what he was
entitled to as her husband. He deliberately ignored the voice that
whispered she was no such thing.
    “Get out,” she said
evenly.
    She had donned her blandest
expression, much like the one he’d seen on her face when she’d
calmly—and nakedly—broken up his fight with Prestwich.
    That recollection succeeded
in inflaming him more than he’d anticipated. Two parts anger and
one part desire, Tristan lost control. He reached out to shake some
sense into her but instead crushed her against his hard chest,
smothering her protest in a heated kiss.
    And Raven, angered beyond
anything, met his passion and surpassed it. This was what she
wanted. This man, this feeling, this heat. It was useless to
protest; she’d never felt such a physical need for a man. It was
all consuming, engulfing her in a tidal wave of desire for the
fulfillment only he could give her.
    And before she quite
realized it, she was pressed into the bed, allowing Tristan full
rein and even helping him. Within a matter of seconds, she was
undressed, he was down to his breeches and she was ready to tear
those off with her teeth.
    Then he spoke. Pressing
kisses along her neck and over her breasts, he murmured, “You are
mine, Raven.” Pausing briefly in his sensual onslaught, he stared
down into her eyes, suddenly dead serious. “Don’t you dare give
yourself to another man ever again.”
    Desire fizzled and died a
quick death, fury taking over like fire to a dry field. Raven
released a shriek loud enough to wake the dead, bringing her elbow
up in a wide arc. She caught the side of his face, knocking him
momentarily senseless. He eased up a bit, much to her satisfaction
and his painful mortification—she was able to bring her knee up
into his groin with unerring accuracy.
    Doubling up, the noble Duke
of Windhaven tumbled from the bed, hitting the floor with a thump.
He groaned, cupping himself protectively and seriously
contemplating murder.
    Raven was instantly
repentant. She hadn’t meant to maim the man, just gain her
immediate release. She had that now and was unsure what to do for
the man curled on her bedroom floor.
    None of the men she’d ever
treated in such a way had ever remained long enough for her to see
what happened afterward. So now, sitting up on the bed with a sheet
wrapped protectively around her nakedness, she instinctively knew
that getting near him at the moment was likely to cause her own
immediate demise.
    She didn’t realize how
right she was. Tristan continued to hold himself, fighting a bout
of unmanly tears and devising all sorts of foul tortures to visit
upon the lovely body of the pseudo Duchess of Windhaven.
    After five minutes of
willing the pain away, Tristan was finally able to gasp out,
“Unbelievable.”
    Raven, still seated on the
bed watching him warily, replied, “What, my lord?”
    “The fact,” he retorted
brokenly, “that you are still here. And not,” he paused, “running
for your life.”
    Surprising them both, Raven
chuckled. “I have little to lose, my lord. And I have just been
informed that you own me. I suppose my life is yours to do with as
you will.”
    Struggling gingerly into a
sitting position, the duke smiled, leaning his back against the
bed. “I’m a jealous fool,” he muttered. Turning his head slightly,
he looked up at her. “A lady? Truly?”
    Raven hesitated. “No. A
married woman but technically not a lady.”
    Seemingly satisfied with
this response, Tristan returned his gaze to the opposite wall. “I
apologize, Rae. It was stupid of me to assume you were meeting a
man in Speldhurst. Was it Grey’s wife then?”
    Raven stared in shock. “How
did you know?”
    He shrugged