Valhalla on the right. Paradise regained on the left.
Stuck between a Godiva truffle and a chocolate éclair.
Between a rock and a very hard place. Two very hard places from the looks of it. I hate beautiful men, she mourned soulfully. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Yet to resist….
Hands clasped her waist from behind as the smithy pulled her back against his sculpted body.
“Let go of me!” she cried, the strange fog lifting from her brain.
The smithy released her.
And that very big, beautiful man facing her—the legendary Hawk—was glaring like Odin preparing to zap her with a thunderbolt. She snorted.
“Don’t glare at me. You didn’t even bother to show up at our wedding.” Adrienne started pacing. If she really was Janet, how would Janet have felt? How terrible to be wed away like a piece of property and then be treated so shabbily by the new in-laws! “I spend two miserable soggy days on the back of a nag and does it ever stop raining in this godawful place? Two days it took us to get here! Gracious Grimm dumps me the minute we set foot on Dalkeith. You don’t even bother to greet me. Nobody shows me to a room. Nobody offers me anything to eat. Or drink for that matter.” She paused in her litany and leaned back against a tree, hands on her hips, one foot tapping. “And then, since I can’t find anyplace to sleep that I’m not afraid doesn’t belong to someone else, I go off wandering until you finally bother yourself enough to show up and now you glare at me? Well, I’ll have you know—”
“Silence, lass.”
“That I am not the kind of woman that one can push to the side and have her take it docilely. I know when I’m not wanted—”
“You’re most assuredly wanted,” the smithy purred.
“I don’t need to be hit over the head with a ton of rocks—”
“I said be silent.”
“And I didn’t get even one wedding present!” she added, proud that she had thought of that. Yes, Janet would certainly have been offended.
“Silence!” Hawk roared.
“And I don’t take orders! Ummmph!” Adrienne grunted as her husband lunged the distance separating them and tumbled her to the ground. Once she hit the earth with what felt like a small rhinoceros on top of her, he rolled her over several times, locked in the curve of his arm. She could hear the blacksmith cursing softly, then the sound of running feet, as she struggled mightily against his steely embrace.
“Be still!” Hawk growled, his breath warm against her ear. It took her a few moments to realize that he was holding her almost protectively, as if shielding her with his body. Adrienne raised her head to see his dark eyes scanning the forest’s edge intently.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, her heart hammering. From being tumbled so roughly, she assured herself, not from being cradled in this man’s powerful arms. She squirmed.
“Be still, I said.”
She wriggled, partly to spite him and partly to get his leg out from between her thighs, but she only succeeded in ending up with her tush pressed against his—oh dear—surely he didn’t walk around like that all the time! She jerked sharply at the contact and heard a muffled thud, the sound of bone hitting bone when her head struck his jaw with a thwack. He cursed softly, then the rumble of his husky baritone laughter vibrated as his arms tightened around her.
“A wee hellcat, aren’t you?” he said in her ear.
She struggled violently. “Let me go!”
But he didn’t. He only eased his tight grip enough to turn her around so that she was sprawled atop him, facing him. Big, big mistake, she thought mournfully. It presented a whole new array of problems, starting with her breasts being crushed against him, her leg caught between his, and her palms splayed on his muscular chest. His white linen shirt was open and pure male heat rose from his broad chest. There was blood trickling down his arrogantly curved lower lip, and for an insane moment she actually considered licking it off. In one swift, graceful motion he rolled her beneath him and she lost her breath. Her lips parted. She stared in mute fascination and knew in that terrifying instant the man she had married by proxy was about to kiss her and she was quite certain her life would never be the same again if he did.
She snarled. He smiled and lowered his head toward hers.
Just then the blacksmith burst back into the clearing. “Not a damned thing!” he spat. “Whoever it was is gone.”
The Hawk jerked away in surprise and Adrienne seized the moment to push against him. She might just as well have tried to push the Sphinx across the sand and into the Nile.