Emma nodded, thinking of Robin and wondering whether it was Robin's birth which had made Arthen change his ways. She glanced upon him searchingly, now knowing there were hidden depths to him she was just starting to perceive. And she clearly saw how he and Rowena might have been a good match. They were both bold, clever and simply fearless. But Emma realized that, where Rowena was cold and reckless and only thought of herself, Arthen looked for danger only when he sought to undo a thing which seemed unjust to him.
As if in echo of her thoughts, Arthen now spoke in a soft yet decisive voice, "I may no longer wish for danger as I did, yet at times there are wrongs which cannot be abided. The priest had done wrong. And letting him wreak his mischief not only upon us, but upon others – that was something I could not abide."
"You're right," Emma readily conceded.
For a while they didn't speak, just holding each other's gaze silently. And to Emma it seemed there was a deep, silent understanding they already shared of the rights and wrongs of this. But he was the first to look away, with a brief shake of his head.
"You're different than you were. Is it only because you finally saw the full wickedness of some of the men in this world?" he asked at last, but his voice did not seep with bitterness.
She nodded, with flaming cheeks, knowing this was as good a time as any to reveal to him who she really was. But she did not have time to answer. He suddenly strode to her and caught her wrist, pulling her to him.
"The priest... I truly wished to pierce his heart," he spoke, and his eyes had a keen, predatory glint, and his voice was filled with both anguish and heat.
"Yet you didn't," Emma found herself muttering.
He released her hand abruptly.
"I didn't," he muttered in a weary voice.
Emma unwittingly reached to touch his shoulder, and he stared at her with naked hunger. And Emma knew there would be no undoing this.
"It's good you did not. When you shot your arrows... I was indeed afraid you might miss."
She knewshe was now brazenly teasing, because she’d never seen a man as sure of his aim in her life before, even when the sun was shining bright and merry in the sky.
"I never miss," Arthen countered, echoing words he'd uttered before, and plainly aware of the game she now sought to play.
“Why, never?”
“Never,” Arthen told her in the same assured voice as before.
“Seems to me you are far too certain of yourself, Master Archer,” Emma found herself saying, knowing the way he had started gazing at her was that of a hunter stalking his prey.
She did not have time to think on it. Suddenly he was upon her and Emma found herself pushed against the wall of the kitchen with both her arms pinned above her head. But instead of feeling alarmed, she understood she simply felt the same lustshe saw mirrored in the eyes of the man who was now piercingly staring at her.
“Seems to me though I’m never certain as far as you’re concerned,” he spoke against her lips, and Emma did the only thing she could think of doing.
She offered this man her lips, knowing within herself she was simply famished for his kisses. Yet Arthen Archer did not take the lips that were being offered.
“You don’t deserve kisses,” he said thickly, as one of his hands was crudely hoisting her skirts.
Emma understood at once she would not mind his roughness. It seemed to her the desire she had was robbing her of her senses. She wanted this man fiercely in spite of everything. And she decided she no longer needed to hide this desire from herself. For once in her life, she wanted to be free to do as she pleased.
“Oh, so it’s only spankings I deserve?” she found herself saying breathlessly, as his free hand found her quim and his fingers plunged into her slick wetness.
She blushed fiercely, as he smiled a savage smile.
“Aye. Only spankings,” he said, as his fingers began to stroke her rhythmically.
It did not take much for Emma to come to the same kind of heavenly bliss she’d experienced weeks earlier when he’d tended to her quim. His eyes were looking intently upon her face when she recalled herself, and Emma belatedly thought to feel shamed by having a man witness such rapture from her.
“Don’t ever let another man touch you again. Don’t ever deceive me again, or you’ll rue the day,” he uttered, and his brown eyes looked dark and menacing as he spoke the words.
He did not wait for her to answer, but just released his cock that had been prodding hard against her body and thrust inside her, deep. And everything became blurred around Emma. Heloved her hard and savagely, but she revelled in every moment of it, coming to shout her fierce joy long before he did. At last, when he pulled back, Emma dazedly came to understand he’d not spilled his seed inside her, and she watched with widened eyes as he cleaned himself, and then righted his clothes.
“This changes nothing between us,” he called to her in a cold voice, just before he turned on his heel to stride out of the kitchen.
Emma stared after him, simply stunned. So this was the lovemaking she’d heard some of her serving girls whisper about – the lovemaking that had made the woman at the inn moan in such unfettered rapture. Before she’d met Arthen, she’d never believed there could be any kind of pleasure from a man thrusting inside a woman’s body. Instead she’d been persuaded coupling was, just as some women said, only a trial for wives. Yet she had been mistaken, and there could be deep pleasure not only from a man’s sweet or naughty caresses, but from the joining of bodies.