In Debt To The Enemy Lord. Nicole Locke

bright from cuts on his arms. His stance was one of a conqueror; his arms folded across his chest, feet apart.

      She felt her heart thumping harder inside her as she took in the smells of sweat, heat and maleness. His black gaze held hers just as steadily, just as transfixed, then he slowly lowered his eyes...to her breasts not quite covered by the water.

      Gasping, she stood and quickly turned to grab a cloth. The movement cost her. Swaying, grabbing the side of the tub for support, she wrapped the material around her. He didn’t offer to help, didn’t move at all, but she heard his sharp inhalation.

      When the dizziness faded, a slow anger built inside her. For days he’d visited her when she was too sick to defend herself, then he ignored and imprisoned her. Now he didn’t show her courtesy for her modesty. When she turned to face him, she’d lost a handle on her caution.

      ‘Yes, I can talk and I ask, can you not see? Because if you could, you would know I wish for privacy. Leave.’ Outraged, Anwen wanted to point to the door, but the saturated cloth needed both her hands.

      His expression hardened. ‘You are commanding me to leave?’

      ‘Yes, now. This is not right. This is rude.’

      ‘Rude.’ He regarded the room. ‘You sleep in my bed, you have worn my clothes and now I am rude?’

      ‘You want my thanks for your type of hospitality? You, who take advantage of me and keep me prisoner?’

      He needed to leave. Now. The longer Teague stared at her, she could feel her precarious position. She could see the light in his eyes, that he, too, recognised her predicament.

      ‘Take advantage of whom, I wonder.’ He tilted his head. ‘From my position, it could be you taking advantage of me.’

      The air changed with his words. Making a slow perusal of her wet hair and her bare shoulders, he took a step closer. If he continued to close the distance between them, she could do nothing to stop him. The moment she stepped out of the tub, she’d only expose more of herself. She was stuck. Ire, frustration and something close to rage ran up her spine. She hated men who prayed on those who were weaker.

      ‘How could I take advantage of you? When it is you who have afforded me no courtesy, made me well, but allowed me no freedom, you who have provided food for me, but not the open air?’

      He tilted his head. ‘Are you that innocent? I wonder. When I first saw you in the forest with your hair swinging and your paltry chemise giving me glimpses of your skin underneath, I couldn’t take my eyes from you.’

      He took another step so that his feet almost touched the tub. ‘Then you were so sick, I thought you dead,’ he continued. ‘Ffion and my servants took care of your body, but still I watched, unable to leave you. I watched you, Anwen.’

      She could not speak, could not breathe, her anger changing into something else. So she hadn’t been dreaming or mistaken.

      ‘It was you at night,’ she whispered, when she knew she should accuse him instead. How could it have been this man, this traitor, who comforted her?

      ‘Yes, it was me at night, my hand you held, my touch you sought when the pain was bad. While you recovered, I knew I could no longer simply watch you. So I stayed away.’

      His eyes roved over her body until she blushed with heat. Until she was acutely aware of the cooling water, the brush of cold air in the room.

      When he spoke next, his voice was like velvet. ‘You asked whether I can see your present state of undress. Oh, yes, I can see. I can see that although you cover yourself, in my mind you are still laid bare to me.’

      Anwen’s blood turned to ice, then to flame; her skin prickled and flushed. The Traitor had comforted her, imprisoned her and now he was doing something else. Something that affected her body more than her anger, more than his care and capture.

      His eyes gleamed black mercury as he continued, ‘You clamp your hands to your breasts, thinking that cloth covers you, but instead it outlines. Your breasts are like perfect globes waiting to be touched, silky wet from the water beading on them, just right for the heat of a man’s mouth. My mouth.’

      She had no weapons against these words of his. None at all. Her anger had disappeared, only to be replaced by something hotter, more liquid. She could fight his care and escape his capture, but she couldn’t fight her own body’s response to this.

      His eyes returned to hers and he seemed to war with himself before he asked roughly, ‘How can you take advantage of me, you ask?’ The sensuousness of his voice was gone, anger surrounded him and when his eyes locked with hers, she could only see cold stone. ‘That is what I intend to find out. Dress yourself and meet me in the Hall. I will have words with you.’

      The door closed, but it took several more moments before she could react; her entire body was trembling. She didn’t want to know if it was from her anger, embarrassment, or the heat of his words, so she got out of the tub and briskly dried herself.

      Why had she challenged him? It wasn’t as though she would ever win any battle with him. He was a man who commanded, not one to take commands. She was not usually so foolish.

      What battle was it she wanted to win? She grabbed her clean clothes off the chair. It certainly wasn’t the one he had challenged her to. His crude words shook her. She was not so innocent she didn’t know what he was speaking of.

      Yet, he hadn’t touched her. He had obviously used the words as retribution to her commanding he leave. He’d meant to embarrass her, but the words only humiliated her at first. Then other images came unwittingly: the images of his mouth on her breasts, his dark hair caressing her skin.

      Perhaps these images would not have been so real if she had not remembered his touch so acutely. Yet he had touched her, at night, when there was no one but him. She had taken comfort in his hand, concentrated on the gentleness and strength through her pain. Now she remembered how his calloused thumb had slowly rubbed circles in her inner palm and wrist. The fact she could so easily imagine his touch elsewhere should anger her, frighten her...but she could summon neither emotion. They were destroyed by his words.

      She needed to escape.