Betrayed by Claire Robyns

bristled as someone breathed over her. “A shoogle an’ a skelpin’ fer ye, I ken, what wi’ keepin’ decent folk from their supper.”
    A chuckle rumbled deep inside his chest. “Aye, Isla, I couldna agree more.”
    Her humiliation was complete.
    The onlookers fell back as they moved up the narrow steps to the upper floor.
    Amber pulled her face away from his chest. “And just what is a shoogle and a skelping?”
    Krayne glanced down with a grin. “I’d say what Isla had in mind was a sound whipping.”
    “You wouldn’t dare!”
    A black brow lifted.
    Amber looked away and clamped her lips. Had she already forgotten what her last challenge had led to? One day, she prayed, she’d learn to hold her tongue.
    But not today, she revised when Krayne dumped her on the bed, his bed. She scrambled upright and hugged her knees close, glaring at his broad back as he walked away. “I’ll not share your bed.”
    “I didna recall asking ye ta,” he issued over his shoulder as he rounded the corner into the next chamber.
    Amber wasn’t the least bit placated. She doubted Krayne was a man who did much asking in the first place, not when he could just as easily take.
    Her gaze flew up when he returned.
    “Remove yer clothes.” He indicated her damp shift as he came to stand by the bed.
    Her earlier fascination with his dark handsomeness had no place here.
    She’d never been more aware of her vulnerability as a female, the weaker of the sexes. This man could rip her apart, limb from limb, without raising a sweat. Whatever struggle she offered would be flicked aside as if she were no more than a bothersome flea.
    “Why do ye look at me like that?” asked Krayne.
    Her gaze wavered. “Like what?”
    “As if I were about ta rip yer head from yer shoulders.”
    Was she that transparent? Or did he commune with the devil on a daily basis for his unnatural insight?
    Amber met the stone-grey eyes again. “Are you not?”
    “Where would the benefit be in that?”
    Not a question she even wanted asked. Her uncle might indeed reward the man responsible for her early demise. William would risk no hand in her death himself, but that wasn’t to say—
    “I am not angry with ye for attempting ta escape.” Krayne interrupted her morbid thoughts.
    He threw something white and soft upon the bed and strode from the room, leaving Amber staring after him with a puzzled frown.
     
    On the rampart outside his chambers, Krayne drew in a lungful of the crisp night air. He was unwilling to go back inside until his restless energy either burned itself out or was snuffed by the cold. He hated what he’d seen in Amber’s wide-eyed stare, and the idea that he was the man to introduce her to fear was an uncomfortable feeling.
    He had only himself to blame that she’d attempted to flee. She’d been half-frightened to death. He could be a cold bastard when he chose, instilling the fear of the devil into the most stalwart warrior. And he was taking no chances when it came to shutting out his lust for Stivin’s leman.
    “I am tired.” The blunt-edged voice at his back belied the words.
    Krayne rolled his eyes as he turned around, and in that striking instant recognized the flaws in his strategy leading up to this moment that would have seen him and his army slain had they been in battle. The fine quality of the shirt he’d loaned Amber played a bewitching game with the breeze, caressing her skin with the allure of a billowing silk sheet. Hair as black and seductive as sin contrasted with the innocence of the sheer white cotton it fell upon and, Christ have mercy, the firelight flickering behind her enhanced every line and shadow, curve and hollow. His thoughts ran dry as he drank in the creamy swell exposed by the oversized shirt that dipped sharper and lower than any man could take.
    If her plan was to slowly disable Wamphray Castle by rendering the laird witless with desire, she was succeeding.
    “I said I am tired!”
    The shrewish voice