Knight of Pentacles (Knights of the Tarot Book 3) by Nina Mason Page A

bewitchingly beautiful. How could any man with eyes and a cock resist her charms? “Did you say he was the one who did not want to be intimate?”
    “Yes.” A blush tinted her pale, moon-kissed cheeks. “He insisted we wait until the wedding night.”
    “How long did the engagement carry on?”
    “Five years, but I was at university for most of it.”
    Five years? Holy Valhalla. In his time, long betrothals were frowned upon, largely because remaining chaste for an extended period would torment the couple. Evidently, her fiancé had either been blessed with super-human restraint or cursed with a weak sex drive.
    “What did you want?” he asked.
    “I wanted to feel wanted.”
    He understood. While she had not loved the man, his repeated rejections had nevertheless given her pain. She obviously resented her maidenhood and was eager to discard it. Were he a lesser man, he would have gladly done the job. But he was not a lesser man. He was a knight, and did not take advantage of the vulnerable.
    Though it grieved him, he withdrew from her and turned toward the moon. “Methinks it best if we wait a while before sleeping together.”
    Her sobs spun him back around. To his horror, she had crumpled to the ground and was weeping into her hands. His heart twisted in his chest. He could not bear to see a lass in distress—especially when he was the cause. Moving beside her, he dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms.
    “Why does nobody want me?” She moaned into his tunic. “Am I really so terrible?”
    Her breakdown unnerved him. He had suggested waiting to protect her, not to upset her. “You are nothing of the sort.”
    She snuffled. “Then why don’t you want me?”
    “I do want you. Most ardently. What I do not want is for us to misuse each other.”
    “I don’t understand.” She sniffed back her tears. “How would giving you my virginity qualify as misuse?”
    He had no desire to explain his feelings, partly because he did not understand them and partly because he had little experience putting his emotions into words. After some rumination, he said, being as honest as he knew how, “I want you to want me for myself, not as the means to an end.”
    “I do want you for yourself.” She twisted her fingers in the linen of his tunic. “I feel I can be myself with you—which is not a feeling I ever had with my betrothed. He always made me feel so flawed, undeserving, and unlovable.”
    “Then, be grateful you are free of him.” He stroked her hair. “For you are none of those things, and deserve no less than a husband who cherishes you.”
    “I am grateful he’s out of my life. I’m also grateful you’ve come into it. Even if it can only be for a little while.”
    A chill wind blew through his hair and disturbed the glassy surface of the pond. As she lifted her tear-streaked face to his, he was entranced. Utterly, completely, and helplessly. She drew from his depths the most potent longing he had ever experienced—overpowering, unbearable longing that rendered him dizzy and breathless.
    The moonlight had dyed her hair a muted shade of red-violet. Dipping his head, he let his mouth graze one wet cheek. She tasted salty but sweet, like the shortbread bars the village maidens left in the well at Yuletide.
    When she touched his face, the world tilted on its axis. The longing in her eyes matched his own. As his lips touched hers, her petal-soft mouth opened to him like a bud in the warm spring sunshine. His heart opened, too.
    Until this moment, he had seen women only as a pleasant place to stop along the way, but never the journey’s end. And now, after centuries of walking the road alone, he had finally found one he did not want to leave behind.
    Neither did he want to stop kissing her. Scooping her up, he carried her to the cottage, their lips locked together the whole way. On the porch, he set her down so she could open the door. Endless moments ticked past. Inside, she clasped his hand and