The Warrior by Nicole Jordan

as intense as any he’d ever known. A muscle tensed in Ranulf’s jaw at the effort to keep from reaching out to her.
    He could see the faint pulse throbbing in her white throat as he stood drinking in Ariane’s beauty. Pale and perfect. Delicate as a rose. Innocent and vulnerable as a babe . . . Except that she was no babe, nor child either. She was a beautiful woman, who stirred his passions as no wench ever had.
    He wanted to touch her.
    Without thinking, he reached down to graze the soft skin of her brow with his thumb, then drew back abruptly, cursing himself for his weakness. When she awakened, the scorn in her silver-gray eyes would flay him without mercy.
    And yet he could not resist the temptation. Unwillingly, he ran his thumb over the pale curve of her cheek, tracing the fragile bone and delicate hollow beneath. Her soft sigh as she stirred beneath his touch was a whisper of sound, a lover’s plea.
    His body hardened as heated images flickered before his eyes. . . . Ariane shuddering and straining beneath him. . . . Ariane willing and eager, welcoming him into her bed, into her body. . . .
    A bitter smile twisted Ranulf’s mouth. She would never be eager for his touch. She rued their betrothal, rued ever hearing his name. She would be glad to be free of him.
    He is no true knight. A grasping, baseborn pretender to nobility.
    He should have felt relief that she found their betrothal so repugnant. Should have been pleased that her own defiant actions released him from any obligation toward her. He had been prepared to honor his word, but now he need not feel remorse for delaying his arrival for so long, or for repudiating their union. In truth, it was fortunate he had discovered her true feelings—the contempt she harbored for him—in time, before he was irrevocably tied to her.
    And yet . . . a hollow ache he could not explain centered in Ranulf’s chest, along with other, less precise feelings of turmoil.
    The savage rage he’d felt earlier toward her had faded, leaving behind a familiar emptiness. His irrational fury, Ranulf realized in some dark corner of his mind, had not been directed at Ariane so much as at his own despised father, for making him fight for what rightfully was his.
    The battle for Claredon would be similar to his long-ago struggle for Vernay, Ranulf acknowledged, yet it was not vengeance that drove him this time, but duty. He felt a measure of regret that he would be compelled to take Ariane hostage, but he had no choice in the matter. Henry’s orders were clear. A traitor’s lands were automatically forfeit, and swift retribution against Walter of Claredon would serve as a lesson to others who would defy Henry’s rule. Moreover, Ariane’s own actions had sealed her fate, Ranulf reminded himself. Refusing the king’s order to surrender the castle made her a traitor to the crown. He could perhaps understand her defense of the castle and her loyalty to her father, but he could not condone it, nor allow her defiance to continue.
    I would that I had never heard his name.
    “But you have heard my name, demoiselle,” Ranulf whispered bleakly.
    With a muted sigh, he settled one hip on the high bed, beside his sleeping betrothed. Carefully he lifted the pale, thick tendrils of her hair away from her ear and pressed the delicate line of her jaw beneath, prepared to wake her quietly.
     
    Her dream seemed so very real. The gentle rasp of pressure over her skin . . . the seductive warmth against her cheek . . . the lush, sensual pleasure of a caressing rhythm . . .
    A lover’s stroking hand?
    My beloved, have you come for me at last?
    Within the drugged oblivion of slumber, Ariane arched against the unfamiliar heat, aching for some unnamed fulfillment. Her body seemed aflame with need. Her eyelids felt so heavy . . . yet she could almost see him . . . her dream lover . . . tall and powerful, godlike in countenance and bearing. His passion was just as she had always imagined it would be: