His laughter was harsh. “You want me inside you sweetheart.”
His graphic words stunned her for a moment. “You are a savage, a pirate, a man who preys upon those weaker than himself.” She crouched on the floor, staring up at him. “You are preying on me just as you have preyed on those other women. I do not want you!”
“Other women have welcomed me into their embrace.”
Katherine laughed. “Then they were whores and sluts.”
He bent over her, angry. “I do not lie with pox-ridden whores. My last mistress was a dowager countess.”
She regarded him, unwilling to believe him, but he was so angry that she thought he spoke the truth. How had he seduced a countess? Katherine just could not fathom it. No matter that he was so strikingly attractive.
“Some women are not afraid of passion,” he said, watching her closely. His chest heaved. “But then, they are not convent-bred, teary-eyed virgins.”
Katherine cried out. She lurched to her feet, livid, ignoring a small inner voice that told her to retreat. “I am not afraid of passion,” she shouted. “I want nothing more than to be with a man—a noble man, a good man—a man who is my husband.”
He stared at her, unspeaking, his shoulders rigid. Finally he said, “And who is this paragon?”
Katherine lifted her chin. “I have not found him yet.”
His laughter was cold and cruel, derisive.
Furious that he was laughing at her she cried, “I have been in a convent for six years, so how could I have found him? Know this. I do not yearn for an ungodly, murderous, thieving pirate.”
Fire leapt in his eyes. He was holding a bottle of brandy. He lifted it to his lips and swigged from it, not once, but several times, yet all the while his smoldering gaze remained upon her. Katherine regretted her words, knowing she had pushed him too far. She feared he might snap and become the savage beast again, and force her to his will.
He stared at her coldly. “I must be mad,” he said. “To have embroiled myself with one such as you.”
“Then release me.”
There was no hesitation. “No.”
“Please.”
He did not respond.
Katherine’s breasts heaved. “Then rape me and be done with it.”
His glance skewered her. His face contorted. The bottle went flying. Katherine flinched and cried out as the brandysmashed against one of the walls. Then, to her horror, he was upon her.
How she regretted her rash, stupid words, her incitement! She screamed as he bent down to her. He lifted her and tossed her onto the bed. Katherine bounced and came up scrambling away from him. He caught her foot and yanked her down, hard, on her face. And then he was on top of her, pinning her in place.
Katherine froze. He was as still as she, except for the pulsing of his body against hers and the short, heavy labored breaths coming from his chest. “Shall I rape you and be done with it?” he asked in her ear.
His breath licked her flesh. Katherine shook her head, terrified, and acutely aware of how easy it would be for him to lift her skirts and do the deed. Fear did not override the heavy, throbbing sensation of his flesh wedged against hers.
“Shall I rape you and be done with it?” he demanded.
“No!”
He rolled off of her and left the bed.
Katherine jerked into a sitting position, then hurled herself across the bed and into the farthest corner away from him, pressing her back into the wood-paneled wall.
He stared at her, unblinking. Steel glinted, flashing.
Katherine sucked in her breath, her eyes frozen upon the long, lethal dagger that appeared in his hand.
Neither of them moved, neither of them spoke. Suddenly the dagger flew from his hand. It landed in the wall beside her head, inches from her cheek. Katherine stared at the quivering blade, fear running down her body in rivulets of sweat. Then she blinked and their gazes clashed hard. His eyes glittered savagely.
