Sam's Creed. Sarah McCarty

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СКАЧАТЬ and romance of making his fortune, for leaving Spain and coming to the territory. Her mother would have been content being the wife of a third son of a respectable family. She was not content being the wife of the only aristocrat in the new land.

      That dissatisfaction drove her to want more for Isabella. In her mother’s eyes, Isabella needed to return to Spain to find a husband. Short of that, she needed to marry Tejala and secure the family’s future in the land to which her father had chosen to bring them. Her mother was a great believer in exploiting the rules of the society in which she found herself. So was Isabella. Just not in the same way.

      Her parents’ different views had torn their family apart, forced Isabella to flee, killed her father. She closed her eyes against that memory, everything going black around her, leaving only the sound of her father calling her name, Tejala’s laugh, a spray of blood hitting paper, an awful gurgle and then nothing. No more pain, no more dreams. Nothing except flight and the knowledge that each day might be the day Tejala found the way to force her to crawl. As if she would ever crawl to that son of a dog.

      “If you don’t ease up that grip, your dinner is gonna be crumbs.”

      Isabella looked down. She was holding the napkin so tightly the contents squeezed out between her fingers. “I am sorry.”

      She pulled the corner of the napkin back. One of the biscuits had survived pretty much intact. The jerky was invulnerable to the assault. She urged Sweet Pea closer to Breeze, gritting her teeth against the agony in her thighs. Holding out the food, she offered the intact biscuit. “This one did not suffer too much.”

      Those too-observant eyes of his touched on her face. She had not looked in a mirror lately, but she knew from how her face felt when she washed in the streams that she’d lost the plumpness in her cheeks. Her father would be horrified. She was unconcerned with that, but she wished she would lose a bit of the plumpness in her chest. The binding that kept her more-than-ample breasts from bouncing painfully was hot. And it made her break out in an irritation rash if she had to exert herself. As she had had to the past two days. Just thinking about the rash made her think of the itch, which immediately became in dire need of scratching. Of course, with Sam watching her so closely, she could not scratch a thing. She held out the biscuit. “You must hunger.”

      His blue eyes went dark. His nostrils flared and his gaze traveled her figure. “I can wait.”

      Her breath caught. He was not talking food, but because she could not think how to answer, she kept on with the pretense. “It is not possible I can eat all this.”

      Sweet Pea stepped in a hole, jerking her thighs along the rough edge of the saddle. The pain was too much. Dropping the packet of food, she grabbed the pommel, a groan grating past her lips. Kell made short work of her dinner. A blur of gray, a snap of teeth and it was gone.

      Strong hands cupped her waist. She squealed as Sweet Pea sidestepped, and suddenly she was falling. But only for a second. Then she was lifted and her rear connected with Sam’s hard thighs. His arm came around her stomach, securing her in place. Her hat fell back off her head, getting caught between his shoulder and her back. The string dug in like a noose around her neck. She grabbed for it, kicking with her feet, wrenching at the tie.

      Sam’s hands replaced hers, working between the string and her neck. “Easy, now.”

      She could not breathe. Harsh noises clogged her throat, struggling to get free. He was choking her. She clawed at his hands.

      “Isabella!”

      The call for attention slipped under her panic, giving her something to hold on to. She opened her eyes. Sam’s face was inches away. Sam. Not Tejala. His hand was on her shoulder. He was talking to her.

      “The string’s gone. You can breathe, Isabella. Just open your mouth and suck in some of this nice cool evening air.”

      He made it sound so simple. Just breathe in and out. No big deal for most people. But she had a horror of being choked. It came at the strangest times. And ususally in front of people she would prefer didn’t know. Like now. With Sam.

      His thumb brushed her jaw. “Now, Isabella.”

      She held his gaze and tried. The obstruction in her throat cleared. She took one breath, and then two. The night air was sweet. Then again, any air was sweet after choking almost to death. She touched her neck, tucked her fingers under the lax string of the hat and yanked it over her head.

      “Yeah, I think we can do without that for a bit.” Sam took the hat and hooked it over the saddle horn. His fingertips replaced hers at her throat. Just the tips, tracing the spot where the sensation of a noose lingered. As if he knew. She went breathless again. He moved his hand to her shoulder, just under the collar of her shirt. For no reason she could discern, she apologized. “I’m sorry. I do not like my throat touched.”

      His eyes lingered where his fingers had been.

      “So I noticed. Any particular reason?”

      She shrugged her shoulder, rubbing against his chest. It was a scandalous thing to feel his chest on her arm, his thighs under hers. “I just dislike it.”

      The callus on his fingertips tickled her skin. She was almost grateful when his hand left her shoulder and moved to the fabric of her shirt. The rough callus caught on the fabric, dragging just a little as his fingers traced down her arm, over the bend of her elbow before arriving at her hand. For some silly reason she expected him to hold it. He didn’t, but his fingers did move from her hand to her skirt, opening and closing as they gathered up the material. His gaze was so intent, his eyes so beautiful, the tingles that stretched from her neck to her hand so fascinating, she didn’t realize what he was doing at first. But when cool air hit her knees, reality came crashing back.

      “What do you do?”

      “Well, I could be planning on tossing up your skirts.”

      “We are on a horse.”

      “I’m not getting your point.”

      People could do that on horses? “You cannot be serious.”

      It was hard to tell with her vision blocked by the setting sun as it was, but she was pretty sure the creases at the corners of his eyes deepened, which meant he was amused.

      “Duchess, someone has sadly neglected your education.”

      “Women are not educated in such things.”

      “Uh-huh.” His response was low and deep, sensual nuance thickening his accent. She loved his accent. It was so different from her natural language, and different from the English spoken by the few white people she’d seen. His word choice was fuller, his grammar better. “Mine would be.”

      She gasped, and not because it was such a forbidden thing to say, but because it found such a home inside her. She could imagine this man doing wild things with his woman. She could imagine his woman enjoying it. She could imagine being his woman.

      Just the imagining sent the tingles in her arms leaping to her thighs, sensitizing the skin that seemed to swell into the curve of his palm. Between her legs her private parts swelled, too, and her heartbeat picked up the pace. This was desire, she realized. The evil thing that kept her on her knees in church. The downfall of mankind. This was the reason Tejala chased her. To feel this with her. To be the only one to feel this with her. It would not happen.

      She СКАЧАТЬ