Chapters (18)
‘She wants my heart?’ She laughed and then choked on the fresh tears. ‘My heart?’
‘I’ll have to take your horse,’ the huntsman said. ‘It will make it more believable. She doesn’t trust me.’ This brought a fresh wave of tears and he wondered if she was listening to him at all, but she patted the horse’s neck and then pressed her face into it. Finally, she looked up at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘She owed me a life,’ he answered, simply. The queen, who claimed to know the huntsman’s code, had not realised how closely he lived by it. Regardless of the danger it might place him in, the stag’s wasted life demanded the balance was restored. The weeping princess threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, a sudden gesture he had no time to pull back from. Her body was warm through his clothes, her nipples pressing into him through his thin shirt. His arms folded around her, his hands on the taut curve of her back, fighting the urge to slip them down to the rise of her buttocks.
‘Thank you,’ she repeated. After a moment, she stiffened in his arms. ‘I can smell her on you,’ she said, pulling back slightly before pushing her face into his neck and breathing deeply. She looked up at him. ‘It’s her. You’ve been with her.’ Between her body pressed against his and her breath on his skin, the huntsman couldn’t stop himself responding. She could feel it, he was sure. What was going on today?
‘If you tell your father,’ he said, roughly, ‘it won’t just be her head he takes. It will be mine too. He tried to step back, but she kept her arms around him. They were strong and he could feel the lean muscles beneath her skin.
‘What did you do with her?’ she asked, her eyes drifting half-shut, tears still falling. ‘Touch me like you touched her. Touch me like she touched you.’ The huntsman said nothing, once again feeling like a pawn in a game he hadn’t signed up to play. Soldiers would be coming to find him if he didn’t return soon. And this girl was a princess, not a wicked queen. She should not be touched by any man before her wedding day. Not even by the man saving her life. He felt the strands of the web he was trapped in tightening around him as she pressed her body into his and lifted her lips. ‘Kiss me like she kissed you,’ she whispered, all hot breath and warm skin. ‘Please.’
And, cursing his own nature, he did.
