Danger's Kiss Read Online Free Page A

talons.
    Nicholas took a moment to study the curious wench.  She had lovely features, despite the grimaces and vile oaths distorting them.  One would never guess so much bloodlust lurked behind that pretty face.  Her brows came together like dark slashes over fiery green eyes with impossibly long lashes.  Her chestnut-colored hair, now loosened from its thick braid, hung in strands over beautifully sculpted cheekbones and a stubbornly jutting jaw.  Her lips were full and supple and expressive.  Indeed, for one brief moment he found himself idly wondering what such lips would taste like pressed against his...
    Until the barbarous wench kicked him hard between the legs.
    A shock of blinding pain made him sink reflexively to the floor.  Sheer determination alone allowed him to keep a grip on the wicked woman’s throat.
    He gasped, unable to speak as the dull ache spread inexorably through his loins.  Meanwhile, the merciless shrew fought him tooth and nail, shrieking, snarling, pounding and scratching at his arm.  But the pain of her attack was nothing compared to the misery afflicting his ballocks.
    Finally able to talk, he bit out a weak threat.  “You’ll regret that, wench.”
    Incredibly, she spat back, “Not if it keeps you from spawning.”
    Somehow he summoned the strength to stand again.  Still holding her by the throat, he looped his free arm around her waist and hefted her sideways, settling her onto his hip, where she could do minimal damage.  But he knew she wouldn’t be harmless for long.  The little imp was as slippery and full of squirm as an eel out of water.
    “Let me go, you arse-wisp!  Bastard!  Unhand me!”
    Somewhere he had a pair of iron shackles.  Maybe if he secured her somewhere, he could scare some sense into her.  Then he’d release her, she’d run off, properly frightened, and he could nurse his hurts and go back to dozing by the fire.

    Desirée screamed in wordless rage.  Her voice was hoarse, partly because she was being throttled and partly because she’d worn it out, cursing the shire-reeve with every oath she knew.
    He was a fool for not killing her with his bare hands while he had the chance, for now she didn’t dare leave his house until his blood drenched the floor and he was staring up at the rafters with glassy, dead eyes.
    “Be still, wench!”
    He clamped her against his side, so tightly she could scarcely draw breath.  She fought him, to little avail, twisting against ribs that were as unyielding as iron bars, scratching ineffectual furrows down his arms with her bitten nails.
    With an exasperated growl, he lurched forward, and she struggled even more fiercely as he headed through the passage into the next chamber.
    When she glimpsed the huge pallet shoved against one wall, her heart congealed into a lump of ice.  God’s blood!  Did he mean to...
    She heard him take something down from the wall, but she was too preoccupied with the implications of the bed to notice anything else.
    “Nay!” she shrieked at him, bucking wildly back and forth in an attempt to loosen his grip on her as they neared the pallet.
    Suddenly she was flung forcefully down onto the big bed, and before she could scramble away, his knee came down beside her, blocking her way.  She would have rolled in the opposite direction, but he snatched her wrist and, before she could pull free, clamped a shackle around it.
    Bloody hell!  She was in trouble now.
    With her free fist, she struck at him again and again, bruising her knuckles on his hard skull, swishing through air, connecting solidly once with his jaw.
    “God’s eyes, wench!”  He raised his arm to block another punch, meanwhile securing the adjoining shackle to the base of the bed’s support.
    Panic streaked through Desirée’s brain, but she didn’t dare succumb to it.  There was still a chance she could knock the man out with a well-placed kick.
    She twisted, thrashing her feet until they were free of her cloak and