Gayle Callen Read Online Free

fire. She wondered if sleep would come.
     
    Brother Reynold Welles came awake with a start, then remained still, listening. The slit of sky above his head was pale gray, heralding the coming dawn, illuminating the rough, gritstone chasm where they slept. For a brief moment, he wonderedif it had all been a bad dream, but when he looked, she was there, stretched out on her back with her face turned towards him in sleep.
    Reynold inhaled sharply, smelling once again the scent of woman. He closed his eyes and tried to suppress the groan of sheer pleasure that threatened to escape. He could not remember the last time he had seen a woman, let alone been close enough to smell one. Sensations he had struggled for months to suppress now rose in chorus to distract him. He remembered a serving girl at his parents’ castle, the white flesh of her thighs, the scent that lingered on her breasts. She was not afraid of him, like so many others. He had buried himself in her, and the heat and warmth of her even now seemed so real. Just when he was resigned to the life of a monk, to serving God for his sins, this woman appeared, in need of rescue.
    Reynold propped himself up on one arm and looked at her. He regretted it almost instantly, as the serving girl disappeared from his mind and a new woman took her place. She glowed with a quiet beauty, this dirt-streaked girl, with her honey-blond curls draped over half of her face. Without thinking, Reynold allowed his trembling fingers to touch her hair, to lift it away from her mouth. His hand looked so large and brutish beside the delicate bones of her face that he snatched it back as if burned. He told himself he was a monk now, that there was no turning back. A sly second voice whispered that he was only a novice, that his final vows had not been spoken.
    But that was the path to the sins he had once committed. He had to help this woman because honor demanded it, because a good Christian brother always helped those less fortunate. Yet Reynold’s gaze did not look for her soul. He saw long, golden-brown lashes resting on cheeks blushed red from the sun. Her face was saucy, heart-shaped, with lips soft and full for kisses.
    Reynold broke into a sweat, but still he could not stop looking at her, could not move away even if the prior himself had come upon them. She was all soft and round and feminine, so small to his bulky body with its awkward height.
    He suddenly saw the way his mind was moving, and he was horrified. His lust was unforgivable—only her safety mattered. For just one moment, her white, still face reminded him sharply of Edmund’s face.
    My God, Edmund. It was still almost too painful to think of his brother, who had labored so long over books that his skin rarely saw the sun. That was what had brought Reynold to Katherine, her weakness, her need. He had tried to crush these things in his brother, as if such people weren’t worthy of the great knight, Sir Reynold Welles. He had paid for that pathetic arrogance, paid over and over with his brother’s blood. He had vowed to take his brother’s place as best he could, to atone for his sins, to help any poor soul who needed him, no matter the task. And yet—
    And yet he was a man who appreciated spirit and courage, of which he suspected this girl hadaplenty. He would help her, though resisting her appeal might prove harder than any penance he had suffered.
    Stretching out one arm, he rested his head upon it and continued to gaze at her. Her eyes suddenly opened and looked straight into his.

Chapter 3
    K atherine choked back the scream that threatened to erupt from her throat. She lay face to face with the monk, body beside body, the heat of him overpowering the cold of the earth below. He stared at her from under dark brows, with eyes whose color she could scarce comprehend. They were a brilliant, clear purple, shining out of the prominent bones of his face, searing her with strength and a terrible intensity. What could he