Madeline’s foolishness struck her the moment the triumph of Silver Leg’s men swung into something else. Carnal heat, she knew. Powerful lust, blessedly not aimed at her, but still unsettling. A glance their way showed the reason - a lightly-clad, salacious-looking woman just stepping from the shadows of the sleeping hall.

Not that she cared what fired the men’s blood. As long as they forgot her, she was safe.

If only she could guard her heart as easily.

But she couldn’t and as if Iain felt the same, he was already pulling back from her, breaking their kiss.

“That wasnae wise, sweeting.” He caught her gaze, his eyes dark, his brows drawn low. “You dinnae know what follows kisses. I told you, I am no’ monk.”

“And I know…” She shivered, aware that one of Silver Leg’s men was troubled, questioned the folly of risking a tumble with a tavern lightskirt against losing their prey.

Already, his gaze strayed, darting between the woman and her. The second man wasn’t a threat, his lust consuming him.

Madeline wanted to run, but doing so would ruin everything.

They would chase her. Especially if they saw her face clearly, knew for certain she was who they thought. They still weren’t decided, only suspicious.

So she had no choice.

Grasping Iain’s face, she locked her gaze with his. “You are no pilgrim, nor a holy man,” she said, stunned by her daring. “Nor am I yet veiled. You are a bonnie man. I am still a woman unbound. Is it wrong to want the memory of a few kisses before I surrender to a life without passion?”

To her dismay, he frowned and gripped her wrists, lowering her hands from his face.

“I am no despoiler of innocents.” He shook his head. “I’ll no’ lie. I will own that I thought of kissing you when we stopped here.” He paused, his frown deepening. “Now I know you have ne’er been kissed. I will no’ slake my lust on a virgin and then leave her at a convent door.”

“You would doom me to not have such a special memory?”

“I think you are playing me for a fool.” He took a quick drink of ale, slapped down the cup. “I just dinnae know why.”

“I surprise myself,” Madeline admitted, more honest than he knew. “I enjoyed our kiss.” She closed her eyes, drew a breath. “I think I will perish if you do not kiss me again.”

It was true, for more reasons than one.

“You ask too much.”

She leaned in, her blood rushing in her ears. “Please, I beg you. Kiss me again. Long and deeply.”

“Odin’s bone,” he snarled, the heat in his eyes no longer from annoyance, but passion fired.

She’d won.

“Oh, praise the gods…” Her heart thumping, she pressed closer to him, winding her arms about his broad shoulders, stretching her fingers into his hair.

She wanted this, needed his kiss.

If only this once, she didn’t care.

She did melt, a luxurious warmth spilling through her when, though he cursed again, he also gripped the back of her head and rained kisses across her forehead, her cheeks, and even the tip of her nose.

“I cannae resist you, lassie.” He brushed more kisses against her temple. “You draw me too fiercely.”

“I do?” Madeline pulled back to peer at him, and his eyes met hers with startling intimacy, revealing an undeniable bond between them.

A connection so powerful it surged through her, touching her soul, she was sure. Every inch of her ignited, warming beneath his bold and claiming gaze.

But then he sighed, and a shadow flickered across his face. The fleeting sadness revealed a vulnerability so poignant that a wholly different need swept her.

The wish to stroke and soothe him, to banish whatever troubled him so deeply.

She sat straighter, dredged up her courage. “I… we-” she began, intending to share her own darkest secret, tell him what she knew of his heart, and how. But he leaned in, stilling her with a gentle flick of his tongue across her lower lip.

“Do no’ say it,” he whispered against her cheek. “Nae words, no’ now.”

He kneaded her shoulders, his touch distracting her. “Acknowledging what is between us would only bring pain. Let it be enough to ken your sweetness could easily bring me to my knees.”

Once more, sadness glimmered in his eyes. “Aye, precious lass, you could make me forget more than my tattered honor.” He traced a finger along her jaw. “Much more.”

Honor, he’d said.

For sure, he’d made her forget her own.

She winced at that truth, shame sliding through her like sheets of icy water.

Somewhere a shutter slammed, its banging almost as loud as the thunder. But then a burst of laughter came from Silver Leg’s men. Their debauchery was thicker now and it iced her bones, knifing into her in a worse way than the cold air streaming through the rain-drenched shutter slats.

Disgust flooded her, too, for the men’s lechery only underscored her own breathless need.

Was she now a wanton?

She supposed so, because…

The place between her thighs tingled with shamefully wicked sensations. Trickling desire she couldn’t ignore, and it beat just as urgent as the baseness firing the ruffians’ blood. She felt a keen awareness of Iain, a need that deepened with each swirl of his tongue against hers.

The intimacy of his kiss, how they’d melded together, bound her physical body to him as soundly as his nightly visits to her soul had endeared him to her heart.

Sure she was losing control, she struggled against the urge to bury her face into his shoulder and breathe deeply. His scent excited her and she drank it in greedily, reveling in its masculine blend of brisk cold air, old stone, and leather.

She also caught a pleasing dash of peat smoke and an elusive but irresistible hint of pure, unadulterated male.

Her heart racing, she combed her fingers through his hair, let the luxurious black strands slide across the backs of her hands.

There could be no doubt that he’d charmed her.

She inhaled, again wondering if he was a sorcerer. “You smell-”

He reared back, startling her. “I what?”

“The scent of you. I am almost drunk on it, it is that heady.”

“So good?”

“Better.”

He laughed, his face transforming, giving her a glimpse of his appeal, how dangerously attractive he was.

“Nae lass has e’er told me the like.” He looked amused. “Are you e’er so plainspoken?”

“I am now,” she admitted, emboldened indeed. “It must be your kisses.”

“Then you shall have more.” He pulled her closer, slanting his mouth over hers. Roughly this time, a deep, open-mouthed kiss, raw and savage.

“Oooh…” she gasped, her cry lost in the rush of shared breath, tangling tongues.

Now she knew for sure she’d lost herself.

And her scruples.

Abandoning them so irrevocably, she even forgot Silver Leg’s hirelings and the need to shield herself from them. She just wanted him to keep on kissing her as if nothing else mattered.

So she cast off all caution, surrendering to sensation and nothing else. Let the storm-chased night send a bolt of lightning to hurl her straight to hell. She still didn’t want this delicious madness to end.

But it must.

That truth slammed back into her now and it doused her desire as swiftly as if someone had tossed a bucket of icy water over her foolish head.

Her eyes flew wide, the reason she’d flung herself at him once again foremost in her mind. Pulling away, she glanced at the two men whose raging lust hit her like a wave of choking, vile-tasting bile.

She followed their stares, her eyes straining to peer through the haze of bluish peat smoke hanging above the common room’s crowded tables.

The joy woman she’d noticed before now lounged in the entrance to the alehouse’s darkened sleeping hall. The woman’s heavy-lidded eyes and how she stroked the folds of her skirts just where her thighs met, a clear invitation for any man eager to enjoy her charms.

Well-made and with a mass of rich-gleaming auburn curls tumbling to her waist, her generous breasts nearly burst from the lowest-cut gown Madeline had ever seen.

The top halves of the woman’s nipples peeped above the edge of her plunging bodice. More shocking, the tightly-puckered crests appeared rouged. Madeline shifted on the bench, uncomfortably aware of the hardened peaks of her own breasts. How visible they’d be without the borrowed shawl draped about her shoulders.

Across the room, the joy woman smiled at her audience as she arched her back. The stretch caused her breasts to swell against her bodice so that the thrusting tips popped into view for any who cared to admire them.

And many did.

Hoots, shouts of masculine glee, and a few chuckles applauded her ribaldry.

Heat inched up the back of Madeline’s neck, and she tightened her grip on Iain’s shoulders.

She risked a glance at him.

He also stared at the woman. But unlike the thick cloud of lust she could almost see swirling around Silver Leg’s men and the other alehouse patrons, his granite-set features revealed only indifference, perhaps annoyance.

You should no’ witness such a performance, she thought she heard him say. But his words were lost beneath a round of cheers as every man present and not too deep in his cups praised the joy woman’s bountiful wares.

A largish man at the next table leaned forward, his eyes almost bugging from his ale-flushed face. “’Fore God, if those teats wouldn’t harden a dead man’s lance!”

“Mine already is hard,” another declared, his proclamation drawing a chorus of guffaws.

“I mean to wrap those curling tresses all around my hardness,” one of Silver Leg’s men boasted, making for the woman.

Madeline stared in horrified fascination. Almost forgetting to breathe, she was only vaguely aware of Iain pulling her close again. He eased her head to his shoulder, holding her there, the flat of his hand pressed firmly over her ear.

The beat of his heart pounded hard and steady beneath her cheek, and she didn’t need her gift to sense his anger.

Mounting fury he strove hard to quell, outrage that warmed her despite its ferocity. Her feminine instincts told her the reason for his ire was having brought her to a place where she’d be exposed to such a sordid display.

Regardless, she couldn’t tear away her gaze.

As if bespelled, she looked on as the second of Silver Leg’s men, the older one, hitched his loose-fitting hose to accommodate the tent-like protrusion of his arousal.

“You can have those curls,” he called to his friend’s back, starting after him. “‘Tis her other curls I want to see. The lower ones!”

“Och, aye, now that’d be a fine sight,” a slurred voice agreed from somewhere in a back corner.

“Shall I give you a peek?” The joy woman’s painted lips curved in a smile.

“I will die happy if ye do!” Slur-voice called back to her. “Happy and hard.”

“Then I willnae deny you.” Giving a throaty laugh, the woman caught her skirts with both hands and slowly pulled apart a hitherto hidden split in the fabric to offer the men a glimpse at the dark red curls topping her thighs.

Madeline gasped.

Iain swore.

He shot to his feet, dragging her with him. “I knew we shouldn’t have stopped here,” he fumed, scowling.

His temper firing his blood, he threw a glance at the door to the kitchen. “Where is the ale-keeper?” he shouted, his attention snapping back to the two men pawing the joy woman’s breasts.

Craven bastards he meant to question Madeline about at first opportunity. He hadn’t missed how she kept glancing at them and there had to be a reason.

One he wouldn’t like, he suspected.