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trunk, she stared warily at the black ribbon while her heart thudded against her rib cage.
    Abruptly, she was caught by one arm, and then flung around so that the bark of the tree scraped her back. A hard body pressed against her, flattening her against the trunk from head to heels. She caught a sharp, gasping breath and held it trapped in her lungs.
    “I should have let them get you,” Rayne said against her ear as the great metal vehicles thundered past them.
    She exhaled in a rush of what might have been relief or shock—or both. Her voice constricted, she asked, “Why didn’t you?”
    “Because,” Rayne answered in low tones as he eased closer still, “I discovered that I want you more.”

Chapter Three

    Mara drew a swift breath. The words Rayne had spoken were no idle jest or jeering banter. She could feel the truth of them as he pressed his pelvis against her.
    No man had ever wanted her for herself. At least, none had dared show it.
    The baron had certainly harbored no personal desire for her. To him, she was merely a route to power. Marrying her would be a political ploy, bedding her an act no more important to him than pressing his seal into the soft wax at the foot of the marriage contract.
    If other knights and nobles of her court had felt passionate regard for her, they kept it to themselves. There was little benefit to be gained by lusting after a princess. She was not free to bestow her heart, and usually too well-guarded for stolen kisses or secret trysts.
    Until now.
    She was here with Rayne and they were alone. She wondered what he might dare, also whether she had the courage to discover it.
    Where had that impulse come from?
    She could not tell, not while she was trapped by his hard hands and her blood surged in her veins with such a violent, uneven rhythm. Nothing and no one had ever affected her in quite this way.
    “You forget yourself, sir,” she said in husky reproof, and waited for his response in mingled terror and expectation.
    He laughed. “You mean I’m forgetting who you are? It’s hardly likely.”
    “I mean,” she said evenly, “that you forget your place. And mine.”
    He shifted a little to let her feel his arousal more fully. “I have no place here, nor do you. We are only a man and a woman with nothing between us except good intentions and a few rags of clothing.”
    “One of us has good intentions. The other—”
    “Yes?” he said softly as she cut off what she meant to say.
    The dappled sunlight falling through the tree limbs overhead gleamed in his hair and danced in his eyes. It made him seem like some woodland creature, fierce and a little fey. Also familiar in some elusive fashion. Doubt stirred inside her, but she pushed it from her. He was only an outlaw, after all.
    “One of us,” she said deliberately, “has the intentions and instincts of an animal.”
    His face lost all expression. “Why, Princess,” he said with a sardonic edge to his voice, “you should have told me before. I would have been happy to oblige your natural desires.”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “Oh, I think you did, sweetheart. And so do I.”
    Holding her gaze, he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers.
    Warm…his mouth was warm as the fine spring morning, and just as beguiling. Without haste or undue pressure, he teased her lips into exquisite sensitivity, tasting their flavor, the delicate molding and tucked, moist corners. Her lashes fluttered down as a tremor leaped along her nerves, spreading to the deepest reaches of her body. Her limbs, which had been so taut, were suddenly pliant and accepting.
    His lips parted infinitesimally then, and she felt the soft tip of his tongue engage hers in subtle play. Blindly, she followed his lead, enticed by the sweetness, the fine grained abrasiveness, of the tender invasion. From deep inside rose a peculiar, aching excitement. She lifted her hands with a soft murmur, smoothing them over his shoulders and the strong column of his