Where's My Hero? Read online

  She opened it to find her lock of hair inside, just as he’d promised. “You kept it?”

  “I told you I did. I know you don’t believe me, but I swear that I never lied to you. I only omitted telling you what the S stood for because I didn’t want to lose you. For once, I wanted something for myself.”

  Her hands shook as she closed the locket that held her hair. A thousand emotions flooded her. She was still angry over his falseness, but not even that could blot what she felt for him.

  He had kept her close to his heart, just as he’d written. And as she thought of that, she remembered all the tender sentiments they had shared. All the secrets and disappointments of their pasts. Their hopes for the future.

  The smiles and laughter his letters had brought to her…

  “I’m not some great and noble champion, Kenna. I’m only a man who has nothing to offer a lady like you. For a time, your letters let me be more than what I am. Forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you.”

  He pulled back and turned away.

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  She knew this man. Knew him on a level that transcended friendship and lovers. It transcended understanding and reason.

  It most certainly transcended a tiny omission of fact.

  “I dwell in misery…”

  He paused at her words and finished the sentence. “…my heart seeks the light that only your letters provide.” He gave a half laugh. “Rather insipid, isn’t it? Christopher of Blackmoor always said I should keep to my sword and not pick up his quill. He says I do far more damage with ink than I could ever do on a battlefield.”

  She smiled past the tears that choked her. “Nay, your words are beautiful. I treasured each one.”

  And she had. Every moment of every day she had watched for a messenger to come bearing another tie to her knight. She’d rushed from her duties to take the letters so that she could read them in solitude.

  They had meant the world to her.

  Just as he did.

  Simon took a deep breath. “If you wish, I will help you to marry Stryder, my lady. I know ways to get past his defenses.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  The sincerity on his handsome face made her shiver. “I would do anything you asked of me, Kenna.”

  A tear fell down her cheek at that. This was the man with whom she’d fallen in love.

  Not Stryder and his reputation. Not some invincible champion.

  She’d fallen in love with a man. One who had made her feel beautiful even though she didn’t possess the great beauty of her cousin Caledonia. One who had made her laugh and filled her heart with warm, tender joy.

  She took Simon’s hand in hers and held it to her heart. “And if it’s not Stryder I love?”

  Simon couldn’t breathe as her question rang in his ears.

  Was she saying…

  “Tell me what I can do, my lady, to make this right, and I will do it.”

  “I would make true my heart’s fondest wish. A kiss from your tender lips and a pledge from my heart to yours.”

  He swallowed as she repeated the words he’d written in his last letter to her.

  “Do you love me, Simon?”

  “Aye.”

  Then she did the most unexpected thing of all. She released his hand, stepped into his embrace, and kissed him.

  The feathery touch of her lips on his shook him profoundly. How could she want him?

  It was unfathomable.

  This woman whose warm humor had come to him like a gentle caress, giving him comfort on a level he’d never known existed. It still amazed him just how much he’d come to depend on her letters. How much he depended on her.

  “I have nothing to offer you, Kenna.”

  “I only want your heart, Simon. I ask nothing else from you.”

  He smiled at her, unable to believe the reality of this moment. It was so much more than he’d ever dared to dream. “That I gladly give you, my lady.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  He wanted to keep her with him forever, but he knew the truth.

  Her family would never allow him to marry her. Not even his friendship with Sin MacAllister or Stryder, or his blood relations to Draven would be enough to convince them.

  She was an heiress of great wealth with ties to the Scottish throne. Her guardian would set his sights on a richer, more prestigious husband than a disinherited bastard.

  It was only a matter of time before they were separated.

  But even though fate decreed otherwise, he wanted to spend time with her. Wanted to pretend that there were no rules or expectations of others to govern their lives.

  “Would you spend the day with me?” he asked.

  “Where?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not familiar with this area. Care to explore the countryside?”

  Smiling, she nodded. “I would love to.”

  Simon left her only long enough to saddle his horse, then he led it over to her.

  Kenna was puzzled as Simon approached her with only one mount.

  Did he intend to leave her behind?

  Before she could comment, he picked her up and set her on his horse. The feel of his arms and hands on her body made her heart pound. She’d never known anything better than the sensation of his touch against her flesh.

  “Where are we to ride?”

  “Wherever strikes our fancy.” He gave her a hot, searing look, then mounted his horse behind her.

  The saddle tilted dangerously until he was settled behind her. His entire body was pressed against hers. It was intimate and intense. Electrifying.

  Kenna trembled at his actions, especially when his arms came around her to take the reins. No man had ever done such with her. Men had always kept a respectful distance.

  But not Simon.

  He dared what no other would.

  And she found herself wondering what other things he would dare with her before this day ended. She should be afraid to ride off with him alone, but she wasn’t.

  She wanted this man. Wanted to be his and his alone.

  He was her champion.

  Simon set his heels to the horse and whisked her out of the castle’s bailey, through the barbican and out into the meadow that surrounded the castle.

  They flew across the fields. The power of the horse was evocative, but not nearly as much as the strength of the man who held her. His heart pounded against her shoulder blade. Every step of the horse threw her back against him in a scintillating rhythm.

  She could feel his hot breath on her neck, the steel of his arms coiled around her.

  She’d never known anything like this.

  Time seemed to stop as they rode far away from the world. Far away from any other living person.

  Simon took her deep into the forest, where there was no one but the two of them.

  He stopped by the shore of a shimmering lake that gently lapped at the mossy bank. He helped her down. Simon quickly rubbed his horse down before leaving the beast to graze and drink.

  She waited patiently and admired the way his muscles flexed and bunched while he worked. It was the first time she’d ever noticed the way a man’s body moved while he exerted himself. She was fascinated by the color that darkened his cheeks, by the look of his large hands being so gentle with his animal.

  Simon was powerful. Strong, and yet tender in his caring. She smiled at the knowledge.

  Once finished, he rejoined her. Taking her by the hand, he led her to where a small circle of rocks formed a strange table-and-chair design.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked as she walked around the small outcropping of rocks.

  “Nothing. I merely want to sit so that I can look at you and not have to worry about anyone else disturbing us.”

  Kenna frowned at his words. “Why would you wish to do that?”

  “Because I have dreamed of your face every night for a year now. When next I leave, I want to make sure that I won’t forget even the tinie
st detail of you.”

  He sat down, then pulled her to sit beside him on the mossy grass.

  Kenna didn’t speak as she watched him. He leaned back against a rock, his gaze never wavering from hers.

  The intensity of that icy blue stare unnerved her. She wasn’t sure what she should say to him.

  How strange. She’d always had plenty to say to him in letters. But then their letters had been safe.

  There was nothing safe about the man beside her.

  He was dangerous. She could sense it. This was a man who had stood single-handedly against his enemies. One who had put his life at risk for others, countless times.

  “Edward used to tell me stories of how you would help—”

  “Shh,” he said, placing his fingertip over her lips. “I’ve no wish to remember my past. My time in Outremer was a nightmare best left forgotten.”

  She nodded. The horrors of their existence had haunted her brother until the day he’d died. Once Edward returned home, he’d refused ever to be in darkness. They had paid servants to stay awake all night long, keeping the fire and candles in his room burning until the dawn. Edward himself had purchased dozens of cats to make sure no rodents would ever be found in their hall.

  For the first year of his return, Edward had been like a madman. Terrified and nervous. Screaming out for no apparent reason, sitting for hours curled up into a ball as he held on to himself and rocked endlessly.

  All of them had feared for Edward’s sanity until one night, when a stranger had shown up. To this day, she didn’t know the man’s name. He’d stayed with Edward for several months until her brother could again function as a man and not a scared animal waiting to be kicked.

  When the man had left, he’d handed Edward the badge she had returned to Stryder in Normandy—the mark of the Brotherhood of the Sword, a group of men whose ties to each other went far deeper than blood. Theirs was a brotherhood of sorrow and grief. One of unimaginable torment and pain.

  Now there was Simon. He who had been in the thick of it and yet seemed to have somehow survived it whole and undamaged.

  She marveled at his strength.

  “What will you do after the tournament?” she asked.

  “Stryder wishes to return to Normandy for a while.”

  Her stomach tightened at the thought of him so far away again. “You will go with him?”

  “I haven’t decided. What of you?”

  She sighed as she thought it over. “I shall return home. The Angel sent word that there is another Scot who needs a resting place for a time before he returns to his family. I shall be there to make him welcome.”

  Simon nodded.

  The Angel was the only woman who had been in their company during their days in Outremer. Only Simon and the other four members of the Quinfortis had known The Angel was a woman. The five of them had protected her carefully from their enemies.

  He was grateful to Kenna for continuing to uphold her brother’s oath to help save and protect those who had suffered the horrors of a Saracen prison.

  Kenna was a good woman, one he would spend the rest of his life aching for.

  How he wished things were different.

  Simon sat quietly, watching the wind play in the tendrils of her brown hair, watching her long, graceful fingers toy with the trim of her dress.

  He was captivated by those hands. Hands he wanted to feel on his skin. Fingers he wanted to taste and tease…

  For the first time in his life, he felt awkward with a woman. He was so unsure of himself. So afraid of saying the wrong thing and making her demand that he leave her.

  He watched as she picked up a blade of grass and used her hands to make a light whistle from it.

  “What are you doing, my lady?”

  She smiled, then blew against it again. “I’m calling the fey folk.”

  “Why?”

  “So that they can give you back the silver tongue that wooed me so effectively. You are stiff with me now and I’ve no wish for you to be stiff.”

  He cleared his throat at her choice of words. She had no idea just how stiff he was.

  She tossed the blade of grass aside. “Whatever can I do to make you relax?”

  Lay with me and let me nibble every inch of you…

  Simon cleared his throat at the lecherous thought.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  He started to lie to her, but couldn’t. He’d never really lied to her before. They’d always had an open honesty between them where their feelings were concerned, and he had no desire to change that. “I dare not say it.”

  “Why not?”

  His breathing ragged, he held her golden brown gaze with his. “Because what I want of you, my lady, is wholly indecent and improper, and should I speak these thoughts I fear you will run away from me.”

  A light frown puckered her brow. “And how are these thoughts indecent?”

  Simon braced himself for her rejection as he spoke the honest truth to her. “I want to taste you, Kenna, and not just your lips. I want to know every inch of your body. There has not been a single night over the last year that I haven’t lain awake aching for your touch. Aching for your body.”

  Kenna shivered at his brazen words. Virgin she might be, but she well understood what it was he asked of her. Most importantly, she understood the consequences of desire met and unmet.

  Her mother had once told her how precious a woman’s maidenhead was.

  Once gone, it could never be recovered.

  Men the world over claimed it was a husband’s right alone to take that from a woman, but her mother had been of a different mind.

  Guard it well for the man you love with the whole of your heart. God willing, he shall be the one who marries you. But in the end, all women should know love the first time they take a man into their body. It is the most precious gift a woman can give to a man to let him know he is her first.

  Kenna knew all too well the realities of her position. She was the king’s cousin, which made her a direct link to the throne of Scotland. Love would have no place in her marriage. Politics and practicality were all that mattered. It was why Stryder would have been a good match.

  But Simon…

  Her cousin would never approve such a marriage. She knew that. And yet she wanted no other man.

  She wanted her poetic knight. If she were forced to endure a marriage of alliance, then she wanted her one day of love. Her one moment spent with a man who made her feel like a woman.

  For this one instant in her life, she didn’t want to be the dutiful lady. She wanted something for herself.

  That something was the man before her.

  “Make love to me, Simon.”

  Simon’s heart stopped at her whispered words. He couldn’t quite believe his hearing, and yet there was no denying the sincerity on her face.

  “Have you any idea what you’re saying?”

  She nodded.

  Simon swallowed. He should get up and leave. He had no right to what she offered him and well he knew it. Women descended from kings didn’t bother with knight-errants who had no prospects for anything better in life.

  He was appalled at himself for not getting up immediately and returning her to the castle.

  Yet he couldn’t leave. His body refused to obey him, and his heart…

  His heart needed her.

  And when she leaned forward to kiss him, all of his sense left him. He couldn’t think of leaving now. Not when all he wanted to do was stay.

  He cupped her face in his hands, reveling at the softness of her skin.

  Deepening his kiss, he laid her back on the warm grass and let the softness of her skin sweep him away from the realities of their situation.

  He closed his eyes and allowed her to invade every sense he possessed. Her mouth was sweeter than honey, her touch sublime. He growled, needing more of her touch, desperate to lie with her, naked flesh to naked flesh.

  Before this afternoon ended, they would both be well s
ated.

  Kenna trembled at the foreign sensation of Simon on top of her. His weight felt so good to her, his lips even more so.

  She felt his hand drop down to the laces of her kirtle while his hot, demanding kiss stole her breath.

  Her senses reeled from the cascade of emotions and sensations that swept through her. The world around her careened. Her body seemed to be on fire, and it flamed even higher with every touch of his hand on her skin.

  His fingers played with her laces until he spread her chemise open, baring her neck and the top swell of her breasts to his hot gaze.

  Kenna watched in fascinated awe as he dipped his head down to tease her skin with his hot mouth. Desire coiled through her, pooling itself into a deep-seated throb at the center of her body.

  Simon could barely draw his breath as he tasted her warm, sweet skin. Her lavender scent permeated his head, making him burn with aching need.

  He couldn’t remember ever being harder for a woman, ever wanting to taste one more.

  She was his Aphrodite. Starving for more of her, he parted her kirtle even more until he could free her right breast.

  A light flush covered her skin.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, my lady,” he whispered, then he used his beard to lightly tease her taut nipple before he drew it deep into his mouth.

  She moaned in response.

  Arching her back, she laced her hands through his hair, pulling him close to her body, murmuring with pleasure while he licked and teased her taut areola.

  He parted her gown even more until both her breasts were bare to his hungry gaze. Simon took his time sampling her, moving from one breast to the other while she ran her hands over him.

  What he wouldn’t give to make her his. To be able to claim her as her rightful husband.

  He ached with the knowledge that one day she would lay like this with another man. Be forced to allow some other to touch her.

  The thought wrung a bitter curse from him.

  She stiffened. “Did I anger you?”

  “Nay, love,” he said, licking his way back to her lips. “You could never anger me.”

  “Then why—”

  He kissed her to silence, unwilling to spoil the moment with what had ruined his mood.

  But only for an instant. The taste of her warm, welcoming mouth was all he needed.