Page 92 of Forbidden

“Why would I hate the girl who is sweeter to me than I ever dreamed a woman could be?” he asked.

“Dark warrior,” Amber whispered.

Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, just as the brush of her lips over his hand was so light he could barely feel the caress.

“Tell me,” Duncan coaxed, “what saddens you so?”

“I feel the restlessness in you,” Amber said simply.

He smiled. “The cure for it lies within your warmth.”

“For the prowling hunger, yes. For the part of you chained within shades of darkness, unsettled, troubled, hungering for a life that is no more…I have no cure for that.”

“I will remember someday. I am certain of it.”

“And if we are married before that day? What then?”

“Then you’ll have to call your husband by another name in public,” Duncan said, smiling, “but in the bedchamber I will remain your dark warrior and you will be my amber witch.”

Amber’s lips trembled in an attempt to smile. “I think—I fear you would be my enemy if you remembered.”

“And I think you are a girl who fears that I will force the gates of Paradise.”

“’Tis not—” Amber began.

Her words ended in a startled sound as Duncan lifted her from the saddle and settled her across his lap. Even through the thickness of her mantle, she felt the hard, blunt ridge of his desire pressing against her.

“Fear not,” Duncan said. “I won’t take you until you ask for it. Nay, until you beg for it! Bringing you to that pitch will be a sweet, agonizing delight.”

Duncan’s smile was both tender and hot with sensual anticipation. It made Amber’s heart turn over with emotions she was afraid to name, much less to speak of aloud.

“I have neither family nor high station,” she said desperately. “What if you have both?”

“Then I shall share them freely with my bride.”

Hearing her dream spoken aloud did nothing to stem the hot glide of tears down Amber’s cheeks.

Is it possible? Can Duncan come to love me enough to forgive me if his memory returns?

Can such a rich life come from such a dark beginning?

Duncan leaned forward and caught tears from Amber’s eyelashes with tender kisses. Then he brushed his lips across hers in a kiss that was surprisingly chaste.

“You taste like a sea wind,” he said. “Cool and faintly salt.”

“You taste like a sea wind,” he said. “Cool and faintly salt.”

“You taste the same.”

“’Tis your tears on my lips. Will you let me taste your smile, too?”

Amber could no more help smiling than Duncan could keep from sealing his mouth over hers in a kiss that was as deeply seductive as his first kiss had been restrained. When he lifted his head, she was flushed, trembling, and her mouth followed his blindly.

“Aye, lass. That is how it will be. Your lips parted, full, flushed with hunger for me.”

Duncan was bending down to Amber again when the outlaws struck from all sides.

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