Promise of the Rose by Brenda Joyce

made her grip tighten.
    They were a step away from the bed. Unsmiling, he slid her onto the center of the mattress. Mary found herself onher back, her gaze, like the rest of her, dominated by him.
    “ ’Tis your last chance,” he said harshly, and she saw that his fists were clenched. “Tell me no lies.”
    She was having trouble remembering the issues at stake. She whispered, “I-I am Mairi Sinclair.”
    His lips curled. He leaned over her. His gaze slid over her flushed face, then lower, to her heaving breasts, and lower still, to the outline of her slender legs. “The time for words is over, demoiselle.”
    She gripped the covers of the bed. She was oblivious to all existence. She had forgotten the stifling warmth in the room, did not hear the crackling tire, the sound of which mingled with the sound of the rain, blurring together into nothingness. Lightning brightened the night sky behind Stephen’s head, but she was unaware of that, too. All of her senses were focused on the man standing before her, and on the painful pulsing of her own body.
    He slid onto the bed beside her and pulled her into a sitting position, his touch strong but gentle. He did not hurry; how well he masked any urgency he might be feeling. Mary made a sound low in her throat, one that sounded suspiciously like a moan. Their gazes locked. Without looking at what he was doing, he slowly slipped off the veil she had borrowed from Isobel, freeing her waist-length gold hair. His hands shook as his fingers navigated their way through the length of her hair, beginning at her scalp and ending in the curls at her hips. Deliberately he fanned the tresses out. Mary wondered if he was going to kiss her. Stephen smiled at her.
    She could not move.
    And then he ripped her clothing apart and tore her tunics and shift off of her body.
    Mary screamed.
    “I will take you naked,” he said as she tried to leap off of the bed. Mary screamed again, in fury. Stephen caught her, this time throwing her down upon the mattress. He flung the shreds of her clothing aside. Before Mary could scramble away from him, he was on top of her, pressing her down.
    Only a thin layer of linen separated his engorged phallus from the tender flesh between her thighs. He throbbedstrongly against her, a hairsbreadth from being within her. “Who in God’s blood are you? You will reveal the truth, demoiselle, and you will do so now!”
    Mary looked up at him, consumed with an answering rage. “So it will be rape after all!”
    He laughed. When her hands came up, her fingers curled into claws, he caught her wrists, wrestling them down above her head, pinning her to the bed. He stroked his shaft against her. He stroked her until her anger died, but her pulse did not dim. To the contrary, it accelerated madly. Mary moaned helplessly.
    His mouth came closer to hers, his breath feathering her face. His eyes were glittering dangerously now. “Your story has substance,” he said, low. “But that only proves what an adept liar you are. Know you this. I have been surrounded by intrigue and deceit my entire life. I have had much practice at ferreting out the good from the rotten. I do not believe you to be some barnyard bastard of the laird Sinclair. Every instinct I possess tells me you are far more than you claim.
Give your name to me now.
”
    Mary met his gaze, goaded beyond all resistance.
“Never.”
    His eyes widened incredulously. It was the first time that she had admitted she was lying—that she was not Mairi Sinclair—that there was a truth to be revealed. Indeed, the gauntlet had been thrown.
    He smiled without mirth. Simultaneously he reached down between them, the back of his hand brushing the swollen, aching folds of her flesh. Mary cried out. A moment later she realized what his movement meant. He had ripped off his own braies, freeing himself. He was slick, and so was she. “We have yet to conclude our business, demoiselle.” His expression was hard, sweat streaked his