His Captive Bride (33 page)

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Dedication

To Laura Cifelli,

for encouraging me

when I needed it most.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to my sisters of the Clork & Toach: LaVerne Coan, Elizabeth Manz, and Linda Pedder. Thank you for supplying me with chocolate, finding me trees, and supporting me while I wrote and revised the original manuscript of
Timeless
, even during super-killer-deadline-crunch.

Special thanks to LaVerne, Linda, Judi R., Sandra M., and Stephanie M. for serving as my beta readers on this new, revised edition. I appreciate your time, generosity, and insights more than words can say.

Please Post a Review

I hope you enjoyed spending time with Hauk and Avril in the pages of
His Captive Bride.
I’d love to keep writing books that touch your heart for many years to come. Readers like you make it possible, and I’m so thankful for your support.

If you enjoyed
His Captive Bride
, I hope you’ll take a moment to share your enthusiasm with other readers by posting a review. With hundreds of new books published every month, it’s difficult to stand out in the crowd, and every review helps.

To post a reader review on Amazon, Apple iBooks, ARe, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, just visit this book’s page on that site and scroll down to where it says “Customer Reviews.” Your review doesn’t have to be long. Short and sweet is fine—just a line or two about why you enjoyed the story. The more reviews a book has, the more it encourages other readers to sample an author they’ve never read before.

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Warmest wishes and happy reading,

Shelly

The Stolen Brides Series

Medieval Historical Romance

Three regal brides are about to discover that falling in love with a warrior

is the most dangerous adventure of all.

Book 1
Forever His

Book 2
His Forbidden Touch

Book 3
His Captive Bride
(original title Timeless)

The Escape with a Scoundrel Series

Georgian Historical Romance

These sexy bad boys are on the wrong side of the law—and willing to risk everything to claim a love more priceless than any gem they’ve ever stolen.

Book 1
Run Wild

Book 2
Midnight Raider
(coming in 2014)

The Lawless Nights Series

Western Historical Romance

Meet the rugged men and daring women of Eminence, Colorado, a remote Rocky Mountain

town in a lawless time... when anything could happen.

Book 1
After Sundown

Book 2 coming in 2014

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

His Captive Bride

Publishing History

First edition published under the title
Timeless

by Dell, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group

Copyright © 1998 by Shelly Thacker Meinhardt

Second edition published by Summit Avenue Books

Copyright © 2012 by Shelly Thacker Meinhardt

ISBN: 978-0-9847646-7-9

Version 12.1.13

All rights reserved. No part of this book, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, may be reproduced in any form by any means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the author.

The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Cover and logo design by Kim Killion of Hot DAMN! Designs
www.hotdamndesigns.com

Digital formatting by A Thirsty Mind Book Design
www.athirstymind.com

Forever His

(Stolen Brides Series, Book 1)

On New Year’s Eve, she tumbles 700 years back in time—and into the bed of a darkly handsome knight.

Sir Gaston de Varennes wanted a docile bride who would fit into his plans for vengeance and justice, but a trick of time finds him married to a thoroughly modern American lady who turns his castle, his life, and his heart upside down. Will her desperate secret tear them apart after only a few bittersweet weeks of stolen passion—or will they conquer mistrust, treachery, and time itself to discover a love that spans the centuries?

“A Desert Isle Keeper. Touching, ingenious... I love this book. I’ve read it time after time, and even if I haven’t waited quite long enough between readings to forget all the details, I always get drawn back into the story so intensely that I can’t put it down. Grade: A (highest rating).” – All About Romance

France, 1300

“I do not remember taking you to bed last night.” He yawned and stretched and sat back down on the mattress. “Though I cannot say I regret it. Noisy though you may be, you felt most pleasing curled beside me.”

He chuckled, a low sound that did an odd little dance down Celine’s back and made her suddenly, uncomfortably aware of the warm spot on her shoulder where he had kissed her.

“You did
not
take me to bed!” she corrected.

“Truly,
ma petite
? It was you who seduced me, then?”

“No! I—”

“Come seduce me again.” He fell back on the pillows.

“Absolutely
not!
” Celine groped her way along the wall, trying to feel her way to the door. “Look, whoever you are, it sounds like you had too much to drink at the party. Maybe there was a power failure or something and you wandered into the wrong room by mistake.”

A power failure. That made sense. It would explain why there wasn’t a speck of light. Or heat. The air was so cold, it gave her goose bumps and stung her throat every time she inhaled. The furnace must have gone out.

He sighed and yawned again. “As I told you before, demoiselle, the chamber is mine.”

It took Celine a moment to realize that the wall felt strange: her hand encountered nothing but cold, clammy, bare stone. The paintings and tapestries that had hung in her room were missing. She tried to find the light switch. It wasn’t where it was supposed to be, either.

Suddenly her cheeks heated with an embarrassing thought: maybe he was right about this chamber being his. Maybe
she
was the one who had stumbled into the wrong room!

She didn’t remember getting into bed. In fact, the last thing she remembered was looking through her purse for an aspirin, then stepping toward the window as the moon went black. Rays of silver-white light had glanced off the glass and blinded her, sent her reeling, then...

She couldn’t remember anything after that. It was entirely possible that she had staggered out of her room, into the maze of corridors—and into the room of another party guest.

She turned back toward the stranger she couldn’t see in the darkness. “Monsieur,” she said tentatively, a bit chastened. “Perhaps I’m the one who made a mistake. I-I don’t remember—”

“Nay, protest no more, little one,” he interrupted, his voice easing into a low, coaxing tone. “Does it matter how we came to be together? You are here, I am here, the bed is here. You felt warm and soft beside me.”

He paused, and she could almost
feel
him remembering—because she was remembering, too: what it felt like to lie snuggled against him.

He spoke again, his voice even deeper, softer, just a notch above a whisper. “Come back to bed,
chérie
. I will seduce you this time.”

“No!” Celine squeaked, not sure whether she was objecting to his command or to her body’s reaction. She was shivering, and not because the room was so cold. That tone he was using sent an unexpected electricity through her, tingly currents that ran from her fingertips to her bare toes and back again in a heartbeat. It left her trembling. It also made her vividly aware of just how little she was wearing: nothing but her silk-and-lace teddy.

She backed away a step, only to come up against the cold stone wall. “Monsieur, I’m—I’m afraid you don’t understand. One of us has made a mistake—”

“The only mistake,
ma petite
, would be for us to waste the hours left until dawn.”

That confident voice reached out to Celine through the shadows and cold, wrapping around her, warm and rich and dark as sable. She swallowed on a dry throat. Who the heck
was
this guy? A voice like that should belong to a hypnotist. To a deejay whispering above love songs on late-night radio.

To a suave playboy who could easily seduce unseen women in the darkness.

Celine froze at that thought, remembering her conversation with her sister earlier. Maybe this man wasn’t here by mistake after all! “Oh, God,” she whispered in shock and dismay, “did my sister put you up to this? I can’t believe she would really— Listen, I don’t know what she
told
you about me, but I am
not
—”

“Again you speak in riddles,
chérie
. I know naught of you but that you felt good beside me. Very small and soft and good. Come back to bed. It is cold without you.”

 “You’re only cold because it’s freezing in here!”

“I must have been too deeply in my cups to light the hearth last night. Or too eager for you to bother.” He chuckled. “It is naught. Come here to me and we will light a fire of our own.”

“No! I can’t—”

“Then I will come fetch you, shy demoiselle.”

Celine could hear him getting out of bed. “No! Wait!” She turned and ran but barely made it two steps before her injured ankle gave way and she fell, hard.

Before she could do more than utter a sharp cry of pain, he was beside her. He had moved almost silently despite the crunchy stuff on the floor. The man lifted her to her feet—and into his embrace.

“Shh, sweet, you have naught to fear. Are you hurt?”

Celine couldn’t answer. The sensation of being held against him stole her voice, her breath, her
mind
. She could not see him in the darkness, but she could feel him.

Oh, God, could she
feel
him!

His hands—large, warm, callused hands—drew her close until her breasts flattened against the solid wall of his ribs. She gasped at the contact, her heart thrumming wildly. The textures of her lingerie only intensified the friction of his body against hers—heat and muscle sliding across silk and softness and lace.

He stroked her temple, her jaw, then gently pressed her head to his chest. The fact that he had moved so quietly belied his size. She was tall, but he towered over her. A dense mat of hair covering broad, flat muscle roughly pillowed her cheek. His other arm flexed across her back, holding her, soothing—an arm that was hard and brawny and probably strong enough to bend steel pipe. She could only guess, because he was being very careful with her. He smelled of woolens and woodsmoke, and of a tangy, masculine spice that she sensed was not some expensive designer cologne, but
him
.

Celine didn’t know which surprised her more: that such a powerful man could be so gentle, or that she had stopped shivering.

She no longer felt cold or terrified. It was ridiculous—insane!—to feel safe in the arms of a naked stranger, especially one with the build of a world-class weight lifter... but she did. She couldn’t explain it. She only knew that she hadn’t seen him at the party or anywhere before. No man like this could walk around without drawing the stunned attention of every red-blooded female over fourteen!

“I-I...” She struggled to find her voice and answer his question, but couldn’t think over the thunder of his steady heartbeat beneath her cheek. “Wh-what did you ask me?”

“It was naught,
ma petite
.” He laughed again, and she felt as well as heard the easy, pleasant sound this time. His voice, however, sounded strained, unsteady, as if he were just as affected as she by the unexpected currents flowing between them. “Fie, but I am hard put to remember who you are. I truly do not recall taking a woman to my bed last night—certainly not you. Even drunk, I would remember making love to you.”

“We
didn’t
make love,” she said breathlessly. “That’s what I’ve been telling you all—”

“It matters not. You are here now and we shall remedy the oversight. Tell me, are you one of the beauties who came to the feast with Edric and his party from Languedoc?”

“No, I’m...” She lost her voice again. His hands were moving, to her shoulders, down her back, to her waist in a slow caress. “I’m... from Chicago.”

He lowered his head to hers. “I know not this land ‘Chicago,’” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips. “But let me sample the sweetness of one of its fair flowers.”

His mouth captured hers with a strong, soft heat and Celine discovered something far sexier than this man’s voice or his body.
His kiss.
She never had the chance to think of a protest. To think at all.

She had been kissed before, but never like
this
.

It was neither awkward and teasing nor forceful and overpowering, but long, slow, confident, and devastating. It was as if he were binding them together, deftly drawing her soul into his.

He tasted of wine and strong spices and the virile promise of shared pleasure. Of strength and tenderness beyond anything she had ever imagined. Her knees gave way. He held on to her effortlessly. His lips melded gently to hers... then gradually parted.

He angled his head, deepening the intimacy, and Celine made a small sound in the back of her throat. She didn’t know what it was, had never made a little cry like that before, almost feline, somehow... restless. Wanting. It seemed more like a plea than the objection she had intended. Her hands pressed against his ribs, but instead of pushing him away as she knew she should, she found herself exploring the corded muscles she encountered there, entranced by the unfamiliar angles and hardness. She felt his breathing quicken, heard a moan shudder out of him, deep and masculine.

Before she could gather up the scattered confetti of her senses, she felt herself slipping deeper into the kiss. Into him. Into this stranger in the darkness who teased her and laughed with her, touched her, awakened her, electrified her in a way no man ever had.

Before she could stop herself, her arms slid around his back and she was holding on to him as much as he was holding her.

His kiss became bolder, more intense. The first touch of his tongue against hers dragged a soft moan from her lips. She felt his arms tremble, as if he were fighting for control. His tongue flicked against hers, retreated, then returned, sliding, seeking. She tasted him, breathed him, felt hot needles of unfamiliar hunger. His bristly five-o’clock shadow rubbed roughly against her chin and jaw.

 If ever she had had cause for nervousness, uncertainty, fear, it was now—but that was not what she felt.

She felt longing, she felt tenderness, she felt...
right.
She wanted this. As if she had been waiting her whole life.

And in her heart, she knew that she had.

She felt
alive
. More alive and whole than she had for as many months as she could remember. She nearly sobbed with the joy of it. She must have made some sound, because he broke the kiss and lifted his head.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Neither of them did. They just stood there, clinging to one another in the dark, breathing hard. The heat between them was so tangible it felt as if the furnace had been turned on, full blast.

After a second, the sensual fog that he had spun around her cleared a bit. “Wait,” she whispered. “I-I can’t... I mean, I don’t—I’m not—”

“Nay, do not pull away.” He lowered his head, nibbled at her lower lip, then nudged at her chin, urging her to tilt her head back. “You are all I could wish, little flower. You are fire and softness and you taste of a sweetness beyond any I have known. Stay with me,” he asked. “
Touch me.
Let me touch you.”

“Please, I-I think I should tell you... I mean, no matter what my sister told you, I’m not what she... I’m not...”