He’d known she was beautiful, had been attracted to her even when she was covered in dirt and passed out in his bed, but the sight of her took his breath away. Her golden hair was twisted on top of her head into a complicated bun, but curls has been left out to artfully drape around her face, framing it. Though she was still too skinny, her beauty was arresting. Not classic, like Cassandra’s, but eye catching nonetheless. Her bronze skin tone made her pale blue eyes glow, and her wide pink lips—no longer chapped and windburned—were drawn tight with anger. The blue gown she wore highlighted the tininess of her waist, and was tight enough to accent her high, firm breasts.
Cassandra quickly grabbed her fur and stood, her chin raised in an arrogant tilt. “How dare you speak to me like that!” Cassandra said in a shaky voice. “Edward, do something!”
Rowan bared her teeth in something more like a snarl than a smile and took a step forward. “Don’t worry about Edward. Don’t speak to Edward. Don’t even look at Edward. I want you out of my fiancés bedroom, now!”
For all her bluster, Cassandra had grown up with money and was soft in many ways Rowan would never be. Not physically, but mentally. Cassandra was weak and overindulged, and it showed in how quickly she backed up from an advancing Rowan.
His little tigress didn’t show a hint of fear as she literally stalked the older, larger woman out the door.
Once Cassandra was out in the hall, Rowan slammed the door shut with a ‘And don’t come back!’ that left him staring at her in amazement.
She spun around, fire still roaring in her gaze as she pointed a finger at him. “And you—”
He didn’t even give her a chance to speak, instead sweeping her into his arms so he could properly kiss her with all the passion raging inside of him. Her little feet kicked at his shins, and she tried to push her way out of his arms, but he tightened his grip on her and began to suck and kiss at her luscious mouth while she snarled at him. Her resistance only turned him on even more, but when she wrapped her arms around his neck with a sigh of surrender, his heart swelled with victory.
Their tongues tangled together as she gripped his hair with two fists, her fingers clutching the still damp strands as she jerked his head back, then began to kiss his smooth shaved throat. The feeling was like liquid fire, and his groans echoed through the room as her lips brushed over him. When she sank her sharp little teeth into the side of his neck almost hard enough to break the skin, he let out a rather unmanly yelp.
“Easy, little tigress, sheath your fangs” he said as she sucked where she’d bitten.
Leaning back so her gaze could meet his she said, “If you wear my mark, maybe the women of this town will figure out that you’re spoken for.”
That warm, roaring happiness filled him again as he smiled at her stern little face. “I’m spoken for, am I?”
Flustered, she looked down at the top button of his shirt. “Yes. No? I don’t know. I just know that the sight of that woman trying to seduce you…it made me terribly angry.”
“And jealous,” he said mostly to himself, happy that she was feeling possessive of them.
She glared at him, her lovely eyes flashing fire again as her tigress temper flared to life. “You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”
He walked them over to the bed and sat on the edge, keeping her on his lap despite her protests. “Rowan, you have nothing to worry about. Yes, Garret and I have had a relationship of sorts with Cassandra, but that is in the past. It was more of a mutual understanding and meeting of needs between friends than a romantic courtship.”
Rowan rolled her eyes at him, but her stiff body softened slightly. “Obviously Cassandra thought it was more.”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, murmuring on the top of her head, “Never, in all the times we were with Cassandra,” Rowan let out a little growl that he bit back a smile over, “did I ever feel even an ounce of what I feel when I hold you like this.”
Playing with the lapel of his suit jacket, she said in a low voice, “And what do you feel when you hold me?”
He leaned back a little so he could stare into her earnest little face and said from the bottom of his heart, “I feel right when I’m with you, Rowan. I feel both content and excited, happy and nervous.”
“Nervous?” Her fair brows drew down and lines creased her forehead. “What do you have to be nervous about?”
“That you’ll realize you’re too good for us.”
She let out a loud, harsh laugh that held an edge of hurt to it. “I’m too good for you? Edward, please. You’re rich, handsome, successful ranchers that every woman in the area seems to adore. I’m a penniless, scrawny, ugly—”
“You are not ugly.” He turned her so she stood between his legs, her mouth set to a stubborn pout. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She blinked rapidly, then swallowed hard. “No, Cassandra is beautiful. Nancy is beautiful. I’m a poor, uneducated, unsophisticated and unworldly, scrawny, ugly, have a big nose, and am the granddaughter of slaves.”
On the last word, her voice broke. He grabbed both her hands in his, turning them over so he could rub her callouses with his thumbs. “There is no sin in being poor, and being uneducated doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You’ve traveled farther than most people who never leave the town they were born in. You’re not scrawny, just malnourished, and my nose is bigger than yours.” This made her smile the tiniest bit. “And I don’t care who your ancestors were no more than you should
