the same way the first time he’d caught sight of her.
He’d been summoned to his father’s lair to explain once again why he wasn’t out pillaging and looting to fill the family coffers like his brothers. The last thing he’d expected was to be sucker-punched by the sight of a half-naked imp standing in the middle of the dank cavern.
But that was exactly what’d happened.
In that moment, the world had faded until nothing was left but the beautiful creature with a cloud of dark gold hair and wide green eyes that seemed to hold a captivating innocence.
He should have walked away. There were millions of beautiful women. All of them capable of stirring his cock without making him feel as if he suddenly discovered the reason his heart was supposed to beat.
Instead he’d walked forward and blatantly claimed her.
Of course his father, Synge, hadn’t been happy. The imp had been protection payment from the trolls. Synge didn’t share. Not with anyone.
By the time he’d managed to barter for the female, she’d been led away by a servant and managed to disappear.
He’d still had to pay his father three chests of gold and a priceless emerald.
Which was why he’d been so ruthlessly determined to find the elusive imp. He’d bought her fair and square. She belonged to him.
At least, that’s what he’d told himself.
Now he sensed that it was far more complicated. Or maybe it was exquisitely simple. He wanted this imp more than he’d ever wanted another female in all his long, long life.
And she wanted him.
He could catch the luscious scent of her arousal the instant he’d touched her cheek, but for some odd reason she refused to accept that she belonged to him.
Even now he could sense her inner struggle to ignore the heat that smoldered between them.
“I see you’re still a bully,” she muttered.
“Bully?”
“Tyrant. Tormentor. Intimidator,” she clarified.
He cocked a brow, his hand lifting to brush down the bare line of her shoulder, his fingers tingling at the feel of her soft, satin skin.
“If I were a bully you would already be beaten black and blue,” he pointed out, his fingers drifting down to trace the plunging neckline of her nightgown. His inner fires flamed with a hunger he intended to sate very, very soon. “Instead, that pale, perfect skin doesn’t have a mark on it.”
She shivered as he lightly caressed the upper curves of her breasts, the jade in her eyes shimmering in the torchlight.
“You intruded into my home and kidnapped me,” she said, her voice breathy. “Only a bully would do that to an innocent woman.”
Baine barely listened to her foolish accusations. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted…her.
Every golden, satin inch of her.
In his bed. Against the wall. In his treasure room, surrounded by precious gems.
“But you’re not an innocent woman, are you, Tayla?” he murmured in absent tones. He was far more interested in the hardening nubs of her nipples he could see beneath the eyelet material of her gown.
He felt her tense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I bought you from my father. That means you’re my property,” he bluntly reminded her.
She shook her head, her heart thundering loud enough he could hear the frantic beats.
“People can’t be property.”
“Do you deny that your father bartered you to pay his debts?”
She jerked as if he’d actually struck her. “What did you say?”
He stilled, sensing that she wasn’t faking her shock. “Your father made a contract with the trolls.”
Her face drained of color, leaving it a strange shade of ash.
“My…father?” she rasped, knocking aside his hand. “What are you talking about?”
Baine scowled. He wanted to touch her.
The soft feel of her body beneath his fingertips was satisfying an ache that had plagued him for twenty-five years.
But he hadn’t missed the burst of confused fear that had darkened her eyes. This female was unaware of what her father had been willing to do to save his own skin.
The knowledge was…welcomed, he abruptly decided.
First off, it helped to soften a portion of the anger he harbored toward her. He didn’t like the thought that she was so lacking in integrity that she would run away from her obligation.
It also solved one of his nagging problems.
Baine might be enormously powerful, but he was also sly, and cunning, and quite capable of using his intelligence rather than brute strength to achieve his goals.
“You didn’t know?” he asked in smooth tones.
“There’s nothing to know.” She wrapped her arms around her waist in an unconsciously defensive motion. “I was working late