Page 12 of The Last Crimes of Peregrine Hind
She looked at him. “You’d rather stay with the brother of your enemy than go out to rob your enemy’s wife? Are you sure you’re still Peregrine Hind, infamous highwayman?”
Will trotted up before Peregrine could answer, looking a little sheepish for interrupting. “Sandy wants to know if you have any books here.”
“Sandy?” Peregrine repeated. “He’s Sandy to you now?”
“Books?” Lyd asked at the same time.
Will held up his hands, as if indicating helplessness in the face of the circumstances. “He says he needs to occupy his mind, and we did play All Fours for a bit, but he kept winning and said it wasn’t challenging enough to be any fun.”
“Are you sure he was winning and not cheating?” Lyd asked, the doubt clear in her voice.
Peregrine sighed, his irritation flaring all over again. “I’ll assume care of our prisoner for now. Lyd, take the others. And ride safe.”
A few minutes later, Peregrine knocked on the door of Alexander’s sacristy.
“Enter,” came the magnanimous reply, and Peregrine pushed open the door to see his prisoner on the bed, lounging on one elbow. The borrowed shirt exposed a sculpted shoulder and the curve of his collarbone, both illuminated by the window high on the wall. His hair was still sleep-tousled, and his feet were bare; his shirt was rucked up enough that Peregrine could see the dark line of hair leading down from his navel.
He looked like someone had spent the night fucking him into the mattress.
“You want books,” Peregrine said.
“I’m bored,” whined Alexander.
You’re trouble. But Peregrine didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “The others are leaving, but I’m staying here. I think you’ll find that I’m less amenable to requests for things.”
Alexander dropped his head back with a fractious noise. “But it’s so dull in here. What else am I to do?”
“You’re a captive,” Peregrine said impatiently. “Your entire existence is to wait until something happens.”
Alexander sat up. “Play cards with me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll cheat.”
“If I did,” Alexander said, giving him a mischievous grin, “you could always punish me.”
A slow bloom of heat unfurled inside Peregrine. His voice was graveled with it when he spoke. “And how would I do that?”
“You could tie me up again,” Alexander said, coming to a sitting position and then to his knees. He kept his eyes on Peregrine’s the entire time. “You could tie me up all sorts of ways, you know, not just on my back. On my stomach, or bent over the bed, or . . . ”
Peregrine had to swallow to keep himself from agreeing. Or tackling Alexander to the bed and finally putting his lips to the full curves of Alexander’s mouth.
It would be so much easier if Alexander weren’t so playful, so goddamn happy. When was the last time Peregrine himself had felt playful?
Happy?
“I will be tying you up again,” he said, deciding then and there what he’d do with his captive today. He told himself it was for practical, preventing-escape reasons, and not at all for reasons of seeing Alexander bound in silk. “But not to the bed. Come with me.”
Four hours later, they were alone in the sanctuary as the light slowly died outside and the shadows began to gather in the corners. Peregrine had bound Alexander’s hands and then had dragged him along while he attended to the day’s tasks—caring for the horses and fixing the wheel on one of the carts they used to haul goods to Chagford or Buckfast, and then finally making a simple dinner of roasted pheasant, apples, and bread for them to eat.
The playfulness hadn’t left Peregrine’s captive as Peregrine had worked, and Lord Alexander had spent most of the afternoon perched on a barrel, kicking his bare feet against the wood while he pestered Peregrine with an unceasing number of questions about everything from hay to types of hammers to when Peregrine would take pity on him and at least let Alexander bring himself to satisfaction.
Each time Alexander asked that last question, Peregrine couldn’t keep himself from looking over at his captive—all sparkling eyes and breeches obscenely tented from the effects of having his wrists bound—and it would nearly stop his heart. It was like having a spoiled princeling about, and Peregrine should hate it, should hate the pretty pouts and the coy demands, but the honesty shining in those impish glances and scrawled inside those flirtatious questions made hate impossible.
In fact, Peregrine felt lighter and lighter as the afternoon went on, like Alexander was a glow of lamplight in a room he hadn’t realized had grown dim. And seeing Alexander aroused from being tied up, with those half-lidded eyes and flush-stained cheeks . . .
