The Knight's Mysterious Maid-Chapter 242: Alone (2)

"Why are you sitting like that, Annalise?" Rafael asked.

"Sitting like what?"

"Like you are being kidnapped and why are you sitting on that side? Do not tell me you are shy now after being so bold to kiss me earlier," Rafael said, a little annoyed that they seemed to be taking two steps back.

"I am not shy and I am sitting perfectly normal," Annalise replied, relaxing her shoulders to show that she was fine. "I don’t think it is a good idea to do anything in this carriage for your mother to be suspicious when we get out. We should not tell her that something happened between us. We would never hear the end of it."

"I didn’t plan on telling my mother, but please tell me, Annalise. What do you think we were going to do when I asked you to ride with me?" Rafael asked, curious to know what was on her mind.

With his parents in the carriage right in front of them, he didn’t plan to do anything with Annalise so they wouldn’t have to rush to fix her appearance after getting carried away, but now he wanted to.

"Do not look at me like that. You are not innocent like you want others to believe. You had something in mind for making me ride with you," Annalise said.

"I recall that being my mother’s doing. Come over here and see that you were wrong about what you thought was going to happen," Rafael said, patting the empty space beside him.

She was right that he was lying but that didn’t matter now.

Annalise didn’t believe Rafael would keep his hands to himself.

"If you want us to be close in the carriage you should come to me," Annalise replied, patting the empty space beside her.

She would bet that he was used to women following his command, but she was not any of those women. Rafael was going to follow her lead if he wanted to be near her. If he wanted to touch her.

Annalise smiled when he got up without any complaints and moved to sit beside her. "My oh my. There is so much to gloat about for being able to tell a commander of knights what to do. You must be really smitten by me to do as I want. Can I test what else you would do for me?" She asked.

"Not right now," Rafael answered.

Before Annalise could make a run to the other side of the carriage, Rafael leaned over to her, placing his right hand behind her back while his left hand slid under her to lift her. With ease, he moved her from sitting on the soft cushion to sitting on his lap.

Annalise was once again amazed by his strength. She was smaller than him and she didn’t consider herself to be heavy, but there were men who couldn’t lift her so easily. "If this carriage wasn’t made for a giant, I would have hit my head. What is to happen now that I am on your lap?"

"You are the one ordering me around. Shouldn’t you know?" Rafael asked. He took his hands off of her and leaned back to enjoy the sight before him. "Are you only bold when we are not close?"

"I know what you are doing," Annalise said, touching his chest as she leaned closer to him. "You’re going to have to try harder than that to trick me into kissing you right now."

Annalise grabbed his shirt as the carriage hit a bump in the road. This was the last place she wanted to flirt with him.

Rafael placed his hands on her waist to keep her still. When he was travelling to the ball it didn’t feel like there were any bumps in the road, but now the coachman was hitting each one to torture him now that Annalise was sitting on his lap.

"If I come to your room tonight, what will happen?" Annalise asked since there was nothing else to do. If she tried to kiss him, they would end up on the floor not because of them getting carried away, but because the coachman had something against them.

"Whatever you want-"

"I am not the person you should say that to. I might tell you I might want something that you would find hard to forget for years to come. You said you weren’t going to touch me," said Annalise.

"I won’t if you are uncomfortable. It is too soon unless there is something on your mind that I can help you with," Rafael offered.

He held her with his left hand to keep her in place as the carriage moved while his right hand went to her hair to start letting it down.

"I prefer when you don’t pin it up," Rafael said as he tried to pull out all of the pins in the way of seeing her with her hair down. "How many did you put in your hair?" He muttered, finding another just as soon as he thought he was done. Taking out the pins was going to waste most of the ride back home with her.

Annalise chuckled, refusing to help him since it was funny. "That is your mother’s doing to make sure my hair wouldn’t fall while we were at the ball. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a hundred of those pins in my hair. I was going to let your mother take them out for me."

Rafael continued to pull out the pins so she wouldn’t have to go to his mother. She was to come to his room once his parents went to their room the moment they returned. He was not going to wait for an hour or so for Annalise to break away from his mother.

He worked as fast as the moving carriage would let him and eventually pulled out the last one. He pulled on her hair and watched it fall past her shoulders. This look suited her more than the one before but she was beautiful during the ball. So beautiful that she had men going up to her.

Men that he was familiar with and knew they were no good for her.

"You were popular tonight," said Rafael.

"I was, wasn’t I? If only one of them would have fit the type of man I am attracted to. You must learn that when you are standing with a woman, you mustn’t look at another. I must admit that I was hoping you would lose your temper so there would be a brawl in the ballroom. That would have made the night entertaining. One little punch," Annalise said, tapping his right hand that should have started it all.

"You enjoy men fighting over you?"

"I enjoy a good fight. I don’t care if it is men or women. I would have needed to tear one of the lady’s dresses to get a fight going among women. You are something," Annalise muttered, unable to ignore the fact that he was casually playing with her hair.

She couldn’t stop thinking of how much Rafael would compliment her hair or seem to enjoy looking at it for some reason.

"We must stop before we are near home," Annalise said, pushing herself up a little to meet his lips.