Chapter 16
The wind had picked up, moaning as it forced itself through the gaps in the wooden shutters high on the wall of the bedchamber.
Isa squeezed her eyes tightly shut, willing herself to sleep. It felt as though she’d lain here for hours, waiting for slumber that just wouldn’t come.
She didn’t want to think anymore. Her thoughts were jumbled and confusing, and no matter where they started, they always ended in the same place.
Robbie was going to leave her. He’d told her so. Told her his time here with her was coming to an end.
She should be overjoyed. That had always been her goal, to be alone. From the moment she’d been old enough to consider the possibility, being alone had meant freedom and a peaceful existence to her. It was all she had ever wanted.
Until Robbie showed up.
Somewhere in the short time since she’d met him she’d started to want more. To dream new dreams. Dreams of a man to love her. Dreams of having children of her very own.
Impossible dreams.
Now the thought of being alone just felt . . . lonely.
She turned over to her side, jerking at the too-big night dress that tangled around her feet.
How was she supposed to sleep in this enormous gown the maids had left on the bed for her use?
The pillow felt as lumpy as if someone had stuffed parts of the bird in along with its feathers.
And the bed. She didn’t even want to consider how long it might have been since someone had washed the bed coverings.
She was miserable and uncomfortable and lying in filth. And on top of all that, she was despairingly lonely, knowing those things she wanted most in life, those things that others took for granted as their right, she would never have.
No wonder she couldn’t force herself to sleep!
Outside, the moan of the wind turned to a whistling howl, ominously rattling the wooden shutters as if demons were trying to claw their way into the room.
There were demons out there beyond her walls, all right. Her emotional demons. The demons of her unfulfilled wants and desires.
Enough of this! She couldn’t allow herself to wallow in this pool of pity. It wouldn’t do her, or anyone else, the least bit of good.
So he’d said he was going to stay and now he wasn’t.
It was all the same to her. His change of heart simply meant she could continue to do whatever she pleased, whenever she wanted.
That had been her plan, after all—to drive him away.
Besides, what Robbie MacQuarrie did made not the least bit of difference in how she lived her life.
Or did it?
She sat up in bed and gazed over at the fireplace, at the bundle of covers where Robbie slept.
Had it been only days ago that she’d watched as he bathed in the mountain pool beyond her cottage?
Watched and wanted.
She’d denied herself any possibility of experiencing what went on between a man and a woman because she feared that once she’d been intimate with Robbie, she’d lose her freedom. He would never leave.
But that was when she’d thought he intended to stay. Now she knew that wasn’t the case. He would be going. Soon. He’d told her so.
Once. Just once. If she missed this chance, she would likely never have another opportunity. And he was so beautiful, inside and out.
She loosed the tie on her hair and worked at freeing her braid while she stared at his unmoving form, considering her options.
What was there to stop her?
He could refuse her. She knew nothing at all about the art of attracting a man. He could reject her when she offered herself. Though from the heated gazes he’d sent her way she found that result unlikely.
What if he didn’t reject her and she conceived a child?
Her breath did a little hitch, as if her heart had missed a beat.
She could imagine only one outcome more desirable than that. A man to love her and a child in her arms was her heart’s secret desire. To find even half of that fantasy would be heaven.
Tossing her covers aside, she swung her feet around and slid off the high bed. A shiver raced through her body as her toes met the cold stone floor.
“Robbie?” she called, barely more than a whisper.
From under the covers, a muffled grunt.
“Are you awake?”
“It’s no like a man can get any sleep between you thrashin’ about in yer bed and the wind making all that racket.”
She waited, chewing her bottom lip, working up her courage.
“Are you frightened by the storm, lass?”
As if she, of all people, would be frightened by the weather. And yet, if that was what he thought . . .
“Yes,” she whispered.
The roll of thunder joined in with the wind’s howl as she tiptoed closer to where he lay. When she reached him, she dropped to her knees and pulled the covers from his head, fighting the instant desire to run her fingers through his tousled hair.
“I am,” she lied. “And I canna sleep at all.” That much, at least, was the truth.
He stared at her, his eyes dark and unreadable with his back to the flicker of the fire.
“Would you feel safer here with me?”
She nodded her head vigorously, and he lifted his covers, inviting her to join him.
When she sat, he put his big arm around her, pulling her in, tucking her back up against his chest. He wore no shirt, nothing but the plaid wrapped around his hips. The heat of his body enveloped her like a welcoming cocoon and she stretched out one leg, tentatively rubbing it against his shin.
“Holy Christ, woman! Yer feet are like chunks of ice.” He shivered and pulled her closer, draping his arm over her hip.
“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, drowning in the feel of him so close he was practically wrapped around her.
All the wants, all the desires she’d had that day at the pool slammed back into her.
Hard. It felt as if all the heat trapped under those covers had gathered itself into one big ball and dropped right into the pit of her belly, burning, churning, demanding attention.
Robbie’s attention.
And her in this damned blanket of a nightdress, so huge it felt as if there were a whole mattress separating their bodies.
Robbie cleared his throat and scooted back from her just a little. “You let yer hair down,” he murmured, and his breath feathered over her ear.
“The braid was uncomfortable and I couldna sleep.” Again, truth enough that she couldn’t sleep. “Does it bother you?”
“Not at all,” he murmured, doing that sniffing thing he’d done the first day they’d ridden together on horseback.
The hateful shapeless nightdress gathered at her neck and tied with a ribbon. She couldn’t think of a way to casually drag the whole thing up and over her head, but if she loosed the neck tie, it would pull out wide enough to allow her the freedom to slip it down over her shoulders.
Slowly she pulled at the tie holding her gown closed. With a couple of small tugs to the gathers, the neckline opening gave way, hanging loose.
Again he cleared his throat and scooted back a little more. “We’ll neither of us get any rest if you dinna stop wiggling about.”
“Sorry. I was only trying to get comfortable.” She slipped the opening over her shoulder and down, freeing one arm. “I’m no used to sleeping so close to someone.”
“Believe me, I understand.” He removed his arm from her hip and scooted farther away.
It was all the room she needed.
Turning from her left side to her back, she pulled her second arm from the nightdress, tugging the loosened neckline down to her breasts. She had no doubt the opening was large enough now to easily slide down over her hips.
Slowly, carefully, she tugged at the tail of her nightdress, pulling it up to her knees, freeing her legs as well as her arms.
The hateful gown dealt with for the moment, she rolled to her right side, facing Robbie. His eyes were clamped shut as if he fought to force sleep as vainly as she had earlier.
Sleep was not at all what Isa had in mind. Not for either of them.
With her big toe, she traced the back of his calf.
His eyes flew open, wild and dark in the shadowed light. “What do you think yer doing?”
“Warming my feet?”
“Warming yer feet,” he repeated, his tone making no disguise of his doubt.
“Aye.” She reached out, laying her hands on his chest, feeling the muscles jump under her fingers. “My hands are cold, too.”
“They dinna feel cold to me,” he rasped oddly, his body tensing as if all his muscles had frozen into place. “They’re more like hot coals.”
Her eyes locked with his and she scooted closer, allowing the nightdress to twist lower. Her hands edged up his chest to his shoulders as if it were beyond her control to stop them.
When she slid her leg in between his, nudging his plaid up as she lifted her knee, he grabbed her arms.
“You dinna ken what yer doing, lass. You need to stop this. Right now.” His voice had gone gravelly and as dark as his eyes.
She pushed forward again, meeting no resistance, until her bared breasts met the heat of his chest.
He sucked in his breath and she pushed against him, rolling him to his back, straddling her leg over him as they turned.
She looked deep into his eyes, feeling as if she could see her future there, knowing everything in her life was about to change.
Whatever powers watched over them now, there would be no forgiveness for her this time. Unlike her spying on him at the pool, what she did now wasn’t accidental or beyond her control. What she did now was her choice.
“Isabella . . .” He spoke her name on a breathless moan.
Entirely her choice and entirely what she wanted.
She leaned down and lightly touched her mouth to his, feeling the heat of his breath on her face when she broke the touch.
“This is a very bad idea, Isa,” he whispered, though the grip he kept on her arms held her close.
She dipped her head, tracing his full lower lip with her tongue before she answered. “Then I must be a very bad woman, Robbie, for this is what I want and what I intend to have this night.”
“Yer no worse than me, love.” He lifted his head to gently kiss her mouth, a truly wicked smile curving his lips and lighting his eyes. “We’re two of kind in this.”
With one hand behind her head, he rolled, flipping her to her back before she even realized he was moving. He lay between her legs, his mouth moving across her cheek and slowly down her neck while his big hands massaged her aching breasts.
When he took her nipple into his mouth as if to suckle, the ball of heat that had pooled low in her belly felt as if it exploded, sending the fire of need lower, to the spot between her legs where he pressed his body against her.
His tongue, wet and warm, curved around her nipple as he sucked, then teased her with quick little flickers of motion that drove her wild. She arched her back, pushing up against him, and his hands slid down her sides, leaving a trail of fire and goose bumps in their path.
“This has got to go,” he muttered, raising his head from her breast and leaning back far enough to pull the nightdress down and off her legs. “And this.”
She had no idea a plaid could be unwrapped so quickly.
And then he was on her again. She spread her legs around him as he traced his hands along her body, blazing a path from her breasts across her stomach and down to the sensitive area between her legs.
He brushed his fingers over her mound of curls and she thought she heard him murmur something about her giving redheads a good name, but her ability to think at all disappeared as he gently thrust a finger inside her.
She bucked up against his hand and he found a whole new way to drive her insane, running his thumb over her most sensitive nub while inserting and withdrawing his fingers.
“Slow, love. We’ll just take it slow,” he whispered, his hands doing magic things to her body.
She lost track of time as he continued. Deep inside, a pressure built, growing and demanding more until at last it felt as if something shattered. Something so wonderful, so fantastic, it sparked out through her entire body, leaving her legs trembling and her body weak.
“Are you ready?” he asked, grasping her hips with his big hands and tilting them up.
There was more? Of course there was more. She knew what was supposed to happen. She’d just had no idea it could possibly make her feel like this.
She was the most beautiful thing Robert had ever held in his hands. And if the Faerie Magic took him tomorrow, he’d go to his hereafter a grateful man.
Grateful for the honor she bestowed on him, entrusting him with her body, and grateful she’d decided to allow him to take her to MacQuarrie Keep, where he’d know she would be safe even after he was . . .
He pushed those thoughts away. What happened to him after tonight didn’t matter. He prayed only that the Fae allowed him to live long enough to get her safely into the arms of his family.
For now, he wanted nothing more than to enjoy these moments with Isa. To see to it that she enjoyed them as well.
He pulled her forward, entering her as gently, as slowly as he could manage. God, she was so tight! It took every bit of self-control he could dredge up not to surge into her and end this right now.
He covered her body with his, kissing her face, her neck, her beautiful lips. Her mouth opened to him with no effort and her tongue danced with his as if her body knew his, as if they’d done this a thousand times before.
It would be so easy to lose himself in her.
He forced himself to focus. Gradually, a little bit at a time, deeper and deeper, slowly, until at last she gasped and jerked in his arms and he was there, buried deep inside her.
His body throbbed with his need so he held himself very still, clutching her to him as he fought for control.
When he pulled out, she grabbed his hips, digging her fingers into his skin and lifting her hips, as if trying to keep him inside her.
“No,” she moaned.
He thrust back into her, slowly again, and she locked her ankles behind his back.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly.
Yes.
He repeated the action and she lifted her hips to meet him. Again and again. So good. She felt so damn good.
And then his control was gone. Hands clutched around her waist, he pulled her against him as he thrust into her, and his world shattered around him in what looked suspiciously like lightning arcing through the room.
When he could move again, he gathered her into his arms and rolled to his side. She kissed his chin and snuggled into his embrace, her breathing slowing within minutes to tell him she’d fallen asleep.
What they’d done might well have been very, very bad, but they’d sure as hell done it very, very well.