Chapter 17 #4
This time, she didn’t finish because his lips were on hers again.
Once more, his touch had changed. His kiss was slow, a caress with mouth, lips, and tongue, subtly tasting, exploring, tantalizing.
She wanted to remain untouched, offended, and indignant; he had far too much patience at that particular moment, savoring the kiss with such determined leisure that she felt a trembling begin deep inside her, blood and bones, heart and mind.
His fingers moved over her cheek, he broke away and the tip of his thumb traced the dampness on her lips while his eyes studied her.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” he said softly.
Then shrugged. “All right, perhaps upon occasion, I have been truly tempted to beat you black-and-blue. But not in this …” Again, his mouth touched hers.
Briefly now. He straightened, shrugging out of his robe.
She longed to reach up and spread her fingers over the broad expanse of his chest. Scars crisscrossed his shoulders.
She wanted to trace each one, and hear the tale that went with it.
She kept very still, suddenly afraid not so much that he would touch her, but that he could become a need greater than any she had known.
She lay very still, and he tugged upon the robe tangled around her. “Off with this now …”
“Now, wait, we’ve—”
“We’ve been introduced, my love. Now we become better acquainted.”
“You’ve just apologized for mistrusting me, for hurting me—”
“Nay, dear wife, only for hurting you. You were highly instrumental in the mistrust.”
“But—”
“I’ve been exploring the prize; I thought myself insane at times that I agreed to marry you when I had been offered the land without the bride. But the land, of course, is nothing without the heart, and now I am discovering even greater wonders.”
“But it did hurt—”
“It will not hurt again. Come now, you didn’t suffer so at the end.”
“Oh, but I did—”
“Then I’m so sorry, and wretched, decrepit old knight that you’ve been saddled with, I’ll still do my best to see that you want me.”
“I came with the land; I was not what you wanted!” she reminded him as he eased her up, discarding her robe, pulling her gown over her head.
His eyes touched hers then, cobalt, as deep a blue as a tempestuous sea, and the smile he offered her was an honest one, not touched with mockery or amusement.
“Ah lady, don’t be so modest! Tonight, when I watched you seduce the household, I saw that you knew your own power.
You’re beautiful, Mellyora MacAdin, and you know it well, and the lads around you might well trip over their own hearts—and other regions!
—since you would so cruelly rip them out and so carelessly cast them about. ”
“Oh, aye, and this is what you feel?”
“I’m not such a fool, my lady.”
“That’s right, you had no desire to marry me.”
“It’s not such a hardship.”
“I shall lose my head with such ardent declarations of your desire.”
He smiled, watching her. “Do you question my desire?” he demanded, and pushed her back against the pillows, continuing to speak with intensity.
“Nay, lady, I was not fond of the idea of marriage with you because I am too fond of the idea of living. But as to desire, well, just what is it that you want? You know that there are poems about you, songs that range Highlands and Lowlands, you’re aware that scores of men came to your father and the king, wanting you—”
“Coveting Blue Isle.”
“Aye, the land is important, lady, when is land not? Fine. I’ll not turn your head. You’re dangerous enough as you are.”
She wanted to protest that, but he shifted quite suddenly, moving against her.
She felt his lips against her throat, his tongue tracing a pattern along her vein.
He surely felt the wild speed of her pulse within it.
His kiss went on, forging a trail to the valley between her breasts.
She realized she had ceased to breathe; her fingers fell upon the richness of his dark hair.
His mouth covered her nipple, and she burned with the lightning bolt it created, a shaft of heat that seemed to radiate within and without, tearing through her limbs, centering somewhere low in her abdomen.
She remained very still, wishing she could protest, hating that he could do this, and yet suddenly wondering if she did have the power to please him.
She wanted that, wanted him to want her, to feel the strange compulsion and longing that she felt, no matter how much she had wanted to deny him any part of her life.
Why did she want so much to deny him? she wondered vaguely. Simply because he had taken her life, been given her life …
The question, at the moment, faded. She had to breathe.
She gasped in a tremulous breath, fingers tightening in his hair as he continued to move against her.
His hand moved against her hip, his lips continued to lave her breasts, a slow assault, teeth and tongue teasing, touching, the heat of his breath whispering …
he moved lower again, kisses brushing her navel, her abdomen.
Her fingers remained gripped taut within his hair.
And still he moved, bathing her with his touch, his kiss, everywhere, thighs, stomach, hips, thighs, and then, between.
She gasped, a startled scream that barely touched the air. She ceased to breathe again, she writhed in protest, and then …
She writhed.
She seemed to pulse within, body, blood, bone. Sweetness, heat, hunger, filled her; she ached, she longed. Mercury whirled within her, molten steel, sweet, explosive. She couldn’t bear it, she couldn’t stop him, she would die if he did cease …
Then suddenly he was atop her, lips against hers, whispering, “Lady, you need never question my desire for you …”
He brushed her lips with his kiss, caught her palm, kissed its center, drew her hand down the length of him. She trembled, and he taunted, “Ah, lady, you may touch a man. Such a region is vulnerable, and does not bite.”
He closed her fingers around the fullness of his manhood. “Nay, it does far worse!” she murmured. “It …”
“Aye?”
“Robs breath, steals the soul.”
He smiled, and rose above her, and with a slow seduction of movement, impaled her. She shuddered, and his eyes touched hers, and he smiled slightly. “It’s the heart, lady, that steals the soul, and nothing other can do it.”
She closed her eyes. He began to move. And all that he had touched before took flight from the fire that had been, and this time, when she climbed and longed and reached, it seemed she touched the sun.
And then the sun exploded at that touch, shattering within her, and bringing with it a million shards of perfect light to melt throughout her …
He lay at her side. Then his arms were around her and he drew her to him.
“The prize,” he said softly, “is worth any fight.” She was startled to realize that she couldn’t speak.
“Umm, that good, eh?” he whispered. “Ah, see there! I must be careful of how much I admit, for I don’t dare confess that you’re entirely fascinating, when you, of course, remain married to an old, decrepit Norman. ”
She was surprised to find that a smile could touch her lips.
“You are not entirely repulsive.”
“Ah! Such words of encouragement will keep me forever captivated!”
“You have all your teeth, sir, and they’re actually very good.”
“Alas, after tonight, I may not have all my hair.”
She knew to what he referred, and she twisted, ready to strike out with far more embarrassment than anger, but he laughed, and he caught her, and kissed her again, and that night, she had less sleep than ever.
And it was true, of course, that he was not at all repulsive, old, or decrepit.
Indeed, she didn’t dare admit just how compelling her laird husband was proving to be.