CHAPTER THIRTEEN #3
That was one irrefutable point, she thought, but she was willing to take the chance.
“I won’t lie,” she managed to say thickly, “not that it’s even remotely possible with you eavesdropping on my thoughts.
I am scared, but not of you. Even though that sexual animal last night is scary as all hell, he’s a part of you—and I trust you, Malcolm. ” She tried to smile at him.
He smiled cruelly back. “And will ye trust me when the sun goes down? Will ye trust me now, if I tell ye I am thinkin’ not about yer words, but your hot, wet body an’ yer powerful life?
I meant what I said earlier, Claire. I can still feel ye in my veins and ye dinna ken the power it gave me—or the lust.”
She flinched, but her heart picked up a terrible different beat. Her skin began to tingle. An aching began, purely physical, purely sexual. “You are trying to scare me. Are you also entrancing me?”
“I want ye to be afraid! And I dinna wish to entrance ye, but the beast will have his way.” He stared boldly at her, his eyes silver and hot.
In that second, Claire knew he was tasting every part of her all over again while thinking about being inside her, hard, strong and slick.
In that moment, she felt his throbbing tension and knew that if she offered herself to him, he would accept.
She was breathless now. Was the dark side of him mesmerizing her?
“Do ye still trust me now?” he asked softly, leaning toward her, the threat unmistakable.
She hesitated. She wanted to go into his arms and press up against his hardness. But she wasn’t mindless or in a trance. She didn’t want to die for him. She wanted to make love. “Yes, I do.”
“Then yer in danger, lass,” he said softly.
Oh, did she know that tone. It stirred her loins and licked her flesh. He was watching her with the same predatory intensity as he had last night. She found her voice. “Last night you were dying. You’re not dying now. That animal is gone. I trust you. And you should trust yourself.”
“That animal,” he said tauntingly, “is raging t’ be set free.”
She did not want to tempt him or test him, but somehow she was doing just that. “No. I’m looking at Malcolm of Dunroch, a Master of Time, and what you want I am not afraid to give.”
“Then ye dinna ken my needs, Claire.”
She breathed hard, the tension growing hotter, seething between them. “You want sex, not death,” she tried.
“I want to feel exactly what I felt last night,” he said furiously. “But I dinna wish to hurt ye, not in any way! So ye will obey me command this single time.”
He was in a terrible raging battle, she thought. It was worse than she had realized. “Fine. So you will go to Dunroch while Moray hunts you?” She was bitter, scathing. “And I will what? Languish at the abbey like Mairead? Hide in a new closet? For how long?”
“Aye,” he said dangerously. “Ye’ll hide there fer years, as long as it takes fer me t’ forget yer taste, yer feel, yer look!”
She jerked, stunned.
He flushed. “Ye’ll stay until Moray fergets ye have any use to him,” he amended harshly. “An’ that be the day ye go home to yer cousin an’ yer books.”
“That’s not what you said,” she said, her heart palpitating wildly. “And it’s not what you meant.”
He was grim, even savage. “Ye see what I’m thinking of! Ye ken an’ ye dinna retreat! Ye want me to admit it? Ye want me t’ admit the truth?”
Claire hesitated. She knew she wasn’t going to like it. “You’re going to hurt me.”
“Aye, better I hurt ye now than fuck ye to death!” He pointed at her, his hand shaking.
“Ye be an obsession, Claire. Not a passion, an obsession. I dinna love ye now an’ I never will.
I dinna want yer love! I want yer body an’ yer life.
” He pushed his face close. “I want to push inside ye right now an’ taste yer life until ye have nothing left to give. Until yer dead. Now get out.”
She began shaking her head, refusing to move, and tears began.
He could not mean it. She didn’t expect his love, but she expected, wanted and needed his affection.
“I don’t believe you. I won’t. I can believe I’m an obsession, but you do not want me dead.
You want me alive and in your bed. I think you also want me in your life, because you care more than you can ever admit. ”
He paled.
“So if you think to terrorize or horrify me, well, I’m already terrorized and horrified and I am not about to forget last night.
I will never forget last night. I am scared, Malcolm, but I am not dead!
Because you stopped yourself from taking my life.
And why is that?” She was shouting, crying.
“Because there is good inside you. I am not looking at and speaking to an evil man! Moray set you up. I don’t get the damn physiology of healing yourself with someone else’s life, I will never understand what god made such a stupid plan, that kills innocent people to save great heroes.
But life is about moral decisions, Malcolm.
Throughout history, men make choices, men fight for good against bad, and they even fight against the bad in themselves! You made your choice last night.
“You beat Moray,” she added more quietly, wiping her tears. “And I intend for us to defeat him again and again and again, however long it takes, together.”
“Ye won’t live t’ see it,” he said flatly, turning and mounting the gray horse.
Claire was dismayed. She had spoken with her heart, and she had passionately meant her every word.
But Malcolm wasn’t going to change his mind.
His decision was set in stone. He was not going to consider that they could fight Moray together.
He was not going to consider that they should fight Moray together.
Claire seized the reins. “I know there is a risk!” she cried furiously. “But I am willing to take it, because that is how much your soul means to me. This is my choice, Malcolm.”
“No. It’s nay yer choice. I am sworn t’ protect ye, Claire, an’ that is what I do. Ye be the most stubborn, pigheaded woman I ever met.” His eyes blazed. “Ye’ll go to Iona as I command. Let go o’ my reins.”
She inhaled, releasing the bridle. “I know you are king here, but in my world, a woman is free and she obeys no one, not even her husband. She only obeys herself!”
His laughter was harsh. “We be in my world, Claire, an’ in this world, I be yer lord an’ ye obey me.”
Claire could barely think. This wasn’t the best time to debate, not with their passions running wild, but if she did not convince him to trust himself, he was leaving without her. Maybe he was right and fighting for him was a huge and fatal mistake. But maybe he was wrong.
Claire decided to gamble her life.
And he must have sensed her intentions, because he turned white. The same horror she had seen last night covered his face.
She moved in front of the door, blocking the path out of the stable. “Malcolm, we have to believe in each other. And you have to believe in yourself. Please,” she added desperately.
“How in God’s name can ye do this now?” he roared, erupting into fury.
Claire’s heart was pounding so hard she felt faint. “Make love to me.”