Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Rebecca stood staring at the empty tub that two maids had just lugged into the chamber.
According to them Lucy had insisted on it, saying she needed to relax after her ordeal.
She’d almost told them not to bother filling it.
While she needed a bath to scrub away the stink and memories of the attack, that would also wash away the scent of Dorchad and what he had done to her in the hay barn.
Her bottom still ached from the spanking he’d given her, making her remember how he’d punished her every time she moved. Her clit still throbbed, too.
Ever I see you, wench, and my cock swells until I can think of naught but burying it here, where you’re so tender and sweet.
Rebecca went over to the blazing hearth, kneeling down on the cold stone floor to warm her trembling hands.
None of this was new to her. What she’d discovered about herself while recovering from the car accident fourteen years ago had shamed her at first. She’d never been in such pain as when her casts were removed and they’d put her in a wheelchair to take her to the therapy room, but that wasn’t all she’d experienced.
It had taken time—and many secretive sessions at night doing internet research on her laptop—for Rebecca to understand what was happening to her.
The trauma of the car accident and her recovery had changed her fundamentally, and she may have adapted to her altered circumstances by taking control of something that should have terrified her and turning it into something that gave her pleasure.
Pain aroused her, almost unbearably so.
How can I explain all this to a man who lives in a time when blood-letting and using urine and dung to treat wounds are considered viable medical treatments?
The two maids returned carrying four buckets of hot water, which they added to the tub before setting a smaller empty wooden catch basin on the floor beside it.
One of them placed a crock of soap and some linen toweling within reach of the tub, while the other put a large wooden dipper on top of the toweling.
“Thank you.” After they left Rebecca began to undress, wincing as her movements stretched the skin on her sore bottom.
The reality of being spanked was much more raw than the fantasy, but she didn’t mind that part.
She’d endured all the pain and humiliation of the chieftain’s punishment, but she had yet to be rewarded for that.
Between her legs her sex pulsed with aching, burning need. Dorchad had wanted her, too.
Only I’d fack you all night and the next day, and you’re but a wee thing.
Without running water, washing up in the fourteenth century was either a jug and basin sponging affair, or this catch basin and tub soak bath.
Since she wanted to soak in the hot water now, Rebecca ran a wet cloth over herself before scrubbing with the soap, and then washed her hair.
She rinsed off while standing in the shallow wood basin, which collected all the dirty, soapy water that sluiced off her.
When she stepped into and sank down in the heated depths of the bigger tub, her bones seemed to dissolve.
If she had closed her eyes she probably would have fallen asleep, or so she thought until one neglected part of her anatomy reminded her that things south of her navel were quite wide awake, and hurting in a different sense.
We didn’t finish, that’s why.
As she soaked in the tub she kept looking at the door.
She badly needed to talk to Dorchad, but she knew he would never come to her.
Whether he was too proud, or worried that he might hurt her, he was definitely against becoming involved with her.
After what had happened in the hay barn he would probably avoid her for the rest of the time she lived at the castle so that it didn’t happen again.
Rebecca understood his hesitation, because from all the signals he gave her this was new for him, too.
Taking back control of her pain meant confronting him about the spanking, and telling him what he didn’t know about her.
That required a lot more courage than she’d ever had to draw on, but it was Dorchad, her dream man.
She could drive herself crazy thinking it, she could masturbate while fantasizing about him and hope to satisfy herself, or she could go and talk to the real man right now.
I’ll find a way to make him understand.
She dressed in a shift, gown and a pair of slippers that Lucy had given her, and when the maids returned to remove and empty the tub she had one of them lace her up.
After combing out her damp hair, she rolled and clipped it into a twist, and then took a moment to be sure of herself.
She was clean, calm and completely presentable.
She could show him her true self without hysterics.
I have to do this or I’ll never know.
Rebecca walked out of the guest room and went to the first guard she saw. “Do you know where Chieftain Dorchad is now?”
“Aye, my lady. His quarters.” He nodded in the direction of the chamber he used inside the stronghold. “Shall I bid one of the maids to escort you there?”
“I know the way, thank you.” She walked on before he could ask her anything else, keeping her expression controlled as she passed other clansmen and a few maids.
When Rebecca reached the chieftain’s quarters she saw the door standing open a few inches, and that stopped her in her tracks.
What she was about to do could end any number of ways, most in humiliation and shame.
If he rejected her she might never work up the nerve to try again.
The next few minutes could give her everything she’d ever wanted, or destroy all of her hopes.
She’d never attempted to do this in the past, too afraid of her inexperience.
Choosing the wrong man would be a disaster, only this seemed right.
All she had to do was walk through his door and tell him the truth.
He’s the one. I know he is. Reuben promised me I would recognize him. If I don’t try tonight, he never will. He doesn’t know how to.
She knocked once before pushing in the door and stepping over the threshold.
Dorchad stood at one of the window slits, his long feet bare.
The dampness of his hair told her he’d already bathed as well.
While he didn’t turn around, his back muscles tensed under his tunic when she came in.
The air smelled of soap and Dorchad’s rich, dark chocolate and cream scent, curling around her like an invisible quilt.
He looked so alone, and that made her heart ache.
Am I the one for him?
“You should go back to your chamber, Doctor,” he said, his voice so low every word seemed to skitter on the air like stones tossed onto frozen ground. “I said all I wish to you in the barn.”
Yes, it seemed that he was still in full blown denial over what had happened earlier.
Yet for some reason her heartbeat began to flutter, and it wasn’t from fear.
He had known she’d come into his room without even looking at her.
He could smell her, maybe, or sense the heat of her body.
Not knowing what alerted him didn’t matter, only what it meant.
He’s as aware of me as I am of him.
“I will leave in a moment,” Rebecca said, closing the door, “but I have something I need to say to you before I do.”
He glanced back at her. “If you desire an apology, then I shall beg your pardon. ’Twasnae my right to punish you.” He turned and bowed lower than she’d ever seen him go. “My apologies.”
One thing she knew was that Dorchad wasn’t sorry at all about spanking her. Why was he lying? Did he think she was like all the other women he’d been with before now? Or hadn’t he been with anyone yet?
“There’s no reason for that,” she said softly. “I disobeyed your orders. Under the circumstances, the spanking was deserved. If I didn’t believe that, I would have fought you.”
Now Dorchad regarded her with his eyes narrowed and his mouth little more than a hard line. “I dinnae need your consolation. Say what you wish, wench, and get out.”
She’d pushed him from denial into anger. This could end up ruining her chance to be with him, and for a moment she thought she’d bolt and run. But he still didn’t know her, and that wasn’t fair.
“I’m not as young or as innocent as you think.” She had to convince him that what was happening between them wasn’t wrong, and that she shared his needs. But how could she put all that into words? “I don’t look like it but I’m almost thirty. I’ve also had a lover before now.”
“Only the one, I’ll wager.” He came over to her, his brows rising when she stood her ground. “Did the eejit hurt you? ’Tis all you ken of men and passion? Do you come to me for more of the same?”
He’s been thinking about it, too. Rebecca wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him, but it wasn’t time for that. Yet. I have to show him that he can trust me.
“My first lover cared only about his own pleasure. He wanted me to be someone I’m not.” She looked into his black eyes. “He never carried me off or spanked me. He didn’t understand me.” She dragged in a quick breath. “You do.”
Dorchad curled his hand around the back of her neck, stroking the side of her throat with his thumb. It seemed like a casual, almost affectionate gesture, until she felt the edge of his thumbnail rasping over the fine hairs on her skin.
“Do I? And yet even as I do thus, I frighten you.” When she nodded slowly he moved his thumb up to her lower lip, and rubbed the dent where she’d bitten it too many times. “Then why dinnae you run away from me, eun dearg?”
“I want to be with you more than I want to run. You’re the one I hoped I’d meet someday.” As his brows rose she stepped closer, and dared to rest one hand on his chest. He didn’t know it, but they had to set the boundaries first. “I can give you what you need, too.”
He looked away from her face. “You’ve no notion of my desires.”