Chapter 18
“Are ye mad, lassie?” The MacLean stared at her, his dark brows arcing. He made a sweeping gesture, taking in the still-laden table, her bed, and the chain binding him to the bedpost. “Is that what this is about? Siring a bairn on you?”
“Is that so shocking?” Isolde stood as straight as she could. “Such alliances are made every day.”
“No’ like this, they aren’t.” He sounded incredulous, as if she expected him to fly out the window and walk on clouds. “You’re after my seed?”
Isolde smoothed her skirts. “I would not put it that way.”
“How then?”
“I wish a child.” There, she’d said it as clearly as anyone could.
“And so...” He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowed. “I am required to service you.”
“Is the task so onerous?”
His brows again winged upward. “Task?”
“Call it what you will.” She held his gaze, amazed her voice didn’t break. “I do not claim to be beautiful. But neither am I an ogress. And you…”
She drew a breath. “You are a man.”
“You believe that is enough?”
Her shoulders went back. “From what I have observed, it should be.”
“And to think I am called bold.” He folded his arms, his feet braced apart as he scowled at her. “You, lass, are as brazen as day.”
She bristled. “Were I truly so, I would not find this so distasteful.”
“That is no’ problem, sweeting.” His voice took on a dark, dangerous tone. “If you find bedding me offensive, spare yourself the agony.”
“I cannot.”
He leaned toward her. “Why?”
She kept her chin raised, but wished the floor would open beneath her, letting her fall through, escaping this broil.
“Because…” She glanced at the window, preferring the night’s swirling, moon-silvered mist to his glare. His dark and furious eyes that made her feel as if he could see clear to her bones, even peer into the hidden-most corner of her soul.
Her heart, the gods pity her.
“Dinnae look away, lassie. Thon mist doesnae care who wins, you or me. So explain yourself.”
Isolde inhaled deeply. “I am head of my clan,” she said, turning back to him. “Duty bound to produce an heir. I do not, however, have any wish to marry.”
For sure, I will not wed Balloch MacArthur.
She kept that truth to herself. Likewise that she would indeed marry her true soul mate, if ever she was blessed enough to meet him.
She just hoped he wasn’t standing before her.
“You could enter a nunnery,” he said, proving his arrogance.
“That would not do.” A note of pride entered her voice. “I follow the old ways.”
She was also beginning to think he was unholy.
Perhaps a sorcerer. How else could he seem to grow larger each time she saw him?
Just as unsettling, although a chain bound him to her bed, he struck her as more powerful than Niels and Rory combined.
As if he could uproot a mountain if he chose to do so. As to what he might do to her…
That didn’t bear thinking upon.
He, though, appeared to study her. “So you heed the ancients.”
“You do not? A laird of the Hebridean waters?”
“Humph. All Highlanders know magic exists.”
“But not all embrace it. I would not feel at ease behind walls where the old ones are not welcome.”
“So no veil, and no husband?”
“I wish to do as I please.” She looked at him, desperation making her bold. “Few women do, or can. They lack the means or daring. I do not care what others think of me.”
“Then I am relieved.” He uncrossed his arms, but his eyes still smoldered, and dangerously. “I thought you hoped to force a marriage by swelling with my get.”
“It is the babe I want, nothing else.”
“You think I would see my child, my firstborn, spring from you?” He gave her a look that froze her heart. “A MacInnes? The Maclnnes? A woman so cold-blooded she tosses me in a sea pit by day yet would spread her legs for me at night?”
Isolde flinched. “That is not the way of it.”
One of his brows shot upward. “Sweeting, it is. You are also uniformed. Nae bother, though. I will tell you.”
He towered over her, looking every inch a Highland warlord about to attack. “A man can pleasure a woman, even take his own ease, and leave behind nary a drop of his seed.”
She frowned. “I am not surprised your answer is crude.”
“I would say earthy.” One corner of his mouth tilted up. “You do know that a roused man spills? His life-seed gushes from him.”
Isolde’s eyes widened. She may have gasped. Or the sound was just a sudden increase in the night wind.
She hoped so.
His smile said otherwise.
“You look astonished.” He didn’t seem at all discomfited. Far from it, he still had that fierce, untamed air about him that made her feel as if they stood on some bloody clan battlefield rather than in her familiar, candlelit bedchamber.
“Do you no’ believe me?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly intent in pursuing the matter. His voice took on a deep, roughened note that was both alarming and compelling. “Shall I prove it?”
“You are making this more difficult than need be.”
“I am? This is your game, sweet, no’ mine.”
“This is not a game.” Isolde drew back, her heart pounding. He could say what he wished. He was making sport of her. His every taunting, wicked thought simmered in his gaze. She needed to protect herself, to take great care before he shattered her defenses, revealing her darkest secrets.
Such as how he could melt her with a glance, make her belly flutter with just a few softly spoken words.
There was more, but she didn’t want to think about such weakness. She should despise him.
In truth, she did.
“Aye, I believe I shall,” he said then, his eyes glinting in the candlelight.
Isolde blinked. “Shall what?”
“You are much too innocent.” He gave her another look up and down as if to confirm his opinion. “As we are to tup together, I should at least enlighten you.
“Before we stretch out naked on your bed,” he added, glancing at the massive four-poster so close beside him.
“Naked?”
“Och, aye.” His smile flashed again. “A Highlander worth his heritage would accept no less, sweeting. “No Highland man will be satisfied with a quick fumble beneath a lassie’s skirts.”
He shook his head as he advanced on her, the chain dragging over the floor rushes. “He’ll want his woman bare as the cold night wind and with her legs spread wide, her arms reaching for him…”
He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to. His words, the image he painted, served him well. Her pulse raced, she felt a flush warming her cheeks. Her womanhood, that most private place, also heated.
More than that, she tingled.
She frowned at him. “Must you speak of such things?”
“Aye, to prepare you.”
“I am ready enough.”
“Fine. Then you will know that a Highlander will want to gaze on his woman. He’ll wish to see her every dip and curve, learn all her most intimate delights, before he takes her.
” His smile spread, darkening in a way that made it hard for her to breathe.
“He will do all that and more before he pleasures her.
“And he always sees to her needs first.” He lowered his voice as he stepped around the table. “Only when she is entirely sated, will he then spew.”
“Spew?”
“Loose his seed.”
“Oh.” Isolde placed a hand on her breast, pride alone keeping her from fleeing. “You are wicked.”
“You can be glad I am.” He kept his gaze locked on hers. “A less bold man, or a selfish one, would no’ satisfy you near as much.”
“I have no interest in being satisfied.”
“You should. Indeed, you should demand it.” He stopped at the table’s edge, halted by his chain.
Something intense and far too stirring flared in his eyes, but then they warmed, turning a rich, liquid brown.
As he looked at her, the hard line of his jaw relaxed, and his darkly handsome face finally revealed the powerful charm so many women claimed he possessed.
She, too, found her resistance falling away. His smile alone captivated her. Its impact surged through her in a cascade of sensation spilling from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and warming every place between.
Half-afraid to breathe, she edged closer to the table and began inching her hand toward Devorgilla’s flask of anti-attraction elixir.
She needed it badly.
“I know what I want, and what I do not,” she declared, hoping to distract him as she stretched her arm out behind her, curling her fingers around the flask. “Should I not demand that you respect my wishes? I have no desire to be-”
“Pleasured?” He sounded amused.
“Can we not just…” Mercy, must she say the words? “Is it not possible to simply-”
“Nae.” He shook his head. “I have agreed to bed you, but I will only do so on my terms. There will be pleasure for us both. You will wish many such beddings.
“That I promise you.” His gaze narrowed on hers and she nearly spiraled into his deep, velvet-brown eyes, feeling as if she might drown there. “But first we shall spend much time kissing. Then I will look my fill of your nakedness, touch and caress every luscious inch of you.”
Dear gods!
His words sent little darts of excitement all through her, even weakening her knees. The tingling between her legs increased, pleasurable indeed. So much so, that she suspected everything he said was true. Could she bear that?
She didn’t know.
But she now had Devorgilla’s flask in her hand, began easing it toward the concealing folds of her skirts. She just needed a bit, a quick gulp to dash her foolish attraction, the tingles that both maddened and roused her.
And that was a problem.
“I do not care what you say, Laird MacLean,” she argued, the back of her wrist already brushing her skirts. “I insist upon your courtesy. You are a knight-”
“So I am.” With lightning speed, he lunged and snatched the potion from her, then held the flagon high above his head. “And I am about to show you how unknightly a man can be.”
Isolde glared at him. “You already have.”
“Och, nae, I haven’t.”
“Then don’t.”
“I must.” He glanced up at the flagon. “You shouldn’t have brought this potion into it. Now I have no choice. Highlanders are wildly curious.”