CHAPTER FOUR #2
No sooner had the strains of music and laughter faded than Galen threw back the bed coverings. Oblivious to his state of near undress, he lunged from the bed and stormed over to a nearby table.
“Christ on the cross! I thought they’d never leave.”
Relieved to have the bothersome ritual behind them, Galen snatched the wine flagon from the sandalwood table.
“All of this blessing of beds and priestly sanctimony has given me a powerful thirst.” Peering over his shoulder at Laoghaire, he added, “I would have you join me.” If for no other reason than he hoped the wine would ease her rite of passage.
In her present state, his bride put him in mind of a sacrificial lamb, and he suspected that lying with her would be akin to rutting on a marble effigy.
A thought that did little to enflame his passions.
Where is the wild Highland beauty who hurled a lance at me that day at Castle Maoil?
Even now, months later, he could still vividly recall the way in which Laoghaire’s hair, flying behind her in the wind, made it appear as though she were haloed in flames.
That was the woman he wanted writhing beneath him this night.
Not some cowering virgin. Yes, he would soon take her maidenhead; and, in return, he would feed, clothe, and protect Laoghaire MacKinnon for the rest of her born days.
But that didn’t mean they couldn’t take pleasure in the marital bed.
Better to burnish his rod in a warm, welcoming vessel than one that was cold and brittle.
While he poured wine into the two goblets which had earlier been placed on the table, Galen glanced at his Highland bride. Wide-eyed, she peered back at him, intently watching his every move.
Clutching the sheet to her chest, Laoghaire said, “I cannot join ye as I am not properly dressed.”
“And I am?” With a wry half-grin, Galen gestured to his braies, worn only for modesty’s sake on account of the bedding ceremony. As with most trained warriors, his body was as much a weapon as his sword; thus, he felt no inhibition about his naked state.
Besides, Laoghaire was now his wife and she must become accustomed to him. He did not wish to share his bedchamber with a cringing female who averted her gaze from his unclothed body.
When Laoghaire showed no inclination of getting out of the bed, Galen stormed over to the wooden chest that was set in the nearby window alcove. Annoyed with her reticence, he grabbed hold of his mantle, the garment having been neatly folded and placed on top of the trunk.
Tossing the mantle at his bride, he said, “Don that, if you must.”
“Dame Winifred was quite correct: Ye are ‘the very model of chivalry,’” Laoghaire grumbled with no small measure of sarcasm. She then threw back the coverlet and scooted to the edge of the feather mattress.
As he observed his new bride maneuver off the bed, the blood instantly rushed to Galen’s groin. Laoghaire’s silken chemise—the garment sinfully sheer—clung to every rounded curve on her body. It was so sheer he could even see the red thatch of hair that covered her woman’s mound.
To his dismay, Galen had only a brief, alluring glimpse, his bride all too quickly enveloping herself in the voluminous cloak before she padded over to the table.
“Have ye no shame?” Laoghaire hissed, casting a furtive glance at Galen’s bare chest.
“Do you mean to ask if I am embarrassed to have you look upon me? I am not,” Galen answered matter-of-factly, while he casually leaned his haunches on the edge of the table.
“I am as God intended me to be. As are you, lady wife.” He punctuated the addendum by lightly brushing the tip of his finger across the smooth line of Laoghaire’s jaw.
When she flinched slightly, Galen lowered his hand and reached for one of the wine goblets.
“Here. Drink this,” he ordered, irritated with her response to the gentle caress.
“I pray it will balance your humors, for they are not as they should be this night.”
Laoghaire took the honey-colored goblet from him. As she did so, a rapt expression suddenly came over her. “’Tis made of glass,” she marveled.
Given her awestruck reaction, Galen surmised that Laoghaire had never before seen a glass drinking vessel. No surprise in that, glass a rare commodity.
“The goblets were a wedding gift from the king,” he told her.
All too soon Laoghaire’s expression hardened, the lady clearly taking umbrage. “Does the Bruce think a beautiful goblet will make arrears for his marital decree?”
Suspecting it was best not to answer that particular question, Galen deliberately changed the subject. “I’ve been told that the eyes are a reflection of one’s soul. If that is true, then yours blaze with an emotion ill-suited for a bride on her wedding night.”
A taut silence ensued as Laoghaire wordlessly stared at him, her gaze focused on the scar that ravaged his left cheek. “Aye, it is well known that a hideous appearance mirrors the state of one’s soul,” she said at last, smirking as she did so.
“So you think me hideous, do you?”
She took a measured sip of wine before replying, “No one would claim yer scar a comely sight.”
“You don’t mince words, do you?” Although irked, Galen knew she spoke the truth.
Lifting a shoulder, Laoghaire said airily, “I speak my mind. ’Tis no crime in that.”
Oh, but there is, lady wife.
Laoghaire MacKinnon was now his property, his chattel.
And as such, she was not to form an opinion nor have a belief that did not first originate with him.
Her days of speaking her mind were now the stuff of memory.
While he wanted her to show some spirit in his bed, he expected his countess to display a docile temperament when not engaged in bedsport.
Under no circumstance would he abide a wayward woman in his household.
“At Castle Airlie I decide what is or is not a crime,” he said with quiet emphasis.
“Would ye have me speak falsely, then? To simper and smile as I proclaim ye a chivalrous and handsome knight?”
“’Twould be a welcome change,” Galen muttered, as he took a swig of his wine.
Laoghaire cocked her head to one side, her eyes briefly moving across the expanse of his torso. “Ye have brawn, I’ll give ye that.”
“How you flatter me,” he deadpanned.
“Don’t let it swell yer head. I was merely stating a fact. A man who lives by the sword wouldn’t last long if he was weak or puny.”
“True enough. But I no longer ‘live by the sword,’” he told her, his days of fighting on another man’s behalf behind him. “I am now the earl of this demesne.”
“And the fact that ye are did not come as welcome news to me.”
Galen favored Laoghaire with a humorless smile. “But you will very soon welcome me between your legs. Then, you will feel the thrust of my blade, hot and hard within you.”
In the wake of that brazen assertion, Laoghaire’s hand began to visibly shake, causing wine to slosh against the sides of the goblet.
Galen wordlessly took the vessel from her and set it on the table.
Though she knew it not, the lady aroused a fire within him, inciting his desire to mate, to fill her womb with his seed, to put all that made him civilized asunder.
“I grow weary of this conversation. The time has come to consummate our vows,” he announced, his loins heavy from the want of her.
Upon hearing that, Laoghaire’s eyes opened wide, her beauty marred with a panic-stricken expression. “I will submit to ye, as ye are now my husband. But I will not—” Appearing the very embodiment of virginal fear, she nervously licked her lips. “I will not let ye kiss me,” she informed him.
Infuriated with her gall, Galen stepped to within a hand’s-breadth of her. “You dare to put conditions upon my husbandly rights?”
“Do ye want me to come willingly to yer bed?” Her defiance having returned, Laoghaire shoved a palm against his chest to push him away from her.
At the touch of her hand upon his naked flesh, Galen bit back a groan of pleasure.
“Yea, I want that most fervently,” he told her, refusing to be dislodged. “But I would know why you will not kiss me?”
“Because I like ye not!”
“And I don’t particularly care for you, sweetings. Although I lust after you mightily,” he added. Since he could not hide the fact that he desired her—his engorged sex blatantly outlined against the linen braies—he saw no reason to deny it.
Laoghaire’s brow furrowed. “Ye can actually lust for a woman whom ye hold in disdain?”
Slipping a hand under the mantle, Galen cupped the underside of her breast through the chemise, taking a moment to savor the heft and shape of her. As he did so, Laoghaire gasped softly.
“Curiously enough, the antipathy sharpens my appetite. And I cannot deny that you possess an uncommon beauty. Your breasts—” Galen stroked his thumb over a burgeoning nipple—“are magnificent and I cannot wait to see my son suckle at them. But until then . . .” his words trailed into silence as Galen lowered his head.
Pressing his lips to Laoghaire’s breast, he drew the hardened stub of flesh into his mouth.
In the next instant he heard a mewling whimper, just before Laoghaire began to pound on his shoulders with her fists.
“What ye’re doing is unnatural!” she exclaimed.
When he finally pulled away from her, Galen unabashedly stared at the moist spot he’d made on the thin silk, the sheer fabric wetly clinging to her protruding nipple.
Highly aroused, his manhood now strained to be released from the loincloth.
I want nothing more than to bury myself within her.
To lose himself in a pleasure so fierce, so intense, it would make him forget that this woman of the Highlands had not been his choice for a bride.
His self-control severely tested, Galen took a deep, steadying breath while he slid a hand over Laoghaire’s flat stomach. As he did so, he felt the muscles of her abdomen tighten.