Chapter 8
Magnus pulled her to him, knowing this was madness but powerless to prevent it.
He felt her go limp against him as he swept one arm across the table, pushing everything to the floor with a loud clatter, and laying the lass down on the hard surface as she gave a quiet gasp.
As she fell back against it, her arms came up, and he thought she was about to push him away. Instead, she placed them behind her, leaning back and looking up at him in disbelief as he broke the kiss to gauge her reaction.
Her breasts were rising and falling in a rhythmic motion that drove him wild as he watched her, but her eyes were soft and filled with desire.
He lunged forward again, pressing her back against the table’s surface, a soft moan leaving her lips as he took her mouth with his once more. He pushed his tongue between her lips as she gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders.
His hands gripped her thighs, pulling her legs apart as he moved between them, tugging her to the edge of the table as her legs wrapped around his waist. He plundered her mouth again and again as she shuddered beneath him, her long hair falling back in a fiery halo.
As he felt her back hit the surface, he drove his hips forward, burying a hand in the flaming strands, relishing the sweet taste of her as she groaned against his lips.
But at that simple sound, he froze, looking down at her in shock as he was abruptly brought to his senses.
He pulled back, looking down at her in horror.
What in God’s name am I doin’?
Shame coursed through him as she panted beneath him.
He could have taken her right there if he had been a different man. But he knew this was wrong—so very wrong.
He pulled away, her legs falling from his waist, the heat of her body lost as he stepped back from the table, tugging at his clothes, trying his best not to let the self-disgust he felt show on his face.
“I am sorry, lass,” he murmured. “Go to yer room and be free of me. I am nae meself.”
He winced as her expression morphed from surprise to fury in seconds. She pulled at her clothes—the borrowed dress of me wife!—and awkwardly sat up, still sitting on the table.
He could see the hurt in her expression as she doubtless tried to fathom what on earth had gotten into him.
“Just because you are helping me doesn’t mean you get to command me,” she spat, clenching her fists at her sides in such a display of defiance that he wanted to claim her all over again.
He stepped forward, taking hold of her chin between his thumb and forefinger, not missing the hitch in her breath as he did so.
“Wrong, lass. As long as ye’re in me castle, ye’re mine to command. And when I say leave, ye leave. Because if ye stay, I cannae promise yer precious reputation will be intact in the mornin’. Do ye understand?”
She pushed herself to the edge of the table, but he could not let her escape that easily.
He placed his arms on either side of her waist, trapping her between the table and his body, watching her shiver beneath him, her pupils dilated with lust.
“Do ye understand?” he repeated.
She rolled her eyes, scoffing. “Men are all the same,” she muttered, pushing against his arm with all her strength.
He was forced to step back or fall on top of her.
“Yes, I understand,” she said, the same frown remaining on her face as she rose to her feet, pulling at her skirts, which had ridden up almost to her knees. He averted his gaze so as not to put her right back onto the table and have his way with her. “Good night, My Laird.”
He did not look at her again until he heard her soft footsteps retreating and the door clicking shut behind her. He picked up his wine glass, downed its contents, and threw it forcibly into the fire.
Leah closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it, trying to catch her breath after that explosive kiss.
She walked to her bed, then back to the door, and after a moment, found herself pacing feverishly, listening to the sound of the crackling fire and wondering what she had allowed to happen.
He kissed me. And I kissed him back.
She was uncertain how exactly it had come about. She had been aware of him approaching her, the same heat in his expression that she had felt when he had sat across from her in the carriage. He had advanced on her so confidently. Never had a man approached her like that.
The men in Society were all about showing her their wit or intelligence. They often spoke down to her or muttered about her reputation behind her back. None of them had ever looked at her as though they wanted to possess her.
She thought back to the feel of the hard table against her back, his rough movements as he pushed himself between her legs, pressing her body beneath his and claiming her mouth in the most intimate way possible.
She could not imagine that Magnus Shaw cared very much about reputation and propriety. The very center of the man seemed to be a wild storm.
She looked down at herself, suddenly wishing to dispense with the gown that clung to her like a foreign skin. She ripped at the fabric, tearing it off her body with swift, jerky movements. She hated the idea of him being married, of another woman having had the chance to be with him in such a way.
Was he always like this, so brooding and angry with the world?
She shook herself, surprised by the rage that coursed through her at the idea of him sharing his inner feelings and emotions with another woman.
He was so closed off, so disinterested in the world.
Most of the time, he looked bored with the life he had to lead.
He had not danced with a single woman at the ball.
It hadn’t appeared to even occur to him as a possibility.
What did that to a man? How did he become who he is?
She startled slightly at the sound of a door slamming loudly beneath her room. It had not come from inside the castle, and she went hesitantly to the window to look down at the castle grounds.
As she stared into the darkness, through the rain pelting the windowpane, she could see very little. The room behind her was far too bright to discern anything clearly.
She darted about the room, blowing out all the candles until she walked back through a murky gloom, illuminated only by the fire’s dying embers.
She went swiftly to the window and looked out, intrigued by what could possibly be happening outside the castle in the middle of a storm. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked down at the scene below her.
A figure was striding across the lawns, his white shirt billowing, his hair sticking to his back as the rain and wind whipped at him.
It was undoubtedly MacWatt, but she could not tell what he was doing. As she watched, hidden by the darkness, she saw him reach a small hut at the edge of the forest a few feet from the castle walls.
He ripped off his shirt, just as she had ripped at her dress only minutes before, and threw it behind him. She clutched her throat at the sight of all that hard flesh, his taught skin glistening as he bent to the ground and grabbed an axe from a small wooden crate at his feet.
He backed away, picking up a large log from a pile beside him and placing it on a horizontal beam at his feet.
After a short pause, with a practiced stance, he swung the axe in a graceful arc over his head.
He began to hack at the wood, chopping it into smaller pieces, which he methodically discarded into the pile at his back.
Leah was unsure how long she watched him, unable to tear her eyes away from his rippling flesh as he chopped at the wood repeatedly until there was very little left for him to cut.
At least now she had her answer as to where the wood for the fires came from—clearly, MacWatt felled a small forest every day using his brawn alone.
Concerned that one of the servants might catch her watching him, she eventually returned to her bed, burying herself under the covers, wishing she could understand what was happening inside his head.
Why did he kiss me? And why did he pull away?
She was so inexperienced with the ways of the world that she wondered whether she had kissed him badly and that had caused him to come to his senses. He had a wife before, perhaps he had compared the past kisses to the new.
Leah did not like that idea. She pulled a pillow over her head to dispel the thoughts before they drove her mad.
The memory of his calloused hands running over her skin sent a shudder through her, and she groaned as she tried to push the images out of her mind, but it was no use. He had been so strong, so powerful, and yet he had handled her with such care.
She could still feel the sensation of his tongue driving into her mouth, of her own tongue coming to meet it, the softness of his lips as he claimed hers. She longed to run her fingers through his hair and feel the support and strength of his arms around her once more.
Despite always being an independent woman, cynical of the idea of taking a husband, she had to admit that she had never felt safer than in his embrace. It was as though he had taken all her concerns away, lifting her to a different plain where she could simply feel.
She tossed and turned for hours, unable to get the image of his broad, muscled torso out of her mind as he hammered at the pieces of wood as though they held a secret only he could unlock.