32 SHACKLED
SILENCE FOLLOWED ALEC’S admission. Blinking, Liza stared at him. Had she heard right?
“I have poor timing, I’ll admit,” he said roughly before dragging a hand down his face. “This will be the last thing ye wish to hear.”
She still didn’t answer. Frankly, his words had stunned her.
Alec stepped away from the hearth, stopping when he was a few feet distant from where she still sat upon the table. “I’ve spent my life avoiding being shackled to anyone,” he went on, a nerve flickering in his cheek. “But then I met ye, Liza. Ye made me desire a different future.”
She drew in a long, shaky breath, her chest fluttering now. “Is that why ye offered to stay on here?”
Strange how she could keep her wits about her when she had a knife to her throat, but a declaration from Alec Rankin made her feel as if the ground had just given way under her.
She was glad she was sitting, or her knees might have buckled, and that would have been humiliating indeed.
A muscle flexed in Alec’s jaw. “I didn’t want to admit it to myself at the time … but aye … I remained at Moy so that I could be near to ye,” he replied, moving closer. Reaching the table, he sank down onto one knee before her. He then pressed a clenched hand against his breastbone, his gaze piercing hers. “But know this … if I won yer heart, I’d spend the rest of my life leaving ye in no doubt of my love.”
Liza’s pulse fluttered. “And how would ye do that?”
His blue eyes glinted. “I would serve ye, protect ye, and stand at yer side through all of life’s storms.”
Her breathing grew shallow. Curse him, he was making her resolve to remain chaste for the rest of her days melt like snow in the warm spring sun. Desperately, she tried to claw back control. “I rue the day we met, Alec Rankin,” she rasped, her fingers curling around the table edge.
“No, ye don’t,” he replied, his lips lifting at the edges.
Her pulse started to throb in her throat. His gaze darkened, and he rose to his feet.
Liza’s chin kicked up. His nearness, the scent of leather and salt that was uniquely him, overwhelmed her. And yet, beneath it all, the truth burned as bright as the North Star within her. “No,” she whispered, her voice catching. “I don’t.”
He stepped in closer still, reaching out then and tracing his fingers down her cheek. “We have something,” he whispered. “Don’t we?”
“Aye,” she murmured, even as dizziness swept over her. They did, and she couldn’t fight it any longer. “I love ye too, Alec.”
And the moment she admitted how she felt, something gave way inside her. Recklessness stirred then, wreathing up from her lower belly into her chest, the heaviness that had sat like an anvil on her breastbone for days now lifting.
Mother Mary forgive her, she was tired of denying herself. She was bone-weary of pretending she didn’t want Alec Rankin. Imagining a life where they lived under the same roof but never touched made misery twist under her ribs.
His gaze turned limpid as the pad of his thumb skimmed her lower lip. “I can’t tell ye how sweet those words sound,” he murmured.
A wave of dizziness assailed her. His touch. His voice. She needed more.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, her breathing coming in short, shallow gasps now, need twisting in her gut. “Please.”
He made a sound in the back of his throat and bent over her, his mouth claiming hers. His kiss was hungry, desperate—and from the moment her lips parted under his and their tongues began to mate, she was lost.
Gasping against his mouth, Liza entwined her arms about his neck, hauling him closer. An instant later, he was standing between her spread thighs. Reaching up, he then unbound her heavy braid with one hand as he kissed her, teasing it out with his fingers first, before tangling his hand through it and drawing her head back further still.
Liza groaned, thrilling at being completely in his thrall. Aye, she was the laird of Moy Castle and its lands, but when they were alone together, she wanted to be wholly his. His mouth devoured hers wildly, and she started to shiver.
Lord, how she needed him.
However, after a while, he broke off the kiss. Breathing hard, he released her and straightened up. “I shouldn’t be so rough with ye, lass,” he said huskily. “Not after everything ye have been through tonight.” He reached up then and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “Ye should retire … and try to rest.”
“I don’t want to go to bed,” she replied, her voice choked as hunger dug its claws into her. “What I want is for ye to take me here … on this table.”
Alec stiffened. His lips—swollen from their heated kisses—parted, and his pupils flared darkly. “Is that really what ye wish for?” he murmured, a rasp to his voice.
“Aye,” she sighed.
He stepped away from her then, and disappointment clutched at her. She watched as Alec walked to the door of the solar, a sigh of relief gusting out of her when he locked the door. He then turned to her, his mouth curving with sensual promise. “We don’t want to be interrupted, do we?”
“No,” she said throatily, even as her pulse went wild.
He stalked back to her then and proceeded to undress her. His fingers moved with practiced ease—aye, he was a man who’d disrobed a few women in his time—yet she didn’t care. From tonight onward, he was hers. And she was his.
Stripping off her last item of clothing, a thin lèine that reached mid-thigh, he tossed the garment aside and stepped in close once more, capturing her hungry mouth with his.
Alec was still fully dressed, and in the past that might have bothered Liza, for it made her feel vulnerable, exposed. Not tonight though, for she trusted him. Even so, her greedy hands wanted to explore his skin, and the quilted gambeson he wore made that impossible. She pulled his lèine free of his braies, her fingers sliding to the hot flesh underneath.
“I’ll help ye, lass.” He grabbed the hem of both the gambeson and lèine and yanked them over his head. The sight of his muscular torso, kissed by firelight, made her mouth go dry, and Liza leaned into him, bowing her head to let her lips trail down from his neck to his chest, teasing his nipples with her lips and tongue as she went.
Alec growled an oath, his body quivering under her touch.
Liza smiled as her hands slid down, over the flat plane of his belly, toward where his braies sat low on his hips. She wanted to make him react like that again, to hear a groan of pleasure rumble in his chest.
Yet, when she started to untie the laces on his braies, he caught her by the hands and pushed her back so that she lay, spread-eagled, across the table. He then climbed onto it with her and pinned her wrists above her head, a lewd position that made her breasts thrust up into his face. “That’s better,” he murmured as he lowered his head and licked one of her nipples. “Just where I want ye.”
The flesh between Liza’s thighs began to pulse and tingle at these words, and when he bent his head and started to suck the aching peak of her left breast, heat suffused her lower belly.
“Oh,” she groaned as he moved to her other breast and gave it the same treatment. “That feels so good.”
But he didn’t stop there. Releasing her wrists, he slid down her body, his tongue tracing the arch of her ribcage and the curve of her belly. His fingers then stroked the dark curls between her thighs. Liza started to tremble in anticipation of what was to come.
Sliding back off the table, he lowered himself to his knees and pulled her close. And then, he spread her legs wide. Liza propped herself up on her elbows and watched him stare between her thighs. His lips were parted slightly, and a flush had risen to his high cheekbones.
“Like what ye see?” she whispered, thrilling at her own boldness. This lusty side—a side only this man had awoken—was a surprise indeed. When she was with Alec, she felt free.
“Oh, aye,” he replied, his voice almost a groan as he pushed her wider still, exposing her even more fully. An instant later, he was devouring her, his wicked tongue circling and lapping before it speared into her.
Liza gasped and shuddered, her stomach muscles clenching in response.
She could have lowered herself back onto the table, let her eyes close, and given herself up to sensation, but instead, she continued to watch him pleasure her. Excitement twisted in her loins, her thighs shaking.
By the Saints, this was incredible.
The wet sounds he was making that drifted through the solar now—as his movements grew more frantic, hungrier—would have shamed her once. But now they just made her grind herself against him, harder and harder—until delicious spasms pulsed through her quim.
Panting, she did fall back then against the table, rolling her hips as ripples of ecstasy continued to throb low in her belly.
As she looked on, Alec rose to his feet and dropped his braies, kicking them aside. His shaft thrust up proudly, jerking with eagerness. Flashing Liza a wicked smile, he rolled her over and pulled her back toward him. He then bent her over the table so that her arse met his groin. “I’m going to take ye now, Liza,” he said throatily. “And it isn’t going to be gentle.”
Heat pooled in her loins. “Good,” she replied, her voice choked with lust. “Make me yers.”
He groaned at these words, and a moment later, she felt him—thick, hard, and hot—pressed up against the slickness of her sex. And then, he was sliding into her, in a long, deep thrust that made her dig her fingernails into the table and bite her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out.
“Stroke yerself,” he murmured then. “Let me see ye own yer pleasure.”
Her breathing hitched at these words. She’d never done anything so lewd before—and Leod certainly wouldn’t have encouraged it. However, with Alec, she didn’t hesitate. A moment later, she raised a shaky hand from the table and slid it down between her thighs, shocked to discover just how wet she was.
She began to stroke herself then, finding the swollen pearl of flesh Alec had pleasured so eagerly earlier, and circling it with the pad of her finger. She gave a soft, breathy moan.
“That’s right,” Alec growled. “Don’t stop.” He leaned forward then and caught her by the hair, tangling his hand in the heavy tresses before drawing her head toward him so that her back arched, and her backside thrust up against him.
And then, holding her firmly by the hip with the other hand, he started to thrust and grind himself into her.
Liza made a choking sound as his rod found a deliciously sensitive place inside her. Continuing to stroke herself, she rolled her hips against him each time he drove into her. “Alec,” she gasped as wet heat flooded through her loins. “I think I’m going to—”
She peaked violently, her body shuddering while he continued to ride her. Liza slid her hand out from between her slick thighs and braced herself against the table. She then arched herself hard against him.
Meanwhile, Alec continued to plow her—masterfully. And as he drove into her again and again, deeper still, her core clutched greedily at him.
The Lord forgive her, she could never get enough of this.
Alec gasped her name then, his breath hot against her back, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her hip. Buried to the hilt, he jolted, a groan ripping from his throat as he spilled inside her.