Chapter Thirty-Two
Annista made certain Bonnie was settled in her own little room—settled and feeling safe—before announcing to the maid that she herself would be spending the night through the connecting door.
Bonnie’s eyes widened. “Ye mean, Miss—”
“In my husband’s chamber.” Annista glanced into her maid’s face before looking away again. Was it truly so shocking? They were, after all, wed.
“Oh, I see,” Bonnie breathed, beginning to get back up from her bed. “Well, then. I will fetch your best night rail. And yer hair, Mistress—shall we leave it down and unbraided?”
Now Annista eyed her maid in surprise.
“Well,” Bonnie whispered in response to that look, “it is to be your—er—wedding night.”
“Aye, so. Leave my hair down.” Would he wish to run his fingers through it? “As for the gown—aye, the one wi’ all the lace.” How long would it remain on her body?
Alan had gone to speak to the footmen and set a careful guard, both on the stables and the manor house itself. She did not know how soon he might return.
Just as she did not know whether the activity in which they just might engage would prove detrimental to the wound he carried.
Should she insist that he spare himself? Could she?
Something magical and beautiful lay in his kisses—that she could not deny. The more she had of them—and his touch—the more she wanted. Wisdom be damned.
While she was not at all certain they should lose themselves in one another while danger lurked all around—well, vigilance be damned also.
She did not so much as glance at herself in the mirror after Bonnie fussed to her satisfaction. She did not want to see the woman in the glass or probe too sharply into the thoughts in her mind. Thoughts she just might guess if she gazed into her own eyes.
Alan’s chamber felt cool and—well, hollow best described it. The house being all at sixes and sevens, the fire had been allowed to burn low, so she crouched down and stirred it up with her own hands.
Waited.
And waited.
She did not want to approach the bed which, again due to the chaos in the house, had not been turned down. She had not quite the brazen attitude needed to let Alan find her there like an offering. So she sat on the bench and thought.
Where might Evan be now? She could still hear the rain beating on the windows, a steady dirge. He would have to seek shelter somewhere.
Pray, not here.
Would Earl MacKallan find him? Either drag or persuade him home?
The thought made her shiver and also caused her to recall that she’d left her knife back in the other chamber with her discarded clothing.
Almost, she went back to fetch it. But then the door rattled and Alan came in.
She forgot everything else.
He was once more wetted, having been out seeing to the men on guard, and she leaped at once to her feet, going to him.
“Och, here—let us get ye out fro’ those wet things.”
He shot her one smoldering look from those dark gray eyes before surrendering to her touch, letting her draw the surcotte from him and the shirt beneath.
“Is all well outside?” she asked as she busied her hands.
He grunted. “As much as may be.”
“Are we safe here tonight?”
Her removal of his shirt revealed the bandage beneath, not overly clean and stained with blood. “Och, Alan. This needs to be changed.”
“Ye tend to it, then. The physician left more bandaging.”
“Perhaps we should call—”
He seized her forearms and gazed into her eyes. “Ye see to it. I want no one else.”
That gave her a little, warm rush of pleasure—or perhaps it was something else. The clean bandages were on the table by the wall. She sponged the wound, which looked angry, and bound it as best she could, her efforts failing to match those of the neat-handed physician.
When she finished, she bit at her lip. “Alan, mayhap we should refrain—that is, I will still stay here wi’ ye, in your bed, if ye like. But mayhap—”
“Fie on that.” Perched on the bench where she had put him, he drew her between his knees. Very gently, he touched the front of her night rail.
“Annista, we may ha’ limited time alone. I would nay waste it.”
“Nor I,” she admitted, gone breathless.
“Ye look beautiful. But, for all the bonny lace on this gown, how does it come undone?”
She untied the laces for him. Her fingers still trembled, and it was with eagerness. She wanted his hands on her. His mouth.
When the front of the lovely night rail came undone, he reached for her. Hesitated. Gazed into her eyes.
“Are ye certain o’ this, Annista? Certain it is what ye want?”
For answer, she drew him to her. Buried her fingers in his thick, black hair and guided him to her breast.
She needed—
She needed to know if it felt as wondrous, as powerful as she remembered from the lodge, having him there, his mouth tugging on one aching bud, starting a fire burning low in her belly.
Drawing upon something in her as if—as if he would claim her very soul for his own.
She needed to know if the impulse she’d felt then—a sweeping desire to give and give to him, to surrender to his touch and give him whatever he might ask—at once powerful and yielding, or perhaps powerful in its yielding, would find her again.
It did. It did.
With a sigh, more than half groan, she arched her back and offered more of herself to him.
For the first time in days uncounted, her fears receded—did not leave her, nay, but fell away.
There was only this. The quiet room, the fire flickering, casting half-light.
Her, and him. His hand palming her other breast even as his lips and tongue, hot and wet, called up that marvelous response inside her.
“Annista,” he said at last, releasing her so his hot, damp breath fanned across her wet flesh. “Kiss me.”
She tumbled across his knees and into his arms. She could feel he was hard, like iron, beneath her bottom. They kissed, if it could go by so insipid a name. Surely it was far more. Deep and sustaining. An exchange of being.
“Touch me,” she begged into his mouth and he abraded her naked breast with his palm, sending the ache deeper.
“More,” she begged, and he stopped kissing her to gaze into her eyes. For a long moment, they connected, gaze to gaze, as they had tongue to tongue.
Annista, who usually—if only out of self-defense—disguised most of what she felt, hid nothing from him. Not the desire. Not even the far more fundamental need, that to give and receive, to meld with someone who saw her as she was.
Then he slid one hand down her leg, dragged the night rail upward, baring her as it went.
She should be embarrassed, perhaps, or at least shocked. The taking of such a liberty and the intimacy it implied—but he was her husband, was he not? She’d been bartered away to him, and this was the consequence.
Or possibly, her reward.
So rather than retreating in modesty, she held his smoky gaze and opened herself to him. Began to pray. Do not stop touching me, do not stop, oh, please do not.
He didn’t. His fingers, gentle yet insistent, reached between her thighs, availing himself of the space she’d offered. Brushed the curls there, warm and damp. Sought entry.
“Aye,” she told him. Another plea.
When his fingers entered her—a place no one had ever touched—she saw stars, real stars against a field of velvety black, bursting with flame. His touch answered the need that overmastered her. Could she care for aught else, even modesty or consequences?
One finger inside her and then two. The intimacy of the act suffused her, though she knew a rarer intimacy had yet to come.
She’d seen horses mate. She thought she knew—in part—what to expect.
“Please,” she said and wound her arms around his neck. Drew his mouth to hers. Something built inside her. She could only beg.
When he rose and carried her to the bed, she scarcely noticed. The counterpane came up to meet her back.
He did not speak as he backed off from her. She gave a moan of protest and then watched with wide eyes as he struggled from the rest of his damp clothing.
Aroused for her, aye—so he was. And her throat went dry at the very sight.
He climbed onto the bed and she began to turn over. She’d seen horses mate, aye, and had a vague idea how this must go. But he caught her with careful hands.
“Nay.”
“Is that no’ how—?”
“Sometimes, aye. No’ now. I want to see ye.”
Did his hands tremble as he drew her night rail over her head and sent it sailing away like so much spider webbing? He leaned over her, gazing at her with something akin to reverence.
“Ye be so beautiful.” He touched her carefully, shoulder, breast, thigh. She began to quiver, not with fear but need.
“Alan, please.”
“Say my name again.”
“Alan. Husband.”
He came down upon her, his weight one of the most glorious things she’d ever felt. Though she’d expected the act to be quick and brusque—like that of farm stock—he began kissing her instead, wooing her all over again with lavish desire.
Only moans ensued, with their mouths fused. Demand on her part. Agreement on his.
When he nudged her knees apart and positioned himself between them, she flushed with heat, so great was her need. She felt half mad for want of him.
She felt it, though, when a pertinent part of him nudged for admittance. She would have gasped for air, but his tongue was in her mouth, deep. And then another part of him was inside her also.
Oh.
Oh!
Nothing like what she’d imagined. Not violent, nay, but so, so powerful as he pierced her and they began rocking together, the motion sending him ever deeper with no more than a pinch of pain. And then rightness so complete it engulfed her and swallowed her whole.
Her body, strong, and alive, and certain, rose on the wings of pleasure so intense, her mind fair exploded with it. Her mind and her body.
Changed, she was, never to be the same woman again.