Chapter 3
Bran forced himself to remain by the fire as Marin entered.
The woman looked like an angel with her blonde hair swept becomingly over one shoulder.
She'd put on a new gown, this one cut lower over her chest, revealing the rounded tops of her breasts.
His heart pounded in a hard, steady rhythm of lust.
“Close the door and approach,” he ordered.
The lass did as he bid, gently closing the door behind her and sauntering toward him.
Her hips swayed back and forth enticingly.
He wanted to skim his hands over them and up her narrow waist. His cock was already beginning to thicken at the very thought.
She stopped in front of him and looked up, taking him in.
He'd bathed. For her. The bath had arrived without his orders, the suggested request apparent. He’d resented it, knowing he wasn’t clean enough for the likes of her, that he wasn’t good enough. But he’d done it, and now it was time for his prize.
His dark hair still dripped at the ends and soaked through his shirt. The heat of the fire had dried his skin and kept the chill of the night at bay. Of course, with this beauty in his bed, he would not feel any bit of the cold.
He touched her cheek. God's bones, her skin was impossibly smooth.
He swept his thumb over her full bottom lip.
Her breath whispered over the back of his hand.
Every part of his body seemed to be on a level of heightened awareness and soaring sensitivity.
He regretted having not rubbed away his longing earlier, to ensure he did not lose himself too quickly with her.
He lowered his face and brushed his mouth against hers. Aye, she was sweet. He gently swept his tongue inside the heat of her mouth. A little moan sounded in the back of her throat.
Aye, she’d never been kissed like this before.
He stroked his tongue against hers and reveled in the chords of pleasure humming through him, building the fire rising within him.
She was bold with the spice of wine on her lips and the kisses she offered him in return, more curious than confident.
He slid his hand from her waist, up higher to cup the swell of her breast, and she stiffened.
He paused. Perhaps she was not as experienced as she had implied.
He hesitated, but she leaned toward him, her mouth seeking his with the kind of carnal appetite he enjoyed. His hands found her waist and he ran his palms over the curve of her hips down to the pleasant firmness of her bottom. She arched against his touch like a cat being pet.
He pulled her against him and fit their pelvises against one another where his powerful erection raged at full force. She gave a jolt of surprise.
He pulled away. The open-mouthed expression on her face was not one of uncertain delight, it was one of shock and inexperience. Damn it.
He adjusted the rock-solid shaft of his cock, so it fit more comfortably within his trews. “Where's yer husband?”
“I don't have a husband,” she said resolutely.
“Are ye betrothed?”
“Does it matter?”
He smirked. In truth, it didn't.
“Are ye a maiden?” he asked.
“Nay.” She shifted her gaze to the left and pressed her tongue between her full lips. Honeyed lips he'd been kissing only a moment ago.
Encouraged, he stepped closer once more, and traced a finger over her delicate earlobe, down the length of her slender neck. He pulled his fingers back from her momentarily. “Have ye been ill-treated, Marin?” he asked.
She shook her head, but the tension in her body did not dissipate. There was something she was not telling him.
“Do ye want to be here, lass?”
She caught his hand and brought his fingertips to her low neckline. Using his hand for him, she drew his touch over the tops of her breasts. Her nipples hardened merely an inch under his fingers, the tight buds apparent beneath the fabric of her dress.
She pulled in a breath. “I want to be here.” Her eyes met his with starlight dancing in them. “With you.”
He circled the pad of his thumb lower, to graze over one taut nipple. She gave a shaky inhale, and her lashes swept briefly closed.
“I'll be different than what ye've had before, I vow,” he said in a low, sensual tone. “I want to take my time with ye, love ye all through the night. I want to ensure ye’re fully ready for me. Do ye know what that means?”
Her breath quickened and her cheeks were a lovely shade of pink.
He circled her nipple as he spoke and watched the pleasure play over Marin’s bonny face. “It means ye go slick between yer legs.” His fingernail drew over the bud and her eyelashes fluttered. “Are ye wet for me, Marin?” he whispered.
Her cheeks went deep red.
“If ye’re no’, we'll have to change that, aye?” He caught her face gently in his hand and those large blue eyes turned up to gaze at him, burning with desire.
Many of these noble lasses had been married off to the worst of men, aging bastards who used them like mares to sire children and nothing more.
Or they’d been seduced by some courtier who used them to slake their own desire.
None of the noblemen he’d ever heard of knew how to handle a lady. At least not like Bran.
There would be no stiff coupling where she lay beneath him with her eyes tightly closed. Nay, he would have her crying out, her hips meeting his with matched urgency, her hands on his body.
He pressed his lips to hers. This time when he brushed his tongue against her mouth, she opened for him immediately, like a flower parting its petals to the sun. He drank her in, teasing and tasting her sweetness. She gave a moan and her tongue flicked against his with tentative curiosity.
Aye, there. That was what he wanted.
His body was on fire, his cock throbbing with want of her.
He wanted to tear the kirtle off her and spread her legs to reveal her pink, damp center.
In his mind he could see it perfectly, him positioning the head of his manhood at her entrance and sheathing himself in her tight, wet heat until they both cried out.
He gave a little growl of desire and deepened the kiss, so his tongue tangled with hers. His hands moved down her back to the round shape of her bottom. He drew her to him again, so her legs spread over his thigh and his cock nestled against her.
She curled her hips toward him in an instinctive motion of coupling. The pressure of her body against the raging lust of his erection tightened pleasantly through him. He grunted and pushed against her.
He had taken off his quilted gambeson earlier and now drew back to pull his leine over his head. It fell to the floor, leaving him in only his trews with his cock straining at the leather.
He’d never wanted a woman so badly in all his life as he wanted this fine noblewoman. To show her what loving truly was, to bring her more pleasure than she’d ever had in the whole of her life.
Marin couldn’t drag her stare from Bran’s naked torso, his powerful muscles rippling in the firelight. Dark hairs dusted over his chest and various scars left his skin puckered. The body of a warrior. He was a man who had seen much war in his life. And doubtless many lovers.
Everything within her spun with the most thrilling, dizzying sensation and her heartbeat pounded between her legs with a wetness she was too shy to admit.
“Take off yer kirtle.” His voice was silky and so sensual, it made prickles of desire shiver down her skin.
He wanted to have her, which had been her intention.
He was sufficiently lulled into a sense of trust. Though she had not expected it so quickly, nor so enjoyably.
A deep part of her wanted to comply with his request, to slip off her kirtle and let her curiosity be sated.
But the blade was in her belt, and she would need the dagger to kill him.
“I am not ready yet,” she said in a strong voice.
He stepped back and put his hands up in an innocent gesture.
“I willna force ye. In fact, ye may leave any time ye like.” His dark eyes glittered.
“If ye stay, I'll kiss ye and touch ye until ye beg me to take ye. I want ye aching with longing. But I'll no' have ye with yer dress on. Ye’re far too lovely to no’ see all of ye.”
Suddenly it was almost impossible to breathe.
“Will ye leave?” he queried. “Or stay?”
He closed the scant distance between them, and the light spice of the oil he'd used while bathing swirled around them both.
“Stay.” She swallowed. “I want to stay.” And oh, how she wanted to stay. She wished she was in a different time, a different place, a different woman. She wanted this.
His gaze drifted down her body and her nipples tingled as though he'd caressed her again. “I wager if I swept my fingers against yer center, they’d come away wet.”
Fire flashed in her cheeks and she licked her lips. She wanted to squirm from the words he spoke, as if he knew the sinful sensation between her legs.
His dark stare fixed on her mouth. “It drives me mad when ye do that, Marin.”
She shouldn't like the way he said her name. And yet she did, his Scottish brogue making her name sound like a sensual purr. “When I do what?”
“When ye lick yer lips.” He cradled her jaw in one large, powerful hand, his touch light. “It leaves them glistening and makes me want to kiss ye.”
Her pulse raced faster at the thought of his kisses and the heat of his tongue against hers. “Oh.”
“And it makes me want to feed ye my cock to suck.”
Even as surprise took her, the lust between her thighs pulsed harder, burned hotter.
“It isna only women who pleasure men with their mouths.” He stroked his thumb against her mouth, the blunt edge of the digit against the seam of her lips. “Men can also pleasure women in such a fashion.”
His thumb probed between her lips and, heaven help her, she could not help but let it pass into her mouth. He groaned, a low, desperate sound that elicited a wild, thrilling power within her. Emboldened, she sucked at the digit. His brows flinched.
“Aye,” he gritted through clenched teeth. “Like that.” He eased more of his thumb into her mouth. “And I would part yer legs and lap at ye with my tongue.”
Such a wicked thing should have shocked her, and yet it did not. Nay, it made her hot with curiosity. She ran her tongue over the length of his thumb, the sensitivity of her mouth letting her discern every whorl of his fingerprint and the roughness of a callus.
His eyes were half-lidded and dark as he watched his finger in her mouth. “I want to lick ye, Marin. I want to taste ye until ye cry out.”
A greater part of her wanted that too, a wanton, hungry side. But the stronger part of her knew what she needed to do. It stuck in her mind like a thorn, through each tempting kiss and all the wonderful, lurid descriptions.
He drew his thumb from her mouth and kissed her again, his mouth hot and tasting of the spiced wine he'd drunk earlier. It would be too easy to give in to the seductive words.
Rather than allow herself lustful thoughts, Marin pushed to the forefront the things she ought to recall.
Eversham's sacrifice in his attempt to save Cat.
The way her sister had so valiantly hit Bran, a man twice her size, and how the younger girl had pleaded with Marin to let her die to save the castle.
Her soldiers locked in the dungeon below the castle.
The anticipation of Father's reaction when he discovered Marin had lost Werrick Castle.
She touched Bran's naked chest. His skin was warm and soft, the soap clean scent heady.
The coarseness of his hair was masculine and appealing.
He pushed closer to her, so her hands pressed to him more firmly.
She let her fingers work down the bands of his flat stomach to where their hips touched. To where she hid her dagger.
The metal had heated from where it sat between the heat of their bodies. Marin had to skim its surface several times before finding the hilt. In her efforts, her fingers brushed the hard column of manhood beneath Bran's leather trews. He groaned and ground his hips harder against her.
Pleasure tingled through Marin and made her want to elicit more of his groans, more of his enjoyment.
She steeled herself, closed her hand around the hilt and drew out the blade.
It slid from its sheath with a telltale metallic hiss.
Before surprise could reflect in Bran's eyes, Marin pushed it to his throat.
She meant to keep shoving it until her hands were wet with the life gushing from his body. She meant to kill him and remove his head from his body to show to his men and strike fear into their hearts.
Except he stared at her with as much hurt as he did surprise. It should not have stayed her hand, but it did. And that was her greatest mistake.
It took only that one fractured moment of doubt, of care, for him to grip her hand and twist it so all the strength drained from her fingers and the dagger clattered to the floor. Marin was familiar with the move; she'd used it many times herself. She knew better.
The dagger glinted from the floor.
“Marin,” Bran said, his voice light with chastisement.
That was when she slammed her forehead into his, for no daughter of Werrick went down without a fight.