Chapter Thirteen #5
He didn’t respond to me or even look at me, continuing his furious silence, as though attempting to contain himself and having difficulty with it.
It might have been the ale that emboldened me; I felt quietly reckless. I leaned to him again, whispering, “I want to kiss you.”
He yanked me closer to him and looked down at me fiercely. “Roses.”
I stared back at him, alarmed by his reaction.
“I’m a blithering idiot as it is, with desire for you,” he rasped at me. “Show me some mercy.”
“For me?” I asked him skeptically.
“Aye,” he said, and there was clear anger in his voice. “For you.”
I glanced over at Maisie. Her glare promised death, upsetting me. “What of the Morrisons?”
“Don’t talk of them,” he growled. Then, as though able to take no more, he whisked me out of the dark fringes of the hall and into the darker hallway without a backward glance.
I had a feeling Laird Mackenzie would be less than pleased with Wilkie’s departure.
But then, his other three siblings were doing their utmost to make a potential match this night; I’d witnessed at least two of them for myself.
It might have been a full moon, I wondered, since everyone was acting slightly mad, myself in particular. I was still clasped against Wilkie’s chest. As soon as we reached the staircase, he lifted me into his arms and carried me to his chambers.
And once he’d kicked the door closed behind us, slamming it, he gently set me down, next to the dying fire.
He didn’t touch me. Instead, he walked over to the table, where several empty cups and bowls sat, and he upturned the entire table in one violent heave, smashing it against the wall, where several of the vessels clattered loudly against the stones and bounced to the floor. One of them shattered.
Shocked, I took a step back.
But I wasn’t afraid of him. If anything, his temper fired my desire for him even more. I trusted him, and I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. Or at least I hoped it. What he might do to me with his anger, though, set my blood to a simmering boil.
He went to the bed and sat, taking off his boots and tossing them aside. Then he looked at me.
I had never seen his eyes so menacing and sparked. He crooked a finger, beckoning me. “Come here.”
Tentatively, I went to him. I stood before him.
He put his hands on my hips and pulled me between his thighs, hugging me to him and resting his head against me. There was a note of desperation in his embrace.
I ran my fingers along the strands of his thick hair, claiming him and reclaiming him. “’Tis all right,” I whispered, feeling the need to comfort him.
“I cannot take this,” he murmured.
“Take what?”
“You. Them.”
I didn’t understand his meaning, but I let the silence linger, hoping he would continue.
“I want to be the only one to look at you,” he finally said, raising his eyes to me. “Forgive me, Roses. I want to immerse myself in you and keep your light all to myself. I try to maintain control, yet you make it so very difficult, with your hair and your breasts and your lips for all to see.”
My hands could not get enough of the feel of his thick hair and his sun-dark skin. “My lips are yours,” I said, kissing his face, his closed eyes, his lips. “My breasts are yours. All of me. Yours.”
I continued to kiss him and offer myself to him, every word of it the truest truth. I was his. And he was mine, even if this truth wasn’t fully confirmed or allowed. He was here with me, and that was truth enough.
I could sense that his fury was mellowing, transforming into heat.
When his temper had cooled, he pulled back.
Carefully, so as not to ignite him, I unfastened the pin that held his kilt securely in place.
I unwrapped the sash of his kilt. I gently pulled up his shirt, easing it over his head.
I traced my fingers over the masculine lines of his shoulders.
He lifted me and placed me on the bed. He lay next to me. Neither of us spoke for a minute or more, simply reveling in each other’s nearness. I felt it, and I sensed he could, too; we were where we belonged: together.
I began slowly. “Warrior?” I said.
He lifted an eyebrow, waiting for my question.
“You haven’t married every woman you’ve shared a bed with.”
He paused before answering. “Nay, not a single one.”
“Have you shared a bed with very many women?”
He contemplated me lazily, and a subtle grin played at the corners of his mouth, as though he was mildly satisfied by my inquisition.
His beauty, as his arrogance and the innate authority of him played across his handsome face, was stunning.
Here was a man who women fought over. They swooned when he walked into a room.
They very nearly fainted when he flicked them a glance.
I had heard it discussed over the table of Laird Ogilvie, and now I’d seen it for myself.
The attentions of Wilkie Mackenzie were a conquest, an aspiration, a dream.
The fresh memory of all those women, batting their eyelashes coquettishly, it boiled in my veins.
One in particular. And Wilkie looked almost amused, now that his own jealousy had eased. “Are you jealous, my love?”
The image of Maisie Morrison resurfaced, infuriating me. I was beyond jealous.
He smiled widely, flashing white teeth. He laughed at my expression, and the sound of his laughter sparked my desire and also my relief; I felt his laughter in my intimate places, and I went wet and achy for his touch.
“Your face, Roses. You’re quite adorable when you’re jealous.
Those women don’t exist for me now. There’s only one woman I want in my bed, and she’s here, frowning at me. ”
I sat stonelike, but my heart thumped heavily with desperate, jaded love. “They existed for you tonight,” I commented quietly, remembering their hands touching his arms and his hair, and his unruffled allowance of it.
“I was being polite to our guests and nothing more. I’ve encouraged Kade to keep them well entertained, and he seemed more than up to the task.
The rest of them were circling him like hungry wolves.
I, on the other hand, took little pleasure in the conversation, especially as Angus Munro was leaning ever closer to you, drooling on you, and fairly fondling you.
” This last line was delivered like a quiet swipe, as though I’d invited Angus Munro—nay, begged him—to do what he had done.
“If you had been close to me, he wouldn’t have touched me.” I was surprised at the petulance in my voice. I felt close to tears at my own need and at the extreme heaviness of my love for him. I didn’t want to invite an argument with him, but I couldn’t stop myself.
His irritation was detectable. “If I’d been closer to you, I’d have had a difficult time of not ravaging you right there in the corner. Your dress is too revealing.”
“You prefer Maisie Morrison’s dress?” I asked him, wishing I hadn’t. Yet I continued. “Are you spoken for, warrior?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, does Maisie believe you to be something more than an acquaintance? Is she your betrothed or not?”
He paused as though considering whether to tell me the truth of it.
“Nay, Roses. She is not my betrothed. Maisie Morrison and I shared a fleeting moment. She means nothing to me. Knox strongly wishes me to consider her for marriage, to secure the much-needed military alliance with the Morrison clan. I have not agreed. I urged him to negotiate for the alliance to be secured through some other means. I told him that I would prefer that my acquaintance with Maisie remain entirely in the past. And I told him my preference.”
I steeled myself for his answer as I asked him, “And what was his response?”
“We’re still discussing the matter.”
Which very probably meant that the laird had refused to allow him to marry me. The sorrow and jealousy that washed through me gave a bite to my words. “If you prefer the Morrisons’ dresses and the company of their beds, then you should go to them. As you have before.”
Wilkie was still for a moment. His voice softened a degree. “Don’t be daft, lass. You’re the only one who has touched my heart. Come here to me. Let me soothe away your jealousy with my kisses.”
I remained indignant. I did not move to him. I was picturing another woman in his bed, two of them, kissing him, touching his hair. The thought scalded my emotions, upsetting me greatly.
“Roses,” he said with hard authority. His voice was darker when he continued. “You didn’t heed my command. I said, come to me.” He might have been teasing me, but he was also testing me. He touched his finger to my lips.
I bit at his finger, just missing it as he jerked it away, and his eyes turned stormy. He grabbed me with his hard-muscled arms and pulled me to him.
“I give myself to you, warrior,” I said.
“You’ll not—”
“Whether you marry me or not,” I said, interrupting him. I didn’t want to hear about my purity, not in the heat of this moment. I had a confounding and whole-souled desire for him to dirty my purity with his blood, his sweat and more.
He frowned. “What’s your meaning, Roses? You’ve already said aye to me. I’ll not take nay for an answer now.”
“I said I’d marry you,” I said, and my voice sounded out of sorts.
“I’m yours already. But why must you wed me before you’ll—” I faltered, too innocent and ashamed and desperate to explain what I wanted from him.
I wanted all of him. I wanted him inside me, to take me and make me his, fully.
To burn together, with him, now. A wedding seemed a far-off dream, months of planning, hours of separation to make acquaintances and carry out arrangements.
And here I was letting my hopes and dreams get the better of me, even considering details like planning and arrangements.
A wedding, if it was even a remote possibility, felt a million miles away from this moment.
And the question lurked loudly in my mind: Why would he bed other women and give them his loving when he refused me?