CHAPTER SEVEN #2
“Does it matter?” He pulled her closer and she gasped.
He reached for his sword belt, and suddenly all of his clothes vanished, even his boots.
Brie looked at his hard, sculpted body. She looked at his perfect, tight face and his huge arousal.
She wet her lips, her pulse so rapid now she started feeling faint.
He clasped her shoulders, breathing hard. His tension was so high it had become painful. “I am going to take power, Brianna, but I won’t hurt ye,” he said harshly.
He was going to take power, not make love to her? That was all wrong. In her dreams, he made love to her, and laughter followed in the aftermath of their passion. In her dreams, she felt her desire, not his. “I’m becoming nervous,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened, and he pulled her close against his hard, quivering body. “Dinna fear me now,” he whispered.
Brie gasped. The contact between their skin was electric, shocking, exciting—and real. Her confusion increased. Was she dreaming or not?
His face impossibly set now, he pushed her hair back over her shoulders, and suddenly his hands slid down her back. She shivered in pleasure and lifted her eyes to his. He was staring at her mouth with a raw hunger. Then he met her gaze.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you kissing me? Why do I keep feeling you?”
He shook his head, and slid his hand quickly over her breast. She gasped in more pleasure, but he abruptly lifted her in his arms and was carrying her to her bed. Why wasn’t he caressing her and kissing her? she wondered, finally becoming alarmed.
He laid her on the bed, panting. Sweat beaded his temples. His hand slid into her hair, anchoring her head. “Ye canna control yer dreams,” he said. Softly, he added, “Ye canna control me.”
“Something is wrong,” she breathed, but she no longer cared. Tears came. “I’m hurting and hot. Hurry.”
His gaze slid down her body. Brie realized he was fighting himself, but she didn’t know why. Then he reached down and slid his hand over the slick depths of her womanhood. She arched against him, throbbing softly.
But he didn’t caress her.
She arched again and somehow looked at him. “Please.”
His blinding gaze lifted to hers. He was trembling; he shook his head. “If I make love to ye, I am doomed.”
Brie jerked to sit up. This was not a dream.
He stood, magnificently aroused, his entire body taut. He shook his head and started to back away, but his gaze kept moving back down her body as if he had never seen a naked woman before.
Brie leapt to her feet and took his face in her hands. “I love you. It’s only a dream. Let me make love to you.”
He started shaking his head in negation, but his gaze was fixed on hers—hot, hard and anguished. He was distressed. She felt that now, too.
“You’re the one who’s afraid,” she whispered. She tried to smile, and ran her thumb over his jaw. To her shock, he gasped, his eyes flying in confusion to hers.
She drew back, releasing his face. “What is it?”
He breathed hard, panting. “Dinna touch me, Brianna,” he said.
And she felt him clearly. He was afraid of her touch—and desperate for her to touch him, too.
Of course he was. Had any woman touched him with true love and affection in sixty-six years? Brie cupped his jaw and stroked her thumb along the hard ridge there. He cried out, but instead of pulling away, his thick, dark lashes fanned out.
His desire stabbed through her. Inhaling, Brie covered the slab of one pectoral muscle with her other hand.
She ran her hand across his spectacular chest. He moaned, arching back.
His desperation consumed her, thick with explosive heat and desire.
This man was starving for love and affection, she thought.
“God,” he whispered.
Brie trembled, aching impossibly now, and stood on tiptoe, kissing each nipple slowly in turn. He cried out, jerking back. “Cease.”
Their gazes clashed, his wide with alarm.
He was going to vanish into reality. Instantly she put her arms around him and held him, hard, letting her love cloak them both.
He did not vanish. His desire soared.
“It’s all right,” she whispered.
His pleasure spiraled wildly as she held him. She thought she might shatter soon, but she stepped back, caught his hand and kissed it with the love consuming her. Then she brought it to her breast.
His eyes held hers, shimmering oddly.
“It’s all right,” she said again, meaning it.
His hand closed slowly, tentatively, on her breast. Then his palm scraped her hard nipple and swept up over her shoulder. “I must go.” He turned to leave, and he was massively aroused.
She caught his hand, aware that his tension was about to break.
He slowly faced her.
Brie took his face in her hands again, heard him gasp, “No,” and ignored him. She pressed her mouth to his.
He went still, lips closed, as she began kissing him with all the love in her heart. His mouth softened. She licked the seam of his lips and kissed him again, and he finally opened for her.
Brie kissed him deeply, and Aidan moaned long and low, tragically. It was the sound of a man who had been lost and alone for a lifetime.
Suddenly his hands caught her shoulders and he claimed the kiss, deep and wet, openmouthed and frantic.
He kissed her as if he had never kissed a woman before, and he cried out.
Brie felt him come to that mighty precipice just as he turned away from her.
She wrapped her arms around him from behind, aware of him battling the explosive pressure.
She couldn’t stand it, either, she thought.
Then he gasped, seizing her hands and clenching them tightly against his abdomen. And he exploded.
Brie felt as if she was soaring through the stars, stunned and holding him tightly. She whirled, shocked by such empathy, as he gasped again and again until he finally calmed and sagged in her arms. Breathing hard, her body still on fire, she felt his body become still.
He had not been able to withstand her touch, not when it was infused with her love.
He was suddenly facing her, flushing. “’Tis but a dream.”
And she sensed what he intended. “Don’t leave me now, like this.”
His hard blue gaze held hers. “I am sorry.” He vanished.
Brie cried out furiously, in dismay. And instead of the pale walls of her loft, she stared into the dark shadows of the night.
Her pulse was pounding, and she was feverishly hot and aching everywhere. Owls hooted. The wind sighed. Brie realized she lay in a small bed beneath heavy wool blankets and a fur. She blinked. She had been dreaming.
It had been so real.
It had been so strange.
In that instant she recalled every moment of the dream encounter. Uncomfortable and alarmed, she sat up abruptly, glancing toward the open tent flap.
Aidan was silhouetted in the shadows. It was obvious he was staring at her.
Had that been a dream or not? “Aidan?” she whispered roughly.
He turned and walked away.
She leapt up and ran after him. He had paused by a small fire, and he turned to watch her approach. Across the darkness, their eyes met.
Brie slowed. She should be furious at him for watching her while she slept and for watching her while she had a very private dream.
If he had been watching her dream. Because the dream remained incredibly vivid and terribly strange.
He hadn’t made love to her, but she had made love to him, in a way.
He had been desperate for her touch and her love.
She knew damn well that dreams often held secrets that were meant to be revealed or were harbingers of the truth. When had he last been loved, really loved, by any woman?
“Ye willna recall the dream in the morning,” he said harshly.
“Don’t you dare enchant me,” Brie cried furiously.
“Go back to sleep.” He walked away.
Brie turned back to the tent and was suddenly confused. What was she doing, wandering about the Highland camp in the middle of the night? Had she just spoken to Aidan, and if so, about what?
Had she been dreaming?
THEIR ARMIES MET AT FIRST LIGHT. It was midday now.
Initially both bowmen and artillery had fired upon their opposing foot soldiers, mowing down the marching front ranks as the two armies inexorably approached one another.
But the fighting had become vicious at last, and it was the kind of fighting Highlanders lived for: hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword combat.
The sun was high, and it beat the bloody earth.
Vultures soared. Wolves waited. Dead archers and gunners, Highlanders, slain knights and their chargers littered the fields.
Only a few dozen men remained, all locked in mortal combat.
Aidan finished a royal soldier, welding his sword right through the man’s armor. As the man went down, Aidan turned.
The flame-haired warrior coming at him was a giant with an ax and sword, and a mace and spiked ball. The rival was a head taller than Aidan and his black eyes were soulless, which savagely pleased Aidan. He wasn’t ready to retire from the field—oh, no.
Aidan laughed at the warrior, lifting his broadsword.
The giant grinned back and began twirling the ball on the chain.
Aidan lifted his double-edged broadsword higher as the giant said softly, “Mayhap you should have taken power last night, instead of pleasure from a virgin in her dreams.”
Aidan froze as the spiked ball spun at him. And his sword gave way, for his arm could not break the surprising velocity of the blow. He gasped as the skin was flayed from wrist to elbow, but he somehow kept a grasp on the huge sword. Who was this?
The ball swung back at his chest.
Too late, Aidan roared, putting his entire might against it, using the sword again. The ball struck hard on the blade and skidded across it, digging into flesh and bone before bouncing away. The pain surprised Aidan and brought him to his knees.
“If you prefer virgins, my son, it can be arranged.”
Aidan looked up at the giant, and there was no mistaking his eyes. No longer black, they were blue. They were his father’s eyes.
Aidan lurched upward as the giant swung his mace at his head.