Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Roy went still for a single breath. Surprise struck him cleanly.
Then his restraint broke.
One arm closed around her waist, drawing her hard against him. Wet linen met wet linen, offering almost no barrier between their bodies. Cold water still clung to her, yet where she pressed against him there was only heat.
Donaldina made a low sound against his mouth. It destroyed what remained of his caution.
Roy kissed her with all the hunger he had carried through every council meeting, every quiet walk and every moment spent watching her hands move among the hives. His fingers spread across the small of her back, holding her so closely that he felt each breath she took.
She tasted of cold water and wind, of salt carried inland from the distant sea and something warm that belonged wholly to her.
Roy felt the pull of them through the soaked cloth.
She held him as if the ground beneath them could not be trusted, as though he were the only solid thing in a world reduced to water, darkness and want.
She pushed the wet hair back from his face and caught a fistful of it, keeping him near. Roy’s hand slid along her side, feeling the shape of her body beneath the clinging linen. He imagined touching her. He forbade himself from imagining it. Neither effort had prepared him for the reality.
Roy’s gaze fell to her mouth. Her lips were parted and reddened from his kisses. Water glistened upon her skin. The linen at her shoulders clung close enough that he could see her pebbled nipples. The sight drove him mad with desire.
“Ye dinnae ken what ye are doing tae me,” he said roughly.
Donaldina’s fingers moved to the fastening at his waist. The last thread of his control snapped.
Roy caught her around the waist and lifted her. Donaldina gasped, then wrapped her legs around him without hesitation. Her arms closed around his shoulders as he carried her several paces from the water, toward the shelter of an ancient pine whose roots broke through the earth beside a broad stone.
Her back met the tree with enough force to shake droplets from the branches above them. Roy’s mouth returned to hers. Donaldina kissed him like a challenge, like victory, like something she had been denied for too long and intended to reclaim in full.
His hands tightened upon her thighs, holding her against him. The wet cloth between them had become an unbearable torment, revealing every movement. Each time she shifted, Roy’s thoughts scattered further, and the sight of her naked skin continued to tantalize him.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, then the line of her jaw. Donaldina tilted her head, offering him the pale length of her throat. Roy pressed his lips there.
Roy forced himself to ask. “Tell me tae stop.”
Donaldina’s grip tightened. “Dae ye wish tae?”
“Nae.”
“Then dinnae insult me by pretending I dae.”
He might have laughed had she given him enough breath. Instead, he kissed her again. She was wet, fierce and clinging to him as though she wanted him with the same desperate force with which he wanted her.
Roy carried her down onto the soft grass beneath the pine. The ground was damp and cool beneath them. Donaldina caught his face between her hands and drew him over her before he could consider whether the place was proper.
There was nothing proper left in him, only the need to feel her closer. He lowered his hand between her thighs. His fingers slid between her velvet heat, as she opened up herself for him.
“Oh…” he heard her moan, as she bit her lower lip.
He kissed her until neither of them could breathe easily, until her hands moved restlessly over his back. He gently circled her wet bead, strumming her like the finest of instruments. And the music her lovely voice was making was beyond anything he could have imagined.
He slid one finger inside of her and pulled away as he watched her eyes widen, while pleasure washed over her. Her hands cupped his face, keeping him in place.
“Take me, Roy…” she pleaded through the moans.
The beast inside of him wanted to break free, to claim her fiercely and forevermore, but he knew he had to be gentle.
When he adjusted himself between her thighs, he paused, pressing his forehead against hers.
It was as if she knew that he was hesitant to start, but she grabbed his waist and gently pressed him into herself.
Wet linen tangled between them. Their bodies found one another through instinct rather than thought, each movement stripping away another layer of restraint.
He entered her heat more and more with each thrust, but he did not take his eyes off of her.
The thought of her enjoying this as much as he did drove him even wilder than before, but restraint was more important.
Donaldina met every touch with one of her own. She demanded more and answered his hunger with equal force. When Roy paused to search her face, she caught him by the hair and brought his mouth back to hers.
The gesture nearly undid him.
He had been wanted before. He had never been wanted like this.
He kissed her again as the darkness gathered around the loch, swallowing the hills and forest until the world contained nothing beyond Donaldina’s body beneath his, her hands upon him and the raw, consuming certainty that neither of them wished to stop.
He had no idea how long he had been moving in rhythm with her body.
All he knew was that he never wanted to stop.
But the sensation was overpowering. It gripped him with the force of a million tornadoes, pressing them both together, until a million little stars exploded before his field of vision, and each star had just one name: Donaldina.
They were both trembling when he rolled to the side, but his hand remained wrapped around her. Donaldina’s breathing gradually steadied. She looked at him without shyness or regret. Roy brushed one wet strand of hair from her cheek.
Neither attempted to name what had happened.
Naming it might have made it smaller. So they simply enjoyed the quiet of the moment.
Roy remained in the solar long after the castle awakened.
Reports lay open across the desk in disciplined rows, while his own notes crowded the margins in dark, decisive strokes. He read each line twice and retained scarcely half of it.
Outside, Dun Ard moved through the gray morning. Boots crossed the courtyard below. A cart rattled beneath the gatehouse, its wooden wheels protesting against the uneven stones. Somewhere in the kitchens, iron struck iron, followed by the low murmur of servants preparing bread.
Ordinarily, Roy would have been upon the walls before sunrise. He would have inspected the northern watch, questioned Malcolm himself, and sent riders toward every road Cormac might use. He would have given his body no leisure to remember the night before.
Instead, he remained seated behind the desk, holding the same report for so long that the candle beside him burned down another inch.
Donaldina was awake. He knew it without being told.
Her presence seemed to occupy the castle differently now. Every footstep upon the passage drew his attention. Every passing voice made him listen for hers. Once, when the boards outside the solar creaked, his hand tightened around the parchment before the sound continued toward the stair.
He told himself he remained at the desk because the reports required order before he returned to the walls. The falsehood was unconvincing.
Then, the door opened without a knock, and Roy’s hand stilled upon the page. Donaldina entered carrying a small wooden tray.
Her hair had been loosely bound at the nape of her neck, though several dark strands had escaped near her temples. She wore a plain morning gown, the sleeves modestly fitted and the wool softened by years of use. The pale light from the window touched the weariness beneath her eyes.
He saw no other sign of the terror that overtook her after their return.
Nothing betrayed the way her strength finally failed once the doors closed behind them, or how she trembled against him as though cold had entered her bones.
Only the careful manner in which she held her shoulders suggested that some part of her remained braced against a danger no longer present.
He began to rise, but she gave him a look that stopped him more effectively than any command.
She crossed the room and placed the tray beside his reports.
It contained oat bread, a little cheese and a cup of ale watered for the morning.
Beside them sat a small dish of honey, amber and bright against the dark wood.
Roy looked at it too long.
Donaldina said nothing of the night before, nothing of the way she had clung to him in the smoke, or how her arms tightened around his waist when the roof began collapsing behind them, nothing of the journey home, when she rested against his chest and placed her hand upon his arm as though trusting him had become instinct rather than decision.
She did not speak of the hours afterward, either. She merely moved one of the reports aside before a corner of the parchment could dip into the honey.
Roy looked up. Her gaze met his. The silence between them held fire, darkness, and the sound of her calling his name through smoke.
It held the memory of her fingers tightening around his hand in her chamber, long after she insisted she had recovered.
It held words neither of them attempted to speak because giving them shape might make them too large to bear.
“Ye should eat,” she urged softly.
Roy glanced toward the untouched tray. “I’m nae that hungry.”
Donaldina looked at the report in his hand. “Ye have been reading that page since I passed the solar half an hour ago.”
Roy lowered his eyes to it. He had not known she passed. The realization warmed him with a quiet satisfaction he had no right to feel.
“It is a complicated report.”
A faint softness touched her mouth. It was not quite a smile. Yet it altered the room nevertheless.
Donaldina crossed to the shelves and began returning several ledgers to their places.
Roy lowered his eyes to the report, though he made no further attempt to read it.
He listened instead to the quiet brush of her skirts, and the slight scrape of leather bindings as she moved the books and the steady rhythm of her breathing.
There had once been tension whenever they shared a room, as though every pace between them marked disputed ground. She watched his movements for signs of authority he might attempt to claim. He measured every word so it could not be mistaken for command.
Now Donaldina passed behind his chair without hesitation.
Her hand rested briefly upon its carved back as she reached for a ledger. The touch did not reach him, yet his body noticed it as surely as if her fingers had settled upon his shoulder.
Roy became aware of how little distance remained between them. He could smell beeswax upon her skin and the faint rosemary scent of the soap used in her chamber. Beneath it lingered smoke from the lodge, caught stubbornly in her hair as it remained in his clothing.
It should have recalled only danger. Instead, it reminded him that she survived it.
Donaldina placed the ledger upon the shelf and turned. “Have Malcolm’s men found anything?”
“Tracks heading east before the ground hardened.”
She absorbed the answer without flinching, though her fingers closed around the edge of the shelf.
Roy set the report down. “I will find him.”
She nodded, knowing exactly who he was referring to. “I ken.”
There was no desperation in the words and no demand for reassurance. She spoke with quiet certainty, as though Roy’s promise had already been weighed and accepted.
Trust should not have felt so dangerous.
Cormac’s hatred was familiar. Roy understood how to meet hatred. It came armed, announced itself loudly, and expected violence in reply.
Donaldina’s faith entered without warning and discovered places he had spent years keeping defended.
She moved back toward the desk and adjusted the tray unnecessarily. Her fingers brushed close to his hand. Neither withdrew at once. Roy looked at the faint bruising still visible around her wrist. Donaldina followed his gaze and turned her hand over, concealing the marks.
“They will fade.”
“That doesnae make them forgivable.”
Her eyes lifted to his.
“No,” she agreed softly. “I suppose it doesnae.”
For a moment, the castle beyond the solar seemed to recede. There were no men calling in the courtyard, no reports waiting beneath his hands and no enemy somewhere beyond the walls. There was only Donaldina standing beside him in the pale morning, looking at him without fear.
Roy reached for the bread before the stillness could become something neither was prepared to name. He broke off a piece and dipped it into the honey. It tasted of heather and late summer, impossibly warm against the cold morning.
Donaldina watched him. “Well?”
Roy remembered another spoonful of honey offered beneath the sun, and the dangerous answer he had given then. He swallowed.
“Acceptable.”
Her brows rose. “Acceptable?”
“Aye.”
“That honey required an entire summer from the bees.”
“They might have worked harder.”
Donaldina’s smile appeared before she could prevent it. Roy felt it more sharply than he had felt Cormac’s blade striking his own.
She turned away as though nothing important occurred and crossed once more toward the shelves. Yet the smile remained within the room after she moved, warming the cold stone more effectively than the neglected hearth.
Roy took another piece of bread.
Cormac remained alive. Men still required orders. The walls required strengthening, and the Highlands beyond them remained full of roads upon which danger might return. Roy would rise soon. He would inspect the watch posts, question the prisoners, and begin the pursuit again.
But not yet.
Donaldina stood within reach, moving through the room as though she trusted him to remain there. She did not ask him to speak of what passed between them. She did not retreat from it, either.
Roy looked back at the reports. For the first time in many years, duty did not feel like the only thing holding him in place.