Chapter 10 #2
She watched as he removed his surcoat and armor. His tawny shoulders gleaming in the firelight, he took a pelt from the bed and lay down to cuddle with his sword. She clenched her fists at her sides wanting to choke him for his stubbornness.
What was it going to take to reach this man?
“Whenever you fail to win them over, lass, then mayhap you should partake of their leisure.” Her father’s words rang in her head, giving her the inspiration she needed.
She undressed until she wore nothing but her thin under kirtle, then she grabbed a pillow from the bed.
Sin listened to his wife moving about as he stared into the fire in the grate. He wanted nothing more than to join her in her bed. To go over there and pull her into his arms and finally experience the only piece of heaven a man like him could ever hope for.
But then, he was used to disappointment.
Suddenly, a pillow was placed against the back of his head. Frowning, he leaned back to see Callie making a pallet behind him.
“What are you doing?”
She shrugged as she sat on the floor and pulled his blanket over her. “I am being Ruth. I am making my bed where my husband is. If you won’t join me in my bed, then I will join you in yours.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I am?” She leaned up on one elbow to stare at him. “It seems to me ridiculous is lying on a cold, cobbled floor when you have a comfortable bed waiting for you just a few feet away.”
Sin closed his eyes, unable to deal with her and the raw emotions that were still churning inside him. He’d told her things tonight that he had never spoken of before. No one, not even his brothers, had ever known what his mother had said or done to him that night.
He was weak and he was tired and all he wanted was respite from his past.
“Go to bed, Callie.”
She didn’t. She merely snuggled down beside him and continued talking. “Why? Did I do something wrong on our wedding night? Did I displease you somehow?”
Sin choked as he remembered just how warm and welcoming she had been then too. She’d never done anything to displease him. Not until this moment when she refused to do as he asked. “Nay. I was not displeased.”
“Then why won’t you make love to me?”
An image of her naked and hot in his arms scorched him. His body roared to life over her handful of words. She was the first woman to beg him for his favor. It was erotic and sensual, and it made him burn. “I can’t believe I’m having this discussion with you.”
“Fine then, no discussion. You lie there with your wounded shoulder and just pretend I don’t exist. Which you’re very good at, by the way.”
The hurt in her voice stung him. He didn’t want to hurt her. All he wanted was for her to leave him alone. Just leave him to the little bit of tranquility his beleaguered soul could find.
“Callie, it’s not you. Why can’t you just accept the fact that I am a faithless, worthless bastard and leave me in peace?”
“Like everyone else does?”
“Aye.”
She sat up and leaned over him. Her breasts rubbed against his arm, making his shaft jerk in response to her innocent touch.
Her unadorned beauty held him transfixed as her coppery curls tumbled around her face and the firelight gleamed in her green eyes.
Her cheeks were pink from her anger and she narrowed a hard glare at him.
“Because I don’t believe you’re faithless and I know you’re not worthless. As for being a bastard, that was hardly your fault.” She rested her chin on his biceps and stared at him with a hunger in her eyes he found unbelievable. How could this woman want anything to do with him?
“I would love you, husband, if you would let me.”
Those words...
They tore him apart and left him so vulnerable to her. He didn’t dare trust in them. He knew better.
“And if I did, what of your family? Are you willing to leave them behind forever? Do you honestly believe for one minute they would accept an Englishman into their hearts?”
“You’re not English, you’re a Scot.”
“Nay. I was born in England, and for the most part raised there. I was cast out of Scotland and told to never return. I hate being in this place more than you can ever understand and the first chance I get to go back to London, I will take it. Will you be willing to stay with me then?”
Her eyes snapped angrily as she thought about that horrible place. “I despise London. The filth and stench. And they hate me there.”
“Then you do understand how I feel here.”
Callie’s breath caught at his words. Dear saints, she did know. That horrendous agony that had clenched her heart day after day as she feared she would never see her beloved Highlands again. It had been unbearable.
“Why did you marry me?” she asked quietly, half afraid of the answer he would give.
“Because I knew no other way to get you home. I saw what the others did to Jamie, how they treated and scorned him. He’s a good lad with good heart. I didn’t want him to become like me. So, I brought you back here before it was too late for the two of you.”
Callie froze at the wealth of emotion that overwhelmed her. In that moment, she knew she loved him. There was no doubt. The fierceness of the emotion ripped through her, filled her and made her want to take him into her arms and hold him for eternity.
This man so strong, so full of pain who could look beyond himself and still help others even though no one had ever helped him. It amazed her. It scared her. But most of all, it touched her profoundly.
She ran her hand along the edge of his jaw. “I am going to make you want to stay here with me.”
His eyes turned dull. “I assure you, you can’t.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“Nay, dove. Merely a statement of fact.”
Maybe in his mind, but in her heart it was a challenge and Callie loved a good challenge. Somehow, some way, she was going to break through his defenses and find the heart inside him. She would make him want to stay. She would be what he needed and how he needed it.
No matter what.
Sin rolled over and gave her his back. He expected her to get up.
She didn’t.
Worse, she settled down behind him and traced the scars along his back. It was such a strange sensation to have her hand giving him pleasure over the things that had brought him such tremendous pain.
When she leaned forward and placed her lips over the arrow wound, he trembled. His body burned with desire for her. It would be so easy at this moment to roll over, take her into his arms and plant himself deep inside her. To ease the ache between his legs with her body.
He swore he could already feel her breasts in his hands again. Taste the sweetness of her skin.
But it was a fool’s dream.
There was no safety in this world. No peace for someone like him. Love was for other men. Men who were lucky and blessed. Men who knew how to love someone.
Tonight though, he felt his loneliness on a level he’d never experienced before. He was cold. Empty and aching.
And all he wanted was peace. Just a moment of respite from the pain inside him.
Before he realized what he was doing, he rolled over to look at her. Her eyes were so gentle that they warmed the cold place inside him. When she reached up to place her fingers against his lips, he felt his resistance to her shatter.
How could she be so open and giving?
He would never understand this woman.
She opened her lips in invitation to him. And without thought, he took it.
Callie moaned at the taste of him as he pulled her forcefully into his arms. His kiss was one of pure passion and of longing, and it stole her breath.
She felt him fist his hand in the back of her kirtle as he pressed her closer to his body.
He plundered her mouth as if it held all the treasure of the earth and he was desperate for it.
His arms clutched at her as his tongue danced with hers in a heated, intense rhythm that made her breathless and weak.
Heaven help her, but she wanted this man. It didn’t matter to her what crimes he had committed. What he had done to survive the horrors of his past. All that mattered was the way he touched her heart.
He made her laugh, made her feel needed and desirable. Most of all, he made her feel like a woman. He awoke something deep inside her. A part of her she’d never known existed.
When she looked into his eyes, she could see the future. See the children she wanted to birth and the home she wanted to make for all of them.
Sin couldn’t fathom why he didn’t shove her away from him. He should. It would be the noble thing to do. But then he and nobility were strangers. He was a beast who knew nothing save basic survival skills.
He only knew how to protect himself from harm.
And yet when he looked at her, he could only think of being the man she needed. Of holding her close for the rest of eternity.
How he wished there was some way he could erase his past and be the kind of man a woman like this deserved.
“I want you, Sin,” she breathed against his lips.
God help him, he couldn’t resist that plea.
But he wouldn’t take her here on the floor with no regard for her comfort. Animal he might be, but she was a gentle-born lady.
Against her protests, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to her bed.
“You’re hurting your arm,” she said, holding him tight so as to put as little weight on his arms as she could.
“You don’t weigh enough to hurt me.”
She looked doubtful as he laid her back against the feather mattress, her hands resting gently on his shoulders.
The softness of her touch burned him and Sin took a moment to savor the sight of her warm and waiting for him.
She lay there with her green eyes staring up at him as if he were all the things he’d ever wanted to be.
In her eyes, he was noble. Decent. Heroic. He was the man he’d always wanted to be.
He should leave. He knew it. He had no business doing this with her.
Yet he couldn’t leave. He doubted if anything on this earth or beyond could get him out of this room tonight.