The Reiver #4
“Aye,” he said, drawing her into his embrace, “I wish to make love to you. If you will permit me, of course.” His voice was rougher – and more pleading – than he would have liked.
“That doesna sound like the proper way to make either an honest woman or a wife of me,” she observed, but the barest hint of a smile teased the corners of her lips as she said it.
He pressed his lips against her forehead. “No, but it is the only way to make a sane man of me. Knowing you love me, I cannot bear another minute of this torture.”
“Torture?”
“Aye, lass, you’ve had me tied in knots since that moment in my dungeon that I realized you were no lad. If you will not have me now, I do not know if I will make it whole to the wedding.” He moved his mouth to her temple and was pleased by her shiver of response.
She pulled away slightly and tilted her head to one side, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “My brothers always told me not to listen to a man when he claimed he’d sustain an injury if he did not have me in his bed. They say ’twas a ploy, that no harm ever came of waiting.”
He laughed and slid his hands from where they rested at the small of her back to cup her buttocks.
She had worn breeches for their ride, and being treated to the sight of the rounded curve of her backside had been tempting him all day.
“I never said my harm would be physical. ’Twill be entirely mental. ”
She made thoughtful, scrunched-up faces as though considering this claim while he kneaded the firm muscles with his hands. Perhaps he wasn’t as fond of large breasts as he’d once believed. A generous set of hindquarters more than made up for any lack.
“Ah, well,” she sighed at last, “I suppose a mad Maxwell will do me no good as a husband. Very well, Duncan Maxwell of Lochmorton. You may make love to me.”
With a groan of relief, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. It was unmade and a bit lumpy, but he hoped she wouldn’t notice either discomfort. He knew he wouldn’t.
He first removed his plaid, which he had worn over shirt and breeches in deference to the autumn chill, and spread it out atop the bare mattress.
When he was finished, he set about undressing her.
She blushed when he removed her shirt and covered her breasts with her hands, but he pushed them away with a gentle shake of his head.
“Do not be ashamed, runag. They are just as I imagined. Small and firm and the perfect size to fit in my mouth.”
“In your mouth?” she asked, her eyes wide with puzzlement.
Her innocence was adorable. After such a difficult life, that she should come to him so obviously untouched seemed something of a miracle. That she had come to him at all was miracle enough.
He bent his head and encompassed the entire, lovely rosebud of one breast in his mouth. The salty tang of her skin was in perfect harmony with the lemony scent that clung to her.
“Oh,” she sighed in wonderment as he flicked his tongue across the hardening nipple.
“You see. Perfect, just as I said.”
The remainder of her garb came off with greater ease and less resistance.
As each inch of her was revealed, he found more beauty to explore with his hands and mouth – the velvet-skinned expanse of her belly, the swirl of dark red-tinged curls at the apex of her thighs, the unexpected length of her slender yet muscular thighs and calves.
His own clothes he removed with even greater alacrity, nearly frantic in his need to lie with her, naked skin to naked skin.
When he knelt between her thighs and eased his way inside her, he shook with the effort to maintain his control, fearful both of hurting her and of reaching his pleasure before he found hers.
He needn’t have worried. She wrapped her arms and legs around him the way she’d wrapped herself around his heart and urged him on.
They rocked together as though they had made love like this hundreds of times before, each attuned to the other’s rhythms and sensations as both climbed towards the precipice and then tipped over it, in unison, into rapture.
The only thing that marred his pleasure was that, when she cried out his name, he could not call out hers in return.
* * *
“You shall have to give your name for the wedding ceremony, you know,” he observed some time later.
She lifted her head from its cradle in his shoulder and looked down at him, her expression guarded and a little sad. “You know I cannot,” she whispered.
“What if I promised not to seek revenge upon your family for the raid?”
Her eyebrows flew up her forehead. “You would do that? For me?”
He stroked her hair. “Aye, lass, I would. In fact, perhaps I should be thanking them.”
“Why?”
“Because if they had not tried to reive my cattle that night, I would never have met you.”
He pulled her head down towards his and gave her what he meant to be a sweet and reassuring kiss, but the instant their mouths touched, his intent was entirely forgotten.
Her lips parted, ardent and inviting, and her tongue darted daringly into his mouth.
He groaned as a fresh wave of desire spiralled down through his loins.
With no small effort, he broke the kiss and forced his raging need back under control.
While he could make love to her a half dozen more times without consequence, the same could not be said for her.
She would be sore enough on the ride back to Lochmorton as it was.
As he drew away, she reached up and traced her thumb across the scar that marred his left cheek. “Did it hurt terribly?” she asked.
He recognized that she was changing the subject, but decided to go along with it. “Aye. Like fire.”
The memory of that day was as crisp as if it had happened yesterday, and yet as confused and chaotic as the events themselves.
His father had insisted that they join their cousin, John, Lord Maxwell, in his campaign against Sir James Johnstone.
With decades of enmity between the Maxwells and the Johnstones, there’d been no doubt that the battle would be bloody and ugly.
What both his father and Lord Maxwell had failed to anticipate was the formidable advantage the Johnstones’ familiarity with the terrain of Dryfe Sands would give them despite their smaller numbers.
Lord John had died in the ambush mere seconds after crossing the river.
Duncan’s father, along with a sizable portion of the Maxwell, Armstrong, and Douglas clan had followed him to the grave minutes later.
Duncan himself had managed to escape with the routed army, but not before receiving the sharp tip of a Johnstone sword to the cheek.
He had sworn on that day never again to enter a battle on territory he didn’t know as well as his own newly-altered face.
And never to forgive the Johnstones for their perfidy.
But he did not want the hostility those old memories inspired to interrupt the peaceful contentment of the moment, and so he placed his hand over hers and held it against his cheek. “But at least I know now never to trust a Johnstone.”
“Aye, that you do,” she said softly, resting her head back on the curve of his shoulder. For the time being, he decided to let the issue of her name rest. After a few moments of silence, she stirred in his arms.
“What is the trouble now, runag?”
“I need to … that is …” she stuttered, her cheeks pinkening. “I must go outside and relieve myself,” she finished in an embarrassed rush.
Being a gentleman, of course he allowed her to get up and put on her shirt and breeches before heading out into the windy chill of the afternoon. And after what had just passed between them, it didn’t occur to him to follow her outside to keep an eye on her. After all, he trusted her.
It was only when he heard the sound of horse’s hooves that he realized the truth.
She hadn’t needed to relieve herself at all. All along, she had planned to escape.
The border between Maxwell and Johnstone land was in sight. Jamie Johnstone, great-niece of Sir James Johnstone and one of his many namesakes – albeit, as far as she knew, the only female one – was nearly home.
Duncan Maxwell’s big black stallion bore her over the rough, rocky terrain with breathtaking speed and ease. Saddled now with the roan mare he’d given her to ride, the laird of Lochmorton would never overtake them before she reached safety. Likely, he would not even try.
Free. She was almost free.
Why, then, did she feel as though her heart was being torn to shreds and pounded into the ground with every beat of the horse’s hooves? Her throat was raw and her eyes burned, but still she rode towards the border.
This was for the best. If Duncan discovered the truth of who she was, he would hate her.
He had said himself he had learned never to trust a Johnstone.
Until that moment, she had held out the smallest sliver of hope that they could be happy, that perhaps he did not share in his family’s ingrained hatred towards hers.
But that had always been a slim and dangerous hope, for she had known from the beginning that he had been at Dryfe Sands, that he had lost his father there.
The Lockerbie lick on his cheek told the tale of his participation in the battle, even if his tongue did not.
And how could a man fail to despise the people who had killed his own father?
Her people.
She slowed the horse to a walk after the crossing the border.
There was no indication that she was being followed, and although the animal showed no signs of tiring, even a horse as magnificent as Curaidh could not maintain such a breakneck pace indefinitely.
It would be difficult to convince her brothers to return a horse as fine as he to the Maxwell stable, but she could not in good conscience keep him.
That alone told her a lot had changed. Once upon a time, she’d had no conscience at all.
Jamie Johnstone’s days as a reiver were over.