by Joanne Rock
Now, he rapped on the chamber door that a maid had pointed out to him. Helene was within.
He could not wait another second to have her.
From somewhere inside, he heard a soft response. Unsure what she said or what kind of reception he would receive, he entered.
And found utter darkness.
“Helene?” He wondered now if a maid had answered him when he called into the chamber. They would freeze tonight if someone did not lay a fire in the hearth. What kind of keep celebrated Twelfth Night with no blaze in the bedchamber?
“I am not of a mind to be seen yet,” came the reply in a voice that he almost did not recognize. The words, however, were immediately familiar. He’d spoken them himself the night before.
“Where are you?” He strained to see. Did she lie in wait for him with a dagger in hand?
Or did she have something far more interesting in mind than revenge? His pulse sped up at the possibility.
“Does it matter?” The cheeky response seemed to emanate from the far side of the chamber.
As his eyes adjusted, he could see now that there was a bit of firelight in a nearby solar, the dull glow flickering softly and casting a swath of illumination along one wall of the chamber. He could discern the shape of a pallet. A high arrow slit, the narrow opening wide enough for an archer to fire in defense of the keep. A washstand and a clothes chest stood nearby. But so far, no Helene.
“It matters a great deal.” His chest constricted at the thought of how much he wanted her.
“I am here to know the person you are within and not who the world assumes you to be.”
In the soft silence that followed he caught her scent. The sound of her breathing. His sharpened gaze narrowed to a bench beneath the arrow slit and he spied her in the chamber’s darkest corner.
“Truly?” She sat utterly still, her delicate form wrapped in a heavy wool blanket from the pallet. Her long, dark hair was unbound and damp from the bath. The scent of her soap permeated the chamber, mingling with the fragrant pine boughs that must be burning in the solar hearth next door.
“Aye.” He closed the distance between them, trying to read her mood. Did she feel forlorn and alone? Or was this conversation in the dark her way of establishing a new peace between them? “I meant what I said last night. I want you to come to me of your own free will. After what happened with Margaret, I cannot have another marriage where my wife fears me.”
“You tricked me.” She spoke her mind freely, just the way he’d told her he wanted a wife to.
She clutched the blanket to her tighter than she’d held the cloak and hood the previous night. Strange that she resisted him more as his wife than she had as his lover.
And just what did she wear beneath that armful of heavy wool? His mouth went dry at the possibilities that came to mind.
“I thought you judged me unfairly. I wanted to prove that you were wrong about me and that I could make you want me. But I tempted myself a hundred times more than what I did to you. Things turned too hot too fast and I couldn’t walk away.”
“But you did.” She rose to her feet and took a step closer. “In the middle of my first kiss, you stopped as if it was no matter to you.”
His heart hammered his chest. His teeth were clenched so tight they’d be ground down to nothing by the morrow. With an effort, he wrenched his jaws apart enough to speak.
“You mattered.” He didn’t touch her even though she was close enough for him to reach her. Once he laid a hand upon her, he would not stop until he’d wrenched every last shred of clothing from her body. “That moment between us meant too much to take that kiss without telling you the truth. It was bad enough I let things go on as long as they did. But I couldn’t let you give me kisses like that without you knowing who you bestowed them upon.”
Her wide blue eyes searched his in the darkness, her features more distinct as they stood a hand’s length apart and his eyes had fully adjusted to the room. The scent of her floral and spice soap hung in the air from her bath, so distinct he could imagine what her skin would taste like underneath that blanket.
“If I had known it was you when I kissed you that way—would you have stopped me?” Her breathing was fast. Shallow.
Her lips parted.
“Why don’t you see for yourself what I would do?” He lifted a hand to her cheek, gliding a thumb down her creamy skin the way he had once before. The way he wanted to a million more times in this life.
Slowing the caress at her mouth, he stroked along the plump softness of her lower lip and prayed for enough restraint to let her come to him.
Helene had wanted answers from her husband tonight and she found them now. In his eyes. In his answers. But the biggest question remained. Would he fulfill all the half-formed fantasies that he’d inspired the night before?
Would he appease the hunger she hadn’t known existed inside her?
She did not want to be frightened of Léod any longer. She wanted to find her mysterious stranger within the man she’d wed. But the search required this leap of faith in the form of a kiss. And Twelfth Night, her wedding night, seemed the time to do so.
Arching up onto her toes, she clung tight to the blanket about her shoulders and pressed her lips to his. Gently at first. Then, as her mouth remembered his, the kiss deepened. It grew fiery. Hot.
She groaned at the feel of it, her lips parting for a more thorough taste. It was as if none of the last day had taken place. She was right back in the brew house with her heart and her body on fire. Except now, she had the promise of a bed nearby and the thrill of knowing she could drop her blanket as soon as the moment struck her as right.
“Helene.” He growled her name against her lips, his arms going around her back to press her tight.
Heat expanded inside her like a flame at the whim of the bellows, leaping with new fuel.
He wanted her. There could be no doubt now. And she was going to love every moment of his wanting her.
“Léod.” She tested the name upon her tongue, knowing that he wanted to hear it. Recognizing his desire to be seen for more than his strength and fierceness. “Tonight we cannot walk away.”
“I took vows to ensure it.” He lifted her in his arms so that their bodies aligned hip to hip. Chest to breast.
His manhood strained against her stomach, his braies doing little to restrain the hard length of him. A shiver trembled over her skin and she undulated against him. The motion felt so good she did it again, her hips rolling in a way that felt sinfully delicious.
She dropped her blanket without thought, the heavy wool stirring the rushes at their feet and wafting the soft scent of dried roses as it fell.
Léod’s head snapped back, his dark eyes fixing on her as keenly as if she were bathed in noonday sun.
“You’re—” he shook his head, his voice cracking on a dry note “—so much more than I deserve.”
Her heart swelled at the words and she rained kisses on his face. Her breasts tightened at the contact with his chest, the crests beading at the abrasion of his skin on hers. He swept her legs out from under her and took her down to the pallet in a gentle tackle.
The sheets were unbearably soft beneath her when she wanted to feel Léod’s hard heat everywhere at once. His mouth trailed kisses down her neck to her breasts and she arched high off the bed to feel that tantalizing slide of his tongue and mouth over the soft swells. First one, then the other, teasing the taut flesh without taking the tight peaks until finally, she threaded her fingers through his hair and guided him right there.
He suckled and drew on her, his teeth nipping lightly and raking gently while her hips twitched restlessly under his. She worked on the laces of his tunic, and hauled the fabric of it out from his braies, but she wasn’t sure she contributed much else to her wedding night. Léod knew precisely what to do to please her, his every touch firing her higher. Hotter.
She spanned as much of his flesh as she could with her fingers, savoring the feel of his b
are skin. The muscle that had frightened her now fascinated her and she could not stop her busy hands from absorbing the feel of him as he stretched out over her. When he finally nudged her thighs apart with his knee, she was more ready than she would have ever imagined. He was a skilled, thoughtful lover. Her mystery stranger. And he was all hers.
Forever.
The notion was as heady as any caress, the realization that she would have this to explore and enjoy for the rest of her days. By the time he touched the secret place between her legs she was as dewy as a flower in springtime, her body ready for him. When he stroked the slick folds, sensation rocked her so hard she had to hold onto him or she might have flown apart. The tremors continued and continued, his skilled fingers helping her to ride out the delicious contractions.
By the time they were done, he was naked and poised above her. The thick length of him fit between her thighs, coaxed by the dampness there. She had heard it would hurt the first time. Knew he was an uncommonly large man. But after all he had done to ready her and all the ways he had proven the stories about his last marriage were false, she did not fear what was to come.
“It will be easier for you if it goes quickly. All at once.” The whisper in her ear was like an anchor in a storm, keeping her steady in unfamiliar waters. She had half fallen in love with that voice before she’d known who it belonged to.
It only made sense now that it was his voice that gave her the courage to nod. To lift her hips so he could take her.
At first, the contact felt delicious. He started slow and sweet, giving her time to adjust. And then, when she was relaxed and loose-limbed, he pushed deep inside.
Pain ripped through all those sweet feelings and she cried out with the hurt. She would have moved back and away, but he held her tight. Utterly still.
“I’m sorry.” His fingers pressed into her back, his voice rough and tender at the same time. “I swear to you, it’s never going to hurt again after this.”
She nodded, hurting too much to believe him. But as he held her there and the moments ticked by with their heartbeats, she could feel the pain recede in increments. Soon, she realized that he continued to hold her in a death grip and it occurred to her that he’d been even more fearful of hurting her than she’d been of being hurt.
“It has passed,” she assured him finally, edging enough space to breathe against his neck.
“I will be fine.”
“You’re certain?” His lower body remained perfectly immobile, though he edged back from her with his chest. “I do not want to move too suddenly and make it worse.”
“Nay.” She shook her head, liking the way his body looked over hers, the powerful muscle under his ruthless control.
He would never hurt her. Not intentionally.
The truth could not have been more obvious to her in the way he remained solicitous of her feelings. Her powerful Highland laird was no brute at all. In marrying the strongest man in all of Scotland, she had gained the fiercest protector imaginable. And her heart swelled with soft sentiment for him, her feelings undeniably tender.
“Are you certain?” he asked again in a way that would have sent her running for her chamber just days ago, never knowing his glower was his way of showing concern.
Caring.
A slow smile tugged at her lips and kept on pulling, a happiness that couldn’t be contained filling her heart and soul and surely as her husband filled her body.
“Absolutely positive.” She kissed his neck, tasting the clean saltiness of his skin. “I want nothing more than for you to claim me as your wife.”
Her words seemed to free him, his long limbs easing until he unclenched his tight hold. Slowly, he tested the fit of their bodies together, withdrawing slightly and then pressing deep. His hips began a slow, rhythmic dance that made her forget everything else but this moment and this connection.
The heat built in her all over again, the sensations tightening more and more until she felt that same wild release. Pleasure flowed through her like a river, washing her in sweet bliss she’d never envisioned in the marriage bed.
“I love you, Léod mac Ruadhán.”
Chapter 5
The most fearsome knight in Scotland had been vanquished by a woman.
Not in battle, obviously. But as Léod lay spent beside his new wife at dawn, he acknowledged Helene would forever hold sway over his heart.
He had been speechless in the face of her declaration of love at first, overwhelmed by the moment and the woman. Now, while the sun’s early rays crept through the arrow slit and bled around the edges of the tapestry that covered it, he found his heart full of tender emotions for her in return. Still, she was new to the intimacies they had shared and he was not sure she understood the way they could tangle with a person’s feelings.
She’d awoken him once during the night to make love to her, but he’d introduced her to another sort of pleasure instead, allowing any maidenly soreness more time to heal. Yet an hour ago, when she’d attempted to return that decadent pleasure he’d taught her in kind, he’d been powerless to decline. He’d taken her then, and his body had never been so sated.
“During the night, you spoke of love.” He turned on her in the warmth of the thick pallet they shared, broaching the subject that had played through his head so many times in the long hours before dawn.
“I remember.” She smiled, and then, perhaps catching his more serious expression, she sobered. “I thought you wanted me to come to you freely?”
Propping her head on her elbow, her blue eyes fixed on him. The long, dark waves of her hair covered her naked body like a siren’s wherever the blankets did not touch her. So beautiful, outside and in.
“I do. Always.”
“Then I assumed I could express myself freely as well.” She shrugged, one creamy shoulder lifting casually, the movement bringing the swell of a perfect breast into view for one heart-stopping moment. “When I felt such feelings for you, I thought you would want to know.”
“That is passion,” he clarified, understanding how the two could be confused. Still, a part of him mourned the loss of a declaration that had brought him a surprising amount of deep- seated joy. Yet he would endeavor to make Helene experience that feeling so many times she would soon love him for real. Forever. “Sometimes the heat of the moment inspires a depth of feeling that can be mistaken for love.”
She straightened in bed, taking the covers with her.
“Would you become the fearsome laird who would seek to know better than a mere maid again?” Her eyes flashed with annoyance. Anger, even.
“What do you mean?” Warily, he lifted himself higher on the pallet to handle whatever new bump in the road had arisen in his marriage so suddenly.
“I mean that I know whereof I speak and you must allow me to say it.” Releasing the blanket she’d held up to her breasts, she gripped his shoulders with tender hands. “I know love, Léod. I feel it for you because of how you wooed me in spite of all my fears. If not for your game in the darkness, I might never have seen you for the man you are. And now that I have, I admire him.” She caressed his cheek. “You.”
He could have drowned in that blue-eyed gaze. She was so sincere. So passionate.
“Thank you.” He pulled her into his lap and yanked the covers up high to keep her warm. His body stirred immediately despite all they’d shared the night before. He would never get his fill of her. “For loving me and for telling me what you feel. I am long accustomed to deciding what is best for everyone around me, so if I am inclined to lead, it is only force of habit.”
Her posture softened, her body easing against his more fully. A smile curved her lips.
“Sometimes, I have enjoyed your vast experience.” Her hip wiggled meaningfully against his hardening shaft.
But no matter the need for her that rose again, he wanted to address an even more pressing concern.
“I have not understood that kind of deep caring in the past.” He’d achieved his goals in
life alone, a bastard raised to power on the strength of his arm and his blade. “But with you, I am beginning to see.”
Helene wrapped her arms around him, drawing him down to the bed to cover her beautiful body.
“You will not see it, my lord. You will feel it.” She placed a kiss upon his chest above his heart. “Right here.”
His heart pounded so loudly she must have heard the reply. She rubbed her cheek over that same place.
Speechless for a moment, he could only praise God and all his saints for sending him such a blessing. Twelfth Night had rewarded him richly.
“I have all the response I need already,” Helene assured him, her hands wandering over his body as if they had all the time in the world. And indeed, they did.
“But you shall have the words too, my wife.” He raised her up to kiss her mouth, understanding the vows they’d spoken the night before. “For my heart is yours, now and forever.”
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