The Intended

by May McGoldrick

  As he lifted his head from her breasts and looked deeply into her eyes, she slid her hand downward over his buttock and his hip. Jaime could feel his arousal, thick and hot, pressing against her thigh. She didn’t care if he thought of her as wanton. This moment, this passion—created by the touch of their bodies—was ever so different from the aversion she felt at Edward’s treatment of her. Nay, she thought through the fiery mist within her, everything with Malcolm seemed so right. So perfect.

  Fighting for control, the Highlander gazed down at the beauty in his arms, knowing that he would certainly die if he did not take Jaime now. More than anything else, he wanted to bury himself deep within her, bring her to heights of unimaginable pleasure, and pour his seed into her. His eyes took in her swollen lips, her heaving breasts, reddened in spots from his rough, unshaven face. He hooked his thumb inside her undergarment.

  “Tell me to stop if you like, Jaime,” he said raggedly, using the last of his strength. “Tell me if you want to stop this now, for I won’t be waiting much longer.”

  His body was rigid, every muscle tensed and hard as steel. His lips hung only a breath away from hers. But his eyes never left her, sweeping over her features, continuing their soft caress of her face. Jaime paused for only the briefest of instants and then lifted her mouth to his.

  He growled deep in his chest as he tore away the cloth.

  “Have you seen your mistress?” Mary asked sharply, having come up quietly from behind.

  Startled, Caddy whirled, causing the tray she was carrying to bang hard against the frame of the oak door. Food and drink showered down the wall and scattered a good distance across the corridor floor. One of the two soldiers standing nearby began to chuckle but choked it back, perceiving the fierce looks the two women shot at him.

  “Oh, look at what I’ve done!” Caddy muttered to herself, squatting and beginning to pick up some pieces of a broken, stoneware pitcher.

  “Caddy,” Mary repeated, putting a wooden bowl onto the tray.

  “Now I’ll have to go back to Cook for more food.” The older woman’s face tightened in a troubled frown. “Oh, the tongue in that man’s head.”

  “Caddy!”

  Caddy straightened her back and looked up into the young woman’s serious face. “Aye, mistress?”

  “Where is Mistress Jaime?”

  “Where, mistress?” Caddy looked about confusedly. A dark splotch of small beer marked the closed door.

  Mary followed her gaze. “Is she in there with the Scot?” Mary inquired impatiently.

  “Is she not, mistress?” Alarm lit up Caddy’s face. She glanced accusingly at the guards. “I left her there, Mistress Mary.”

  “Is she in there alone with the man?” Mary stood, towering over the kneeling woman. She shook her blond head slightly and eyed the men guarding the hall. As she did, two more soldiers appeared, coming down the hallway.

  “What harm is there in it, mistress?” Caddy asked, again perplexed. “Though he’s recovered the use of his tongue quick enough, the man’s hardly able to lift a limb off’n his bed. Mistress Jaime sent me to the kitchen. Aye, that was no more than it took me to go there and back. She was dressing the wounds about his head. She’s only been alone in there...well, nary a moment or two, mistress.”

  Mary reached for the latch and, without knocking, pushed open the door.

  Caddy looked up in time to see the young woman’s face go as pale as a corpse. Mary clapped a bloodless hand to her mouth, stifling a cry of shock.

  Chapter 16

  The hideous creatures—once old men, once human—clawed at her body. They had her—trapped, hemmed in, helpless.

  Unable to drag herself away, she stared through the tattered rags they wore at the ulcerous sores in their decaying flesh. Here and there, bones—dry and chalklike—poked through shriveled, leathery skin. Like a circle of starving animals, they stared down at her through black, eyeless sockets. Gray, bony hands clutched at her, tearing at the dress she wore, at what suddenly occurred to her had once been a wedding gown.

  Her hands and feet were held in viselike grips by fleshless hands. In the distance she heard the sound of bells tolling, far off, as if in another world. She wanted to cry out, but a cold, rank-smelling hand clapped over her mouth. Suddenly, at her feet the circle opened, and she saw him. More horrible than Death himself, the monstrous cadaver stood, aroused and ready between her legs.

  Catherine sat bolt upright, awakened by her own troubled vision. A candle flickered on the table by her bed, and a dark figure loomed over her. Terrified, she drew in her breath, but a huge hand stifled her scream. She looked up into Edward’s gray eyes and saw the familiar lust in them, keen and predatory.

  “Damp already?” he whispered, shoving her roughly back onto the bed. With one finger, he traced the beads of sweat from her brow down to the side of her face, to her throat and into the opening of her shift above her heaving breasts.

  She twisted her mouth into a wry smile. “I gave up hope of your coming.”

  “So you started without me?” he asked, sweeping with one swift movement the covers from her bed.

  Catherine gasped with surprise as he roughly yanked at the bottom of her shift and sank two fingers into the folds between her legs. But it took her only a moment to adjust, and she purred with delight as he began to stroke her womanhood.

  His tone was harsh, but she hardly noticed. “Or were you dreaming of me, dear cousin? You are already wet. That is certain.”

  “Oh, Edward,” she breathed, delighting in the sensations his touch was causing her. “This...this horrible dream. There were old men...standing...ready to take me. I am so...mmm...glad you’ve come.”

  “I haven’t come yet, my dear.” He quickly withdrew his fingers from between her legs and, grasping her by her wrists, jerked her upright on the side of the bed.

  Catherine, her mouth set in a pout at his abruptness, looked up at him, tall and handsome, standing before her with his legs spread. His face was dark and shadowy—his attitude masterful.

  “Well, aren’t we feeling manly tonight!” Her hands reached for his doublet, but as she did, Edward took hold of both of her wrists and roughly pushed them lower.

  “Undo it,” he commanded, referring to the pronounced bulge in his hose.

  “This is a lovely task for your future queen,” Catherine replied, smiling and pulling at the ties holding his codpiece. “Though after what I’ve been through tonight...after that horrid dream. I still shudder to think of...”

  She stopped as the codpiece fell open, and Edward’s manhood came free. Humming appreciatively, she began to massage it, stroking it with both hands. She shivered with anticipation as it came to life—hard and long and pulsing in her hands.

  “I told the servants not to wake me in the morning,” she continued in a whisper, looking upward at him. His face was averted. “We have all night for this.”

  “Nay, hussy. We don’t,” Edward said abruptly, turning his gray eyes on her and roughly shoving her backward on the bed. As he reached down and took fistfuls of her chemise in his two hands, he could see a flash of fear in her eye. But that lasted only a moment, quickly replaced by a moan of pleasure as he ripped the garment down the middle. Her large, white breasts spilled out before his eyes.

  “You animal!” she said breathlessly, kneeling up on the bed and bringing one breast to his mouth. “I like this.”

  He suckled at the large, hard nipple for a moment, eliciting a moan from her. But then he bit her hard, squeezing her other breast as he did. She cried out softly in pain, but did not draw back.

  “Well! Is this the new Edward? So rough, so masterful! I could grow accustomed to this, Edward.” Digging her fingers in his hair, she pulled his face away from one breast and crushed it against the other. He bit her hard again. Catherine took hold of his hair with both hands and leaned back, drawing his head down her belly. More than anything else now, she wanted him to kiss her...there, between her legs. But before she c
ould pull him any further down, he pulled back and twisted her wrists, causing her to release him with a sharp cry. Now it was he who grabbed fistfuls of her hair in two hands.

  “It is your turn, my dear.” He whispered his words against her lips, but he did not kiss her now.

  Catherine arched her back like a cat, but she let him lower her to her hands and knees on the bed, until her mouth was at his erect member. His hands never let go of her hair.

  “And you be gentle, cousin,” he said threateningly, as she opened her mouth and took him in.

  Edward looked straight ahead into the darkness of the room as his fingers dug more deeply into Catherine’s hair—guiding her head back and forth along the length of his arousal. Suddenly, he thought of Jaime. Of how tight she would be when he sank the head of his shaft into her. He should have done it already. But then, it would be worth the wait. He hadn’t had a virgin for a long while. It was always better when they were untouched. They were tight like a glove. Like Catherine’s mouth felt right now.

  He felt himself on the edge. Full and ready. He looked down as Catherine struggled to pull back, still on her hands and knees on the bed, the whites of her eyes showing as she looked up at him. Her legs were spread wide apart behind her. Her perfect, heart-shaped buttocks were poised in the air. He knew what she wanted. She wanted to entice him to hold back, to save himself for her lusty desires, but he only smiled grimly and shook her by the hair, forcing her to continue pleasuring him with her mouth. The scrape of her teeth against his skin brought on a flash of his temper. One hand gripped the back of her neck, and he squeezed sharply.

  “Gentle, dear cousin. Gentle! You wouldn’t want me to hurt you, would you?”

  She shook her head slightly in answer, so he eased his hold and reached down with one hand, squeezing her breasts and running his palm roughly over her nipples. Edward continued to grip her hair and guide her head, and the pressure was now nearly unbearable. Much better, he thought grimly, as Catherine’s mouth moved more urgently against his shaft.

  His release was explosive, and he continued to use her for his pleasure, making sure she didn’t withdraw her mouth until he was finished.

  Finally stepping back from the bed, he turned away, pulling his codpiece up and tying it in place.

  Catherine wiped her face on her torn shift and lay back in the bed. Her legs were wide apart, her body crying out for his touch. “Very well, cousin. And now we shall see what you can do to...”

  Edward turned back toward her, his expression derisive, nearly triumphant. He said nothing.

  “You are not leaving?” she said, alarmed and angry.

  He ran his fingers quickly through his hair. Ignoring her, he smoothed his doublet with both hands, pulled it down sharply at the waist. With meticulous care, he adjusted his belt and arranged the dagger that hung from it.

  “You have pleased me well, Catherine. Continue in this fashion, and I may—at some future time—renew my acts of charity toward you.”

  “Your charity?” she laughed, ridicule ringing in her voice.

  Edward turned on his heel and started for the door. Catherine bolted from the bed.

  “Edward, you can’t go yet!” She ran after him, taking hold of his shoulder as he reached the door. He turned slowly to face her. “We...we have only begun,” she said, trying desperately to sound alluring.

  “You saw me finish,” he said coldly.

  “But what of...what of my pleasure?”

  “You are a whore, Catherine,” he replied derisively. “Call in some of your guards. Perhaps all of them.”

  She raised her hand to slap his face, but his hard flat palm struck her cheek first. Catherine spun away, falling to her knees.

  “Bastard,” she hissed, tasting the blood from her lip. Without trying to rise, she watched him again pull his doublet down tightly. “Perhaps this is the way your Scottish wench has taught you to treat her, but with me...”

  “Nay, dearest coz. I would never treat my sweet Jaime as I would you. I desire her with so much passion...she is such a prize...that I would never waste my seed as I do when I am with you! Not when I can pour it into her tight womb and listen to her cry in pure ecstasy!”

  Catherine rose silently as his eyes took on a nasty gleam.

  “You see, she is mine, Catherine, and she waits for my cock to nestle between her legs. So unlike you, who consider your foul sheath an open market, and then dream of old men to soothe your lust.”

  Struck dumb, Catherine stared and watched as he turned and strode from her chamber.

  Chapter 17

  One wrong move, Mary decided, her mouth hanging open, and the Scot was clearly a dead man.

  Jaime stood, her fingers wrapped around the knife that she jabbed directly at his throat. Bare-chested, the Highlander sat at the edge of his bed, his eyes ablaze with fury. Distracted by the movement at the door, his gaze flickered in her direction before fixing again on Jaime’s face. Then, as Mary stared, the Scot’s face tightened in an obvious spasm of pain, and his hand clutched at the wound in his chest. Expending tremendous energy in an effort to keep himself upright, the man faced the knife once again.

  “Put the dagger down, you murderous wench.”

  “Not until you agree.” Jaime lifted her wrist and pointed the weapon straight at Malcolm’s face. “And you give me your word on it.”

  “Hell will freeze solid before I agree to anything you say!”

  “Very well, you ignorant beast. Your death is your own making, then.”

  Mary’s scream jerked Jaime’s head around. With speed surprising for one as badly injured as he was, Malcolm struck out at the dagger in Jaime’s hand, sending it flying across the room and clattering into the corner. Then, as if the exertion drained his last bit of strength, the Highlander sagged onto the bed. Mary watched as Jaime stepped back a bit and turned sharply toward the door, her fists planted firmly on her hips.

  “What...what are you looking at?” Jaime nearly shouted, her glare directed just past Mary’s shoulder. “Get out until you’re needed!”

  Shocked at the vehemence of her cousin’s words, Mary took a quick step back, only to bump into the first of the four soldiers crowding the chamber doorway. The men, abashed and apologetic like so many naughty children, quickly mumbled unintelligible responses as they backed out into the corridor again.

  “Jaime!” Mary said, breathless and bewildered at the sight. “You...you were about to kill the man!”

  “Step in and close the door, Mary. We have no need to put on a spectacle for everyone in the palace.” Jaime spoke impatiently, but turned with a secret sigh of relief, and glowered outwardly at the motionless Malcolm sprawled across the bed. Beads of sweat covered his brow, and she herself felt a bit unsteady after the dramatic spectacle they had indeed performed for the onlookers. She knew the last thing either of them could afford, was to be caught in each other’s arms. Their detection had been a near thing, but she and Malcolm had been alerted by Mary’s voice in the corridor and the crash of objects against the door. All in all, Jaime thought, the two of them had managed it all fairly well.

  But now, looking Malcolm over as Mary closed the door, Jaime realized the danger was still far from over. His manhood, erect and hard at the outset of their subterfuge, still rose prominently beneath the thin blanket. Startled at the sight, Jaime picked up a second blanket and threw it over his groin section. From behind her came the sound of the door latch clicking shut.

  “Jaime, what happened?” Mary asked, coming to her side. “Are you all right?”

  “Aye, coz. I am very well, all things considered.”

  Mary took hold of Jaime’s elbow as she glanced fearfully at the Highlander. He was lying back, apparently exhausted by the incident. “What did he do to rile you so?”

  With a frown, Jaime patted her cousin on the hand and detached herself, avoiding even a glance at Malcolm’s face as she moved around the bottom of the bed. “He is a stubborn, filthy, ungrateful, pigheaded...”<
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  Her description was cut off by a sudden and well-aimed kick that the Highlander landed on her buttocks. Jaime recovered, whirling and glaring at the injured man.

  “I’m going to kill you!”

  “Come away, Jaime. For safety’s sake,” Mary cried as she rushed down to her cousin’s side. Jaime’s face was flushed with color, her hair in disarray, her skirts rumpled. She looked as if she’d been attacked. Mary put a hand around her shoulder. “He didn’t...he didn’t do anything...”

  Jaime looked into Mary’s eyes and then glanced over her shoulder at Malcolm’s motionless frame. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling as if he were in a stupor. He could be an actor in one of the Norwich guild plays, she thought, hiding her amusement.

  “You mean, did he attack me? Just look at him, Mary. Though he might muster up a moment of strength, ‘tis all just bluff. The man is too weak to lift himself from that bed.” Leading Mary by the hand toward the window, Jaime seated herself on a bench, drawing her cousin down beside her. “Nay, he didn’t do...well, he couldn’t do what you think.”

  A sound something akin to a growl could be heard from the seemingly unconscious Scot.

  “Something provoked you, Jaime.”

  “Aye, that is true. He has! He has been trying my patience for days, now!” Jaime looked away, warming herself to the discussion. “And the pigheaded brute is doing everything he can to make more work for us. He was nothing but trouble this morning with Caddy, and then he has continued his ill-tempered, ill-bred behavior with me. Nothing is good enough for him. He turns over the dishes—breaks the bowls—topples the chairs. And on top of it all, he refuses to let us dress his wounds properly. He is an insulting, arrogant, boorish ape of a man.” Jaime puffed out her cheeks before letting out a breath. Setting her lips in a grim line, she planted her elbows on her knees and propped her chin in her hands.