by Joanne Rock
“Sir, you expect too much to think I will leave my father’s walls with a man who has spoken no vow to me.”
He shook his head.
“There is no time for the Mass your priest demands.” He nudged her closer to the stairs, his hands taking liberties with her body, following the out line of her waist and hips through her garments. “But come with me now and I will speak vows about all the ways I intend to make you mine.”
Duncan pressed his front to her back, whispering the last bit into her ear as he allowed her to feel the rigid, unforgiving planes of his strength. His hard male interest.
A shiver of desire coursed through her even as she knew she deserved more than this. Yet despite the soreness that remained between her thighs from the night before, she realized her body was still surprisingly responsive to his. She found herself sinking back into him, relaxing into the formidable strength that had given her such pleasure the first time.
“You are far more persuasive than you should be.” Still, she did not take that first step down the stairs. “But why should I behave as your wife when you do not grant me the full protection of one?”
At that, he lifted her off her feet and swept her into his arms. In a trice, he carried her down the steps, away from her chamber, toward the tower where he slept.
“You have not seen my skill with a sword to make such a naive claim. I swear on my life that I will keep you safe.” The words were the most passionate declaration he’d made toward her. Yet they were about battle and strength. Not about tender sentiment. “And you will be my wife tonight because you want me as much as I want you.”
Heaven help her, she could not deny it.
The need to have Cristiana had not lessened after their one night together, Duncan realized.
Touching her once had only sharpened and intensified his appetite for more, leaving him with a ferocious hunger only she could tame. He pounded up the stairs to another tower, the one where he’d slept since arriving. It would be quieter there as he had brought few belongings with him. There would be no packing and preparation here.
She wound her arms about his neck, her forehead inclined to his chin. On impulse, he lowered his lips to kiss the top of her head where the veils did not cover her hair. He’d shown her little enough tenderness, when he’d meant to soften her heart.
“You have put me in an untenable position, Duncan,” she admitted softly as he kicked in the door to his small chamber. “As an unwed woman, I should deny you. Although as the new laird here, you may do with me as you please.”
Her fingers twined through the hair at his nape, brushing the collar of his tunic. She was a warm and delectable weight against him with the side of her breast pressed to his chest and her hip fitted to his abdomen, a hair’s breadth away from the tip of his raised manhood. As he angled her through the door, he dipped her body so that her soft curves grazed the swell through his garb.
“Do not fool yourself, Cristiana,” he chided, amused by her dilemma. “If you did not wish to be here right now, you would let me know in no uncertain terms. You do not come to my bed because I am laird.”
Someone had laid a blaze in his hearth and delivered fresh torches, illuminating the chamber far more than usual. Then again, perhaps there were servants who sought his favor now that he ruled the keep.
In the added light, he could see the becoming flush in her cheeks and the spark in her eyes as he deposited her on the bed.
“No?” The hem of her skirts billowed out about her, exposing a hint of bare calf and creamy skin.
“Nay.” His mouth watered as he anticipated the taste of her. “You are here because we share something so heated and intense that it has been with us all day. Even on an afternoon when I received disturbing news, I have thought of you more than anything else.”
He shed his surcoat and his tunic as if a fever gripped him. He could not recall this sense of urgency to have a woman before. Perhaps he wanted to see if this time would slake his lust in the way that their previous encounter had not. Or rather, it had more than satisfied him at the time, but he’d still left her bed already thinking about when he could return.
An odd experience for him, since carnal relations normally cleared his head.
“I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about you, as well,” she admitted, a trace of shyness in her voice.
That simple confession touched him. Reminded him that he’d vowed to be gentler with her. To soften her heart before the past returned with a vengeance.
Forcing himself to slow down, he left on his braies as he joined her on the bed that was little more than a pallet. The household servants had given him true bed linens less than a sennight prior. Stretching out to one side of her, he studied her profile in the firelight as he tugged open the laces of her surcoat.
“You enjoyed our time together?”
He loosened the laces as far as they would go, revealing a path of white, unblemished linen from her hip to just beneath her arm. The scent of her drew him close, her fragrance bound up with layered memories of her.
“I had not imagined consummation would be so…rapturous.” She peered over at him through half-lowered lashes. “It was not just pleasure. It was transforming.”
Who would have guessed this woman—so recently a maid—could make his heart stutter in its rhythm? He slipped his hand beneath her loosened surcoat and atop her thin kirtle, resting his palm on the small curve of her belly.
Just above where his child might one day lay.
“It is not always like that.” He did not want her to think she would feel thus if she lay in anyone else’s arms. “We are more fortunate than most.”
He trailed his fingers up her ribs and under her breast, where he cupped the high swell of her flesh. She made a sweetly indistinguishable noise and arched her back, pressing herself into his touch.
“Then we will have a secret recompense to a marriage of political alliance, won’t we?” Through her surcoat, she covered his wandering hand with hers, steadying it where she seemed to want it the most—centered upon one breast.
He growled deep in his throat at the luscious picture she presented. Then, taxed to the end of his rope with wanting, he rose to his knees and set about pulling her surcoat up and off. She aided him, ducking and shrugging to help him in the quest. And this time, there was no maidenly shyness about leaving on her kirtle. She reached for the hem herself and edged the soft linen up her thighs. Over her hips. Off her shoulders.
Seeing her this way, fully naked and undeniably aroused, humbled him even as his body surged with the need to possess her. Her long, silken curls shielded her shoulders and framed her full breasts, the rosy color of the taut peaks mirroring the glossy mane.
“I have not visited your bed since that first night so that you might have time to heal.” He smoothed her hair behind her shoulders so that he could see all of her. “I would not hurt you, lass, especially after you saw your sister callously used.”
“I know that you are nothing like your brother.” She lifted her hands to his chest and glided her fingertips along his skin, tantalizing him with her delicate touches. “I think it would hurt more right now if you did not touch me.”
He had no words to answer her. Heat leaped inside him as if she’d poured some of her honeyed mead into the hearth flame.
Sitting on the side of the bed, he pulled her onto his thighs. He lowered his mouth to hers, brushing a kiss along her lips as his hands wandered the full inventory of her nakedness. He sought out every curve and hollow, leaving no place untouched, saving the sweetest parts for last. By then, she’d moved to straddle his thighs, her knees locked about his hips.
He’d thought her passionate, but he had not guessed the half of it. She had already fit herself to the bulge in his braies as if she knew exactly how to drive him out of his wits with lust. His was as sharply attuned to her as a hunter searching for his prey. The clove-and-ginger scent of her mingled with the fragrant hickory wood from the fire.
The slick warmth between her legs sealed her to him, penetrating the flap of his undone braies and stiffening his shaft to unbearable proportion.
Gently, he lifted her hips. Her thighs stroked his sides while he shoved the braies down and aside, freeing himself for her. When he eased her over the swollen head, her nails dug into his shoulders, her breath catching in her throat.
He held her there for a long moment, transfixed by the way she threw her head back and rocked her hips subtly. With painstaking slowness, he filled her by degrees until sweat broke out along his brow and dusted his back. She locked her ankles behind him, holding him fast, and it took every bit of effort to rein himself in.
She was exotically beautiful in the firelight, her cinnamon hair lit with red and her skin tinged pink. But he concentrated solely on the pleasure he wanted to give her and not on all that he took. Reaching between them, he circled the sensitive nub between her legs, his finger sliding easily over her sex-slicked skin.
He watched her expression shift as he worked that tight bundle of nerves. Her brow furrowed and her lips parted. Within moments, her breasts heaved with her fast intake of breath. Sweet, mewling noises were a siren song as he changed his rhythm from slow to fast and back again.
When finally he plucked gently at her sex, she flew apart in moments. Her cries filled the room and her whole body went taut. She was wracked with wave after wave of passion, and her thighs gripped him tight, just like her womanly muscles milked his shaft within her. In no time, her movements called forth his release, his shouts overpowering hers as he flooded her with his seed.
Moments and then hours still found them twined together, their bodies perfectly fitted and in sync. They lay down together and slept, but he kept her against him long into the night.
He had expected a tug of war in bed, the same way they tussled during the day, but apparently she would not deny their attraction. She’d called this her “secret recompense” in a marriage where trust was a tenuous thing. Considering she did not know all of his secrets yet, he planned to repay her bold generosity with a thoroughness that would leave her the most well-pleasured woman in the whole of Scotland.
Chapter Ten
C ristiana debated the wisdom of riding astride on her own mount the next day. In the end, it had proven safer and faster allowing Duncan to carry Leah. Any soreness Cristiana felt from her night with the new laird was eased by the knowledge that her daughter was in the hands of the most skilled warrior in their traveling party.
Besides, Cristiana was a competent horsewoman. As children, she and her sister had loved the hunt, racing each other over hills and streams to follow their hounds or hawks. Back then, Domhnaill lands had been impenetrable, and they had been safe wherever they went.
Today, her heart seemed full of sweet recollections and memories. The whole world appeared crisper and brighter around her after the night with Duncan. The snow tasted sweeter on her tongue. The rich color of the horses’ flanks shone deeper against the white of the season.
“Cristiana?”
Duncan’s voice called her from her thoughts and she tugged lightly on the reins when she realized he’d slowed his pace to speak to her.
They’d left at dawn, carrying a sleeping Leah from her bed to join them. Their trunks were packed for a brief stay and would follow them later. Duncan had bid her father farewell, and the old laird had spoken kindly enough to him. But there had been no gentle words for her, only a stiff nod. She had hoped his wandering mind might have forgotten the source of his anger with her, but it seemed he remembered all too well.
Her heart ached at the notion of leaving things that way between them. These heightened feelings were a double-edged sword today.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head impatiently, as if she could ward off her worries. “My thoughts were far away.”
Her gaze dropped to Leah’s sleeping form. The child had woken a few hours ago to break her fast, but she’d fallen back asleep shortly before the noon sun rose to its height.
“You are not still angry that I forced you to attend me on a journey when we are not yet wed?” Cold air condensed in clouds as he spoke. She found herself distracted by the movement of lips that had brought her such pleasure.
She shook her head. “I am not pleased about it, either, but I can see the wisdom of keeping Leah in your care if Donegal is resorting to the life of a brigand.”
As they passed through an abandoned orchard of half-dead fruit trees, Duncan frowned, his brow heavy with concerns she understood well. Now that their futures would soon be forever linked, she had to trust he could defeat Donegal and unite their kingdoms. But would his cagey brother fall for the same kinds of deception she had when Duncan took over Domhnaill? Or would Donegal anticipate that sort of shrewdness?
Duncan ducked beneath a low limb as their mounts walked side by side. They were alone for the moment. Aside from the sleeping child in his arms, ten men rode in front of them and ten behind them. Five rode to either side of them. But the other riders were spread out over about a league, ensuring they were not set upon. Right now, Cristiana could only see the rear guard a stone’s throw from them.
“So if you were not cursing your fate in making this journey, where were those faraway thoughts?” His green eyes cut to hers and he appeared genuinely interested.
“I thought of Edwina.” She would not hide her affection for her sister, especially not when she had every intention of welcoming her back home, since Leah had secure protection from Donegal. “We used to ride in the hunt every fall. Father let us go all the way to this orchard. It occurred to me I’d never been so far from home. And never this far without her.”
They’d been close once. Though three years apart, the two of them had thought alike. Felt alike. Neither of them had been raised with any penchant for womanly arts, eschewing embroidery for horses and hawking, mead-making and—truth be told—merry-making.
“It has always been apparent that your father is very proud of his daughters.”
The notion of how betrayed her father felt tweaked her heart all over again, but she set aside that hurt to think about Edwina. Somehow, Cristiana knew her sister would return and soon. She understood it the way two close people can read each other’s thoughts many leagues distant.
“From the time we were quite small, he allowed Edwina and me to remain with him at the hunters’ revels afterward, leaving us alone with too much wine and mead after all the men had fallen drunk.” They’d taken childish delight in pointing out which men snored the loudest or stunk the most, occasionally rearranging the mean ones in their rest in the hope they’d awaken with their fingers in their noses. “It was during those hours that we tasted and compared the unfinished brews the men left, identifying what made some palatable and others foul. I owe my success with the mead to those trips. And to Edwina, who was never afraid to grow a bit drunk herself in the pursuit of fine brew.”
Belatedly, she thought of the unflattering light this might cast her sister in. But thankfully, Duncan seemed to find the story as amusing as she did, for he threw his head back and laughed. The joyful sound bounced around the limbs overhead, their world reduced to white branches and each other in a stunning expanse of trees that loomed overhead like an outdoor cathedral.
“It was said there were no maids more fearless from Angus to Buchan. And it is no wonder the daughters of Domhnaill were so well known. Your father probably played host to lords and knights up the whole coast.”
“You never came,” she observed lightly, drawing her cloak more tightly about her shoulders as the wind picked up and a small shower of snow fell off a tree branch.
A fleeting frown darkened his expression.
“I was fostered out to an Argyll noble.” He bent over Leah’s wrappings, ensuring the child was adequately covered from the elements. “I was fortunate to fight on the right side at Hastings, thanks to my overlord’s kinship with a Norman. I would have left straight from there to travel the continent had my father not
insisted I return home to consider marriage.”
She knew how the story proceeded well enough. Despite all that had gone wrong in the latter part of their betrothal, she still had fond memories of meeting him and getting to know him. Her hand swept a spot just above her ear where he’d placed a flower once upon a time. She’d kept the dried bloom long after the man had departed.
“Your da was on my father’s hunts often enough. He must not have been dissuaded by my insistence on riding with the men.” She grinned over at him. “Or tasting all the leftover mead.”
“Nay. Besides being complementary of your beauty, he insisted you were a maid worthy of a long journey and that I would not have his blessing for my trip abroad without seeing you first.”
Her cheeks warmed to think of the Culcanon laird’s kind words. There must have been a time he’d thought well of her. Too bad he hadn’t had enough faith in her to believe her claims about his half brother.
“He needed you to have ties to Culcanon to ensure your return.” Cristiana did not flatter herself that the old man had been particularly enamored of her. He merely knew she would make a strong political alliance for his clan.
“Whatever his reason, he made an astute choice.” Duncan kept his eyes on the horizon, perhaps not intending his words to flatter her. “I had met many women in my years in Argyll and serving with the Norman, yet I could see you as my wife immediately.”
This surprised her. For, although Duncan had flirted with her and given her a taste of passion with his kisses, he had never once suggested he thought they were particularly well suited.
“Yet I was the one who pledged my heart to you in those stolen moments when we were alone.” A pledge she’d deeply regretted later when he did not care for her enough to believe her.
