by Shayla Black
“What?” he queried sharply.
“Aye, anything. Whatever you’ve been thinking.”
Fingers trembling, she took his hand in hers and placed it upon her breast. He stiffened and cursed. But his fingers tightened upon her flesh in needy supplication.
As if her body had been made for his, she responded to his caress, her nipple tightening beneath his palm. The sharp hiss of his breath told her that he noticed.
“This cannot be real,” he said almost to himself, even as he drew her closer to his heat. “Think you that I have untapped emotion within me, and that if I let you wrap your body around me, I will give you the contents of my heart?”
At one time, she had believed so. That hope had died. Now, she could only make a memory to cling to through the years.
“I know better, Drake. I simply want you.” She caressed the hand that covered her breast, noticing that he shook.
“You’re asking me to swive you?” He raised a dark brow.
“If that is how you choose to put it, then aye.”
His eyes flared with confusion. Then he swallowed and stepped away, ripping his hand from her breast. “Why?”
“You said you wanted me until you felt ready to explode.”
She stepped closer, pressing a kiss to the damp fabric covering his chest. Though his stoic expression reflected naught but uncertainty, Averyl felt his heart beat faster beneath her hands.
He grasped her wrists and thrust her away. “Why tempt me?”
Without awaiting her reply, Drake turned his back to her, raking a hand through his hair. Her smile felt bittersweet upon her lips as she took in his restraint. ’Twas as if he held on to the vestiges of self-control, afraid of what he might say or feel if he let go.
“If you want to make love to me, Drake, why do you resist?”
Muttering an ugly oath, he whirled to face her again. “You play a dangerous game, Averyl. Stop while you can.”
She regarded him with a steady gaze. He met her, dark eyes defiant, angry. Aye, he wanted her—and wished he didn’t.
So she gave, placing her palm over his rigid staff. Shock and need vied for his expression. A groan escaped him. She curled her fingers around his length. Drake cursed.
Stepping up to the expanse of his broad chest, she whispered in his ear, “Once I thought to fight the pull of our attraction. But when we made love, you forced me to acknowledge my desire.”
“And you think I owe you the courtesy of displaying mine like an untried boy?” His sarcasm cut through the air.
“Nay. Then, you had what you wanted. Now, I will have what I desire.”
Though Drake’s face remained blank, when Averyl stopped before him, heat burned in his eyes, setting her afire. She sent him a bold stare as she fit her hungry hands beneath his shirt, touching his fevered skin. After a sharp intake of breath, his heart began to pound with the force of a marching army.
Tortured desire loomed around his pinched mouth, hovered in his clenched jaw. And those eyes, hot, knowing, troubled, and angry. Clearly, he waged some battle within, one Averyl was determined he would lose.
She drew his mouth to hers slowly. With a mixture of desire and panic on his face, he leaned in. Averyl tensed, fearing he would stop her, refuse her this kind of control.
Finally, his taut arms rose to push her away.
“Kiss me, Drake,” she murmured against his mouth. “’Tis all I ask.”
Expression rigid, his fingers clutched her waist. Averyl held her breath. Would he accept her or reject her homely face and body as he rejected her heart?
An infinite moment of silence later, Drake pulled her against him, fingers clutching her waist. Her head snapped back until their gazes met.
For an instant, silence held, broken only by their breathing. Desire had won. Averyl saw that in the blaze of his eyes. Elation swirled through her.
Then he claimed her mouth. Completely. With a ferocity that forced the breath from her. Her elation turned to molten desire in the span of a heartbeat.
Parting her lips for his probing tongue, she groaned when he entered her mouth. He tasted of desperate hunger and need.
Again and again, he exacted her response, his mouth urgent. Her own desire soaring, pooling between her thighs, she sidled closer and returned his kiss, measure for measure. She gave everything, her mind, her devotion, her love. Gave without hesitation, without thought, hoping only that he understood.
He propelled her backwards, trapping her between the cottage’s door and his body. He anchored his palms on either side of her head, pinning her to the rough wood. Primal hunger dominated his countenance. Averyl felt an answering chord within her, a savage, twisting desire that would not abate.
“Is this what you want?” His breath came hard, fast.
She arched against him. “Aye, and more.”
He pressed his body closer, until she felt each inch of his full arousal. “And this?”
Her voice trembled. “Aye.”
His hand fell to the laces down the front of her shift. One, two, three; with speed and agility, he unraveled them. His greedy palm enveloped the newly exposed skin of her shoulders. On a moan, he murmured something incoherent and kissed her neck.
A riptide of yearning swelled within her, drowning her in its intensity. Whatever burdens had held Drake back now dwindled beneath the onslaught of desire.
He murmured her name, his lips claiming hers again. No gentle need, this raging fire between them. His tongue slid against hers hotly, salty-sweet.
He took. Demanded. In return, he gave tenfold.
Averyl surrendered, clutching the bunched muscles of his shoulders, warm against his heart, wishing they could stay thus.
Drake’s arms felt like steel as they banded about her. She felt his erection flush against her belly and arched wantonly to the temptation. He growled from somewhere deep in his chest as he rolled his hips against her in a fevered answer, a gesture of possession.
With impatient fingers, he tugged her smock above her head. Suddenly she was naked, her heated skin exposed to the morning breeze drifting through the open window. The savage desire in Drake’s eyes made it worthwhile.
His gaze whispered across her sensitive flesh like a secret. She forced herself to stand still, shoulders squared, and invite him with her eyes to look his fill.
His black stare lifted from her thighs, over her abdomen, and caressed her breasts on its way to her face.
To her shock, Drake turned her to face the door. With his heated chest at her back, Averyl felt his palm about her breast and his hot breath upon her neck. The sensation of feeling each exquisite touch yet not seeing its source heightened her arousal.
“Lass, how can you make me want you so?” he asked raggedly.
“I know not, for I am equally cursed to want you.”
Drake’s breathing was hard, labored. “Aye, ’tis a curse,” he said finally. “Truly, you have bewitched me.”
His hand left her breast to ignite a trail of fire across her belly, then down into her woman’s flesh damp with want.
She gasped as his one hand held her steady at the hip and his lips burned a path from the slope of her shoulder to the crook of her neck. The other hand found her pleasure bud with unerring ease. He circled the nub in rhythmic strokes. Tingles built to tightness, tightness to aching pressure. The aching pressure burst, and she cried out at the pulsing release.
He did not stop.
“Aye. Let me feel you again,” came his warm command.
Amazingly enough, with a few strokes of his fingers, pleasure exploded, awashing her again, leaving her trembling.
Before she could take a breath, Drake turned her to face him. Fingers of iron clasped her hips, lifting her. His mouth closed over her breast, the soft abrasion of his tongue like kindling to a fire. A whimper stuck in her throat as he pulled on her flesh with his lips and a gentl
e nip of his teeth. Averyl arched closer, drowning in his scent, something heady, musky, indisputably male.
His breath came in short pants as he tore off his tunic and worked out of his breeches and braies. “I can wait no more.”
Hunger hung in the air between them, sharp and tangy, as he backed her to the door again. Against her belly, she felt him bare, rigid, urgent. She thrilled to the primitive realization that he meant to take her here, claim her now.
She met the thrust of his tongue earnestly as he filled her mouth with his taste, surrounded her body with his raw power. His fingers blazed like wands of fire as they delved between her thighs, urging them apart.
His lips teased the sensitive spot behind her ear when he plunged his fingers within her. She gasped, clutching him tighter, silently begging. The strength of her desire roared like a beast, demanding its way. She answered the call without remorse, glorying to the intensity of his need.
“Now!” she insisted.
“Aye, now,” he groaned, lifting her, drawing her legs about his waist.
With one hard push, Drake was around her, inside her, filling her every corner with ecstasy.
Then she had no time to think. He found a rhythm, one uncivilized in its domination, ruthless in its ability to render her mindless. Excitement bubbled within her, erasing all thought from her mind except of Drake and this joining.
She tightened her arms about his shoulders, her legs about his hips, as sensation swept over her in a hot gush, crashing through her body without mercy. Arching against him with a cry, the feeling burst within her like an explosion of the sun, glittering, bright, brilliant. Drake drove into her again, then spilled his seed deep inside.
Averyl opened her eyes slowly as they sank to the soft carpet of earth beneath them. Drake still held himself inside her, with her above him. She wilted across his chest, listening to the rhythmic pounding of his heart and the chugging cadence of their breathing, accompanied by a lark’s song outside.
Never had she felt so complete, the moment so perfect. He’d responded to her completely, holding nothing of himself back, even when he resisted sharing aught. She knew it, felt it in his need for her, demonstrated by his mouth, his body, instinctively knowing he’d never before given this much of himself to anyone. By his own admission, she had bewitched him.
And she, homely Averyl, had been the one to unlock those feelings. She had been able to persuade this strong-willed warrior to share his emotions through his touch when he’d wanted nothing more than to keep such locked within his soul.
As he stroked her hair away from her damp temples, she felt a new truth dawn: She was not ugly, except in her father’s eyes. Today, Drake had taught her to believe differently, for ’twas clear he did, and she had been the fool for taking her father’s opinion into her heart.
Relief soothed her like a mother’s touch. Tears of repletion, of joy, welled in the corners of her eyes, spilling onto the hot flesh of his chest. She sniffled, trying to stop them, but it was too late.
“Here now,” he whispered, lifting his head to look at her. He wiped her tears away with gentle fingers. “What’s this?”
“’Tis nothing,” she lied, even as his very tenderness caused the tears to come faster.
“Nothing makes you leak like a sieve?”
Against her will, she smiled at his teasing. “You are incorrigible.”
“Me? Nay, ’tis you, my beautiful, wanton wife.”
Her mouth trembled into a smile. “Thank you for making me believe that.”
“’Tis truth and always has been.”
Drake placed the softest of kisses upon her forehead and stroked the slick skin of her back. Never had he been this tender after their lovemaking. Of great relief was the fact the haunted pain had left his eyes, replaced by a soft satiation. Mayhap she had succeeded in helping me to see love’s goodness.
Hope made her cry again.
“Ach, more tears. Why, Averyl?”
Chin trembling, new tears burning her throat, she stroked his cheek, her heart diving straight into the concern filling his dark eyes. She could no longer restrain the truth.
“Why?” Her voice shook. “Because I love you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Those three words hung as heavy as an anvil in the weighty wake of silence. Even the lark beyond their window ceased his cheerful song. Averyl held her breath, heart pounding like a frightened rabbit as Drake stiffened below her.
After the wild, golden joining of their bodies and hearts, the fact that she loved Drake should not stun him. Yet clearly her admission of such had shaken him, down to his very core.
From the jolt of shock evident on his face, she saw that his peace was gone.
Though their bodies lay still joined in slick intimacy, Averyl felt an insidious separation sever the closeness they had shared, as surely as if he had taken his broadsword to a ribbon.
Something within her cried out as he set her away, his back taut, lending credence to her fear. Knees cushioned by pungent earth, Averyl clutched the hard span of his shoulders, yearning to hold him to her until he understood he had nothing to fear from her love.
Drake would not be held. With a shrug, he rose to his feet without a word, never meeting her questing gaze.
Watching in painful silence as he hurriedly donned his clothes with little care, Averyl searched for the words to chase away the chill between them, despite the warming summer morn. To assure him she would never crush the heart his thoughtless mother had scarred years ago. To convince him she would never misuse him, hurt him, cast him aside.
No words came to mind.
’Twas as if he refused to look at her, face her. Holding back hot tears, Averyl dressed in silence, wishing she knew what to say.
The silence stretched on. The tense breadth of his shoulders told her eloquently there would be no discussion of her feelings. His fear, his rage, stood between them as effectively as a boiling ocean.
Still, Averyl could not let him walk away.
“Drake?”
Finally, his dark gaze reluctantly slid over her face before coming to rest on his boots. “I am sorry.”
An iciness crept across Averyl’s skin as she reached for him. “Sorry? Nay, you must not be. I seek nothing, but simply to tell—”
He cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. “’Tis but a matter of time before you would want your feelings returned. Even now, your eyes plead. Nay.” He shook his head, directing his angry gaze to the roof. “Love is naught but a painful trap designed to twist a man inside out. I will not fall into it.”
Averyl watched in mute pain as her husband walked out the cottage door. Dark clouds drifted across the sun, obscuring the sunlight, just as Drake had obscured her hope.
He withdrew further, in a way he had not done even in the earliest days of her captivity. She swallowed fiercely.
Aye, she’d known his views on love and hoped, perhaps without reason, that she could change them. The furious slam of the gate reached her ears and beyond mocked her. Drake wanted nothing between them now but separation.
She stood on shaky legs, fighting the tears of despair that stung her tired eyes. The smells of burning wood, coffee and…Drake triggered a barrage of memories. She recalled their first kiss so many weeks ago, Drake sharing his bitter fury at his mother’s cruel betrayal, the times they had joyfully joined their flesh as man and wife, his tenderness upon witnessing her fear of the dark.
Drake was a hard man to know, complex, often hidden. But Averyl thought she had solved the puzzle, dug into his heart to find the hurt that pained him. She’d even thought to heal it.
This morn proved only that she knew nothing.
Deciding against any breakfast for her roiling stomach, Averyl prepared and poured fresh wine warmed above the dwindling orange fire. She sipped, scarcely noting the brew’s bitterness.
And now that she’d uttere
d of love, she must face the consequences.
A gentle splash took her from her thoughts. A ripple in her wine, coupled with warm, salty tracks running down her face, slammed her with a new wave of despair.
One sob, followed by another, shattered her odd calm. The fist clutching her stomach tightened. Averyl thrust her lukewarm wine away and lowered her head to her hands, letting her tears flow unchecked.
By God’s fury, why could Drake not love her? She groaned. Why did her caring have to hurt them both? Even now, she felt as if she had laid vulnerable her body and heart for his misuse, knowing he would do naught else.
And why, by the saints, did he allow the specter of the past to destroy their chance at any sort of future?
* * * * *
Four hours later, Drake had yet to return. Averyl tidied the cabin after she’d ceased her tears, then chopped some cheese and bread for lunch, her stomach rioting at their sour smell.
Pacing the cottage’s small space, Averyl stared into the ashes of the morn’s fire and realized Drake would not return for their midday meal. She grabbed a handful of her silken gown, anxiety rising within her.
Where had he gone? She prayed he had remained on the island, not venturing far away, particularly not to anywhere Murdoch might find him. Biting her lip, her imagination conjured visions that he had been hurt, even killed, because she had driven him away with her three revealing words.
Or most like, he simply avoided her. The haunted countenance he’d worn after her confession more than told her how much her words had shaken him. How unwelcome they had been.
Yet she could not see what harm her admission had done. Though she wished for his return of the sentiment, she did not expect one. She had even told him so, only to be rebuffed.
Fine. ’Twould be a cold day indeed before she repeated such a heartfelt emotion.
As the sun waned in the dim afternoon sky, Averyl perused the perimeter of her ravine cell, waiting and listening for his return, vowing that when he did, she would keep all words of love, and any incriminating others, to herself until the time had come for them to part, if only he would come back soon.
