“What?” he choked.
Ryland’s eyes narrowed into burning slits. He’d clearly had enough. With lightning speed, he seized the knobbed end of the bata and forced it aside, holding it away from his neck with brute strength.
“Nay, damn it! None of that is true,” he snarled. “Until last night, I believed you were Gray, Queen of the Outlaws.”
“Then why would ye summon all your knights?” Her arm trembled as she fought for control of the bata. “To drag me back to O’Keeffe? To force me to wed ye?”
“Drag you…” He scowled. “Well, now that you mention it, I have a question for you, Temair O’Keeffe.”
He wrenched the weapon from her hand as easily as prying a twig from a child. While she gaped in surprise, he flung the bata out through the curtain of vines.
Flann and Bran, thinking he was playing a game, chased after it out of the cave.
Then he caught his fist in the front of her brat and pulled her close. So close she could see the glitter of menace in his eyes. So close she could hear the growl of rage in his throat. So close she could feel the sizzling heat of his words as he bit them out.
“You knew who I was from the very beginning. You knew I was your betrothed. You led me on. You encouraged me. You tempted me with glances and kisses and touches. You made me hunger for you.” His gaze drifted down over her with lascivious need, and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “You shared your body with me, Temair.” She shivered as her fury twisted into something very different. “All that time, you could have claimed me as your husband. And yet you didn’t. Why?”
She gulped.
He answered for her. “I was just a pawn to you, wasn’t I?”
“Nay,” she breathed.
“A means of extorting silver from your father.”
She blushed. At one time that had been true.
He pierced her with an accusing gaze. “You deceived me, Temair.”
Her guilt didn’t last long before her jaw dropped. “Hold on. I deceived ye?” She brought her fists up between them, freeing herself from his grip, and shoved him back against the wall. “Ye pretended ye didn’t know where your knights had gone.”
He scowled, but couldn’t deny it.
She poked him in the chest with an accusing finger. “Ye claimed ye’d been betrayed.” She poked him again for good measure.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and wheeled with her, pressing her back against the wall and holding her there by the throat with one massive hand.
He arched a brow at her. “You claimed no one had seen Temair in six years.”
She gave him a smug smile. “I said no one in the tuath had seen her, which was true. But ye…” She knocked his arm away and shoved at his shoulder. “Ye swore on your ‘knightly honor’ that ye wouldn’t leave the camp without my permission.”
“You asked me to watch the hounds,” he crowed. “Could I help it if they took off after you?”
She narrowed a smoldering gaze at him.
He crossed his arms in challenge. “But your betrayal is assuredly the most cruel, Lady Gray. You pretended you were not my bride.”
She could think of only one worse betrayal. She crossed her arms in imitation of him. “And ye pretended to love me.”
“I did love ye.” He shook his head. “Curse me for a fool, I still do.”
Her heart caught, and her arms slipped out of their fold. “Ye do?”
“Aye!” he snapped, irritated with himself. “Though god knows why, since you only wanted me for the ransom.”
“That’s not true.” At least it didn’t feel true now.
He looked glum as he kicked at the floor of the cave. “What were you going to do with all that coin anyway?”
She lowered her eyes. “I’d rather not say.”
He lifted her chin with his knuckle and moved forward until he was only inches away, drilling into her with his dark, demanding eyes. “You’d rather sell me for five hundred pounds than marry me. I think I deserve to know.”
She pulled her head away. It sounded awful when he said it like that. But she supposed she did owe him an explanation. “Fine. If ye must know, I wanted it for an army.”
He frowned, baffled. “An army?”
“Aye.” She raised her chin, proud of her plan. “An army o’ mercenaries.”
“An army.”
“That’s right.”
“For what purpose?”
“To lay siege to the tower house.”
He cocked a brow at her. “Your tower house?”
“Tis not mine. It belongs to my devil of a father,” she bit out, “until he’s deposed…or dead.”
He lowered his brows. “So you planned to attack the tower house and remove the chieftain.”
She hesitated. What she intended was treason. “Aye.”
He stared at her a long while, saying nothing, showing no emotion. She wondered if he might turn her in as a traitor.
“I planned it. I didn’t do it,” she said defensively. “Ye can’t turn me in for only plannin’ to do a thing.”
He stroked his stubbled chin thoughtfully and turned away from her. His silence was unnerving.
Finally he spoke. “Mercenaries are risky. They can’t be trusted. Their loyalty is for sale to whoever pays them the most.”
She scowled. Was he actually criticizing her plan? “I know that.”
“What you’d need is an army of cohesive and seasoned knights.”
She bristled at that. “I don’t exactly have an army at my beck and call.”
“Don’t you?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She closed it again.
He turned back to her then. There was a curious spark of ambition in his eyes.
Her breath caught. His knights. His knights. Was he offering what she thought he was offering?
“Your men,” she breathed, almost afraid to hope. “Ye would help me?”
“By all rights, the tuath belongs to you,” he told her. “Cormac has betrayed the king. He’s betrayed me. He’s betrayed you. And he’s betrayed his clann.”
Temair couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Ye’d really help me get the tuath back?”
“On one condition.”
“Aye?” She’d do anything.
“You’ll consent to be my wife.”
She didn’t need words to give him her answer. With a soft cry of joy, she surged forward to embrace him.
Ryland knew they had to act quickly.
His men awaited his orders.
The woodkerns had to be placated.
There was a siege to plan.
Decisions had to be made about what to do with Cormac, with the Temair imposter, with the clann.
Hell, Ryland hadn’t even had breakfast yet this morn.
But none of that mattered when Temair rushed into his arms, gratitude shining in her beautiful gray eyes. And when she pulled his head down, slanting her mouth across his, her kisses were enough to dull his hunger.
He buried his hands in her lush black hair, tipping her head to deepen the kiss. A moment ago, her lips had curled down in willful anger. Now they were pliant with affection and bliss.
He nudged her lips apart with his own, letting his tongue tease at the edges until her jaw loosened and she opened her mouth in welcome. He slipped his tongue into the wet, warm recesses of her mouth, and she responded, swirling her tongue around his, feasting on him.
Like starving beasts, they devoured each other—gasping, clawing, gnawing, groaning. Her passion was intoxicating, like an elixir of obsession poured from her lips into his mouth. One sip sent ripples of current through his loins. But as he drank her all in, he felt every nerve in his body come alive with yearning. They kissed and kissed, until he wondered if he’d ever get his fill of her.
At least now he knew he’d have a lifetime to try.
As Temair gazed up at Ryland from below lust-heavy lids, she felt drunk on his love.
All her
worries vanished.
Her limbs felt as limp and malleable as custard.
Her head floated in a haze of pleasurable sensations.
And her body craved only one thing.
More.
In fact, now that she knew what ecstasy awaited her, she was even more eager to dash down the path of seduction to that final destination. Common sense and propriety deserted her as she acted on impulse and began raking at his clothes.
He helped her, unbuckling his belt, unlacing his chausses. She helped him as well, kicking off her brogs, loosening her léine.
They half-staggered, half-dragged themselves to the pallet, discarding garments as they went.
In the filtered light of day, Ryland was even more magnificent. Her heart thrummed as she ran fervent hands over the sculpted contours of his chest and shoulders, the flat expanse of his stomach, the solid bones of his hips.
She sighed as he aroused her with feather-light touches of his fingertips, grazing her ears, her throat, her nipples.
The rest of the world disappeared as she writhed in sensual need. He pressed her back gently onto the pallet, holding himself above her, and she arched up against him, her impatience clear.
“Slowly,” he murmured with a rueful chuckle, “or ’twill be o’er too quick.”
She frowned. She had no patience for his patience. She reached between them and stroked him with a brazen hand.
He groaned, but he caught her wrist and dragged it up, securing her hand beside her head. “Slowly,” he repeated.
With a glimmer of mischief in her eyes, she used her other hand to capture him.
Again, he growled with pleasure. “Witch,” he accused, shaking his head. Then he snared that hand as well, anchoring her by the wrists to the mattress. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” she breathed. “Ye’re the one with all the bata bruises.”
“Your vengeance?” he murmured.
“Aye.”
To her dismay, he forced her to endure his leisure. As she lay helpless, he licked the delicate flesh of her eyelids, tugged her lower lip carefully between his teeth, explored the sensitive crevices of her ear with his tongue until she was squirming in sensuous torture.
Even when he released one of her wrists, she couldn’t summon the strength to move it. And when his hand glided down her abdomen to nestle in her curls, she sobbed and rocked her hips upward.
He shivered as her motion brushed against that part of him that craved her most, and she suddenly realized, though she was pinned beneath him, she was far from powerless. She arced up again, grinding against him, and he inhaled sharply.
“You play a dangerous game, m’lady,” he muttered.
“I like dangerous games.”
“So I’ve noticed.” He lowered his head, giving her ear a swipe of his tongue and then blowing gently across it, making her quiver. At the same time, his fingers slipped over the sensitive, vulnerable spot between her legs, creating an instant shock of lust. He whispered, “But you want to win this one, aye?”
“Aye,” she begged.
His fingers worked magic upon her, sliding over her wet flesh, pulsing, pulling, drawing, inciting her until she could bear no more. Just as she thought she might scream, every muscle in her body stiffened while the sharpened point of her desire continued to rise. Then, when she thought she could endure no more, she cracked apart like a clay pot struck by a bata.
He pressed his palm against her as she cried out, bucking and trembling with relief. And then, even before she’d completely regained her senses, he pushed into her, making her moan with pleasure this time instead of pain and giving her a divine feeling of completion.
When she dared to crack her eyes open, the expression of tormented restraint on Ryland’s face thrilled her. It seemed he was fighting his own desires. And as she’d discovered, it was a losing battle.
Intoxicated with wonder and power, she curved one leg around his buttocks, holding him deeply inside her. Then she pushed against his shoulder until he yielded, rolling onto his back.
With a grin of triumph, she sat astride him, seizing his wrists and pinning him to the pallet. “I win.”
“I surrender.”
Chapter 27
Ryland wondered, as the mischievous woman began moving instinctively against him, if she knew how difficult it was for him not to instantly explode. Everything about her aroused him.
Her ash-colored eyes like banked coals, flaring to life at a moment’s notice.
Her scarlet lips, equally adept at cursing and kissing.
The insistent clench of her fists around his wrists as she took control.
The shining ebony locks of her hair, lashing his ribs.
The provocative sway of her small, rose-tipped breasts as she found a pleasing rhythm.
The erotic slap of her buttocks upon him when she began riding him with fevered haste.
But it was the awe in her face as she reached her pinnacle again that finally sent him over the edge into his own bellowing release.
On and on the waves of rapture continued until he was completely spent, as weak as a kitten.
She too must have been drained, for she collapsed atop him, damp and panting, too weary to rise.
A long while afterward, when their breathing slowed and his heart returned to its quiet pulse, he suspected she’d drifted off. Until she spoke.
“Aye,” she murmured against his shoulder.
“What?”
“Aye.”
“Aye, what?”
“Aye, I will marry ye.”
He grinned and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m glad to hear it.”
She raised her head to look into his eyes. “Ye know, I think I fell in love with ye the first day we met.”
He lifted a dubious brow. “You had an odd way of showing it, knocking me into the water.”
“I had to show ye who was in charge.”
“Is that right?” With his remaining strength, he rolled her onto her back again, bracing himself on his forearms to look down at her. “And who would that be?”
She smiled up at him, a cocky smile without a hint of surrender. “Ye may think ye’re in charge. But I know your weaknesses.”
He gave her a wink. “I fear my biggest weakness is for Irish outlaws.” He coiled a strand of her soft hair around his finger and gazed into her dreamy gray eyes. “I only pray you’ll take pity on me and be merciful.”
She wasn’t merciful. Not in the least. Almost immediately she began to entice him with smoldering gazes and provocative kisses. She pressed her tempting breasts against his chest and locked her legs around his hindquarters to hold him within her.
It wasn’t long before his weakness for Irish outlaws got the best of him. He swelled and hardened, and when she squirmed under him, he obliged her by guiding her swiftly back to that exquisite realm of ecstasy.
Their fingers clasped, they crested together, crying out in glorious victory as their two bodies were forged into one.
When Ryland finally eased out of her, Temair made a small mew of protest. For one remarkable moment, they had seemed flawlessly joined—not only in body, but in spirit—and she didn’t want to lose that.
As if he sensed her disquiet, he pulled her into his arms.
“I feel like the luckiest man alive,” he murmured against her hair.
His words made her glow.
Until he added, “To think I was afraid to meet my bride.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Afraid. Why?”
“Because o’ the rumors.”
She stiffened. The warmth of the moment turned icy with his words. He’d said he didn’t believe the rumor that Temair had murdered her sister. He’d said it was unfounded. She was almost afraid to ask. “Ye believed the rumors?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
Her throat ached. But she wouldn’t cry. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Her voice was wooden. “So ye thought I was a murderer—
”
“What? Nay!”
“That I’d killed my sister—”
“Nay!”
“And ye feared I might kill ye.”
He turned her toward him. “Nay! Never!”
She stared at the ceiling of the cave, numb.
He explained. “I meant the rumor that Cormac had kept his daughter under lock and key for six years.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t imagine what the loneliness and isolation might have done to you, that’s all.”
She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “So ye don’t think I killed her?”
“Nay, not for a moment.”
His trust in her was sweet. It was touching. But she also realized, with a sort of tragic inevitability, that it was misplaced. She moved her gaze slowly toward him until their eyes met. “Well, ye’re wrong about that.”
For an instant, her admission startled him. But he continued to stare at her, so deeply it seemed he was peering into her soul. Then he shook his head. “Nay, I’m not. I know you now. I know you’d never do such a thing.”
“Ye can’t know that. Ye weren’t there.”
“Why don’t you tell me then, Temair?” he coaxed. “Why don’t you tell me what happened that night?”
She’d only told the story once aloud—when the woodkerns first took her in. But in the deep, dark, shadowy places of her mind, she’d recited it over and over, thousands of times, each telling more excruciating than the last. She didn’t want to dredge up that pain again. She shook her head.
He gently persisted. “What happened to Aillenn?”
She blinked in surprise. It had been a long while since she’d heard her sister’s name. Most people no longer spoke of her by name. Most people had forgotten her.
Still Temair didn’t answer.
“If we are to be husband and wife,” he said, “there should be no secrets between us.”
She gulped. He was right. But it was one thing to share her body, another to open her soul.
He took her hand, clasping it between his two. “I know the memory is painful, Temair. I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I vow I will love you, no matter what you tell me. For better or worse.”
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