by Laurel Adams
“I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“Aye, of course you are. I can make a pallet up for you—”
“No,” she said, her head drooping against his shoulder. “I’d rather…I’d rather stay here if you don’t mind. You’re very warm.”
“My blood runs hot,” he boasted. “Always has. Did I ever tell you about the time Malcolm and I got caught up in the snows?”
She must have fallen asleep during Davy’s tale—probably after the part about falling through the ice and coming up with a fish. Davy’s tales always seemed to involve fish. And she couldn’t fault his storytelling. It was only that she was tired to the marrow of her bones, and the feel of his strong shoulder beneath her head was as reassuring a pillow as she’d ever taken rest upon.
But the strength of him—the warmth of him—all that disappeared in the blackness of her dream. A nightmare, really. She dreamed of the men who tried to rape her. Of one of her captors overcoming her with a kiss that hadn’t been pleasant at all. She felt again the revulsion and terror, the sickly sweet taste of the kiss. And she came awake screaming. Kicking. Fighting as she fought those men, tears streaming down her face.
“Wake up, lass!” Davy shouted, shaking her a little.
“Get away,” she shrieked, still caught in the terror of her nightmare.
“It’s just a dream, Arabella,” he said, softly. Soothingly. “Just a dream.”
As Arabella quaked, her heart racing with the horror of being back there in that clearing with men intent on taking her body and taking her life, she slowly came back to reality. “Oh, God,” she cried, wiping the tears away from her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Forgive me. I thought…I thought you were…”
“I know what you thought,” Davy said, gently stroking her arm. “But it’s all over now, lass. And so long as we’re with you, you need not fear it again. I would never let them take you a second time. Not while there is a breath left in my body.”
He was so close to her. So comforting. And she nodded, because in spite of the real danger they were in here in this cottage, far from the castle, she believed him.
“Can I get something for you?” Davy asked. “Some milk, some—”
“Would you kiss me?” she suddenly asked, tears still leaking from her eyes.
His lips parted in surprise. “Kiss you?”
It would make no sense to him she was sure, but the reasoning was, for Arabella, clear as day. “Today, those men ruined me. Ruined kissing for me anyway. Tainted it, forever. Now when I fall asleep, it’s a villain’s disgusting kiss that I taste. I fear it’ll always be that way every time I close my eyes until the day I die…unless I have a different one to wipe it away. I’d like to be kissed by a man who would lay no claim to me; to be kissed in such a way as to make me forget. Can you do that?”
Davy stared at her, his blue eyes betraying bewilderment. “I can’t say as I’ve ever turned down a woman who asked me for a kiss—especially not a bonny lass like you. And when it comes to reckless action, I’m usually the first to volunteer. But kissing you strikes me as not the wisest idea.”
Arabella was mortified. To have so boldly asked a thing and then be refused…was a nightmare unto itself. “I suppose I’m not too appealing in men’s garments and—”
“Oh, you’re plenty appealing. And if we’d met in other circumstances, I’d have already tried to steal a kiss from you ten times over. But it might just as well happen that if I kiss you, it’ll remind you of the man who forced a kiss on you. Then you’ll hate me as you hate him, and I’ll become a part of your nightmare.”
“No,” she whispered. “I can’t believe that. I want you to kiss me.”
“But you shouldn’t,” he said. “Not after what you suffered.”
Why was it that men were always so keen to tell her what she should do, what she should say, and what she should want? “Did it happen to you or to me, I wonder?”
He scratched his head, as if thoughts were racing inside it so fast as to make him itch. “Fair point. But, a man likes to be wooed, ye ken. I don’t know that I could kiss you proper, knowing that it was only because you hoped to forget. I’d have to know it was about a little more than that. I’d run for the hills if you made a declaration of love, but I’d have to know that you at least liked me a bit.”
Arabella gave him a teary smile. “I think I can see my way clear to like you a bit, Davy of Clan Macrae.”
His lips twitched up at the corners. “Well, if that profound expression of feeling doesn’t warm me to the cockles of my heart…I must be made of stone.”
She smirked, slightly abashed. “Would it help to know that I find your dimples to be irresistible?”
“No,” he said, firmly. “Every woman finds my dimples to be irresistible.” That’s when he reached for her cheek with a strong, warm palm that was a little bit calloused. And he tilted his head so that his forehead touched hers. “I want to kiss you, Arabella. But you’ll have to do better than praising my dimples.”
The feel of his breath on her face ought to have frightened her, but it didn’t, because his smile was so genuine. He was going to kiss her, she thought. And to encourage it, she said, “Well, I scarcely know you well enough to praise your good character, Davy, so I’ll say that you make a passably good porridge.”
“That’ll do,” he said, leaning in to press his lips to hers.
His warmth radiated though his kiss, into her. And he tasted…why he tasted of sunshine. Of warm summer days when the light glimmered off the loch, and the wildflowers erupted in riotous color. And if she ever doubted that there was a talent to kissing, he swiftly erased it.
He was tender with her. Slow and gentle. It was nothing whatsoever like the kiss that had been forced upon her. Nothing like any kiss she’d ever felt before. Davy did not pry her mouth open, but rather, teased her lips apart in a way that made her gasp. Oh, she liked it very much.
Before she could think better of it, she’d snaked her arms up around Davy’s neck and began to kiss him in return. Began to mimic what he was doing with his lips. When he groaned as if what she was doing gave him pleasure, she liked that even more. It was a kiss that went on and on, prompting Arabella to grasp the warrior tighter, eliciting in her a passion she hadn’t known was in her. And she was enabled in that passion by Davy’s patience—the way he increased the pressure of his lips only when she did, the way he held her tighter only when she pushed against him.
The way he let this kiss be whatever she needed it to be.
And it became more than she’d hoped.
When they finally broke apart for a breath, Davy traced her lips with his finger, and asked, “How was that?”
Breathlessly, Arabella whispered, “Quite pleasant.”
“Pleasant!” Davy cried in outrage.
Arabella laughed. “A wee bit more than pleasant…” Seeing that he still wasn’t satisfied, she decided upon the truth. “It was so pleasurable I fear it made me forget everything…including my morals.”
“Who needs them?” Davy asked with crystal clear blue eyes that twinkled with mischief. Then he kissed her again. He kissed her and kissed her until she was emboldened to run her fingers through his thick copper hair, as she’d been tempted to do before. It surprised her how nice it felt threaded between her fingers.
She could tell that he was restraining himself, keeping his hands soft at the small of her back, and when he bobbed up for air, a blue fire was burning behind his eyes. “Oh, lass. You’re a temptress. I—I don’t suppose there’s anything else you’d like me to help make you forget?”
“But there is,” Arabella said, carried away in the passion of the moment. Kissing him had been the first moment since she was taken that she didn’t feel afraid; the first moment that she didn’t feel filthy and cold and angry. And because she didn’t want it to stop, she reached for his hand and drew it to her breast.
Davy’s breath caught, which delighted her. His hand even trembled a bit as he s
oftly squeezed her there, before working at the laces of the shirt she wore so that he might touch her bare. He tugged her shirt up and over her head, and though Arabella felt the cool air upon her skin, she was warmed by the desire within.
Staring at her breasts in the firelight, Davy said, “Pert and soft and perfect.” But when he reverently bent his head to kiss them, the fire in the hearth blazed, revealing her bruises. And he frowned. “Those men did this?”
A lump lodged itself in Arabella’s throat so that she could only nod in answer.
His jaw clenching, Davy said, “I’d kill them for this if they weren’t already dead. Then throw them in the loch to be fish food and erase their names from the world, as if they never lived.”
“Hush,” Arabella whispered, twining her fingers with his over the soft curve of her breast. “You are erasing them right now.”
Erase them he did, with his hands and mouth. She felt the softness of his cheek against her bosom as he suckled her nipples. He teased her with warm lips, moving from one breast to the other, until both her nipples were wet and tight and hard with arousal. Until she moaned softly with each breath. Until her fingernails dug softly into his broad shoulders and they were kissing again, his body against hers.
She felt his arousal hard against her thigh and was earnestly surprised by her own desire for him. But when his hand slipped from her breast, down her belly, searching out a place between her legs that sent a bolt of pleasure through her, she began to fear for her sanity.
It was only when his knee gently separated hers that she was brought back from the sweet abyss. “Davy…no.”
He froze, holding his body over her on strong arms, panting all the while. “Did I hurt you, lass?”
“No,” she said, softly. “But if I let you take my maidenhead—”
“I’ll be gentle,” he vowed.
She believed him. And she was already ruined in the eyes of the world. Maybe even in the eyes of God. “But if I allowed it, wouldn’t I feel as if I belonged to you?”
Hovering over her with scarcely controlled lust, Davy threw back his hair from his eyes, as if struggling for coherent thought. “Mayhaps. But I canna think of any man better equipped to give you a tumble without entanglement. Is that what you’re after?”
She wasn’t sure what it was that she was after. She only knew that after what had happened today, she didn’t want to feel like any man’s possession. Still, she did want Davy. Wanted him as she’d never wanted Conall. And so she reached for him, intent upon stroking the hardness of his erection, longing to feel it in the palm of her hand. “You’re sure you can be gentle, Davy?”
He withdrew with a sigh. “You’re not ready, lass.”
“But I am.”
“If you were ready, you wouldn’t have taken so long debating your answer. After all, you’re a bit new to this fallen woman business.”
Arabella scowled. This lovely, sensual experience was all going wrong now. He was putting an end to it, and some part of her just wanted to whine in frustration. “But I feel…I feel…unfinished somehow.”
That made him chuckle and plant a soft kiss upon her nose. “Oh, I don’t doubt it. If it’s any consolation, I feel the same. Which is why, after I tuck you into bed, I’ll be finishing myself, you can be sure.”
She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by finishing himself, but she liked the places her imagination took her. “Tuck me…into bed?”
“Aye. You’re tiny enough to fit in next to Malcolm. T’would probably help if you slept beside him as he needs warmth to recover.”
Arabella was scandalized in spite of everything. “Spend the night in bed with a man?”
Davy laughed from deep in his belly. “I just proved it isn’t the bed that makes the debauchery. Besides, in his state, even Malcolm doesn’t have the wherewithal to swive you, no matter how bonny a lass you are.”
In spite of the pounding arousal within her own body, Arabella was tired. So very tired. And the idea of crawling into bed with the dark and tortured Malcolm was more appealing than it ought to have been. She remembered his hand in her hair and felt a pang beneath her breastbone. Something that felt a bit like longing. And so she let Davy tuck her in beside the slumbering warrior.
What a wanton she was becoming that she could leave the arms of one man and nestle against another! Fortunately, she was too weary to care.
Chapter Five
It wasn’t until after sunrise that Arabella awakened. And even then, only slowly, because she was dreaming again. This time, she luxuriated in a delicious dream of Davy’s arms around her. His lips on the back of her neck. His nose buried in her hair…
Except it wasn’t Davy who was pressed full length against her backside, enveloping her in long, steely arms. It was Malcolm.
And the realization of it startled Arabella awake upon her pillow.
“Malcolm?” she whispered, not wanting to disturb him. He’d slept fitfully beside her, shivering most of the night. And while she had curled close against him to keep him warm, she’d kept a blanket between their bodies. But that was gone now and while he gave a light snore with each breath, she could feel the skin of his thighs against the back of her legs—a feeling that only heightened the arousal Davy had put inside her the night before.
But when the wounded warrior’s hand slipped down over her hip, she called more shrilly. “Malcolm!”
He snorted awake behind her, jostling and shifting his weight as if to try to make sense of his surroundings. And when he groaned in pain, she turned and put a hand on his injured leg to still him.
He narrowed his dark eyes and blinked. “What the devil are you doing?”
“You were hurt,” she said. “I don’t know if you remember…”
“I remember,” Malcolm barked. “But what the devil are you doing in my bed?”
Rebelliously, she could not keep the tartness from her tongue. “I was dead on my feet after tending to you all day whilst you called me a witch. And I thought you might better survive the night if someone were nearby to keep you warm. Silly me.”
He didn’t seem shamed. “After what those Donalds did, you must be unhinged to just crawl into bed with a man who can overpower you!”
She was so startled by his tone that her temper flared. “Much as it may hurt your pride to know, Malcolm of Clan Macrae, you couldn’t overpower a flea in your present condition. And just how did this become your bed?”
“I’m lying in it, aren’t I?”
Of all the obstinate, infuriating…though she supposed it wasn’t unusual for a man to be so agitated after taking a grievous injury, she thought he might just be cranky, generally speaking. And though there was still something heartbreakingly beautiful about him—scar and all—she said, “I liked you better when you weren’t conscious.”
“Well, I’m awake now.”
“And likely to live, I think.”
“Too bad,” he said, scowling.
“Have you a death wish?”
His eyes lowered, and he gave a slight shake of his head. “I would, if I thought it would bring me back to my wife. But if she did what I think she did…”
Then she’d be damned, Arabella thought. So Malcolm would rather be alive and haunted by her, than dead and separated from Lorna forever. And in spite of his crabby nature, she felt a pang of sympathy in her heart for him once again.
“I shouldn’t have snapped at you,” he finally said by way of apology. “When I awakened. I was ill-tempered.”
That was one word for it. “Some people don’t like mornings.”
“T’was waking up to find you in my arms that put me in such a temper.”
Oh. Well. That was just what a girl liked to hear…
At a loss for what else she might possibly say, Arabella murmured, “Sorry.”
He lowered his eyes. “I haven’t held a woman like that since my wife.”
Arabella swallowed, though she could scarcely believe it, since she vaguely remembered that somew
here in Davy’s story about being trapped in the snows there was a mention of a harlot. “Not even in a bawdy house?”
Malcolm squinted. “A man doesn’t go to a bawdy house to hold a woman.”
He didn’t explain himself further, but he didn’t have to. Arabella understood, in the rueful silence, what he meant by it. In holding Arabella in his sleep for comfort—rather than sex—he felt disloyal. “But surely you can’t mean to sleep alone all your life, Malcolm.”
“I’m no celibate monk,” he said, quietly. “But I’ll never remarry. I vowed that on the day she died.”
It seemed a foolish vow to make for a man in the prime of his life, but it was a vow made from love. And since love was a mysterious thing to Arabella, she dared not question it. Especially since that seemed to be all he meant to say on the subject.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“A crofter’s cottage. You’d have never made it back to the castle, and my father’s farmstead was too far away. We brought you here but sent word to the laird. John Macrae will send men to help us, no doubt. And the sooner you get well, the sooner we can leave.”
Though his color had come back to him, and he seemed far more lucid than he had been at any point the day before, a sweat broke out on the man’s brow. “You can’t be here. War bands might not be far off, and if they learned you poisoned the others…best that we ride to the castle at once.”
“You can’t ride,” Arabella said. But the man paid her no mind, and swung his long legs off the bed. “Malcolm, you can’t even stan—”
“Och! Goddamnit!” he cursed in pain, and his bad leg rebelled so much against putting weight on it that he fell back upon the mattress, his eyes rolling back. He must’ve blacked out, she thought. But then came a sign of his wakefulness in the form of a small punch he landed to the mattress. “God-fucking-damnit.”
“I warned you,” Arabella said softly.
After a time had passed and he had composed himself, she pulled back the covers to check his wound, hoping she would not have to stitch him back together again. Then a worse thought occurred to her. Fearing infection, her cool fingers gently probed his powerful thigh, searching for fevered skin.
