“Well … you are my—”
“Nay, not like this. Not in the way we initially agreed. I doona want to be somewhat faithful to ye, and I doona want ye to pine for another. Because, even though I’ve loved in the past, I never think on her when I’m with ye.” This felt like a revelation, even to himself.
“I thought it was just Erradale that made me happy this last month, lass. But now I ken it’s more than that. It’s working alongside ye, sleeping beside ye, being inside ye. It’s all of it. It’s this life ye brought back and gifted me with.”
His every word seemed to create a wellspring in her eyes that overflowed her lashes in fat rivulets somewhere during his declaration.
“I want to return that happiness to ye. I want to keep the burden of yer secrets, as well. So tell me, lass … what are ye hiding from me that I—”
“I’m pregnant!”
* * *
Samantha meant to say more. She really did. Greater, more damning confessions sat poised on her tongue like shards of ice, caught in one place so long they’d begun to sting and burn. He’d find out eventually, and she knew it now. So why not confess?
She shook all over, balanced on the brink of admission. Her blood flushed hot, and then cold. Her heart pounded in her ears, behind her eyes, in the fingers pressed against the ridges of scars on Gavin’s back.
I’m not who you think I am. I’m not Alison Ross. I’m an orphan. A thief. I’m a murderer. I’m a liar.
I’m a mother.
And the child isn’t yours.
He pulled her away from his chest, cradling her face in both of his big hands.
Here it is, she thought. He wanted a confession, he was about to get one.
On his head be it.
The moment she opened her mouth, his tongue was inside it, his lips sealed to hers in a kiss so tender and evocative, it shook the foundations of the medieval stones beneath her. He tasted like loss, and happiness, and hope.
It was a kiss for the ages. One that broke every wall they’d erected, and rebuilt a few parts of them both that had previously shattered. Suddenly, the shadows of the night surrounding them blurred the lines of morality. Of sanity.
Of honesty.
He wanted this. He wanted her, and this baby. He wanted them both to be his.
He desired a life with her. This life. A life she’d grown to love. Something she yearned for more than anything she’d ever dreamed of in the past.
And he deserved those things. He was nothing like the worthless, selfish brigand Alison Ross had led her to believe. He deserved a woman who patiently stitched his broken heart back together. He deserved children who established a new legacy for his family. One of success and pride and decency.
But Samantha didn’t deserve him. Not this ferocious, protective man who loved so fiercely, he piled sorrows and stress upon his wide shoulders in order to shelter those he cared about.
In a way, his lie was as big as hers. When he’d said he was incapable of feeling, she should have known right then that the opposite was true. Gavin St. James felt more deeply than perhaps anyone she’d ever met. He was a man of incomparable strength and wit and fathomless depths of passion and need. He’d done whatever he could to save his mother. His land. And Colleen. The only woman he’d ever loved.
Samantha closed her eyes against the pain of that.
She … she was the scoundrel here. One who should maybe end this charade before she became yet another of his tragedies. But where would she go? She had some money now, but she’d planned on staying at Inverthorne at least long enough to give birth. Long enough to truly and legally give him what he wanted.
Running and hiding as a pregnant woman would prove nigh to impossible. This wasn’t supposed to happen. The plan was that they marry and tolerate each other for a short period of time. That he move on to his next conquest, and once he’d forgotten about her, she’d slip away. That was the bargain they’d struck. That she could go live elsewhere. That she could be both free and protected.
She’d never expected that the chains threatening her freedom would be made of velvet instead of steel. That the one place that truly never belonged to her was the one place she’d never want to let go of.
Covering his hands on her face with her own, she broke the kiss, but was unable to pry herself free of him.
It was his expression that sealed her mouth closed. She watched it carefully, guiltily, as a bloom of awestruck, marvelous wonderment transformed him into a stranger. Gone was the ever-present cynical twist to his lips, its place stolen by a blinding smile that was all teeth and masculine delight. A suspiciously damp gleam deepened the verdant depths of his eyes to that of a rain forest, the kind of green that fought for the nourishment of rare sunlight, and sparkled with abundant life once it was granted. He regarded her—her—as though she were a miracle unfolding in his arms.
“Gavin, I should tell you—”
Dipping his head down, he feathered soft, abundant kisses over her upturned face. “A month,” he whispered. The silk of his lips trailing over her brow. Her temples. Her eyelids. “I’ve lain with ye for a month.” Her nose. Her cheekbones. The tense muscle of her jaw. “And ye’ve never denied me for … feminine reasons.” Her chin, her jaw, the corners of her mouth. “I should have suspected. I should have known.”
“There’s something you have to—”
“I’ll do anything.” His words hardened from a whisper to a vow. “Anything to prove that from now on, ye and this bairn are all that matters. There is no one else for me, lass. Not in the past, and not in the future.” He reached into the part of her dressing robe and spread his hand against her belly, only the slightest bit less flat than it had always been. The simple weight of his warm, work-roughened hand was heavier than any burden she’d ever carried. And sweeter than any touch she’d ever known.
Samantha knew she was the only one that felt the flutter beneath his palm, soft, like the wings of a butterfly.
“Ye doona ken what a gift this is.” His other hand threaded into her hair, cupping her head so he could rest his forehead against hers. “Ye’ve given me more than just Erradale. Ye’ve given me a chance to be what I’ve always wanted to be. A good man. A good father. I need this, bonny. I need ye. Us. And even if ye doona feel the same, I’ll do what it takes to make ye happy. I’ll protect ye and this child from anything and everyone. I’ll—”
She wrenched herself away from him, turning back to the bed in the futile hope that some distance would return some of her clarity. Her sanity. Was it possible, just this once, that things could go right? She pleaded with the heavens. Both the cruel palace of perfection that housed the vengeful God she’d been raised with, and the older, more human gods of this place. Could she be forgiven? Redeemed? Happy?
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she sobbed.
“What do ye mean?”
She touched her chin to her shoulder, glancing back at the perfection that was his face and form. “I wasn’t supposed to fall for you.”
His arrogant smile returned, though with none of its previous cruelty. “Well, doona be too hard on yourself, bonny. It’s an understandable mistake that thousands of ladies in your position have made—och!”
He ducked just in time for her hairbrush to sail harmlessly over his head and clatter against the far wall.
And then she was in his arms again. “But ye’re the first woman I’ve ever felt this way about,” he said seriously. “Ye’re the last woman I’ll ever want.”
Well … shit, she lamented as more hot tears leaked over her cheekbones. She was done for.
His mouth took hers again, distracting her from what his hands were about until the chilly night air kissed her flesh and she realized that she was naked again.
Gavin left her no time to process that fact as he shaped his strong hands over her body, spanning her narrow hips, splaying over her ass, and lifting her against him.
Left with no choice, she wrapped her legs around his l
ean waist and her arms around his shoulders as their tongues speared and tangled with each other. He tasted of salt, but Samantha had the strange sense that the tears she licked from the seam of their mouths might not only belong to her. That the preponderance of them carried not sorrow, but joy.
Hope.
She let the next word skitter across her thoughts until it disappeared beneath the dense blanket of raw lust and incoherent need evoked by his touch. She dare not think that word.
Not yet.
Gavin walked them both to the bed, though instead of spreading her beneath him, he surprised her by turning and sitting on it, splitting her legs over his hips so their mouths could remain fused.
Samantha didn’t mind one bit. After tonight, her man deserved a good ride.
The blunt pressure of his cock pressed intimately against her, impossibly hotter and harder than the rest of him. She reached between them, lifting herself in preparation to take into her body the one thing it wept for.
Lord, but with just a few kisses, her husband set her skin on fire, and released a wet flood of preparation all at once.
A fucking miracle of biblical proportions, that was sex with Gavin St. James.
In a sinuous motion of both unparalleled grace and strength, he stretched his magnificent body onto his back, all the while lifting her hips and dragging her up his torso and past his shoulders.
“What are you—”
His wicked mouth answered her, but not with words.
Knees split on either side of his head, she hadn’t the time or the strength to fight him as he pulled her to his lips. The lick was little more than a pass, their wet flesh whispering against each other with the promise of more.
She felt it all the way to the roots of her hair. Tossing her head back, she arched her pelvis forward, offering him what he would ultimately take.
His tongue traced the slippery skin around the place where she twitched and throbbed for him. An iniquitous tease with wet consequences.
Samantha made a hoarse moan of pleading that she’d never in her life thought to utter. This wasn’t her, this wild and needful woman. In his arms she was no longer skinny Samantha. She was lithe. She was supple. She was a twisting creature with long, tight limbs and endless desires and demands.
She wasn’t just a wife, she was a woman.
Tired of his teasing, her fingers instantly found his hair and gripped it, pulling him closer, demanding satisfaction.
She’d expected him to comply, but she hadn’t expected his moan of anticipation as he cleaved her sex open with the flat of his tongue. Nor the following one of appreciation at what he found.
“Holy fuck,” she gasped, as his mouth sealed over her sex in earnest, and his clever tongue went to work.
His chuckle against her clitoris caused a flush of sensation to shock through her, and she gasped as his shameless, relentless tongue dipped into her body, curling around the resulting release of wet desire he found there.
He circled her most sensitive peak, nipped at it with his lips, tormenting her closer and closer to the climax she knew awaited her, but denying her each time her fist tightened in his hair.
“Please,” she begged, both ashamed and uncaring. “Please … let me … I need.”
He shook his head in denial, but with her sex in his mouth, the movement felt incredible.
Suddenly, she realized, two could play at that game.
Her mouth flooded with moisture at the thought as she lifted her hips away from him, and his mouth let her go with a lurid noise.
Ignoring his words of protest, she quickly levered her body around, split her legs over his head, and stretched her torso over his.
“Holy fuck,” he echoed darkly, as she slowly slid her tongue around the weeping head of his cock.
“I can tease, too,” she said as she slowly stroked his throbbing length. “And I bet I last longer.”
“Och, lass,” he gasped, his hips twitching and arching against her touch. “’Tis a wager we both win no matter who loses.”
His arms clamped around her thighs and spread her open. Samantha had only a moment to sense the ultimate vulnerability this position put her in before another lick stole her breath, and gave her back warm spills of building pleasure.
She realized she had some catching up to do, and she took as much of him into her mouth as she possibly could.
He tasted of sex and the slightest hint of soap. She swirled her tongue around the smooth heat of him, stopping to explore the subtle ridges of veins as she controlled his withdrawal by tightening her lips.
She could feel his reactions to her ministrations not just through the flexes and trembles of his thick limbs, but also in the slips and catches of his own tongue. His attentions to her sex became less skillful with every glide of her wet lips on his cock. His mouth was less teasing and more demanding. His tongue less practiced and playful and more desperate and overwhelming.
When she added her hand to the base of his shaft to move in tandem against the flesh that she couldn’t fit into her mouth, she quickly realized that she’d never had a chance.
His mouth ruthlessly latched onto the engorged peak of her sex and centered all movement just below the tender bud. The sensation overwhelmed her instantly, scorching through her sex and burning through her veins with such potency, she had to pull him out of her mouth lest she do him damage.
She squirmed to escape, but his incomprehensible strength kept her immobile as he devoured her core until she only succeeded in surging against his mouth, riding it until aching pleasure engulfed her in great, shuddering spasms. Ecstasy flowed from his mouth into her body as she bucked against his hold, squirming, arching to get closer as it ebbed and flowed in erotic, torturous pulses.
Finally she collapsed, her forehead resting against his thigh, very aware of the cockstand still gripped in her palm. She thought he’d give her a moment to catch her shuddering breath.
She thought wrong.
With an inarticulate curse, he tossed her onto her knees and rose behind her. Her eyes flew wide as he seized her hips in a brutal grip and buried himself to the root inside her still-pulsing depths.
He drilled into her, the hard planes of his hips pounding against her as a fresh storm of pleasure began to build deeper within her loins. She shivered and convulsed, gritting her teeth together to keep herself from screaming. She enjoyed the wicked, brutal sounds their bodies made, the growling breaths that exploded from him.
He pushed her to her elbows, his hands both rough and reverent. He took her like a stallion mounted his mare. This was not their usual encounter, she realized.
This was a claiming.
He was a hunter, a predator. And now, she’d become his mate.
A jolt of pleasure followed this revelation, screaming through her with the speed and awesome force of a lightning bolt. She bucked against him. Curling her back and fighting a little, making him work for his domination.
Suddenly his grip was tinged with a bit of pain, and the hand in her hair yanked her head back and anchored it as he made a desperate sound, and then another, until the night was filled with his roar of pleasure, just as her womb was filled with the warmth of his seed.
Their climax synchronized and became an ecstasy so complete, the earth that she knew fell away. Time, as she understood it, ceased to tick away her life. And every star she’d ever wished upon was close enough for her to reach out and pluck from the sky.
But she didn’t need to, she thought dimly, as she allowed herself to float back to the bed with deep, exhausted breaths.
She’d already found heaven.
Gavin allowed her to lie there as he cleaned them, extinguished the lights, and crawled into bed next to her.
They were both silent a while, listening to the sounds of the winter night. Gentle snow drifted in flakes the size of dove feathers outside the casement, and though it made no sound, there was a melody to it. A muffled softness that seemed to blanket the entire Highlands.
> “I was going to make love to ye tonight, lass,” Gavin murmured finally as he pulled her close. “But ye drove me beyond all control.”
Samantha smiled at the night, thinking about how she didn’t mind one bit. “Next time,” she whispered, patting the arm he’d draped protectively around her.
“Next time.” He yawned, and promptly fell asleep.
Samantha lay quietly in the dark, her body still singing and her soul still a little troubled.
She could do this, couldn’t she?
Gavin moaned when she shifted her position a little to ease a new ache in her back. His fingers found her belly, and he splayed his palm against it, making a dreamy sound.
That flutter startled her again. Had the child caused it? Or was it her own reaction to the man?
“Are … are you awake?” she whispered.
He replied with a soft, masculine snore.
Samantha’s heart squeezed so powerfully, she thought for a moment that the ache might kill her.
Come hell or high water, she knew she’d steal every moment in Gavin’s arms, in his bed, and in his life that fate would allow her. She wanted nothing more in the world than for this child to have him as a father. He’d teach a son how to be a man, a kind, honest, strong man, and he’d allow a daughter to feel cherished, appreciated, and protected. What a life a child would have at Inverthorne. Romping in the woods with Callum. Reading to Eleanor. Riding with Eammon. Laughing and teasing with Locryn and Calybrid. Working alongside parents who would do anything to secure a happy, prosperous future.
This was a family. The mutual desire that brought them together. The thing that could bind them despite whatever threatened to tear them apart.
Including her deception?
Perhaps … This wasn’t just about her needing protection, anymore. He’d just admitted he needed her too, needed the child she carried.
For the first time, Samantha considered that her secret … might just be one worth keeping a little while longer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Scot Beds His Wife Page 28
