by Lisa Jackson
“Yes.”
“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head resolutely. “ ’Tis too convenient.”
His eyes narrowed and she gasped as he pushed himself into a sitting position. “What do you think?” he asked, that intense gaze not leaving her for a second.
She swallowed hard. “I—I think . . . you are . . . yes, you have to be Carrick.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like him, to begin with. Oh, yes, you’re still bruised and a bit swollen and it’s been years since I’ve seen you, but . . . still . . . And you were wearing the ring of Wybren.” A sudden thought occurred to her and she pointed at his hand. “Did you hide it?”
“What?” He snorted. “Of course not.”
“Then you saw who stole it from you?”
“No.”
“But you were awake,” she said. “You told me you could hear.”
“Not always. At first I was awake very little. Only these last few days have I been aware of what has been going on.”
She rolled her eyes. “Convenient again, Carrick.”
“ ’Tis true,” he insisted and then grimaced. “But you wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said. You don’t trust me at all.”
“Because you’re untrustworthy.” She threw up her hands. “Being a liar is the least of your faults.”
His jaw tightened. “I did not kill my family.”
“Then who did, Carrick?”
“I don’t know, but probably the same person who attacked me and—”
“Who was that?” she demanded, and when he didn’t respond she folded her arms over her chest. “Don’t tell me. You don’t remember.”
“ ’Twas dark. I only remember riding and someone suddenly upon me, as if he’d leapt from a cliff or rock or tree.” His face twisted as if he was trying to recall events that were difficult to retrieve.
“And why were you riding to Calon?”
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t think . . . I don’t remember that Calon was my destination.”
“Where were you going?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and he appeared genuinely confused. And yet had not Carrick been a consummate actor, skilled at the art of half-truths and lies? This man looked like Carrick, but she didn’t recognize his voice, rough as it was.
Do not be fooled by him again.
Do not trust him.
And for the sake of all that is holy, do not fall in love with him!
At that thought her knees nearly gave way. Love him? How had she come up with that? Though she wouldn’t deny, even to herself, that she’d loved Carrick of Wybren with all of her young, naive heart, that was long ago, and she was a woman now. She could not, would not fall for his seductive charms again. And yet her fingers went of their own accord to her mouth and she remembered with heart-stopping clarity the warm meeting of their lips, the rush of blood through her veins, the light-headedness and sense of elation that had claimed her.
Foolish, foolish woman.
Squaring her shoulders, she approached him again. “Prove to me that you are not Carrick,” she said, and when she saw the questions in his eyes, she pointed to the bed-sheet. “Carrick of Wybren had a birthmark high on the inside of his thigh. I, uh, I tried to see it the other night, but . . . ’twas dark, and I felt awkward lifting your coverlet, but now, as it’s evident you are able, throw back the bedclothes and let’s both look for ourselves.”
One side of his mouth lifted beneath his beard. “If you want to see my cock, m’lady,” he said, white teeth flashing, eyes glinting a hard steely blue, “all you have to do is ask.”
She blushed a dozen different hues of red but managed to keep her voice steady. “I have no interest in . . . your manhood, I assure you,” she said, her throat so tight she found it difficult to force words through it. “But the birthmark, yes, I would like to see it.”
“As you wish, m’lady,” he mocked, lifting a shoulder. Then, wincing with the effort, he levered upon one elbow and tossed off the coverlet.
She was faced with his sheer, unabashed nakedness. His discolored skin stretched over sinewy thighs and strong calves, and the dark hair that covered his legs was thick at his groin, where, to her dismay, his manhood lay flaccid. ’Twas something she’d never seen before, that limp . . . thing . . . in its dark nest. As many times as she and Carrick had made love, she’d never viewed him unaroused. Now she couldn’t help but grimace.
Carrick laughed, amused by her discomfiture. “I fear I do not please you.”
“You . . . you . . . have never pleased me, Carrick.”
His eyes glimmered devilishly. “Never?” He raised a dark, mocking brow. “Then perhaps I should try again.”
The glare she sent him had withered many an unwanted suitor, but not this man. If anything Carrick seemed to enjoy her seething anger.
“Look quickly, Lady,” he suggested, nodding toward his naked maleness, “for I don’t know how long . . . oh, damn.”
In front of her eyes his member began to grow and stiffen.
“Sweet Morrigu,” she whispered, trying to ignore his ever-enlarging cock by forcing her gaze along the inside of his thighs, searching for the birthmark. Where the devil was it? Her eyes narrowed, but the light in the chamber was weak and his skin still slightly bruised in the spot where she thought the birthmark should be. Or had it been on his other leg, where there was now a scar? Could it be beneath the old scar? She dared not look any closer because his manhood was growing right before her eyes.
“Can’t you stop that?” she asked.
“Aye, but first you have to quit gazing at it.”
“I’m not gazing at . . . at . . . Oh, for the love of God!”
“Happens at the most unfortunate of times.”
She skewered him with another icy glance.
“Really. As if it has a mind of its own.”
“Really?” she taunted, refusing to be intimidated. She stepped closer, heard him chuckle deep in his throat, and felt her blood run a little more heatedly through her veins. Which was damned foolish. Suddenly she realized how silly her quest was. “Oh! Cover up!” she ordered.
He had the nerve, the sheer audacity, to laugh out loud. But then he’d always been a rogue. “Satisfied?” he asked.
“No, but . . . What?” Her head jerked up and she glared at him full in the face. She saw the fire in his blue eyes, the irreverent grin slashing across his chin. The bastard was teasing her and enjoying it immensely.
“I asked if you were—”
“Yes, yes, I heard you!” She stepped farther from him, felt the beads of sweat around her neck cool a bit. “Now, please, cover yourself.”
“Whatever you want.” With a turn of his wrist, he flipped the covers across his body once more, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “I’m just here to please you.”
“Bloody hell, Carrick,” she growled angrily. “Don’t mock me.”
“You don’t like it?”
“No!”
His smile was pure seduction. She felt a tug on her heart. Remembered how it had been with him. The magic of his touch, the warmth of his hands, the erotic pressure of his lips against hers. She felt a blush creep steadily up her neck to stain her cheeks. Stiffening her spine, she forced her thoughts away from the past that was a lie and folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know how you can jest at a time like this. Your fate is in my hands.”
“Is it?”
“Yes! God’s teeth, Carrick, do you not understand that tomorrow, upon my command, Father Daniel will ride to Wybren to tell Graydynn of your . . . your . . .”
“Capture.”
She looked away. “Had you not been brought into Calon, you would have died. I kept you here as my guest.”
“Then I’m free to leave?”
She hesitated. “I have a duty to Graydynn.”
He snorted derisively. “How is that? You owe Graydynn nothing.” He pushed himself into a sitting pos
ition with a strength she didn’t realize he’d regained. The muscles in his arms gleamed in the fire’s glow and she noticed something smoky and dark in his eyes, something dangerous and yet enticing. “Somehow you believe that I’m a murderer, that I betrayed you as well as everyone at Wybren.”
“ ’Tis not for me to judge.”
He glared at her with disdain. “Oh, Lady,” he said, “you already have. What do you think Graydynn will do when I arrive at Wybren?”
“I know not.”
“Welcome me with arms wide? Offer me food and wine, perhaps a woman?” he demanded, anger radiating from him. “Or, m’lady, do you think there is a chance he will send me straight to the gallows and the hangman?”
She crumbled inside and shook her head.
“No?” he shot back. “Then let me explain it to you. Graydynn is looking for someone to blame, a goat he can name for all the miseries caused at Wybren. And that goat, should I pass through his gates, will be me.”
“How do you know this?”
“ ’Tis only natural. I would do the same.”
“As easily as you killed your own family? As quickly as you turned your back on me?” she asked, and he was on his feet in an instant, crossing the rush-strewn floor, grabbing her forearms with his strong fingers and standing naked and raw in front of her.
“I did none of those things.”
“Then you’re not Carrick?” she asked, her voice a whisper, her throat dry as dust as she tried to step away.
“No.”
“No?”
He shook his head and beneath the rage, under that layer of hard, masculine anger, she saw a trace of confusion. “No longer.”
“Oh . . . so you want to pretend that the past doesn’t exist; you want to step forward today as innocent as a newborn babe!” She yanked one arm free. “That’s not the way it works, Carrick. We cannot wish away the mistakes of our past. Were that true, I swear, I would wipe away any memory I have of you. You would be dead to me, would never have existed.”
“I remember you.”
She froze. “What?”
“In bits and pieces,” he admitted, his jaw working. “I remember seeing you. Your laugh. That you always rode your horse as if Satan himself was chasing you.”
Her heart seized. A dozen memories of being with him on those hot, long-ago days cut through her conviction. Oh, how she had loved him! “How . . . how handy it is for you to remember me now, when I’m about to send you away. And yet you claim you have no recollection of the people who trusted you, the ones who lost their lives because of you.”
“Nay.” His voice broke and he blinked. “I swear to you, Morwenna, I did not kill any member of my family. I know not if I’ve ever taken a man’s life; the scars upon my body suggest I’ve spent much time in battle, and there are pieces of memory, tiny little shards of soldiers, and weapons, and a rage that flows through my blood, but I swear on all that is holy, I did not slay my family. Nor . . .” He reached up and wound a thick lock of her hair around his finger. “Nor do I believe I would ever have left you. With or without a child.”
Tears burned the back of her eyes. Oh, how she wanted to believe him—his words were a balm to all the pain that had split her heart—but she was not foolish enough to trust him.
“You did, Carrick. That much I know.” Closing her eyes, she stemmed the siege of tears and reminded herself that he was a lying piece of pond scum, that he would say anything to save himself. “I was there. You left me.”
“Then I was a bigger fool than I can believe,” he whispered, and before she could react, he drew her closer so that she was tight against his hard, unclothed body. His mouth descended and claimed hers with a raw urgency that ignited her blood.
No! her mind screamed. Morwenna, stop this madness now!
But even as her brain was commanding her otherwise, she gave herself up to the kiss, feeling the sweet, hard pressure of his lips upon hers, opening her mouth at the insistence of his tongue, sensing his fingertips splay across her back as he drew her closer still.
No, no, no!
But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t. She let her body rule her mind, and as he groaned, her resistence shattered completely. He pushed her tunic off her shoulder and kissed the soft, sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder.
Warmth uncurled deep inside, need began to throb in the most intimate part of her as he shoved the tunic farther aside, exposing the top of her breast, trailing his warm lips across her skin, causing the breath to be stopped somewhere in her lungs. She knew she was lost. The smell of him, raw and male, mingled with smoke from the fire and ignited her senses. Memories of passion, so long denied, flooded her mind: Carrick lying naked on a field of grass, smiling and curling his finger at her to join him; Carrick slipping into her chamber and pulling off her clothes only to touch her in the most secret of places; Carrick rolling her over in the bed, taking her from behind, slipping his shaft into her moist, hot womanhood as his hands cradled her breasts and she panted and gasped, her nerve endings afire.
Oh, making love to him was sleeping with the devil! She knew she should push him away, put an end to the insanity of staying with him, of kissing him, of making love to him, but she couldn’t. Three years she had longed for just this moment, nearly a thousand nights she’d dreamed of him and just as many days she’d cursed his soul to hell.
But tonight . . . just this one night . . . she would forget that he had betrayed her. As embers from the fire glowed a soft red and the rest of the castle slept, she knew she would not deny him but kissed him with a fever born of despair.
When he lifted her from her feet and carried her to the bed, she didn’t protest. When his weight forced her onto the mattress, she wound her arms around his neck and looked up at him in eager expectation. When he unlaced her tunic, she waited in breathless anticipation. And finally, when he removed the unwanted garment and she was lying only in a thin, lacy chemise, and she felt as if she could not breathe, as if the air in her lungs was caught somewhere between heaven and hell, she leaned upward and kissed him with all the soul-wrenching passion she’d kept under lock and key for three long years.
“By the gods, you are beautiful, Morwenna,” he said, and her soul took flight.
Do not believe him; do not trust this lying bastard.
“So are you.”
“Even with these bruises?”
To answer, she let her lips caress a discolored spot over his ribs. He moaned and she moved her mouth, tasting the salt of sweat upon his skin, hearing the sound of his breath being sucked in through his teeth.
“You’re a sorceress,” he said. He straddled her hips then, his muscular thighs supporting him, his erection stiff and hard against her abdomen. “But I knew you would be.” Leaning forward upon one elbow, his face close enough to hers that his breath caressed her face, he tangled his fingers in her hair and then spread hungry, eager kisses upon her cheeks, forehead, and chin.
Her heart beat a wild, erratic cadence, thundering in her ears so loudly she was certain he could hear it. She stared up at his eyes, dark as a midnight sky, and saw not the rogue she had once loved but a new man, one she did not know, or no longer knew, a stranger who was, if she let him, about to become her lover.
Black hair fell over his eyes, bronzed, sweat-dampened skin gleamed in the dim light, sinuous male muscles rippled with each of his movements, and he looked so damned much like the Carrick she remembered, her silly heart squeezed.
For an idiotic second she imagined she was in love with him still, but she quickly chased that thought away. This has nothing to do with love, she told herself, and everything to do with desire and redemption.
Or was it temptation?
She swallowed hard and reached up to him. It had been a long, long time since she’d been with a man, since she’d lain with Carrick of Wybren only to be shamed. Yet, tonight, she was willing to risk the same heartache, the same pain. Though she was a woman and therefore expected not to give in to wanto
n sexual need, she refused to deny herself this one night of pleasure in his arms.
She had loved him once with all of her heart.
And so she would allow herself this.
She captured the nape of his neck with her fingers, dragged his head to hers, and breathed into his open mouth. He let out a groan and she kissed him fervently. Passionately she reveled in the feel of his lips pressing urgently to hers, the gentle pressure of his tongue as it slipped between her teeth to touch, tingle and taste.
Caught in the moment, she closed her eyes.
With his free hand, he found her breast. Through the silken fabric, he sensuously traced the outline of her nipple with his thumb, and her breast swelled, aching for more.
“Ooh,” she whispered, thrumming inside.
She squirmed beneath him, her nipples responding, the yearning between her legs hot and anxious. “Carrick,” she cried in a soft whisper that seemed to echo through the chamber. “Oh, please . . .”
He pulled back to stare down at her and grin, that devilish slash of a smile that increased the need pulsing through her. “Pig dung?” he asked, kissing her again. “Is that what I heard you call me?”
“Worse! You . . . you are lower than pig dung.”
He chuckled against her skin. “Is that possible?” His tongue rimmed her lips, not quite kissing her.
“Y-yes.”
He rubbed his manhood against her. Slowly. Erotically. The stiff shaft hot and hard as it wrinkled the thin layer of cloth separating her from him.
Deep inside she ached. Wanted. Needed.
“What is lower than pig dung?”
“You,” she murmured, though her thoughts were far from the conversation and centered on that most private part inside her. God, how she ached for him.
As if understanding her need, he slipped downward, his body sliding against hers. The chemise pulled taut and his lips, moving ever lower, found her breast, still covered by the flimsy cloth. Eagerly he licked her nipple, wetting the fabric, causing her to writhe with the want of him.
He pressed a knee between her legs and she gasped, her fingers digging into his hair. Inside she was palpitating, her most feminine part anxious to be touched. The knee pressed harder and she moaned, hot flesh wanting. Pulsing. Throbbing.
