The Iron Earl

by K. J. Jackson

  He squeezed her hand then stood. “Come with me to the bed?”

  Her look dipped down his naked body, the flush in her cheeks deepening into a crimson hue as her gaze paused at his engorged member. Her eyes lifted to his face. “You wish to do it again?”

  “I do. And this time, you are not to lie down on that bed until your knees are weak and can no longer support you.”

  “Why would my knees go weak?”

  He smiled, wicked, and tugged her to her feet.

  “If I perform my duties correctly, you’re about to find out.” He stepped into her space, his head dipping down to brush his lips along her jaw, light, gentle, the caress of a midsummer’s breeze. His thumbs hooked under the straps of her chemise and he slowly dragged it downward off her body.

  She didn’t resist, not that he thought she would. His new wife was overly accommodating in the bedchamber.

  Accommodating would not do.

  He didn’t want her accommodating—he wanted her writhing, his name a mewl on her tongue, begging him for release.

  Her chemise landed in a pile about her feet and his hand slipped behind her to the small of her back. His lips parted, his tongue tracing a long line down her neck, tasting the salt of her. He instantly wanted more—a deep thirst for her taste he couldn’t quite place.

  A soft moan and her head tilted to the side, allowing him better access, and he shuffled her backward three steps toward the bed. Her body had gone pliant, easy to maneuver.

  Shifting her long russet locks behind her shoulder, he smiled into her skin as a quivering breath lifted her chest and his mouth trailed a line of kisses along the fine line of her collarbone.

  Lifting his head, he found her lips, his tongue parting them, raking against her teeth, and he was rewarded with the tang of sweet wine still on her tongue. The lightness of the kiss deepened to a brutal feast without conscious thought.

  Just when he thought he’d gone too far, needing to pull away before scaring her, her body pressed forward, her skin touching his, her breasts on his chest, her hips pushing her belly onto his cock.

  Heaven. Pure, sweet heaven.

  There wasn’t the slightest shyness in how her body molded into his—almost awkward without the suave movements of a seasoned lover. No—her body did what instinct demanded, her skin needing his.

  The hardness of his member strained viciously, demanding to be sated.

  It would have to wait.

  He broke the kiss before it sent him too far down a path he could not veer from and he set his lips to her neck once more.

  Her breathing sped, soft gasps every time his mouth swept over a sensitive nerve. He sank farther, his mouth finding her left nipple. It was already taut as he drew it into his mouth and he sucked it, teasing it with the tips of his teeth.

  “Lachlan.” His name tumbled from her lips, raw and breathless.

  Just like he wanted it. Filling his ears again and again.

  Her hands shifted to the back of his head, her fingers digging deep into his hair and clutching him to her breast.

  As much as her left breast wanted him, he wasn’t about to neglect her right. He shifted, ignoring the disappointed gasp escaping her as his lips left her. The gargled sound in her throat died out, satisfied as he clamped onto her right nipple.

  It was only moments before her breaths started to heave, erotic moans bubbling from deep in her chest.

  “Lachlan.”

  “Yes?”

  “My knees are weak.”

  He chuckled into her skin, the salty sheen of it pressing to his lips.

  His tongue still swirling about her nipple, not breaking contact, his hands slipped around the swell of her buttocks, lifting her and walking her the last two steps to the bed.

  As much as it tortured him to pull his lips away from her, he did so, setting her down on the edge of the mattress. His eyes found her gaze. “Do you feel safe, Eva?”

  She nodded. “Yes.” Even through the passion-fueled haze in her gold-green eyes he saw the trust, the submission. She was counting on him to take her through this—to not disappoint.

  He didn’t intend to.

  “Then your knees aren’t the only thing that will be going weak.”

  Her eyes went wide and a shameless smile lifted the side of his mouth. He kissed her, long and hard, then drew away, his mouth finding its way down her body. One breast. Two. The valley between them that stretched down her belly. Her navel.

  His lips consumed her skin, letting no morsel go untasted as he pressed her backward onto the bed. Fingers itching, he set his right hand under her leg, dragging it to bend upward as his thumb teased a line along her inner thigh. Her skin prickled under his touch and he set her calf around his waist as he drew further down her body with his lips.

  His finger breached her, sliding into the slick folds. Folds that were ready for him with not the slightest flinch of pain from earlier. He found her nubbin, swirling it along the tips of his fingers.

  The scent of her, the strain of her hips swiveling toward him with every swipe of his fingers nearly undid him. He forged a finger, then two deep into her, testing her tightness.

  “Lachlan.” The guttural cry had everything to do with pleasure and nothing with pain.

  Tight. But ready for him.

  He sent his tongue to swirl on her lower belly as his fingers mimicked the motion on her nubbin and she bucked, not understanding her own body.

  “Lachlan.” Wonderment flush with anxiety made her cries speed, her raspy voice cracking with the weight of what was happening to her body.

  A loss of control.

  He heard it in her voice, because he felt it in his own gut. He felt it deep within, a burning like no other. A burning that threatened to sear him from the inside out.

  “Just hold it there, Eva. Hold it there.” His fingers stayed in place, stroking her ever higher as he straightened above her.

  Watching as her head arched backward, drawing her whole body into a beautiful arc, he held himself back until the first cry of her release hit.

  He slid into her.

  Hard. Harder than he wanted. Softer than his base instincts demanded.

  It didn’t pause her, didn’t halt the throes her body writhed in. If anything, his cock, full and deep in her, sent her body into vibrations that overtook her limbs.

  “Lachlan. Again.”

  The words, breathless and begging, hit him in the chest. He withdrew, slamming into her again.

  Again. And again.

  The rapture that surrounded his member with each stroke shook his body to the tips of his nerves.

  Her legs wrapped around him, drawing him ever closer, her screams reaching to his gut and ripping it out.

  Hell. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  Not flames so deep in his core.

  Not ripping his insides to shreds.

  But he was no force against it.

  He lifted her hips, driving into her deeper than he thought possible. Immersed so far into the abyss, the hooks of it so ruthless he had no choice but to come, ferocious and hard, every fragment of him and parts unknown emptying into her in a raging explosion.

  He collapsed, then rolled, dragging her still quaking body on top of his. He wasn’t breaking contact with her. Ever. Time and space and natural laws be damned.

  “I didn’t know—” her breathless words into his chest paused and she curled her head onto him, taking a deep breath before setting her chin on his chest and looking up at him “I didn’t know that existed.”

  Neither did I.

  The words sat there on the tip of his tongue, unsaid.

  He had never felt fire in his veins like this. Fire that consumed him. Fire that built to explosion, then refused to yield with relief, instead remaining in his blood, seeping into his bones.

  He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, but he knew it the same as she did.

  This was nothing like anything he’d experienced before.

 
It consumed his loins, his gut. An all-encompassing need for her body. For the touch of her fingertips against his bare skin. An urgency for her so brutal it devoured him whole.

  And it felt like betrayal.

  Betrayal for his brother.

  { Chapter 13 }

  “The marquess said to come directly, m’lady.”

  Evalyn looked around Lachlan’s spacious chamber, her gaze landing on the willowy slip of the maid in front of her.

  “But I am under strict orders by my husband to stay in his chambers until he returns from the trial.”

  “Oh, ye are English. I heard tell it down below but couldnae believe it.” The maid shuffled from one foot to the other, the pace of her words picking up. “I understand what yer husband told ye, m’lady, but his lordship insisted ye accompany me to ‘im this very moment, and ‘e’s not one for disobeyin’ orders.”

  Evalyn sighed, tugging her bottom lip from under her front teeth. Lachlan had been very direct in that she was not to leave his chambers that day. They had arrived at Vinehill late in the darkness the previous night when most of the household was asleep. When he’d left early this morning before daybreak for the first day of the trial, he’d had that one request of her.

  Don’t leave his rooms.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the healthy fire in the marble-lined hearth that had been tended to by the other maid, Janice, since dawn. Judging by the cringed responses by both of the maids to her accent, she could only imagine how Lachlan’s grandfather would react to her without proper introduction.

  “But my husband was most insistent I stay here.”

  “Aye, as is his grandfather to see ye. But his is an order, m’lady. And one dinnae disobey the marquess.” Her cheeks pulled back in a wince, crinkling the edges of her eyes. Evalyn recognized the exact look in the girl’s brown eyes—the awkward position she’d been put in to retrieve Lachlan’s new bride for inspection.

  Evalyn offered a slight nod. “Can you afford me one moment?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked across the room into the adjoining dressing chamber and stopped in front of the tall mirror.

  Her hand ran downward across her belly, smoothing the wrinkled creases of the grey wool as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her only other choice for clothing was her mother’s dress sitting crumpled on the bench by the window. Lachlan had kindly brought it up from the wagon last night, but then had set it in here to be taken to be cleaned and mended.

  She didn’t want to meet the marquess in the worn wool dress, but her mother’s ball gown would be an even worse choice. Her fingers ran along her upsweep, smoothing it across her temple, and she leaned toward the mirror to inspect the dark circles under her eyes. Even after the stupor her body was in from the hard day of travel, Lachlan had kept her up far too long last night, making her body writhe under him. And it was only a few hours later that his lips on her neck were nudging her awake, his insistent shaft pressing hard into her thigh.

  Not that she would trade those moments away for less tired-looking eyes.

  “M’lady?” The maid’s voice reached her from the main chamber.

  One last swipe across the side of her head to smooth errant hairs, and she moved into Lachlan’s room, bracing herself.

  She nodded to the maid, who promptly spun about and moved out of the room.

  The maid’s steps were quick and Evalyn had to follow her closely through the narrow stone corridors.

  A maze. She’d followed Lachlan blindly last night to his chambers, but now she realized how many twists and turns there were in the corridors—as though whoever had built the structure had set trap after trap for anyone trying to navigate the halls. Or they were foxed beyond compare.

  Whereas she’d assumed Lachlan had wanted her hidden away in his rooms, maybe he’d asked that of her because he didn’t want her to get forever lost in the bowels of the ancient keep.

  The maid pushed forth a heavy oak door reinforced with heavy iron strap hinges, and it creaked open until there was enough space for her to move past.

  Following her, Evalyn turned sideways and scooted through the narrow opening.

  A library, or a museum of some fashion, greeted her on the other side. Heavy drapes covered the windows, blocking the daylight and leaving only the roaring flames in the fireplace to lend light to the room. Books lined the lower cabinets—not taller than her waist—that ringed the spacious room, and above them paintings of every shape and size filled the walls. Filled the walls from bookcases to ceiling. Naught but slivers of plaster showed between them, the frames of all manners—from elaborate gilded masterpieces, to deep mocha-colored carved mahogany ones, to simple raw wooden casings.

  Evalyn spun slightly in the room, instantly uneasy.

  She’d lived in her stepfather’s home where mounted animals of all sorts filled the rooms, their glass eyes immortalizing them in ever awake states, so she knew what it was to have soulless eyes watching her.

  But this room sent a shiver down her spine. In every painting that hung on the walls—most of them portraits—eyes followed her. Female eyes. Male eyes. Eyes of children. Eyes of the elderly. Blue eyes. Green eyes. Brown eyes.

  Men on horseback. Women in full court dress, adorned with jewels. Families seated, wolfhounds at their feet. Medieval scenes. Tartan clad men. Every portrait that had ever been painted on these lands, plus a hundred more, had to have been hanging in this room.

  The chamber of eyes watched her as she stepped into the room. Followed her as she came to a halt on the middle of the Axminster carpet that lined only half of the stone floor.

  Glared at her movements.

  Judged her.

  Hundreds of piercing eagle eyes that stared at her from every direction.

  The shiver that had run down her spine skittered back up to prickle the skin on her neck.

  “That will be all, Maggie.” A craggy voice cut into the stale air and made her jump. She spun to the sound, finding the profile of an elderly man sitting in a wingback chair turned toward the enormous curved stone fireplace.

  Maggie backed out of the room, pulling the heavy door closed with her exit.

  “Don’t just stand there. Move over into the light, girl.” The voice, cracking with age, yet so commanding, made Evalyn hop and cautiously approach the fireplace.

  She stopped three steps away from the wingback chair and turned to Lachlan’s grandfather, locking her arms straight along her sides. She’d done this too many times before, her gut churning. Present herself for inspection. Inspections that she inevitably failed.

  But this was Lachlan’s grandfather. Her future. A future she was starting to allow herself the smallest margin to believe in, even though she knew it was foolish to do so.

  She braced herself, looking to him.

  The man was older than his voice. Deepset lines on his face were almost swallowed by the number of smaller wrinkles cutting across his skin. Hazel eyes she recognized—the very same as Lachlan’s—squinted at her through the folds of skin.

  His wiry grey eyebrows arched, or at least she thought they did, as it was hard to discern what did and did not move on his face.

  His right fingers on the plush arm of the chair lifted, his crooked forefinger extending out, though curled with creaky bones that wouldn’t let his finger truly straighten to point at her. “Well, yer a bonny lass, if nothing else.” He sent his forefinger in a circle. “Let’s hear ye speak.”

  “Hear me speak, my lord?”

  He cringed, his layered wrinkles collapsing onto one another as his head snapped back. “I’d hoped to the last it wasn’t true—that whelp bringing home a blasted Englishwoman for a bride.”

  She bowed her head and her voice settled into the well-practiced docile tone that she always maintained with her stepfather. “I understand that an English-born woman is not what you wished for in a wife for your grandson.”

  He jabbed his finger in the air at her. “Ye think I care about yer birthplace, child?”
His eyes narrowed at her, almost disappearing into the folds of his transparent skin. His palm slammed so hard onto the arm of the chair she was afraid it would shatter his bones. “Well, I do. But I care more about the damn betrothal that was the key to the Vinehill future—key to keeping our people on our lands. That union was to gain us the best flock in Scotland and stability for our lands.”

  Evalyn kept her head inclined. “I apologize for the disappointment, my lord. This union was not planned upon by either Lachlan or myself.”

  “Eh? Not planned upon?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was merely to accompany Lachlan here to Vinehill, and then I was to become part of the household, possibly work in the kitchens.”

  “Then why—did ye lift yer skirts for him and the fool boy fell besotted?”

  A flush wrapped around her neck. “Ah—no. That is not what happened at all.”

  “Good, good—then we can fix this, child. I can have papers for a divorce drawn up today.”

  “Oh.” Her eyebrows drew together. “I did not know one could divorce so easily and I do not think—”

  “I don’t care what ye think, child. This not be England, lass. A divorce is easy enough to come by in Scotland with some extra grease and then ye can work in the kitchens as planned.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing.” He flipped his boney hand into the air. “Go. I am done with ye.”

  Her open mouth clamped shut. With a quick curtsey, she moved out of the room.

  Closing the creaking door behind her with shaking hands, she looked both directions in the corridor. To her left, the corridor quickly ended at a perpendicular hallway. To her right, the corridor curved, disappearing. Dank and cold in both directions.

  She could swear she came from the right. She hoped.

  Her footsteps light on the ancient stones, she walked to her right, slowing as the hallway curved.

  “Ye don’t want to be going that direction, m’lady.”