But the idea of Morgan knowing full well what she was doing drove Faith crazy. She draped a sheet over the window, but it wasn’t enough to keep him out of her thoughts. When she stripped to her chemise, she felt as if he were right there beside her, grinning.
The shame of it was that she wanted him there. Lifting the cloth from the large basin, Faith buried her burning cheeks in it. For some reason, the wet cloth only brought back the memories of Morgan’s heated kiss, and the steam seemed to curl down inside of her and smolder. She was going to hell of a certainty.
With practiced maneuvers she managed to soak her hair in the basin and scrub until it hurt. She would just have to keep him from kissing her again. That’s all it was, an act of nature like the birds singing in the spring.
But when she finally had to strip off her chemise to finish washing, her body told another story. Her breasts would never be large, but they were filling out. Perhaps that was the reason they prickled and grew sharp points when the cloth caressed them. The stirring in her belly grew to an ache as she cleansed lower, and Faith flushed at the thought of Morgan just outside the door. What was he doing to her that she could not even bathe in peace?
She hastily finished washing and grabbed clean garments. The dirty water would need to be carried out. She would much prefer to scurry up to the loft and hide, but she knew her place. The water had to go out, and she had to get dressed to do it.
Not bothering with stockings or shoes, Faith slipped her clean blue gown on, hastily tucked a white kerchief around her shoulders, and opened the door before lifting the heavy basin. As she had suspected, Morgan was not far away, but instead of facing the cottage, he was staring up at the heavens. From the way his hair lay plastered against his neck, he had gone bathing in the stream behind the barn. At the sound of the door opening, he turned and gestured at her.
“Come see, cailin. The heavens are raining fire this night.”
She was a candidate for Bedlam to go near him. Morgan’s shoulders strained at the seams of his old shirt, and Faith could tell that he wore no neckcloth and had not bothered to fasten the shirt ties. The old leather breeches he wore when working with the horses clung to his narrow hips and strong thighs like a soft glove, and like her, he had left off his stockings and shoes. He was as pagan as the night, and she could not resist the smiling gleam he sent her way.
As if pulled two ways by the forces of moon and tide, Faith reluctantly stepped out onto the cool grass and set down her basin. The day had been unusually warm, and some of the sun’s heat lingered on the blades between her toes. Knowing she shouldn’t, unable to stop, she approached Morgan reluctantly, her gaze fastened on the man-god in the clearing and not on the heavens above.
Revealing no sign that he noticed or understood her slowness, Morgan pointed to the arc of the sky where the meteor shower continued unabated. “Think you ’tis a sign of import?” he murmured.
With incredible magic, the fiery lights sped and disappeared across the black bowl of the heavens. Faith’s eyes finally turned in their direction, and she gasped at the majesty of the night sky. It had never occurred to her to watch the moon and stars, even had she been allowed outside in the dark to do so. The magnificence was so inspiring that she scarcely noticed when Morgan placed his hands on her shoulders.
“’Tis so beautiful,” she whispered, watching the play of light.
“’Tis the only thing that keeps my faith that God exists. Perhaps he has gone elsewhere and forgotten our poor miserable world, but only a god could have created such a spectacle.”
“I think it is man who has forgotten God.” Faith shivered, not from cold, but from a strange sensation engendered by Morgan’s deep voice, or perhaps by his presence. His hands tightened on her shoulders, and she leaned closer to his welcoming warmth. Against the immensity of the sky, they seemed very small, and his touch offered security.
“Perhaps so,” His voice was sad as he stared upward. “I’d like to think there is a heaven up there, and that those we loved look down upon occasion to see how we fare. They deserve a heaven after their hell on earth.”
The pain in his voice struck a chord in her heart, and Faith leaned against him, letting his hands slide down her arms to circle her waist, not knowing how else to offer comfort. She knew the anguish of death as well as anybody, but time had numbed some of the sharpness of the loss.
It did not reassure her to think her father watched over her. She felt quite certain he would not approve. Perhaps Morgan’s family was different, and they would be glad he was alive and well and fighting the people who had stolen his home.
“There has to be a heaven.” She spoke softly, uncertain how to phrase her feelings. “The sky is proof enough. Those are angels out there watching over us. If we could only lead the lives they expect, they need not cry over us anymore.”
Morgan sent a surprised look to Faith’s upturned gaze, but she was watching the stars with a dreamy expression and no thought to him. He studied the lovely oval of her face, admiring the thick fringe of lashes and the sculptured lines of her nose and cheeks. A few short hairs had begun to dry and curl about her brow, and they glowed with almost a copper hue in the starlight.
Morgan tried not to focus on her parted lips, but he knew how they would melt beneath his own, and his loins responded to the image. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman, and this slip of a girl was getting under his skin. Perhaps the falling stars had an import, after all. Perhaps tonight was the night.
She smelled of the jasmine-scented soap he had bought for her. He had never seen a jasmine in bloom, but it could not be more beautiful than the innocent in his arms. Wanting just a taste of that innocence to fill the gaping hole in his soul, Morgan turned his faerie-woman around and pressed his lips upon hers.
This time, Faith felt no surprise at Morgan’s kiss. It was as if the time had come and the curtain had risen and the characters were on the stage where they belonged. Only the touch of his mouth was needed to dim the theater lights and set the actors in motion.
Her hands circled his strong neck. She explored the warm flesh and supple tendons there, then traveled on to the silken textures of Morgan’s damp hair while his mouth tempted. She knew what he wanted this time, and her lips parted invitingly.
As his tongue accepted her invitation, excitement twisted and circled deep inside Faith where she had felt the heat earlier. His kiss was like fuel to the fire, and she rose to greet it. Morgan lifted her against him so her mouth could seal more tightly to his. The touch of his tongue ignited more awe than the falling stars overhead.
His hands roamed as their mouths explored. The brush of strong fingers over the sides of her breasts created new flames of excitement, but when Morgan’s hand cupped her buttocks and drew her closer, Faith’s newfound confidence faltered.
She pulled away and studied Morgan’s angular face with bewilderment and fear. The fire still breathed inside her, and she tingled in places best not thought of, but she knew more now of the danger she courted, and she was terrified of where this excitement led.
The tenderness in Morgan’s green gaze reassured her, and the gentle curve of his lip as he touched a finger to her mouth sent panic back to its lidded box. This was Morgan, the only man who had come to her aid, who provided for her better than her own father. Despite his trade, she had no reason not to trust him.
“Don’t be afraid, little faerie. I’ll not do anything you don’t want me to.” The soft caress of his voice did nothing to reveal the two-edged sword of his words.
Ignorant of the way her body worked, Faith allowed herself to be led up the hillock to the clearing behind the cottage. Morgan spread out a saddle blanket and gallantly assisted her to a seat. The stars spread out far and wide above them. It was sheer bliss to lie back and imagine reaching that peaceful sky.
Morgan pointed out the constellations he knew, trying to make her see a bear where there was only a dipper, and laughing low in his throat when she insisted all she c
ould see were two dippers, and did they have any water?
His kiss brushed her forehead, then her nose, and it wasn’t long before she pulled his head down to sample the giddy wine of his lips again. It seemed so simple now, so much a part of the spring around them, that she wondered why she had ever feared it. The throbbing life of the earth rose and flowed through their their veins like the tides to the shores. The warm breeze rippling the grass ruffled their hair, and whispered along their skin, and the day’s heat rose from the ground to blanket them.
The loose kerchief over Faith’s breasts fell before Morgan’s searching fingers. The unfocused excitement now had a center as he cupped the swell of her breast and caressed the flesh rising above her bodice. Faith waited breathlessly for the removal of the encumbrance keeping flesh from touching flesh. She offered no protest when the hooks of her bodice came undone and only the sheer chemise stood between her and the heat of Morgan’s palm.
“You are so beautiful, cailin, he murmured. “God made you to fit into my hand just so.” He filled his palm with her loosely covered breast and stroked.
Knowing he was as aroused as she enhanced her desire. He gazed upon her with a rapturous expression that she returned. His praises were no lie.
Silhouetted against the sky, he appeared more demigod than ever. His wide shoulders filled her field of vision, and Faith’s fingers searched the hollows and angles of his face as he hovered over her. She didn’t know what was happening, but she wasn’t ready to call a halt yet. The knowledge that he would stop when she asked it of him was reassurance enough.
His strong fingers untied her chemise and pushed it aside. The night air caressed her heated flesh, and her breasts rose to sharp points. She held her breath as Morgan gently touched her there, but the pleasure was an exquisite pain that swirled all the way down to her middle and made her hips rise in expectation of something she did not understand.
“Ahhh, Faith, you have the passions of a thousand women all wrapped in one. Thank God I found you before anyone else did. You’re a treasure, my love, and I’m not likely to ever let you go.”
His words should have terrified her, but instead, they made her soul rise in rapture. Or perhaps it was just the way his hands made her breasts swell as he teased and stroked until she was heedless of his meanings. The question in Morgan’s gaze disappeared when Faith raised her hands once more to bring him down to her kiss. As their lips met, his eyes smoldered with renewed intensity.
Even when she gave a small cry of fright as his lips encompassed her breast, Morgan did not relent, and in truth, Faith didn’t want him to stop. She writhed beneath the slow seduction of his tongue, encouraging him with her stroking hands and fingers.
Morgan’s body was large and heavy, but he balanced himself so only his hips pressed close. A heaviness in her lower regions prevented Faith from moving away, and his tempting caresses filled her senses like a heady wine. She wanted his kisses against her skin, she wanted his mouth on her breasts, and when his hand stole down to her skirts, she did not stop him.
The breeze playing over her bare leg as the heavy material slid upward offered fair warning. The spring warmth was gentle as the air lapped over her exposed calf, and Morgan’s deepening kiss induced a languor that defied protest. But primeval instinct clamored in the back of Faith’s mind.
Her hands began to tug rather than caress Morgan’s thick hair. She needed time to think, to grasp what he was doing to her, but there was no lessening of the pressure of his tongue and lips. His callused hand slid higher, bringing her skirt with it. After her bath, she had donned no petticoat, and the absence of any other protection acted as a spur to the warnings in her mind.
Air rushed over Faith’s bare thighs. Though she exploded with a need to arch upward when Morgan pushed the skirt higher, her panic increased.
Faith tried to twist away from his mouth, to tell him to stop, but his tongue slid like honey between her teeth and she accepted him hungrily. He shifted his weight to run his hand over her uncovered hip and thigh, and Faith cried out with more need than anger. His heated palm slid beneath her, lifting her bare buttock toward him, and she splintered in two at the forces fighting within her.
“No, Morgan, don’t,” she whispered as his tongue tormented her breasts once again.
His beard chafed as he peeled her bodice down and shoved the chemise aside to better explore with his kisses. As long as his attentions rested on her breasts, she felt safe, but his hand returned time and again to stroke and touch beneath her skirts until she was moist with need and a kind of panic that paralyzed her.
When his fingers finally touched her there, where she most feared him, Faith nearly jumped from her skin, but Morgan was already plying her mouth with sweet kisses and tender words.
“’Tis so sweet and fair, ye are, my cailin alainn. So soft and gentle. I need you next to me, my love. Just let me feel you close to me, just for a little while. I need you, little faerie. Can you not feel it, deep inside you? We were meant to be like this. The stars say it is so.”
The words were magnetic in their attraction, lulling Faith’s senses as easily as his kisses. She did feel it, knew the need he spoke of. And it did feel so right, so special. When he unfastened his breeches, allowing her to slide her hands beneath his loosened shirt, she felt Morgan’s intake of breath at her touch as a pleasure beyond comparison.
She could touch him, and he wanted her to. It seemed an amazing power, a secret never before revealed. The self-contained highwayman needed her touch, and she indulged in it wantonly. Her fear faded to smothered protests beneath the onslaught to her senses as his muscles rippled beneath her fingers.
While her hands rode his back, Morgan’s unclothed hips insinuated themselves between her thighs. She felt the hardness of him burning her there where she was most vulnerable, but he had said just for a little while. She needed his nakedness, and she wished for all their cumbersome clothes to be gone. The play of muscles along Morgan’s back as he braced himself above her aroused odd needs.
“You’ll never regret this, my cailin. ’Tis a gift from heaven you are, and I’m not likely to forget it. Spread your legs a little wider, lass, and I’ll show you what I mean.”
With her gaze trustingly fastened on his and his persuasive words to chase away fear, Faith did as she was told. Just the shifting opened her more fully to nature, heightening the sweet sensation centered at the juncture of her thighs. When his hardness moved warm and strong against her there, she rose to meet the pleasure he promised.
“Yes, lass, now.” With a sigh, Morgan took her lips and slid deep between her welcoming thighs.
He stretched her beyond her capacity to take him. But when her lips parted in an “Oh” of surprise, his tongue plunged in and her hips bucked upward, and he tore through the barrier.
Faith fought him then, terrified of the entrapment, unable to escape, pressed into the earth by his heavy weight. Her hips twisted and turned, but Morgan only sank deeper until she knew she was only worsening the situation, and she emitted a sob of despair.
Morgan’s soothing words lost all meaning as he began to move inside her. His thrust was frightening, bringing back the memory of the stallion covering the mare. He filled her until she thought she could bear no more, then withdrew, leaving her empty. He repeated the motion, and tension began to stir inside her again.
Faith fought the feeling, knowing its consequence now, but Morgan’s body posed atop and inside her refused to be ignored. His thrusts grew quicker, more demanding. Losing her fear, she opened to him, easing his entrance and taking him deeper, until his cries mixed with her own.
With one final thrust he tore away what remained of her innocence. The liquid heat spilling deep into her womb and to the earth sealed all that had lingered of childhood and launched Faith into the world as woman. Still pinned by Morgan’s heavy body, Faith felt tears creeping to her eyes.
He gathered her in his arms and kissed a path along her face. “Don’t cry, little
one. I’m here to take care of you. We’re good for each other, don’t you see?”
He brushed the hair back from Faith’s pale face and felt his heart swell in sorrow at the tearstains down her cheek. He had done this cruel thing to her, and he would pay for it for the rest of his life, but it was a price well worth paying. She was his means to an end, and he would use her as he used every resource at hand to gain his goals, but he would risk heart and soul to see she didn’t suffer in consequence.
Morgan slid off and pushed Faith’s skirt down to keep her legs warm. His lips lingered on her young, sweet breasts, and his pride soared at how much he had won this night. This was a prize to be stolen and carried off just like any other, but this one he would keep.
Chapter 15
Faith stirred sleepily, but the ache between her thighs jolted her closer to wakefulness. A wonderful warmth filled her bed, and she tried to succumb to the temptation of sleep. Never in her life had she been allowed to indulge in such sin as sleeping past dawn, but it felt right this morning.
She rolled on her side, only to realize that a man’s bare back formed a wall between herself and the bed’s edge. Shock brought her to full wakefulness—and to the reason for her aching body and the furnace of heat warming the sheets.
Humiliation swept through her, a humiliation so deep and burning that she thought she would die of it. She was a fallen woman, a common trollop, a tool of the devil. She had taken a man in sin and would surely go to hell. How could she ever look Morgan in the eye again, knowing what they had done together?
Her hand flew to the unfastened chemise over her breasts. He had left her that, at least. It had been dark when he carried her to bed. He couldn’t have seen everything. But he had touched everything.
She couldn’t drive away the memory of Morgan’s hands upon her, and the proximity of his nakedness served as a reminder of what else had possessed her. She might never recover from the shock of what he had done. She hadn’t thought it possible. How could he...?
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