Such things belonged to a woman's world, or at best in a marriage bed. At worst, in the crude and frequent jests of fellow men. He could not think of one word that would not either humiliate her or rekindle the fears that haunted her mind.
He had never touched a virgin.
There had been those who had sometimes stepped into the emptiness. None who had stayed. He had not expected it, and it had never been offered.
Then there had been Alina, and all that he was had been ripped open.
Her hands slid across his flesh. "I knew the fault was mine."
All the life and the vividness seemed to drain out of her face.
"Alina, it was not because of you." His voice cracked like a whip and his hand gripped her arm with a force he could not quite control. "It is not so." He softened his grip, sought the words. "It is just…something of the body, the same for all women. Something I felt."
"When you touched me with your hand?" Her voice was stiff but her fingers found his, rested there, as though she trusted him.
"Yes." He did not look at her face, because of her pride.
"It is… That is why there is blood when…" Her voice trailed off.
He stared at the evening sky.
"Yes. For all women there is a barrier, inside, that must be broken the first time."
Her hand shuddered in his grip.
"The servants used to gossip in corners about whether there was blood or not. My mother always stopped them. She did not like such talk."
His gaze went to her face then. There seemed no consciousness of anything except the most superficial meaning of her words about her mother's reactions, yet he could not stop his hand tightening on hers. Or the useless surge of fury about the hellish upbringing she had had.
But he could not say more, even if gossip and whispers were true. It was not his place and he would not destroy any more of her life.
Her eyes were night pools and her fingers were laced with his.
"That is why?"
She did not let him go and he had to speak past the savage pain in his chest.
"Yes. But that is only the first time and after that there should be pleasure. There can be pleasure, Alina. That is what I wanted for you."
"Before…"
He watched the destructive canker of defeat in her eyes. "Still. Now. With all that I have."
He turned, his body twisting warrior-fast over hers. All the strength, and all the force of life that burned through him, was concentrated in that movement, so that he was afraid it would spark her fear. Her hands were fastened on the tensed mass of his arms. She stared at him, her head tipped back on the slender column of her throat.
"But suppose it is true after all, that I am… Suppose I am too afraid to let it happen. Or suppose there should be…suppose there should be a child."
He could see the rapid rise and fall of her breath. He was no longer fooled by the arrogant tilt of her head. Her fingers dug into his flesh.
Suppose all my mother's grief is repeated in me.
She did not say it. Yet the words hung in the clarity of the air, with a power that was real. The force inside him burned, not directionless, but honed into a single purpose, connected to her. That was unshakable. He knew he did not have her heart, but that was as it should be. He had no wish to make her captive this time. He wanted to set her free.
"It will not be so."
He felt, rather than heard, her breath quicken, because it was the mirror of his. Her hand was tight on his flesh and her skin was hot with the fires that stirred the soul with madness. Her eyes never flinched.
"How?"
"I will show you. And you will have the power of it. You will know. This time, this day, there will only be the pleasure. Naught else." The words damned him before they were spoken. But the force inside him took no account of that. Pain, old and new, was coiled in his heart. He blocked it out with the ruthlessness that had become second nature since childhood.
"I will show you how."
He could feel through the touch of her hands that the trembling was still there deep inside her. The rapidness of her breath tormented her body. It seemed made of equal parts of fear and need. The doubt of herself twisted through the wide darkness of her eyes. It should not be there. He would wipe it out. There was no cost that compared with that.
She watched him move, obliterating the small space of cold air between them. Their bodies touched. The fire in his blood leaped.
Life was made of moments. They had to be taken for what they were.
His mind knew that the pain lay in the future, waiting for him.
But it would be his pain, not hers.
She let him touch her. She did not draw back. But he had to be sure. - "If this is what you wish."
"Yes. More than anything in the world."
It would be the last time he would ever touch her so. The future and the present and the past collided. He would have welcomed the protection of the emptiness he had raged at before. It was not there.
He was what she wanted more than life. She did not have words to tell him and she would never be able to show him. Because she was not capable.
Alina's hands tangled in the sleeve of his tunic so that he would never be able to remove them.
He did that by kissing them.
That was how it began. It took her by surprise. Like everything he did. He was so direct and yet… still gentle. Kind with her because he knew how useless she was, would be. She shut her eyes. Because she was frightened and she did not want him to know it.
His mouth was warm against the cold skin of her hand. She knew she ought to make some movement, some response, in case he thought she did not want him, in case he stopped. She could not move a muscle.
She felt the slight familiar ache of badly-healed bone.
He had her crushed hand.
He had all the ugliness of that and he was touching it. He must know. He could see. And yet he did not stop touching her. His lips moved across her skin. Warm breath against the cold like blessing and kindness all in one. And excitement. A man's breath, dark and rich and full of strength. The kind of strength that would bow to nothing it did not wish to do.
He must want that, his heat on her skin. His lips moved as though he wanted to taste her flesh, explore the shape of each finger. Her fingers curved round, seeking that deep, unexpected warmth, wanting more of it. She felt the rough-sleek flick of his tongue, tantalizing, moist and heady and wicked. Something he should not do. Then she felt his mouth.
He took her ruined and malformed fingers inside his mouth.
A sharp burst of feeling shot through her as her fingers entered his heat. Her eyes flew open and she could see his bent head. The way his supple lips curved round her fingertips. She could feel him.
Her body pulsed. Just from that. Just from the heat of him. Or from the sight of him. Or from the abandoned way his mouth moved.
Because he wanted her. She knew it as though she could see inside him. Even though his eyes were now closed as hers had been. She thought she could see behind that shadowed, richly curved skin, behind the deep gold lashes, how his eyes would look. So hot in their gold depths, hot as his mouth. She knew.
He looked up. She did not know at all, had not guessed at either the fire or the brightness. She gasped. But it was cut off. Because he took her mouth and she could feel the heavy weight of him. So strong. It would hold her and pin her down. But almost before his body could cover hers, it was withdrawn, held away, just beyond the clamouring reach of her senses. So that she longed to feel it again. So that she wanted what only seconds ago had been too much for her to take.
He touched her only with his mouth. So that all feeling was centred on that, on the heat and the fluid darkness that had just touched her hands. She wanted the heat and the secret darkness of him so much. She thought of how his tongue had felt against her flesh. She thought of his desire.
Her mouth moved against his, pressing against the lips she had seen enfold her
with such flagrant wanting, opening underneath his heat, wanting him so much, fitting her lips against his, matching his movement, until her mouth moved with the same abandonment, the same triumph of need over restraint.
Her tongue touched the delicate underside of his lip. Touched inside his mouth. She felt the shudder that ripped through his powerful body and just for a moment, the coldness stirred inside her and then it was gone, obliterated. Because she had what she wanted: the feel of his tongue inside her, the utter wholeness of the way he kissed.
She let him do it. No, she did not let him. Her hand slid up over his frighteningly muscled shoulder, plunged into the tangled-soft wildness of his hair. Found his neck. She took from him, just as he took from her. And gave.
Her fingers sank into warm skin, tracing a line that was graceful, for all its strength. Dense flesh. Her hand explored its shape.
She could have kissed him like that for ever. Per-haps she did, because her head swam. But then he moved, past the confines of her hand. His strength. Unstoppable. His mouth found her throat. His touch was light. Everywhere on her skin so that it baffled her senses and made her whole body restless. So restless that when his hand went to the rumpled neckline of her dress she did not want to stop him. Her senses knew with a sureness beyond her mind that the teasing, restless craving would only find relief in more of him.
His fingers, direct and unhesitating as everything about him, parted the neck of her dress, undid her belt, so that the tunic and the underdress were freed. By the time he touched her breast she was so dizzied from him that she did not pull away from him. She only wanted more.
Cool air stung across her hot skin. It meant her breast was completely exposed so that he could touch it, as he had before. Only this time she could see what he did and her dress was truly gaping.
Her breath caught. Her skin shivered, and in that instant of consciousness, he stopped touching her. The unfamiliar, bated feelings inside her wound tighter. She could neither move nor breathe and then she saw what he was doing. He watched her, because he wanted to see the hidden curves of her body, know it with an intimacy that admitted no reserve. No defence. She was afraid of that. The vulnerability of it would kill her. But then she felt his breath against her naked skin.
"You are so beautiful."
But she could not take that.
"No. It is not so." Her hand moved instinctively to drag the cloth of her dress tighter to cover herself. But he was faster. His fingers caught hers. Her mouth formed a sound of protest, but it was never born. Because he had not used his formidable strength. His hand rested lightly against hers, so that she could have pulled her fingers out of his grasp if she wanted to. Almost as though he expected her to.
She would have done it if she had not seen his eyes. If she had not seen the shadows in the fire that were as familiar to her as her own skin. If he had not taken breath to speak.
Her heart beat out of time. If only he would not speak—
"Beautiful," said the well-remembered voice of Strath-Clòta, in the secret intimacy of her language, theirs. Just as they had always spoken when no one else was near and there was only them. She felt him take breath and the words came.
"You are formed for love."
It was the one thing she wanted to hear. She knew it was not true. But for all that she could not stop watching his face, the smooth arrogant curve of his neck as he bent his head.
His desire.
Her skin shivered in response to the complete assurance of him, and the coolness of the air and the heat of his gaze tightened her. So that when his mouth took her, she was quite different, taut and swollen with a wanting that filled his mouth. She felt his moist darkness mould her, taking her into its heat, drawing her deeper and deeper so that she was spiralling beyond control.
Her body would not keep still. It moved with a lightning-fierce need and an instinct that was pure and beyond doubt, because it was part of all that she felt for him. She arched towards him, her hands and her body seeking his, desperate for everything she was afraid of, for the firmness and the sheer size of his body, wanting the closeness and the knowledge of that.
He would not allow what she wanted at first. His effortless strength held her. The touch of his mouth and his tongue was light, smoothly expert, teasing her. It ignited the heat inside her. Dizzying waves of it coursed across her skin wherever he touched. She wanted that, but she wanted more. She wanted him.
But he would not know that, had no way of knowing unless she told him. She could not say it, because she could not get the terrifying words out of her mouth.
The shadows came crowding into her mind. But they were not her shadows. They were his, pressing against her heart, the remnants of the past pain that claimed their place in his eyes behind the brightness of the fire. There was so much to atone for and so much she could not say.
She could at least say this. She could not bear him not to know what she felt in this moment.
"Hold me closer…please. I want you to."
The words were no more than a whisper in her mother's tongue, words her mother would never have said. She thought he might not have heard them, but he did. She knew by the sudden tightening in his body, the unexpectedly clumsy movement of his hand.
Her eyes sought his so that she caught the surprise before he could bide it, and then it was followed by something else, something so fierce, so predatory that it sent a jolt through her veins. And then she could not see because he was holding her. Far too tightly. Small tingling gouts of fear surfaced in her mind. But she could not let him see her fear, for so many reasons, more than she could explain, even to herself.
She put her arms around him, even though that meant she could feel all the harshness of moving muscle and the roughness of his breathing. He held her the way you held something you would never let escape. Her breath choked in her throat and then it was all right because he was holding her just the way he had touched her before, with such lightness, all the strength underneath hidden.
But they both knew it was there.
She was afraid to see what was in his eyes now, so she buried her head in his neck. Because then she could breathe in his scent. The brightness of his hair blurred the edges of her vision and she could feel the tangled softness of it where it threaded over his skin.
It was he who had the beauty, feral and wild-edged.
It was part of her fear, but also of her longing. Her mind was already dizzied with it before his hands moved over her body, brushing aside the fullness of her skirts, finding her flesh.
She was so sensitized to his touch that her skin shivered and the tightness inside her would kill her unless he…what? She did not know. And then she did. His hand touched her again where it had before. When— She would not let memories, any memories, intrude. Otherwise he would reject her and she could not bear that again. She—
He whispered her name. "Alina."
Her eyes opened, startled. She did not want to see him. She did not want— His eyes were pure light. He smiled at her.
He should not have done that. She could not cope with it. There was all she had wished and all she had ever dreamed of in that smile: reassurance and the tenderness that had been in his touch and the bright traces of the wildness that found its frightening echo coiled somewhere deep inside her. And behind all that lay his strength.
She could not move. Her breath hurt her throat. She wondered if he could see all the confusion that lived in her eyes, the fear. And…the desire. Because all the time her body burned and her blood pulsed like a madwoman's.
"Rest your head against my shoulder the way you did before. That is all you have to do."
She let him draw her to him, half sitting, leaning against the bank, so that the scent of crushed grass and the sound of the clear water touched her. Her head rested against the golden threads of his hair and her heart beat and her blood raced and she ached, ached where he touched her. She did not want him to stop. Some instinct told her she had gone past the point wher
e she herself could stop.
"What will you do?" Her breath came in small snatches, not enough for the wild beating of her heart. "Will you—"
"No. I promised you the pleasure. That is all there will be. It is all I can give you."
Her throat tightened and she wanted to hold him the way she had before but she could not. He was not hers. She could see his hand, covering her, broad, deep bronze against the whiteness of her thigh. She could feel the warm weight of it.
"What must I do?"
"Trust me. Trust what I will do."
The brightness of his eyes was more than she could bear. She had broken every possibility of trust. She turned her head away, her lashes hiding her shame.
She felt his breath against her skin. It was very warm. It was full of life and the strength grounded in the fierce virile body that touched her, in his mind. Yet what she felt seemed overlain by despair. The noise of the running water seemed suddenly too loud and she had to strain to catch his words when he spoke, even though his mouth was against her hair.
"Then if there is naught else, trust only this moment,
Alina. It is all that exists now. The past and the future have their own claims but they cannot touch this moment."
"No…" But the noise of the stream cut off her words as though it had its own voice, as though she should be able to understand what it said, but she could not. Her need was too great and his hand was moving against her flesh.
It was like nothing she had ever experienced. His touch brought to life with a blinding intensity all the fierce, tightly coiled expectation he had made her feel, heightening the arousal of her senses, making her body pulse and dizzy with the rush of blood through her veins.
He could make her burn. The fire that lived in him had taken its place inside her. The touch of his hand was like a brand on her skin. The broad tips of his fingers slid across her swollen flesh, scorched inside her, not deep this time, but tasting her heat, the aching unexpected moistness inside her. Touching and withdrawing in a rhythm that was calculated to send her mad. Frantic.
The fingers withdrew and she was mad then, not from fear of him or the mysterious power he might take away from her, but from the possibility of the loss of him.
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