He opened one eye. ‘Can I touch you now?’
She shook her head, though she hungered for his touch already. ‘In due time. When I have done all I want.’
A ripple of unease wrinkled his brow. How much worse she must have looked, cramped with terror. Easy to see, now, how uncertain he must have felt as he tried to bring her pleasure.
She smiled. ‘You can say “no” any time.’
‘I understand.’ His smile belied the solemn tone, telling her more than words that he did.
She wrapped herself around him, cheek to chest, hip to hip. And below his waist, that part of him still hidden was stiff already.
She steadied her breath. His naked chest had been the easy part. Now, she needed to face what was below.
She pushed herself away and clasped her fingers together, steadying them for the task. Then she reached for the ties holding his chausses, aware her fingers were shaking. He was strong and hard and she hesitated, afraid to pull the string and to let the monster loose.
He held up his arms, palms towards her, as if making himself her prisoner. ‘Do with me what you will.’ His light tone warred with the want on his face. ‘But be braw, Cate.’
She swallowed, unable to speak. What if I scream and kick and claw at him again? What if the fear has not gone away?
What if it never goes away?
She pulled the tie.
The chausses fell down, but they snagged on his tarse and she was forced to free it, astonished to find it warm against her fingers.
She raised her eyes to his face. He opened his mouth, waved his hands to give her permission, since he seemed unable to speak.
She wrapped her palms around him, as if she could subdue it, but instead, it swelled larger against her hands. He had kissed her, there. Perhaps he would like the same.
Had she that much courage?
She knelt, amazed at how the position put her lips at precisely the right place, to taste...
She released her grip, then stroked gently, curious. Now it tempted, rather than frightened, her.
‘Cate, love.’ The words were strangled. His boyish smile was gone. ‘I want you to do anything...’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anything you want, but there will be a time I won’t, I can’t, I’ll just...’
She suddenly realised his meaning and scrambled to stand. No, she was not braw enough for that. Yet.
Clothed beside his nakedness, she clenched her fists as if gripping the control she needed. Then, she pointed to the bed. ‘Lie down.’
‘May I take my boots off?’ The smile was in his voice again.
She looked down at the fabric, tangled around his boots.
‘Sit,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it.’
And it felt more like power than servitude, to kneel before him to wrestle with leather and cloth until he was naked.
He stretched on the bed and she stood again, towering over him. Her gaze travelled the lean length of him, from his strong legs to his hips, and up his chest, until she was ready to meet his eyes.
He will be impatient, she thought. Irritated at the waiting.
Instead, his blue, beloved eyes held nothing but adoration.
She caught her breath, basking in his gaze. He had put her needs before his own, yet he looked at her as if she gifted him with a treasured chalice.
How many men would do the same?
As she watched him, she saw a man with true power. The power to control himself.
‘Tell me.’ His voice was in his control again. ‘Tell me what you want.’
She no longer knew.
She had expected joining to be a battle, one body invading and conquering the other. So she planned to direct him through the motions so she would not feel threatened or forced into submission.
Instead, the battle was within her own body.
John would wait on her command. She could punish him for Storwick’s sins, for being born a man, sky to her earth.
That was not what she wanted now. The Cate who had clung to control and thirsted for revenge and kept every man at arm’s length now seemed the ghost of something long dead. Beneath that Cate was one who wanted something very different.
To join with him.
Within her, something had broken apart like the ice shifting on top of a stream in spring, revealing the rippling water beneath, flowing unchecked towards the sea.
As she wanted to rush to him. To merge, as two streams meeting, mixing together, creating something of both of them.
Could people do that?
Tell me what you want.
‘I want...’
If she lay down on the bed, one of them must be on top, conquering. Yet to join with him the way she wanted would mean putting aside the armour, taking off the bravado, casting away the false fearlessness. It would mean surrender.
‘Tell me.’
How could all that become words? ‘I want to be...with you. But it must be different.’
‘It will be different because I am different.’
‘So am I,’ she whispered, barely able to believe it. But he had been willing to trust her. To put himself at her mercy without question.
Could she be that strong? Did she trust him that much?
‘It will not be as you fear,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve lost track of your promises, Johnnie.’
‘I haven’t.’
A smile fluttered at her lips. ‘So you swear on the grave of your ancestor?’
‘On something more sure than that. Because this promise is the most important of all. I swear by my feelings for you.’
She bit her lip, but could not hold back the tear that streaked her face.
He held out his hand. ‘Come to me.’
That meant she must be naked, too, so she lifted her tunic. He let her do it alone, only helping when she was trapped behind the fabric as she tried to pull it over her head. When she struggled, panicked and blind, he made it easy, whisking it away, gently, as if he knew that something had changed.
She looked down and hesitated. Even as she was stirred with desire, removing her men’s garb meant more than simply shedding clothes. Unlike a woman’s skirts, which left her always open to a man who might lift them, pants with two legs protected what was between them.
He rose from the bed and pulled her to him, so tight that she could feel him, stiff against her. Wanting, yearning.
‘A man is vulnerable, too,’ he said, holding her snug against his hips while above the waist, he leaned back so she could see his eyes. ‘When I desire you, you and all the world can see. But what you want is hidden, even from me. So unless you tell me, unless you show me, I’ll not know you are ready or what you want.’ There it was, now. Johnnie’s smile. ‘But you’ll certainly know you’ve left a man dangling.’
She laughed, the sound, the feeling unfamiliar. Johnnie had taught her that, that laughter could be a part of the loving and as it rippled through her, it loosened the last of the tight places.
‘Then we must be sure,’ she said with a smile, ‘not to leave you hanging, Johnnie Brunson.’
She tugged off her chausses and kicked them aside and he lifted her onto the bed. Sinking into the softness, she stiffened again as he stood, looming over her.
Yet something loving mixed with the desire in his eyes and he shook his head, as if he had read her fears.
‘Not this time,’ he began. ‘A woman can be taken, yes, forced to mate.’ The burning look of vengeance passed over his eyes and he shook his head, sending the bad memories from the room. ‘But not forced to love.’
Love. Something she’d been afraid to dream of.
She nodded, giving him permission. He nudged her over and stretched out beside her, holding his head with one hand, leaving the other free. ‘Now you.’
She lay on her side, able to see the whole of him, each open to the other, neither above, neither below.
No longer willing to simply look, she opened her arms to pull him in and he did the
same.
She closed her eyes, letting her lips find his, letting the feelings sweep through her, no longer frightening. He did not devour her. They devoured each other, her need as strong as his.
Her demons slain.
* * *
John kissed her, cradling her in his arms, trying to be as mindful of her feelings as of his needs.
Everything about this woman was different, and so was the way he loved her. She was at once the fiercest and the most vulnerable woman he had ever met, let alone bedded. That alone had warred with his desire for her over the past weeks.
He broke from her lips only so he could kiss her nose, her cheeks, her temple, her forehead, to put his lips everywhere on her. Then he pulled away, feeling breath he could not control heaving through his chest.
‘I know,’ he swallowed. His mind was bare of words. ‘I know you do not want to be...possessed.’ He watched her eyes when he said it, not wanting to see them fearful again.
Instead, wide-eyed, she raised a hand from his back to stroke his cheek. ‘Aye, but...’
But he wanted to possess her. To take her. To make her his and never let her leave his side again. Wanted it more than he had wanted anything in his life.
She smiled. ‘But it will not be like that with you. I know that now. To do this will mean I am...free.’
Free. No ghosts, no strings, no ties, no promises. Everything he had wanted for her.
He wanted that no more. Instead, he wanted to mark her so that she would never be free of him. Yet he could not do that now. Tonight, his future must be banned as completely as her past.
‘So,’ he began, the words struggling to leave his throat, ‘Tonight, there’ll be only John and Cate. Nothing behind us, nothing before.’
‘No yesterday,’ she whispered. ‘No tomorrow.’
Brain silenced, his body took control. He took her lips again, lost in fingers and lips and tongues, not sure who touched who. He felt himself swell, hot and hard and ready for her, suddenly aware he had not been careful to ready her as well.
He reached down to find her slick and wet on his fingers.
‘Yes.’ Her word a breath on his lips.
‘Are you sure?’ How did he manage to speak? But he must be sure. This time must be different. That, he had promised.
She pursed her lips and nodded.
And then, he knew what he must do.
Holding her tight, he rolled onto his back, leaving her on his chest, her back to the air. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, her gaze uncertain.
‘There you are, love. You are in charge. You may take me.’
He prayed she would, quickly.
She pushed herself upright, eyes still on his, realisation dawning on her face. She looked down at him. ‘Can it be done?’
He laughed, partly in pain as he throbbed beneath her. ‘Oh, yes, it surely can.’
‘And will it feel as good as when you...?’
‘I’ll do all I can to make it so.’
And so she spread her legs wider and he guided himself into her, loving the mix of confusion and joy on her face.
‘I feel...full.’
He swelled inside her; she tightened on him in response. He reached for her centre of feeling, bringing her with him, and she writhed on top of him, in her own rhythm. He kept his eyes open to watch her face, flushed, mindless, thinking of only the pleasure he had promised.
She fell on his chest then, taking, demanding his lips, and he held her tight and started his own rhythm and she joined him, feelings, bodies, struggling to merge into something no longer separate. Then, a rush, his, releasing into her. Her spasm in reply.
And a torrent of feeling deeper than any he had ever felt in joining before.
One that said he was home.
The raging river slowed to a trickle. He held her close to his chest and listened to her breathe, slow and even and drifting towards sleep.
Aye, he thought, satisfied. The ghost she carried is gone.
But as he watched the glow of the embers, the future intruded again. For now he realised that, somehow, nothing his parents or his brother or his sister had said or done, nothing in this tower or in the land itself had bound him as tightly to this place as this act.
And this woman.
Chapter Twenty-One
Later that night, Cate lay awake next to Johnnie, watching the full moon cast sharp shadows on the floor.
Waiting.
She must truly be Braw Cate now.
She had leaned on family for too long—on John and Rob and Bessie and the rest—coercing them to join in retribution. The debt Scarred Willie must die for was owed to her alone.
She would say aloud that it was for Johnnie’s sake. He was right in wanting to go alone to protect the family, though wrong to think he was the one to do it. She knew nothing of the king, not enough to know whether he was to be feared or not. But disowned or not, Storwicks would not let Brunsons hunt down one of their own and ride away unscathed. They would take retribution. Black Rob would retaliate.
And the killing would go on without end.
But if she alone slew Scarred Willie, they would call her mad. She could surrender herself to judgement and let justice do its worst. She was brave enough to face it.
Yes, she could tell them all that, but the truth was far different. The truth was that she must slay the man herself or she would never be whole. Only then would it be enough.
Then it would be over.
She had thought joining with Johnnie would heal her and allow her to find someone else. Now, she could not imagine trusting herself and her secrets to any other man. But he deserved someone whole. Someone healed. Even tonight, when she had wanted to give him all, he had been careful, he had made accommodations. She had been unable to lose herself in him.
A doubt floated and she squashed it. This was how it must be. If she were to have any hope of a life with Johnnie, she must defeat all her demons and there was only one way to do it.
Kill Scarred Willie.
Of course, there was another possibility.
Scarred Willie might kill her.
And that thought bothered her now in a way it never had before.
She slipped out of bed, donning her outer layers against the cold. Johnnie stirred and opened his eyes.
‘Garderobe,’ Cate whispered.
He nodded, his eyes drifting closed again.
Belde was harder to convince. He pushed himself to his feet, ready to follow her.
She hesitated, biting her lip. There was no reason to take him, no scent to follow. But Belde’s greatest gift to her had been courage.
Well, time to find her own. To keep him, all of them, out of harm’s way.
She put her arms around him. ‘Stay. I’ll be right back.’
He sniffed her face, as if to reassure her. As she closed the door, closing him in with Johnnie, she wondered whether the dog had smelled her tears.
* * *
The hound’s howls woke him.
John sat straight, hearing Belde’s bark echoing against the walls of the room empty of her.
And in the distance, hoofbeats.
Immediately, in the moment of waking, he knew Cate had gone, as well as where and why. And he cursed himself for not realising she would.
Belde paced to the door and back, whining, trying to hurry John along.
‘I’m coming, boy.’ He threw off the covers and reached for the vest she’d made for him.
She must have walked the horse out, he realised, trying to organise his thoughts. What idiot guarded the gate and let her go?
Some of the other men might have been awakened by now, but there was no time to waste organising them. He had planned to go alone. Instead, he would go with the other creature who loved her.
Hand on the dog’s head, he tied the halter on him. Then, he knelt on her side of the bed, thinking even his poor, human nose could recognise the scent of someone he loved.
He held the sheet to Belde’s
nose, quickly, as he had seen her do. ‘Fetch Cate.’
Belde turned, ears flying, and pulled him out the door and down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As the pony plodded up the snow-dusted hill, Cate wished she had brought Belde. Instead, she was alone with the moonlight.
And the hated scent of heather.
She shook her head, knowing that could not be. Frost had come. The scent could be no more than a waking dream.
But she was in that dream again. Back in the hills where all this had started, riding to face him again, her nightmare come alive.
Passing the place where her father’s small hut had stood that night, she shivered, and not with the cold. Covered with snow, there was not even a dent in the ground to show where it had stood. But her memory of it was as vivid, and as solid, as the ground beneath her.
She had expected, somehow, that he would be standing in this spot, waiting for her. She had been so sure that he would be here. Instead, there was only the wind, and memories.
She kept climbing. Maybe he was hiding. Somewhere close.
The circle of stones rose before her, strange shadows in the moonlight. Once, she had feared the place. Now, the memory was sweet. When she and Johnnie had sat together, looking across the valley to the hills beyond and she had felt for the first time...
A dark shape moved among the stones. Haunted, her father had said. Was that the ghost of the ancestors she saw?
Or worse?
She dismounted as quietly as she could, and left the pony to stand. Without thinking, she reached down, expecting her hand to meet Belde’s coat, warm and soft. If he were here, he would be growling, low in his throat, the hair of his neck on end, ready to protect her.
But she was alone.
She pulled her sword and stepped forwards, snow seeping through her boots.
But in the moment she had shifted her eyes, the shape among the stones disappeared.
And she muttered a prayer to the fore folk.
They must have been busy elsewhere, for the next thing she knew, a lance was pointed at her.
‘Another move, lad, and this goes straight through your belly.’
No wraith haunted these stones, but Scarred Willie.
Return of the Border Warrior Page 19