Her fears had receded while she admired his magnificent body, but the bold sight brought them flooding back. Morag made no effort to retrieve the soap. Instead, she tangled her fingers in his thick black hair and massaged the scalp. Emotions rioted inside her, fear clashing with excitement, anticipation with apprehension, and shame adding to the volatile mix. She was a widow, not a blushing maiden, and she ought to know how to master such situations. A quick tap on an unruly male member was meant to bring it down, but she didn’t dare to look, let alone administer such discipline.
‘Rinse,’ she prompted.
Navarro straightened and leaned back, his eyes closed against the sting of soap.
Morag fetched a jug of clean water from the stand and poured the contents over his ebony hair, sweeping the soapsuds away with the flat of her palm. The long black lashes made crescents over the tanned cheeks, but she had already learned that cruelty could hide behind the mask of handsome features.
When the water ran dry, Navarro opened his eyes. He held her gaze. Morag couldn’t move. He reached out for her, one powerful arm rising from the water, too slowly for it to be a blow. Her mouth went dry, and her breath stalled. With a steely hold on her forearm, Navarro urged her to sink back down to her knees. Then he curled his hand behind her head and applied steady pressure, forcing her closer to him...and closer still.
Finally, their lips touched.
He didn’t move. He simply held her in a steely grip, their mouths barely brushing. His lips were warm and soft. The heat from the bathwater rose to mingle with the new heat that had gathered inside her. Her fears lifted again, vanishing into the vapors that filled the room, Morag placed the empty pitcher on the floor and leaned closer. With a small sound of impatience, she pressed her lips more firmly against his and settled her palm over his chest to provide support as she tilted forward.
It was the only invitation he needed. The hand behind her head crushed her closer, and his mouth slanted over hers with a hungry pressure, seeking access. She felt the warmth of his breath and tasted the honeyed whisky he’d shared with his knights.
In a slow, sensual dance, his tongue traced the contours of her lips, teasing, tempting. She opened her mouth to fit more snugly against the curve of his. A startled cry caught in her throat as his tongue slipped inside, finding hers, tangling with it.
Need flared inside her, sharp and hot. In the early days of her marriage to Stenholm, before all her girlish dreams had twisted into nightmares, she had sometimes lain awake at night, nursing an empty ache where a man should have filled her. This need was different. It tore through her body, burning away all sensible thoughts, flinging caution aside.
The thought of loss of control brought her fears rushing back.
Alarmed, Morag pulled away. Her breath came in swift gasps, and her heart pounded like a blacksmith’s anvil. Her eyes darted in a mad flight around the room, until they finally met Navarro’s. She saw the heat that burned beneath his steely gaze. She had felt the tremors that shook his body while they kissed. Thinking back, she had seen his arousal, had delighted in her feminine power over him, had enjoyed touching him. She didn’t understand herself, didn’t understand why she could feel such fascination and terror at the same time.
‘You needn’t be afraid of me,’ he told her, his voice low. ‘Anything I’ll do to you tonight will feel as good as that kiss. I promise you that.’
Morag surged to her feet.
Feel as good as that kiss. The kiss had made her melt inside. It had sent tiny trickles of pleasure reaching to every part of her body. His mouth on hers had made her mindless, a slave to the sensations that made her yearn for more.
She stared down at the huge knight in the wooden tub. Her whole world was rearranging itself. Nothing about the King’s Arrow was as expected. A deep instinct told her that life would never be the same, but she had yet to understand if the new world she’d been thrown into would bring happiness or another hell on earth. If she opened her heart for him, cruelty could reach deeper, not just mark her flesh, but destroy her soul.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Not here. Not in this room. I don’t want to sleep here. There is another bedchamber on the floor above. I’d like to sleep there.’
The steely eyes narrowed. ‘Are you telling me that you want me to spend my wedding night alone?’
‘No.’ Morag hung her head. Unease trickled down her spine, but she refused to give in to cowardice. Instead, she concentrated on the flush of heat that skimmed along her skin. ‘You can sleep beside me.’ Without another word, she dropped the washcloth on the floor and hurried out of the room, her wet skirts flapping about her feet.
Wedding night.
The words filled her with more apprehension than they had three years ago.
* * *
Stefan leaned forward in the tub and fumbled at the bottom to retrieve the soap. He cleaned his nether regions with slow, absent moves, lingering around his half-erect shaft as his mind dwelled on the behavior of his bride.
She flummoxed him. Drew him in, excited and enchanted him, but more than anything, her contradictions left him baffled.
While she was washing him, her pale skin had grown flushed, from the intimacy of the contact as much as from the heat, and he had felt a sensual awakening in her, a rising of desire. During those long minutes, she had left her fears behind. The way her slim hands had swept along his taut muscles had been a caress.
His body had reacted with arousal that made his bollocks ache and his cock throb. He’d considered climbing out of the tub and tossing her on the bed, but he had fought the urge. A new wife, widow or not, deserved the ceremony of a wedding night. To stay true to his decision not to rush things between them, Stefan had been forced to engage every grain of military discipline he possessed. The impulse to reach out and cup his hands over the rounded breasts that strained beneath the bodice of her gown had almost undone him.
Instead, he had relaxed in the tub, his eyes closed as he struggled to remain passive. A strange urge had sprung to life within him. Not to conquer. To wait, in patient silence, the way he had once done as a boy to tame a deer, until the doe-eyed forest creature learned to trust him and allowed him close. Never in his life had he sought acceptance from anyone except his king, but now he yearned to be welcomed by his bride.
When the bathwater cooled around him, Stefan stood up and reached for the towel folded over a wooden stand. He rubbed his skin dry, found a thick robe of gray wool hanging on a bedpost and pulled it on. The garment strained across his broad shoulders. Adjusting his arms against the tug of the fabric, he strode out and headed up the narrow stairwell that curved along the inside of the castle wall.
He located Lady Morag in the bedchamber on the floor above, hiding under a thick pile of blankets. Only her cropped auburn tresses peeked past the edge of the linen sheet. A single candle flickered on the table beside the narrow bed, easing the darkness, but there was no fireplace to provide a source of heat.
Doubt drew Stefan’s brows together as he compared the modest room to the chamber beneath, with its wide, canopied bed, and tapestries lining the walls. Did Lady Morag wish to honor the memory of her dead husband by keeping away from the bed they had shared? Was the pain of loss so acute that she wished to seek refuge in another room?
Anger seared through him at the need to compete with a ghost. When he spoke, his words came out rougher than he had intended. ‘Move over. There’s barely enough room for one, let alone tw
o.’
The blankets shifted, like a cresting wave, as Lady Morag wriggled closer to the wall, turning her back on him. Stefan shrugged the too-small robe down his shoulders. It reassured him to know her husband had not matched him in size and stature. He pulled the bedding aside and stretched out naked next to his bride. Settling on his side, he draped one arm around her and pulled her against his chest, as much to fit them both on the narrow bed as to hold her close.
The instant his hand landed against her belly, covered by the crisp linen of her nightgown, Lady Morag flinched. She emitted a tiny cry of fear that irritated Stefan beyond all measure. What did she think he was going to do? Beat her into submission, or ram his thick pulsing shaft into her unprepared body?
‘I’m not going to rape you,’ Stefan said deliberately. ‘I was born of violence, and I don’t enjoy a forced coupling.’
Beneath his arm, her body felt as rigid as an iron bar. ‘Born of violence?’ she asked, her voice muffled by the covers.
‘Aye. My mother was a wealthy merchant’s daughter, on her way to France to marry a nobleman. A Spanish galleon caught her ship before she reached Normandy. First they held her for ransom, but when they discovered to whom she was betrothed, the captain preferred to defile her. It was his act of revenge on her bridegroom. They had met in battle before and the Spaniard bore a grudge after having lost the sight in one eye.’
Lady Morag tugged the blankets lower, enough to uncover her face, but she kept her back to him. ‘Was your mother abandoned by her betrothed?’ she asked.
‘It was an advantageous match for the count. My mother came with a large dowry. He postponed the wedding, waited to find out if she was carrying another man’s child. When he learned that she was, he sent her back to Scotland. I was born a bastard.’
Lady Morag twisted to look at him over her shoulder. ‘Did she bring you up alone?’
‘Her family thought her a burden, so she chose to be cloistered. I was installed in a household of strangers. They fed me, clothed me, and taught me how to earn my living as a knight.’
‘I’m sorry.’
The tremor in her voice drew a faint smile to Stefan’s lips. ‘No need to pity me. I’ve made my way in the world.’
‘I meant that I’m sorry for your mother. All her hopes and dreams, crushed by male cruelty.’
‘Is that what you think?’ He craned his neck to study her face in the faint glow of the candle. ‘That cruelty is a quality most men possess?’
‘Is it not?’
Stefan didn’t reply. He inched his hand up over her stomach, halting at the slope of her breasts. He kept his touch light in an attempt to deliver his bride the assurance she appeared to be seeking. Despite his gentleness, another flinch of terror shook her, this time accompanied by a whimper of distress, as if she were subjected to physical pain.
‘I told you, I’m not going to hurt you.’ He eased his hand back down again and rubbed it in a soothing circle over her abdomen. ‘I’m prepared to wait, until you come to terms with the death of one husband, and acquiring another.’ He braced his weight on his elbow and leaned in to nuzzle the side of her neck. ‘But I won’t wait forever. I want sons, and you are going to give them to me.’
‘I told you, people say I’m barren.’
‘I asked the servants. No one knows of any bastards your husband has sired. Maybe it was him. Men never accept that their seed doesn’t grow, but it happens.’ Stefan brushed another kiss in the hollow beneath her ear.
He felt the stiffness in her body ease. As she relaxed, she sank deeper into the straw mattress, falling against him.
‘I don’t know if I can bear you sons,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll forgive you if you can’t.’
She turned to look at him, the flame of the candlelight reflecting in her eyes. She didn’t say anything, merely nodded, but in the gesture Stefan could see a glimmer of hope for their shared future. Then she resumed facing the wall, but now she rested more snugly in his embrace.
Unfamiliar sensations gathered inside Stefan. His tender ministrations, new and untried to him, had surprised him by their ease, as if his body knew how to seek her trust, even if his mind had not fully solved the question.
‘We’ll just have to wait and see about children.’ He let his hand drift up once more, keeping his touch to a mere whisper of his fingertips over the fabric that covered her breasts.
This time, Lady Morag didn’t flinch.
Encouraged, he cupped her breast, a solid, steady contact. He could feel her shoulders jolt against him with the sharp inhale she took. Then she stilled, holding her breath. He waited, not removing his hand. A moment later, a long sigh shuddered out of her, and she melted against him, soft and yielding.
Stefan knew he had won.
He didn’t press his success. Battlefield strategy of sealing a victory didn’t work in the bedchamber. Instead, he cradled her in his arms for long minutes. Finally, he sensed a slight tremor rippling along her body, and he knew that a restless anticipation of his next move had built up within her.
Feeling her feminine shape through the linen of her nightgown, he edged his hand over her breast. He brought the blunt tips of his fingers together around the peak and applied pressure, light at first, and then harder, pinching the nipple.
A soft moan vibrated at the back of her throat.
‘Is this how you like it?’ Stefan murmured. He scraped his fingernail across the crest of her breast, teasing the nipple with a flicking motion until it pebbled, and then he repeated the action with the other breast. As his bride shuddered beneath his touch, her firmly rounded buttocks rubbed against his pulsing erection.
Emitting a startled cry, she shot away from him.
‘Easy now,’ he told her. ‘That’s what you do to me. Fill me with lust. I never expected to wed a beauty.’ He swept his hand all the way up her body and pushed her short curls aside to kiss the elegant taper of her neck. ‘Why is your hair so short?’ he asked.
Once again, she went rigid in his arms. ‘It was cut when I had a fever,’ she replied after a long pause. ‘Does it displease you?’
‘No,’ Stefan said. ‘Nothing about you displeases me.’
‘I’m not a great beauty. Not like the Countess of Glenstrachan.’ She twisted on the bed and frowned at him. ‘I know she was your first choice for a wife.’
Stefan shrugged, indifferent. ‘She preferred to wed another. My desire is for a wife who would choose me over any other man.’
He lowered his mouth to her neck and nuzzled her skin, tasting, roaming, enchanted by the smooth textures and the alluring, feminine scents. Lust pulsed in his groin, but he ruthlessly clamped down on his need and spent endless minutes kissing the base of her neck where it joined her shoulder.
He felt her body grow taut, but it was different this time. Hungry. Demanding. Tiny shudders ran through her, and small, startled sounds of pleasure slipped from her lips. Reassured, Stefan resumed the lazy roaming of his hands, but each time his touch grew bold, Lady Morag flinched. Each time, he pulled back, returning to the feather-soft stroking with his fingertips. Slowly, he gathered the hem of her nightgown in his fist and tugged it up, pulling the fabric to bunch around her hips, allowing him access to her bare skin.
‘So soft,’ he murmured, caressing the silky valley of her abdomen. ‘How can men and women be of the same species, and yet feel so different?’
‘Have you known many women?’ Her voice was a husky whisper.
She didn’t reply, but her head dipped in a soundless nod.
‘No. Not many.’ He allowed his hand to become alive again. ‘I have no wish to have any child of mine born a bastard, and most women who desire my favors are drawn by my reputation as a warrior. They seek to be taken with violence. I get enough combat on the battlefield. In the bedchamber I prefer a peaceful surrender.’
He curled his fingers around her leg and folded up her knee, exposing her sheltered core. Lady Morag didn’t resist, and Stefan wondered if she failed to understand how vulnerable the position rendered her, or if her lack of resistance was a response to how he had described he liked his pleasure, peaceful and gentle. He slipped his other arm beneath her and anchored her against his chest, to prevent her from evading his searching touch.
Stroking, soothing, drifting, Stefan eased his hand higher along the inside of her thigh, until he met the moist petals that shielded her feminine secrets. He heard her gasp. Tightening his hold around her, he waited, ready to slow down, to give her more time.
He needn’t have worried. Releasing a rough, inarticulate sound, Lady Morag met the pressure of his hand. The fever was in her now. He could tell. Instead of fighting him, she was opening for him. Her knee rose higher beneath the blankets to give him more room. He could hear the rustle of the linen sheet as her hands fisted over the fabric.
‘That’s right,’ he murmured. ‘Surrender to me.’
Stefan had never hungered to know a woman before as he did now. Not just to bed her, but to explore every inch of her skin, learn every curve and contour of her body. Memorize every sound and gesture that signified her pleasure at his touch. He yearned to roll her over and admire her private treasures, to get a better understanding of the textures and shapes, but instinct warned him that she needed the cover of darkness and the reassurance of his strong arm around her.
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