Kade walked over to where they lay, surveying the damage.
Caleb stood, somewhat unsteadily. He stepped back from Kade, as though fearful that Kade might attack him next.
Jamie was groaning and writhing. His leg, I could now see, was badly injured.
Hugh’s bulky form lay still, a spreading puddle of black underneath him. Kade, as though to make sure of it, stepped forward and cut his throat.
Kade pulled Jamie to his feet, supporting him. He looked once at Caleb, then once, in a lingering, intense glare, at me. Then he walked to the front entrance of the cave, dragging Jamie along with him.
I thought to tell him, ’Tis not safe! What if the soldiers have wakened, as Hugh did? But I had a feeling my husband would neither listen to me nor be frightened by my warning. Either way, he was already gone. Caleb and I followed him.
Outside, the first hints of dawn were glowing along the horizon. The sleeping soldiers lay where we had left them, showing no signs of life. Kade took in the scene with alert contemplation. Kade lowered Jamie to the ground, where he sat quietly, his face pale with pain and blood loss. Kade found a discarded tunic on the ground and began shredding it into long strips. He said to Caleb, “Help me tie their wrists,” which they then proceeded to do, and particularly securely. One or two of the men stirred, but none woke. When all of the sleeping soldiers’ hands had been tied, Kade said to Caleb, “Assist your brother to the manor and see that he is looked at by a healer. Rally Tristan, Eion and Colin. Have them imprison these men and do their utmost to secure any other Campbells on the premises. Are we understood?”
“Aye,” Caleb confirmed.
“I will join you momentarily,” Kade added. “But first, I have some urgent business to discuss with my wife.”
And with that, my husband picked me up and began to carry me down through the dense shrubbery and down toward the loch.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WE HAD WALKED some distance around the side of a small cliff, and were now out of sight from the fields and the manor, alone.
Kade set me down on my feet. He grabbed my arm and pulled me roughly alongside him. His grip was not at all gentle, and he clearly didn’t care if he was hurting me. In fact, the dull pain as he dragged me into a secluded recess of rock had a very different effect on me than I might have expected. I did not shrug off his punishing grip, nor did I protest the stunning strength of his attack. My body was responding to him, as it always did, rising to his demands, opening to him, readying me for his onslaught. I felt brimming and supple, inexplicably. I could taste an otherworldly, unruly anticipation.
He pinned me against the hard rock wall, holding his sword to my neck. I went still, staring directly into his cold, vivid eyes. One of his eyes had a dark ring of a bruise around it and there was a cut along his cheekbone. His hair was a wild mane, matted with dirt and blood. He looked wilder and more enraged than I had ever seen him. This was how he must have appeared to his victims on the battlefield. Here was the ruthless warrior I had once feared beyond reason. Here was the beastly assailant who would take of me what he wanted without restraint or remorse.
Or he would kill me. I knew it was a very real possibility. He had been tested beyond his limits, and I was the cause of it. And, while I knew his ferocity was capable of melting without warning into something akin to devotion—I’d experienced it firsthand, after all—I knew his state of mind now was as far removed from benevolence as it was possible to be.
“‘My husband is a brute and savage,’” he spat, repeating the words I had spoken. “I’ll show you savage, wife. ’Tis who I am after all. You said it yourself.” Kade’s hands held the fastenings of my cape, his teeth bared; then he ripped the garment open, sending several bone buttons flying. My dress underneath had already been ripped, hours ago, and gaped open with his violence. My breasts were barely covered, and my nipples drew instantly tight at the rush of cold air and the feel of his stunningly hard body shoved up against mine.
I didn’t care.
I didn’t care that he might beat me and hurt me. He was considering it: I could read it in the shattered light of his eyes. The blade of his sword traced a line—very, very lightly—down one side of my throat, along thin, vulnerable skin. The slightest pressure would cut into my vein as he drew, if he chose to do it. I knew how sharp his weapons were kept.
“I love you,” I said.
Deep within him, there was a buried, almost-undetectable recoil. He had not been expecting this. His breath quickened, but he did not release his hold on me or remove his knife. He continued to quote my betrayal back to me, word for word. “‘’Tis well known this was an arranged marriage I wanted nothing to do with. Even Aleck knows it to be true.’”
“It was the only way I could keep you alive.” My throat was parched. My voice was little more than a rasped whisper. I reached to touch my palm to his face but he flinched away from my touch angrily.
“You should have let me die,” he seethed. “It would be a better fate than this.”
“What this? We’re here. We’re alive. We’re together.”
“It matters not,” he said with quiet fury, watching the trail of his blade’s edge with some concentration.
“I want you, husband,” I whispered. “Take me now. Take me before you kill me. Please.”
“Do you not have a new husband? Have you not already been taken, as you wanted?” Somewhere beneath the rage of him, there was a gritty, graveled sorrow to his words that caused a hollow ache in my chest and a stinging burn behind my eyes.
“He is not and never will be my husband,” I said. “He’s dead.” This did cause my eyes to fill, at the memory of what had almost happened, at the brutality and the horrific violence.
Still Kade’s sword traced its thin line. He seemed so distracted by what he was doing that my statement barely registered. He didn’t believe me. “Is that so?” he asked with an air of disengagement.
“Up and in,” I breathed. “Twist and slice. It was easier than you said it would be. But there was much more blood than I ever could have imagined.”
He paused, his regard walking up my face until he met my eyes. “What?”
“And then I slit his throat. Just in time.”
His stillness unnerved me. His furious, caustic glare was not at all what I was hoping for. “Just in time?” he finally said.
I was losing some kind of edge. I was unraveling, for a thousand different reasons. “Aye, husband. Just in time. Just after I pretended to hate you so that Campbell would allow you to live. Just before Aleck almost claimed me as his own, very nearly violating everything about me, breaking me and destroying us, just before I slit his throat with your knife and watched as the light left his eyes and his blood spilled all over me in a sticky, horrible flood! All right? Could I spell it out any clearer for you?”
Kade’s eyes narrowed and he gave me a look of cool disbelief. And it infuriated me down to the depths of my being that he could dismiss my loyalty to him so easily, even if I’d been convincing in the moment. Did he know nothing of me? Did nothing we’d shared in the past month and the distance we’d come even matter? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe our connection had been only a purely physical, passing wave of lust—nothing more substantial, nothing more meaningful. Maybe the risks that I had taken and the lives I’d cut short to defend his own proved nothing to him, nothing at all.
“You...intended to kill him?” he said. “All along?”
The effects of this day had, at last, overwhelmed me. I was crying and seething all at once. “Of course I did, you daft fool! Is it really that easy for you to doubt me? Have I not shown you and told you and begged you to take me and possess me in every way because I desire you with my whole heart? And as for my body, I can hardly control the effect you have on me without even the slightest touch of your hell-raiser hand! Why, even now—” Here, I faltered, breathing heavily. I could not begin to tell him that even his threats and the sliding glide of his sword were not only causing my h
eart to break but also inspiring the most delicious, wicked necessity in my warming, secreted places that was so intense I thought the hidden sensation might very well drive me mad.
His sword just barely disengaged. Vexingly, I missed its promise. I wanted to feel the contact—any contact—with him and his wrath, his pain, his love.
“Go ahead,” I said to him. “Kill me if that’s your plan. Here.” I lifted my chin, giving him a clean, exposed target. “Do it and get it over with. I’ve had enough of this, of you, of all of it!”
He seemed to be having difficulty grasping the meaning of my confession. “You mean your betrayal was all a...a ruse?”
“Are you an idiot as well as a brute?” I yelled. “Aye! I wasn’t about to stand there and watch them carve your heart out with their razor-sharp meat cleavers! I knew they would allow you to live if they believed that I held no feelings for you, and that you were of value to them. I didn’t think it would be so easy to fool you, however. Did I not just risk death—and worse, several times over—to free you? I love you, with everything I have! I dream of you and crave you and want you close to me and in my bed, always. And most of all I want you to keep your word to me—the one I asked you to keep, the one you’d promised you’d keep—and make love to me and seal this marriage once and for all, you...you big man!”
There was no humor in Kade this time as I blurted out the inane accusation. His emotion in his eyes was fiery and wrought. The blade at my throat was withdrawn, and I heard the heavy thud as it was dropped to the ground.
He kissed me.
I was so strung with the conflicting turmoil of my ordeal and my passion, I almost tried to push him away. His mouth caught at mine, opening me to his avid invasion. He kissed me as if he had already taken possession of me, as though he were already inside me. I could taste his hunger. This kiss was full of him, and full of all the promise of what he was about to do. His tongue drove deeper, articulate and unrelenting. And the more passionate his kiss became, the more I wanted of him. I felt his sweet, loaded aggression to my very core. Every lick and every drive sent a clenching awareness to my tender depths. He was going to ravage me, and I wanted all of it, every ounce of his force and his ruthlessness. In an incongruously gentle gesture, his fingers stroked back my hair. In his touch I could feel a light tremor, the hum and near restraint of his incredible power and his intense desire.
Kade’s hands moved to my breasts, jerking aside the shredded covering of my gown and my cape, pushing the velvet fabric over my shoulders and letting it fall to the ground, baring my skin, which gleamed pale in the darkness. I was naked before him. His hands cupped my breasts and he leaned down, his mouth seeking the tip, stroking with his tongue, drawing the tight nub into wet heat. I almost wept as the firm, damp tugs sent jolts of pleasure to the low pit of my stomach, and lower still. He moved to my other breast, heightening the need with his ferocious, lush intent. I couldn’t get enough of him. I was pinned against the mossy rock wall, and my hips writhed forward, tilting against him, cradling his hardness with the soft, rhythmic pressure of my plea. He felt the furtive invitation, and stood to take my mouth in another demanding kiss. Biting, licking, tasting. And it wasn’t enough. I reached up to weave my fingers through his wild hair, pulling him closer. My breasts pressed against him, dragging sensually through the light pelt as his hands moved down my body, gripping me from behind, kneading into me. I knew I’d wear the bruised marks of his lust tomorrow, and I was glad of it. I had never been so wild with need, so desperate for something, anything. I moaned into his mouth as his fingers touched me, parting damp flesh so sensitive I could only cry out as he delved deeper, stretching me deliciously. His thumb found the delicately bundled nerves at my center, skating in a bold, fluid design, expertly coaxing the untamed pleasure. I was almost lost to it. I could have let myself succumb to his lush caresses. But I was determined to stave off my release until we were fully joined. I reached beneath his kilt, gasping at the sheer size of him, rigid and immense.
Kade’s fingers slid from my body. He lifted me with shocking ease. I gripped his flexed arms, astounded by the raw strength of him, which excited me beyond belief. His power was primal and potent. I wanted him to use it on me. I wanted him to possess me with it unconditionally. My arms were wrapped around his neck and I was kissing his lips, slipping my tongue just between them. I felt him. The broad head of his shaft was pushing into my snug entrance, forcing entry, and the stretching burn of his invasion was simply the most profound sensation I had ever endured. I was so wet that his impossible thickness began to glide deeper despite my forbidding tightness, and I writhed at the unfamiliarly thrilling torment, which caused him to sigh with a spoken oath. He tore through my innocence with one forceful drive, and the sharp burn burst instantly into a sumptuous, pain-flicked pleasure. I knew this promise. He had imprinted my body with his compelling, stormy seduction. I understood that behind the notes of pain was a higher, fiercer pleasure. My body locked tightly around his hot, thrusting flesh, pulling him deeper.
“Stella, Stella,” he was murmuring, “So sweet, so soft. You feel too good, lass. I’ve wanted you for too long. I love you. I love you. Since that very first day. Oh, God, ’tis too much. I love you.”
He lowered my legs, holding my weight entirely but allowing my feet to lightly touch the ground, opening me to his erotic assault. This big, hard warrior husband was all around me, holding me, devouring me, plunging deeply and repeatedly into the slippery, tight constriction of my body. I gave myself over completely to his dominating demand. The pain was shaded and low-lying, upholding the pleasure, intensifying it relentlessly. I tried to hold it back, but the glow flared, rippling in a flowering surge, overwhelming me entirely. I gave in to it, unable to control myself, riding the overflowing, rippling torrent of pleasure. Kade’s grip on my hips tightened, and he bucked upward, sinking himself deep within me, groaning as he gave in to his own deluge. My inner muscles clenched around him in welcoming pulls, calming gradually into a dreamy, lulling delirium.
We stood there for some time, both of us unwilling to disengage. He held my head against his shoulder in a protective, shielding embrace. Then he gently took my face between his hands and looked into my eyes. Behind his stoic relief, I could read there wonder and unbound elation. “I love you,” he whispered, and I repeated his words over and over, kissing him, until the kisses grew in intensity once again. And my husband’s expansive presence deep within me had not abated.
Kade seemed adamant about keeping himself thoroughly wedged inside me, and the light softening that had taken place after his release now gave way to a joyful, skewering revival. He lowered us to the ground, somehow maneuvering us so he lay on top of me. And he was still firmly rooted inside me. Now that the ecstasy had subsided, he felt larger even than he had before. His body seemed to vibrate with a warm, febrile animation that lurked just under the surface of his skin.
He kept himself still, touching his lips to my face in nibbling caresses. He pushed back the unruly strands of my hair, watching my half-closed eyes. Then he began to move again, just barely, with a subtle grind of his hips. “You’re going to burn again for me and with me, wife,” he said softly.
I was limp and fully, massively impaled. My hair was damp at the roots, my skin flushed. I shook my head back and forth. I couldn’t find that level of pleasure again; I felt utterly shattered, beatifically used. I didn’t think I could survive another round of such intensity, let alone aspire to it. “Nay. I can’t,” I told him, squirming against the fullness within me. I felt entirely occupied by him.
His body began to move more insistently within me. Controlled, coaxing thrusts. “Aye, you can. And you will.” His movement gained momentum, spearing me with thick, persuasive heat.
Kade held my jaw in his large, warm hand, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Wrap your legs around me, lass.” Almost too spent to find the energy, I obeyed him nonetheless. The edges of dawn were upon us, and his eyes were too blue, his face t
oo severe in its beauty; the sight of him in all his turbulent glory caused a tightening in my chest that almost felt like faith. “You,” he whispered, looking deep into my eyes, “are the most exquisite creature that ever walked this earth. Now kiss me. Open again to me, your husband. You are mine, and I am yours. We are bound, irrevocably.”
It was he who kissed me, with astounding adoration amid the passion; the kiss was hungry and sweet, transformative in its urgent, connective desire. I kissed him back, opening to him in every way it was possible to do. My arms and legs were wrapped around him, holding him as close as he could be. His obsession was so complete, so extreme, that I felt as though the entire center of me was only him, as though I were merely a shell and all that was in me, from my pleasured, wanting flesh to my heavy-beating heart, was him, and his. The wave began as a low, gentle current, stoked by his tempo, fed by his thick, silky depth. My hands were in his hair, my tongue playing his tongue, drawing him deeper into me. The pleasure was molten and otherworldly. I was consumed, my body lit with seductive, all-encompassing rapture. I cried out into his mouth as he plunged into me, my body answering his, clamping hotly around his deeply insinuated flesh, drawing out another astounding, ecstatic deliverance. His groan was a savage, animal sound, as though all his agonies were being released. He shuddered from the force of his own upheaval, his shaft pulsing vibrantly inside me, flooding me with life-giving warmth as the tears wet my cheeks.
’Twas done, I realized. This marriage was, at last, sealed.
* * *
IN THE LIGHT of an amber-hued morning, Kade held me close to him for a time as the sun rose upon green hills swathed in heather blooming purple and pink. The bright sky was precisely the same color as my husband’s eyes. “I’m going to take such good care of you,” he whispered to me. “I’m never going to let you go.” He led me down to the loch, where we swam together. The coolness of the water felt delicious against my sore, swollen flesh. He came to me, washing me with the enchanting, careful brush of his hands. His caresses continued, cleaning me, touching me with meticulous care. Such care, in fact, that the coolness warmed and the luscious rhythm spread. Warm fingers entered me, enticing the charmed heat, and I came again, in long, luxurious, abounding shivers that were teased and extended for endless, entranced moments.
Juliette Miller - [Clan MacKenzie 02] Page 28