The second woman fluttered painted eyelids at Arran as she slid her plump bottom onto his lap. Her blond hair curled almost to the floor. She walked her fingers up his arm, giggling as she peered up at Broderick. “I’ll take good care o’ your friend.”
Arran gave a jerk with his chin to send Broderick off, then turned his attention to the woman. She drew one leg up against his thigh and adjusted her position so she straddled him, her skirts tucked up and her bared centre riding over the crotch of his breeches. Her bodice was cut low and tight, only just covering her nipples and pushing out the swell of her breasts.
She wiggled her bottom, glancing up at him through lowered lashes as she slowly licked her lips with a suggestive tongue. “Have you missed me, Arran?”
His shaft started to fill and lengthen with pleasurable anticipation. This wasn’t the first time he’d been with Nellie. His body knew all about the wicked delights to come.
“I’ve missed being with a woman,” he murmured, dropping his gaze to her heavily endowed chest. Breghan’s breasts were smaller, firmer, fitting within the palm of his hand. His blood thickened as he thought of how exotically responsive those small breasts were to his touch, her pebbled nipples pulling long and taut, as if reaching for him, when he curled his tongue around them.
Nellie cupped one hand beneath each breast and wobbled the soft mounds until a nipple popped out provocatively over the top of her bodice. Arousal pumped to his groin and he was instantly hard. He’d been without a woman too long. His thoughts and senses and wants had been filled with Breghan every waking moment, every dreaming moment.
Any woman would do.
He brought his head down and opened his mouth over that exposed nipple, sucking and licking. His hands went around to her bottom cheeks, caressing and moulding, controlling her rhythm as she slid back and forth over his throbbing bulge. Desire built in a cascading wave of heat that rolled over him.
And everything was wrong.
He felt stupid for even thinking there was no heart and soul in what they were doing. He was hard with lust, ready for a woman’s body. He was fully aroused, but he was more responsible for that than Nellie. In his mind, he saw raven-black hair flowing as straight as silk and blue eyes stormy with desire rolling over the undercurrents of softer, sweeter emotion. He was mastering his own pleasure and the fact that Nellie’s core rubbed over him instead of his own hand was irrelevant circumstance.
His lips pulled free as he raised his head to look into Nellie’s brown eyes. He craved the release he could find here, but too much was missing.
It was Breghan’s breathless sighs and urgent cries that carried him further and higher than he’d ever imagined possible. He couldn’t erase the memory of her slender curves beneath his hands, the way she moved with him, clinging to him as desire seared their bodies beneath the seam to make them one in heart, soul, mind and flesh.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Nellie invited in a husky voice.
“I’m sorry.” He pushed Nellie from his lap. He’d thought this was the way to keep his lust in check and Breghan’s faith in him to remain honourable to her wishes. Instead it felt as if he were betraying the both of them.
“But I thought—”
“I was mistaken,” he said firmly, smiling to soften the words. Nellie wasn’t to blame.
She popped her breasts back into her bodice and tilted her head at him. “Perhaps another time.”
Arran shrugged. His nod was barely perceptible. There’d be a time again, he knew, when he’d have need of such services. When it no longer mattered that his fulfilment didn’t last beyond the act, when there was naught to be done about it. When he’d forget there was ever more than the animal pleasure that had kept him well content until Breghan had come into his life.
As soon as he was alone, the tavern owner sauntered over with a jug of bitter ale. “If our Nellie’s no to your liking, I can arrange someone else.”
Arran took the ale and shook his head. “Bring another jug,” he said. “Make it whiskey this time round.”
“You woke me up when you came staggering home,” Breghan informed him coolly. She slid from the bed, bringing the covers with her to wrap around her thin shift.
Arran pushed from the doorway and came inside. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You stumbled into my room and almost into my bed, breathing out enough whiskey fumes to intoxicate me in my sleep.”
“If I’d known you were awake—”
“You’d have passed out here instead of on your own floor.”
“Fair enough.” Arran chuckled. “I was in no state for decent company last night.”
“You’d already overindulged in indecent company?” she whipped back at him. Her eyes flashed anger before she spun around and yanked aside the curtain to let in the weak morning sun. “My goodness!”
“What is it?” He hurried over to look down below. The vaguely familiar redhead had stopped every man in the bailey dead as she walked across the cobbled courtyard toward the entrance steps.
Arran pushed the window open and leaned out for a better look. “Good God, is that Crawley’s daughter?” He pulled his head inside to cock a brow at Breghan. “What is Allison Crawley’s daughter doing here?”
“I think…” Breghan tipped her gaze out the window again. “I think she’s going to be my new lady’s maid.”
“You already have one.”
“Now I’ll have two.” She shook her head, still peering down. “I can’t believe Janet actually came.”
The surprise and awe in her voice put Arran on alert. “You asked her here?”
But Breghan’s attention was below. “Her beauty and grace has turned every single one of your men’s heads. It’s quite amazing.”
“Not so amazing,” Arran drawled. “She is exquisite.”
“Yes, yes she is.” She turned to him, her cheeks slightly flushed. “I pale by comparison.”
He’d wager his entire stable she wasn’t fishing for a compliment. “You have that gleam in your eye that means you’re up to your elbows in another reckless scheme.”
“I’m simply curious,” she stated with a smile. “Take another look at her.”
“Why?” he questioned, his gaze sliding down to the bailey anyway.
“Wouldn’t she be far more pleasing to you in bed than me?”
Every muscle in Arran’s face froze.
“I truly hope, for your sake,” he pushed out through grit teeth, “you’re not offering that lass in your place. Is that why you brought her here?” Talking warmed his muscles again, or maybe that was fury boiling his blood. He snapped his eyes to her. “I wouldna know how things are done at Donague, but here there are some tasks that canna be shipped out to a maid. Your duty as my wife is one of them.”
Breghan put her hand tentatively on his arm. “I wasn’t suggesting you take her to bed.”
“Weren’t you?” Arran growled, and she immediately dropped her hand and took a step back. He came with her, folded a hand over each of her wrists and walked her further back until she was up against the wall.
“Very well.” She dropped her gaze to his chest. Her tongue came out to wet her lower lip. “Perhaps the thought did cross my mind.”
He had no idea what he intended to do. All he could think about was the way he’d pushed Nellie from his lap, imagining some higher connection between him and Breghan that couldn’t be betrayed. The restraint he’d employed through long nights, every inch of his body aware that she was in the adjacent chamber and his for the taking in the name of God and queen.
He brought her hands up, pressed them flat against the wall above her head.
“Arran, wait,” she gasped as the blanket fell from her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to…”
Arran over spoke her quiet pleading, “I don’t care if you order Venus down from skies above, I will have no one but you.” He linked her wrists together in one hand to free his other to come down, his thumb tracing the line of her cheek to the corner of her
mouth. “You can parade a line of the world’s most beautiful women in front of me, and still I’d want you. Only you.”
He moved the pad of his thumb along her lower lip, his gaze burning into her wide eyes. He could hear the barely contained fury in his voice, knew he was straining close to the edge, knew he was a complete and utter fool, and still he couldn’t seem to stop his fingers gliding down the satin curve of her throat.
He couldn’t keep the truth spilling from his lips with a gentle burr when his voice should have been frosted over from the block of ice that was her heart. “In this, you don’t get to choose.”
She struggled within his grasp and he released her wrists, expecting her to hit out against his chest. Instead, she cupped her palm to his jaw and looked into his eyes with deep, stormy longing.
Arran pulled up both her shift and his plaid, then he put his hands on her waist, grinding his lower body against her as he lifted her up along the wall until their hips were level. “Put your legs around me,” he commanded in a tone that even she wouldn’t dare refuse.
She complied on a softly uttered sigh, opening herself wide as she clamped her legs around his hips. The tip of his shaft probed and reared stiff in a swollen mass of nerve endings when he found her wet and slick. He moved his hands to her bottom, guiding her around his rigid shaft until he was seated to the hilt.
Her eyes closed and her breasts heaved with short breaths. He knew the angle at which he’d entered her would enhance every movement, so he took care to hold still inside her. He applied pressure to her bottom, pressing her to him in a slow, circular motion that rubbed ecstasy into the pearl of her mound. Her arms came around his neck, her fingers threading into his hair as she gave small cries.
“Open your eyes, Bree.” He clenched his jaw against the need to plunge deep inside her until he spent, right here and now. “Look at me.”
“Arran, please…” Her lids fluttered open. The blue of her eyes was a dark, swirling pool. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted and trembling. “Please, I want… I can’t…”
She pulsed and throbbed around him, on the brink of sweet release.
He pulled out halfway, his firm control on her bottom keeping her from writhing closer to resume the circular pressure. After a few long minutes, the pulsing grew faint, her breaths less shallow.
She looked into his eyes, some of that passion replaced with hurt accusation. “Please, Arran, don’t…”
“Don’t what?” he rasped.
“Don’t stop.” Her hands moved over his back, scraping and clawing, trying to wedge herself closer. The friction along his shaft was tight and hot, threatening to expel his seed. “This is a cruel punishment, even for you.”
His laugh was a raw grunt. That was exactly the problem. She was a cold-hearted bitch, offering another woman to take her place when he’d being going out of his mind with want for her, for Bree and no one else, making bargains with himself and the devil that would ensure a hot seat for him in hell. But he could never punish her. He could never hurt her. He needed her faith, her trust, her willingness—he needed her all as much as he needed her body.
“You belong to me, Bree.” He brought his head down to her chest, ripped the thin material with his teeth and closed his mouth over one breast.
She screamed out as he plunged deep inside her again and stayed there, grinding her into the wall as he tasted his way up her throat and claimed her lips. In between kisses, he demanded, “Don’t ever again think I’ll accept a substitute.” He grazed her lower lip with his teeth, then slipped his tongue inside and explored his full. “I dinna give a damn if you can take or leave this without a moment’s consideration, I willna have anyone else for as long as I can have you.”
“I don’t want anyone else,” she whispered against his lips. “I don’t want you to have anyone else.”
Arran pulled his mouth from hers so he could look into her eyes as he started moving inside her with slow, measured strokes. He pressed his fingers into the soft cheeks of her bottom, crushing her core up against him with each thrust.
Her eyes kept closing, then opening again, her mouth moving against his jaw as she used her grasp around his back to pull herself close to him. “You said male and female bodies were designed to pleasure each other—Oh, God, yes, yes…”
His blood thickened into a white-hot snake through his entire body as he drove into her, hard and deep. She contracted around him in quick pulses that sent him to the edge of blackness.
“Designed to pleasure each other,” she continued in breathless gasps, “regardless of any finer feelings or—or emotions. I only wanted to know if y—you still believed that, if I was just a convenient body to—to you, or if I was more.”
“Jesu, Bree, must you always choose to play with fire instead of just asking what you want to know?” She was so swollen around his shaft, slick and pulsing, and he knew he’d not last past the next plunge. “Sometimes there’s a connection between a man and woman that goes beyond the mere joining of bodies.”
There was no time to say more. He closed his lips over hers, penetrating her mouth with his tongue in a slow, rolling kiss as he thrust into her tight sheath. He felt her clamp and shudder around him, the world beyond them dissolving, his cry into her mouth a base animal grunt as his seed spurted deep inside her. Her heat pulsed around his shaft, milking every last drop of the ecstasy, eclipsing the enormity of what he’d just done. There was only their bodies, joined and rocking in the exploding blackness.
Breghan collapsed against him with her cheek resting on his shoulder. Her eyelashes were wet against his neck with unshed tears.
“Darling.” His voice was rough with spent desire. “My darling, Bree.”
Staying deeply embedded with her legs wrapped around him, Arran walked to the bed and sat on the edge. He adjusted her on his lap and curled a hand around the back of her neck, pressing his lips to the top of her head. He murmured quietly into her hair, words meant only for his ears, “You are so much more to me than a mere convenience, my sweet.”
A knock at the door was followed by, “Breghan?”
“Magellan!” Breghan lifted her head from his shoulder. Another knock and she pulled herself off him, attempting to cover her chest with the tattered ends of her bodice with little success.
“Naturally.” Arran straightened his plaid, then lay back across the bed with his arms folded behind his head. “That woman knows exactly when and where to interfere.”
“At least she knocks.” Breghan gave up and grabbed a fur-trimmed outdoor cloak from her wardrobe. She’d only just thrown it over her shoulders, pinching it closed in the front with a fist, when Magellan entered on a third knock.
The woman’s wide gaze went from Arran, sprawled across the bed, to Breghan, standing stiffly by wardrobe. “The steward asked me to see if you were awake, child. There’s someone to see you, Janet she says her name is. Says you would be expecting her.”
“Of course.” Breghan gave her a warm smile. “I’ll be right down.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, Arran slid from the bed and went to stand in front of Breghan. He tipped her chin up with his knuckles and kissed her thoroughly on the mouth before saying, “Promise me you willna forget to drink those herbs of yours?”
She blinked her eyes open to look at him, hesitated only a moment, then nodded. “I promise. I’ll do it right now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Breghan desperately needed someone close to her own age who didn’t cower in Ferniehirst’s corners or jump with fright at the mention of Arran Kerr. She’d sensed something in Janet from their first meeting in the cottage that made her think they’d be fast friends and she was delighted to discover she’d been right.
She’d greeted Janet down in the hall with the exclamation, “I’m so pleased you don’t believe what your mother said about the laird.”
“Oh, I believe every word of it,” Janet had returned with a wry smile. “But I’d rather live a short life an
d live it to the fullest than remain trapped in that cottage to a ripe old age.”
Now, a few days later, they were standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the window in Breghan’s chamber, watching the procession of horses and carts until the last sight of Lillian and Magellan disappeared into the thick forest that crowded close to Ferniehirst. The weather had been unusually warm this year and only a light dusting of snow covered the ground even though they were into the first week of December.
“Arran will be in a pleasant mood tonight,” Janet declared. She’d taken to calling Arran by his given name, but only when they were alone.
Breghan turned from the window and admitted, “I’m mostly to blame for his animosity toward Magellan.”
“Oh?”
Breghan laughed at her tone, then went on to explain. When she reached the part about Magellan’s herbs, she omitted the intimate details of their lovemaking. Leaving Janet to draw her own conclusions on why Breghan insisted on drinking the potion and why Arran had resisted.
“And here I thought I was the one with more guts than sense.” Janet’s expression went from awe to horror. “Men’s egos require they populate the earth with their sons, as often and as widespread as possible. I’m surprised Arran tolerates you taking such a potion.”
“He can be incredibly lenient,” Breghan said, using the opportunity to break down the wall of rumours that kept Arran in the shadows of the womenfolk’s fears. “Arran is a kind, forgiving husband who oft puts my concerns and wishes before his. I hope you’ll see him the way I do once you’ve got to know him better.”
Janet gave her a mischievous grin. “There’s someone else entirely I’d rather get to know better.”
“Who has won your heart so soon?” Breghan asked.
“Ah, you’ll be the first to know, after him.”
“Very well, then…” Breghan cast an appraising eye over Janet’s grey smock and long-sleeved white shift. “How well do you cut and stitch a dress?”
“I’m an excellent seamstress,” Janet exclaimed. “My mother taught me from an early age.”
The Devil of Jedburgh Page 20