He frowned and shook his head. ‘Why do you defend my actions? I saw the blood on your gown.’
‘You cut your hand on the jug and then grabbed my gown. You did not take my virtue by force that night. This handfasting was not necessary and can be annulled. There has been no consummation between us.’ She just spit it out in simple statements.
‘I did not?’ he asked.
‘Nay, you did not. Not yet.’
‘Thank you,’ he whispered heavenwards. ‘You are certain?’
She laughed then. After being married to two other women who most certainly came to his bed innocent, she thought he would understand that a woman knew such things. ‘Aye. Certain.’ She moved, sloshing water over the side—quickly cooling water. ‘That brings us to the true problem.’
He walked a few paces away and then turned to her. ‘And what is that?’
‘Whether or not to wait our year and a day or to annul this now?’
Silence so deafening it hurt her ears filled the room and the space between them. Here was his chance. If he accepted that she spoke the truth, if he spoke now, she knew her father and mother would see to an annulment as soon as she returned home. With all the connections Connor had to the Church, both in funding various churches and monasteries and in donations to their good works, an annulment would be no problem at all.
‘You know,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I knew your intention before you ever arrived at my gates. I may have misjudged the strength of your efforts, but I knew you wanted me to consider marriage to you.’
‘Was I that obvious?’
He laughed then and nodded. ‘Terribly and completely obvious. But then I was trying to avoid that state and trying to avoid considering you as my wife.’
‘And now?’ she asked. Her voice trembled because she did not want this to end now. She did not want to return to her parents. She wanted to be here and to be his wife. She wanted him to love her as she did him.
He did not answer her directly. Athdar walked to the door, lifted the wooden bar from its place leaning on the wall and he dropped it down into the brackets on either side of the doorframe. Then he came to her side and held his hand out to her, waiting for her to take it. She met his gaze and recognised the frank desire in his dark eyes.
‘Now? Well, I do not want a year and a day to decide. I do not want an annulment. I have decided that I’m keeping you. And after this night, my fair Isobel, there will be no doubt that you are mine.’
Chapter Nineteen
Athdar wanted to fall down on his knees in thanks when she told him her truth.
She said she was a virgin. He had not taken her by force.
Could he believe it, though? She had no reason to lie about something like this. The first time she’d said that nothing had happened between them, he had thought she was just trying to protect him. But now? By giving him a way out, she could avoid coming to his bed. He looked into her eyes and could read the truth there.
She accepted his hand and he helped her to stand in the tub. The water sluiced over the lovely curves and down her limbs as it fell back into the tub. He would have understood if she tried to hide herself from him, but not Isobel. She let him look his fill of her and so he did. He watched the way the pale rose-coloured nipples of her breasts tightened into enticing points that he would taste before long. She let him see the pale, golden curls at the junction of her legs and the long, shapely thighs he’d just touched. Her hair, damp but not wet, swung around her body like a rich, thick curtain and his hands itched to touch it.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly as he bent down and lifted her in his arms. Carrying her over to the bed, he placed her there in the middle and stepped back. She shuddered, but he did not think she was cold. He covered her with one of the large drying cloths and then reached for his own belt.
Isobel’s eyes widened as she realised his intention. If he had seen her, it was her chance to see him. She’d touched so much of him with her mouth during the tortuous night of kissing, but now she would see all of him. Peeling off his shirt and trews, he walked back to the tub and washed the dust and sweat of the day’s travel off him. Then, with a deep breath, he faced her.
She’d seen naked men before. Bathing at the river. She’d seen her brothers many times, even now that they were young men. But not even having kissed his chest the shameless way she had could have prepared her for Athdar. Aroused and rampant. For her. Isobel swallowed several times and waited as he moved towards her slowly.
Would it be a bad thing to reach out and touch him?
‘Nay, lass, not a bad thing.’
She covered her mouth, laughing. She’d not meant to say it aloud but she had. It exposed her desire to him, but instead of making her feel shameful, it made her feel strong. So, she did—she reached out and touched his flesh.
It moved beneath her hand—even as she wrapped her fingers around it she could feel his hot blood pumping through it. Sitting up and kneeling, she drew him closer. He did not resist her at all. His eyes were black with desire now and he panted in short, shallow breaths.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked. She gentled her touch then, tracing her fingers around the width of it.
His eyes closed, his head fell back and he moaned.
Her body answered the sound by sending heat and moisture to the place between her legs. It ached there and she wanted him to...to...to do something to make it...more.
She wanted more. ‘Athdar,’ she whispered. ‘I want...’
Those were the last words she remembered speaking for some time.
He took her by the shoulders and brought her face up to his. Then his possession, his claiming of her, began in earnest. She leaned in to him and opened her mouth to his. The kisses began as gentle touches, lips on lips, but soon he took and took and took her mouth, thrusting his tongue inside and suckling on hers. When her hands drifted to his chest and she slid over the rough curls there, he took hold of her head and plundered her mouth until she lost her breath.
He pulled back, but he was not done.
‘Lie back,’ he said gruffly. He guided her back and then gathered her hair around her head. Then he tormented her as she had done him, showing her how strong his self-control had been.
His mouth moved like a storm over her—touching, tasting, kissing, licking the length of her body. He laved each of her breasts, cupping them and rubbing his thumb across the sensitive tips until her body bucked and arched up off the bed. Then he blew on them before suckling each one. Just when she thought he was done, he touched them again, rubbing the edges of his teeth across them until she moaned.
He laughed then, a wicked one filled with dark, hot promises of pleasure yet to come. She tried to pull him back to kiss her mouth, but he slipped from her grasp, sliding down her body and lying between her legs. She could resist nothing he did, her body pliable under his hands. But when he lowered his mouth, there, she grabbed his hair and made him stop.
‘Oh, no, lass. I will show you my favourite kind of kiss,’ he whispered, moving her legs apart. ‘Lift your knees like you did in the tub.’ He sounded so pleased, she did it—lifting her knees and opening that most private part of her to him.
Before she could think of such a thing, he was there, tracing the sensitive folds of skin and parting them with his tongue. At first she held his hair, ready to stop his intimate invasion, but then she released her hold and dropped her head back...and just let the sensations overwhelm her.
His mouth. His tongue. His lips. His teeth. Her body blossomed beneath his mouth and he did not pause. Everything within her tightened and ached and tightened more, her blood screaming through her body as she moved towards something. He knew what he did to her; he laughed and dipped in to plunge his tongue deep inside her.
She wanted to beg him for something. Beg to stop. Beg for more, but her hi
ps raised off the bed to meet his tongue’s thrusts. Then, just when she though there could be nothing sweeter than the touch of his mouth there, he slid his fingers inside her and she screamed out the pleasure.
More. Worse. Better. More. She chanted in her thoughts as he pushed her harder and faster. He was relentless in forcing her on, bringing her to some edge where her body could take no more and then pushing her harder and further, ever further.
‘Athdar,’ she moaned out. She wriggled against him then, pushing her body against his mouth, demanding something of him.
‘More. I beg you.’
He slid one finger forwards and touched some small place deep within the folds that made her fly. When his mouth replaced his finger and began licking and suckling it, everything within her began to unravel. She was falling apart in his hands.
Her entire body trembled then, shaking and shivering as the tension he’d built exploded free. From her skin to the very centre of her. From her head to her toes. Everything within her tingled and throbbed, for endless moments...or minutes...or hours. She lost herself then and thought she might fall asleep until she felt him nuzzle the roughness of his day’s growth of beard against her there.
His fingers were yet within her and all it took to reawaken her body was one slow, leisurely stroke of them as he slid them out from between her legs and up to her breasts. Every touch pulled some connection between there and the place he’d just...attended and the aching inside her continued anew.
‘Athdar,’ she whispered as his mouth came down on one sensitive nipple again. His erect flesh touched her belly as he dipped to taste the other one and she reached to take him in her hands.
He hissed at it and pulled away. ‘Nay, lass. Not yet.’
She wanted to argue, but he climbed over her and took her mouth in a hot, breath-losing kiss. He groaned against her lips as she touched his back, moving her hands over the muscles of his chest and then around to his buttocks. Holding them in her hands, she squeezed them as he moved between her legs.
‘Easy now, Bel,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘Open to me.’
Now. He would take her now. Now.
Her body shook as he placed the head of his flesh where his mouth had just been and pushed against her. He slid deeper and deeper inside of her, the moisture of her release easing the way. Then, suddenly everything felt too much. Too tight. Too much. Too big. Too...
He thrust once and she felt him fill her completely.
Her body tightened around him then and he hissed again as he waited for her to adjust to him. All she could feel was his flesh stretching hers. Then, he moved, just a bit, and her body eased. He withdrew inch by inch until only the slightest part of him remained within her. She felt empty and wanted to protest.
He kissed her then, just as he thrust again, quickly and deeply. And then he did it again...and again. Thrust and drew back, thrust and drew back, until her body poured out for him once more and she felt him swell in her. Then one more time he buried his flesh in hers and she felt the spill of his hot seed.
He whispered her name over and over, in time with the pulses of his flesh, until it stopped. Then he buried his face against her shoulder and panted as she did.
* * *
She would be the death of him if it was like this every time they joined.
Though he was glad he could give her pleasure during her initiation into the intimacies between a man and a woman, he never expected she would be so open to it. Her body still held his inside and he did not want to leave her. But, more now would be too much for her innocent’s body, so he eased out of her and moved to her side. Sliding his hand over her belly, he could feel the ripples of her orgasm yet moving through her body.
Several minutes passed and he was sure they both dozed off to sleep in the lethargic satisfaction that came from a good bout of lovemaking.
He’d meant what he told her—he was keeping her. Her father be damned. Connor be damned. She was his now and what had begun in misunderstanding was now consummated in honesty.
She was his.
She stirred a bit, opening her eyes slowly as though testing to see if she was asleep or awake. He lay quiet, giving her a chance to adjust to the new intimacy between them. When she kept her eyes open, looking at everything in the room but him, he spoke to her.
‘Was it as you thought it would be?’ he asked.
He remembered his first time—a mad rush to completion before he could be discovered behind the stables with the lusty and willing laundry maid. But, for women, well, he’d always thought their first time was something that needed to be special.
‘My thoughts are so scattered, I cannot think,’ she whispered. Then she turned slowly towards him, but he noticed the wince that crossed her face as she moved.
The chamber grew cool then, enough that he noticed the gooseflesh rise on her skin. Then his stomach grumbled, reminding him of his missed supper and late arrival home. She reached out to touch him and hesitated. He guided her hand to his stomach and held it there. The next time the noise happened, she smiled.
‘I am yours, as well, now, Lady MacCallum,’ he said, trying to put her at ease.
Her eyes flashed at his words and he thought he’d made a very large mistake. Aye, she would be the death of him if her appetite for the pleasures of the marital bed were close to her curiosity and boldness.
‘You did not eat, then?’ she asked, sitting up and pulling the drying cloth around her shoulders. Another wince reminded him of his husbandly concern for her.
‘I entered my hall to find it in complete disarray, my wife nowhere to be found and more people than were here this morn now living here. Needless to say, I came looking for you to straighten this out.’ He tried to remain serious, but could not. ‘What the bloody hell did you do to my hall, lass?’
He got out of bed, heard the soft knocking at the door and went to see to it. Isobel squeaked, pulled the cloth over her head and dived down on the bed to hide herself. Surely she should know that there were no secrets when living in a keep? No surprise to him, a bucket of steaming water sat outside their door, placed there by the servants who understood what the sound of the door’s bar dropping meant.
‘It would be easier to do this in the tub, Bel,’ he said. ‘If you can find your way out from under that cloth?’
As soon as the door was secured, she peeked out from her hidey hole and then climbed from the bed. She looked at him and his manhood and then down at her legs. Her blood marked his cock and also her thigh, a sign of her virginity now taken. While he helped her wash and dress, she could not stop blushing from his private ministrations now.
‘I am accustomed to finding my own meal in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘You do not have to accompany me there now.’
‘I would like to explain what in the bloody hell I did to your hall,’ she said without breaking into a smile.
He laughed then, kissing her quickly and nodding. ‘Come, then. You can explain this mad new scheme of yours and why I now have four large looms and a small one where only one stood when I left this morn.’
They both tugged on shoes and walked hand in hand down to the hall and the kitchen. Since most of the keep’s inhabitants already sought their rest, they moved quietly so not to disturb those who slept. The kitchen was empty and dark, so Athdar lit a lantern from the hearth and set it on the table in the corner. Isobel retrieved two bowls from the cupboard and spoons and ladled out some of the leftover stew from the cauldron.
‘You missed dinner?’ he asked, as she served it to him.
‘Nay,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I ate at supper, but find myself famished now!’
Isobel brought a jug and cups to the table and then sat with him. In many ways, he enjoyed this intimate dining with her alone more than the many formal meals he’d eaten before. He waited for her to eat and
once she slowed, he spoke.
‘So, tell me of this weaving plan of yours?’
‘In Lairig Dubh, you have seen the weavers’ building?’ He nodded. ‘I know that we do not need as many as they do, but I thought that it might be easier to have them in one place. For the winter especially.’
‘So the one place is here in my keep?’ Her eyes sparkled in the candlelight as she spoke and he found himself transfixed on the way the light was able to pick out all the shades of gold in her hair. By the time he remembered that he was listening to her plan, he’d missed a good part of it.
‘And the older children will be given chores. What think you?’
Athdar wanted to laugh—he’d been trapped by his infatuation with his own wife. She seemed pleased by what she’d accomplished. He was willing to allow her this.
‘Can you show me?’ he asked, only to give himself more time to figure out if he had any objections or not.
They finished the food, put the bowls, cups and spoons in one of the buckets to be washed and Isobel led him to her new weavers’ corner. Tall screens made out of tapestry and wood separated the area from the rest of the hall. The five large looms faced a centre point, allowing room around them to walk and work. The small loom sat in the corner, waiting to be used. Trunks sat along the wall. ‘Threads?’
‘Aye. And supplies, extra weights and anything we need.’
‘We?’ He knew she planned on working with them and that was part of the reason she set it up so. And the thought of having her here, on long winter nights, working on her loom, pleased him.
She studied him before saying anything.
‘You are jesting?’
‘Aye.’
‘And you are not angry that I did this without your knowledge?’
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He’d been wanting to ever since they’re left their chambers. Athdar did not think he would ever tire of her or of wanting her. Now that that beast had been loosed, it would be impossible to cage it again.
The Highlander's Dangerous Temptation Page 18