“I must go,” he said and nuzzled kisses at her neck. “Sleep and I will see you on the morrow.
She nodded and gave his hand a slight squeeze not wanting him to suspect that she was glad to see him go.
He dressed quickly and with one last quick kiss he left the room. She fought back the tears that threatened to overflow. He still had to get his shirt and tunic on and she did not want him to return and find her in tears. Once she heard the door close, she hopped out of bed, grabbed the soft blue shawl and wrapped it around her.
She could not bring herself to return to bed so she sat in front of the hearth, her knees tucked up under her chin and let her tears fall. She was being punished, punished for letting the devil have his way with her and enjoying it. And for thinking that somehow she could get his heart to be silent no more.
~~~
Cree sat alone at a table in front of the hearth in the Great Hall his legs stretched out in front of him staring at the flames. He was only slightly wet, the rain having turned light. It was late and everyone was tucked in bed, if not asleep. He was sure that Sloan had found some willing woman, he always did.
He had thought of spending the night with Dawn, he had actually wanted to but it would not have been a wise thing to do. He would have made love to her again and probably again before sunrise, he had enjoyed her that much. He had come so hard that he swore it shivered him down to his soul. And still he had thought about taking her again. He had silently cursed himself for pulling out of her as he came but what choice did he have. He could not risk her carrying his child. His bride would arrive soon and hopefully soon after the wedding she would be with child and he would have a legitimate heir.
He wondered if he would enjoy his wife in bed as much as he enjoyed Dawn. It didn’t matter though. He would have no love for his wife. She would be there to serve a purpose, as Dawn served a purpose.
Then why did he want nothing more than to return to Dawn, make love to her again, and afterwards curl around her and sleep beside her until morning?
Damn. Damn. Damn.
He stood and warned himself to go to his bedchamber and go to sleep. He did not need to complicate the situation any further. It would do no good. His thoughts of her had already aroused him and he knew he wanted her at least one more time tonight or maybe two more times. With thoughts of different ways he could have Dawn, he left the Great Hall and headed for her cottage.
He opened the door as quietly as possible not wanting to wake her if she should be asleep, though he intended to do just that. He grinned at the thought of raining kisses all over her lovely naked body. He disposed of his clothes before entering the bedchamber and stopped abruptly when he saw her sitting in front of the fire. The way her shoulders shook he knew that she was crying.
Seeing her sitting alone crying silent tears tore at his heart so badly that he wanted to pummel someone with his fists but then it would be him who deserved the beating for no doubt he was the cause of her tears. He was at a loss at what to do. He rarely dealt with crying women. They were usually pleasurably satiated when he left them, but then he had never taken a woman’s virginity.
Was she upset that she had lost it to him? But she had given it willingly. What then could have brought on her tears? The sudden thought was like a punch to his gut. Could he not have pleased her? Had he left her wanting? He had to know.
He called out her name and she turned wide, shocked, and wet eyes on him.
He immediately went to her, scooped her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed and sat keeping her on his lap, his arms firmly around her. And damn if he didn’t like the way her bottom nestled so perfectly against the hard length of him, growing him even harder.
“What’s wrong?’ he asked and kissed her gently.
She shook her head.
“That will not do,” he said wiping away her tears. “You must tell me.”
She swallowed hard and again shook her head.
He burrowed his nose in her hair. “Have I told you how I love the scent of you?”
Love. He loved the scent of her. Was his heart attempting to speak to her?
“I enjoyed making love to you,” he whispered and nibbled along her ear. “Did you enjoy it?”
Making love. Was his heart opening? Trying to be heard? She did not need to think on his question and so she nodded, for she truly had enjoyed making love with him that was until...
“I came hard, harder than I ever have. And you?” he gently kissed her bruised eye.
She nodded slowly.
He stared at her and his eyes narrowed. “You nod and yet your finger taps my arm twice.”
She turned rigid in his arms. Had she done that? She hadn’t realized she did and she lowered her chin not wanting to look at him, not wanting him to see the truth.
He lifted her chin gently. “You didn’t come did you?”
There was no point in lying to him, though she had no intentions of explaining why she hadn’t come. She simply shook her head.
“I pulled out of you before you could come, didn’t I?”
Her cheeks flushed red and she wanted to fade away. He shouldn’t be talking to her this way. They were not husband and wife. And did husbands and wives even dare to speak so intimately?
“Listen to me, Dawn,” he ordered firmly. “Your pleasure is my pleasure and I will not have you robbing either one of us of it. We must establish a signal that lets me know when you are coming. I had thought by how hard you squeezed my arm that you were in the throes of coming.”
He wanted a signal so that he would have time to make sure she climaxed before he pulled out of her. She couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel for them to climax together.
Wicked.
She certainly had become wicked but then the devil had led her astray and there was no turning back now. She was doomed and no one could save her. She reached up and tugged at his ear.
“That could work,” he said and smiled. “Shall we try it?”
He didn’t give her a chance to agree. He stood, smiled, dropped her on the bed, and spread her legs.
Oh how she loved his smile, though rare it was and how happy she was to see him hard and ready. Though he had been that way when he had planted her on his lap and knowing that he wanted her again had sparked her own passion.
He positioned himself between her legs and then slowly lowered himself over her as he inched his way inside her. “Damn, but you fit as if you were made for me and me alone.”
Her heart leaped for joy not to mention how wet she grew and her arms wrapped around him hugging him to her. He moved his mouth over hers for a kiss and she took hold of it hungry for the taste of him.
He drove into her over and over, though he stopped once to ask her if she was all right and she smiled and nodded, which had him grinning.
Lord help her, she wanted him as deep inside her as she could get him and instinctively she wrapped her legs around his back and sure enough he sank deeper into her.
Their passion grew, their rhythm turning fast and furious.
Her climax was building even more powerful than before and she could tell that his was as well. And the thought hit her...what if she waited... waited until...
She tightened her legs around him and gripped his arms tightly.
He looked at her and breathlessly asked, “Soon?”
She nodded and tightened her legs around him even more and he moaned driving into her.
She was on the edge again, ready to come, ready to step off and plummet in pleasure and she saw the same in his eyes, felt it in his frantic rhythm and she bucked hard against him driving him into her hard. And only then did she tug at his ear.
He cried out her name and at that precise moment she knew he was coming and she stepped off the edge with him.
Chapter Twenty-four
Cree left Dawn just after sunrise. It was rare that he was not out of bed before daylight rose over the land but today he had a reason to dally and he had dallied. He
had woken wrapped around Dawn. She had been so warm, her skin so soft, her scent strong with last night’s endless lovemaking. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her and when he touched her she had been so very responsive that he had not wanted to hurry and he hadn’t. And damn if he hadn’t found himself exploding with a never-ending pleasure deep inside her.
He wasn’t sure how many times they had coupled, though it seemed that each time he woke throughout the night and found himself cocooned around her he’d grown hard and his hands would begin to touch her, and then all was lost. And whether it was a quick joining or a lingering one he had burst in a blinding climax.
He smiled, though it fast turned into a scowl thinking what little control he had over himself when it came to Dawn. He had cursed himself, after he finally had gotten a breath, for coming inside her and had cautioned himself not to do it again. But he had paid no heed or perhaps it was that once inside her, he was lost... lost in pure pleasure. His scowl deepened as he entered the keep and made his way to the Great Hall where Sloan was talking with a group of warriors.
“Out for an early morning walk?” Sloan asked his grin much too wide to Cree’s liking.
“Looking to see why you have yet to dispatch the men to find the culprit you failed to find yesterday,” Cree said as he approached the group.
The warriors bowed their head and stepped aside clearing a path for Cree to Sloan who had not stopped grinning.
“I’ve given final instructions to the men,” Sloan said. “They were just about to take their leave.”
Cree looked to each one of them. “I expect results. This is your home now and I intend to see it kept safe for everyone.”
The men nodded vigorously.
“Go and find who threatens our home,” Cree ordered and the men took off.
Sloan shook his head. “They would follow you to hell.”
“They already have.”
“Drink and food for, my lord,” Sloan called out to one of servant lassies who smiled sweetly at him, bobbed her head, and hurried off.
Cree went to the table by the hearth to sit and stretch his legs out recalling a similar scene last night and the decision he had made and though control for his never-ending desire for Dawn remained a concern, he could not say that he had regretted returning to her.
Sloan joined him, stopping to cast an inquisitive glance over Cree before claiming a seat opposite him at the table. “You had a good night.”
Cree didn’t turn around to face him. “Good enough.” He would not discuss what had transpired between Dawn and him with Sloan. It was private, meant for Dawn and him alone and the thought surprised him. Sloan and he had shared numerous tales of women but he had no want to share Dawn with him. Dawn was his and only his.
“Dawn’s friend Lila talks nonstop. She spoke much about Dawn while I saw her home.”
That had Cree turning and swinging his long legs over the bench to face Sloan. “Tell me.”
Sloan waited until the two servants placed pitchers of hot cider, ale, and platters heaped with food on the table, only then did he answer Cree.
“She told me that Dawn is the bravest woman she knows. That she never let her affliction get in her way and that she has endured many taunts and endless ignorance with resolve and strength. Lila says that Dawn speaks better with her hands than most people do with their voices. That she is a loyal friend and has a caring heart and hadn’t that been proven with Dawn freeing Dorrie, a woman who has taunted Dawn endlessly. It is obvious that she is worried about her friend.”
“Dawn is far safer now under my protection than she has ever been,” Cree said as if he waited for Sloan to challenge otherwise.
Sloan looked ready to take the challenge, though seemed to think better of it. “Dawn is a unique woman.”
“You’re right about that,” Cree agreed and appeared to relax reaching for a piece of bread. “She is unlike any woman I have ever met.”
“And we’ve met many along the way,” Sloan said, grinning and raising his tankard.
Cree joined him in the toast to their past conquests and realized he was toasting, with no regret, the end of them. He wanted only Dawn, no other. The surprising thought did not disturb him. It actually gave him a sense of indescribable pleasure.
“What are your plans for Dorrie? Back in the stocks?”
“Ask it the way you truly want to ask it,” Cree demanded with a glint of anger in his dark eyes.
“Not how I want to, but how others will perceive it if you do not return Dorrie to the stocks.”
“And it should matter to me what others think? Has it ever mattered before?”
Sloan seemed to give it thought and then shrugged. “You’re right. It never did matter to you. But it is different now. You now hold a title; you are the Earl of Carrick.”
“Not officially. Not until I wed Gerwan’s daughter.”
“All the more reason to act like—”
“The men I despise?” Cree spat. “The men I pillaged and murdered for? I earned this land unlike them, but I will not treat my people with such careless disregard as they do.”
“You will allow Dawn’s blatant disregard for your orders to go unpunished?”
Remembering her silent tears had Cree saying, “She’s been punished enough.”
Sloan looked ready to argue but Cree’s dark scowl quickly stopped any retort that was on his tongue. “As you wish,” he said respectfully. “Dorrie is to be allowed out of her cottage?”
Cree nodded. “See that she goes back to doing her share and then some for at least a week, though she is to be confined to her cottage, after her chores are done. Turbett can always use extra help. Send her there. Let her see what Dawn had to contend with.”
Sloan nodded. “When do you wish to hear grievances and permissions?”
“Not for a couple of weeks. Let the villagers have time to see the way things will go and learn that they can speak if something seems unfair or troubling without threat of harm.”
The two men spent the next hour discussing what issues needed to be addressed over the next few days.
When they finished Cree asked, “Is Elsa set in her cottage?”
“She is and has two village women eager to help and learn from her. I’m still searching for someone to oversee the keep servants. Someone who eventually will report to your wife since the running of the keep will be her domain.”
Cree stood. “I’m sure you’ll find someone. I’ll be going with William to the site where the new castle will be built. See that six warriors are made ready to accompany me in an hour’s time.”
“They’ll be waiting,” Sloan said. “What of Dawn? Is she still to have a guard on her at all times? Is she restricted as to where she may go?”
“Keep Elwin on Dorrie and shift the men around to watch over Dawn. And find the damn culprit who shot that arrow so we can lay this matter to rest.”
Cree left Sloan to see to the day’s matters. He hurried to his bed chamber pleased to see that a fresh bucket of water waited for him. He stripped off his leather tunic and black shirt and proceeded to wash himself. He could not abide being dirty. He had spent his younger years in such squalor and hunger that he swore he would do anything never to live that way again, and he had. He only wished his mother had survived long enough to benefit from his wealth and power. She had literally worked herself to death in order to see that he and his sister survived, she being their only support his da having died from a fall when Cree was barely three years.
He had been relieved that at least on his mum’s deathbed he could promise her that he would keep his sister Wintra safe. She was only nine years when their mum died ten years ago. She had never told him who Wintra’s father was but she didn’t have to. He remembered all too well the day she had come in from the fields bruised and battered. He had been ready to kill the man who had harmed her but his mum had insisted she had taken a fall and that she would be fine. She had protected him that day with her lies but he ha
d never forgotten. And when she began to grow with child his suspicions had been confirmed.
He had never told Wintra. As far as she knew they shared the same da. It had been an unspoken agreement between he and his mum and Cree never intended to break it. He had placed Wintra in an Abbey following their mum’s death and paid the Abbess a goodly stipend to see to her care and teach her what she needed to know to wed well. When all was settled with his title he would take his sister out of the Abbey and bring her to live with him. Then he would arrange a good marriage for her with a good man.
When he was finally dressed in clean garments, dark brown leggings and shirt with a chestnut brown leather tunic and his boots wrapped securely with leather ties, he made his way to Elsa’s cottage. He did glance to see that a guard had been posted at Dawn’s cottage, though he hadn’t doubted there would be. Sloan never failed to carry out his orders whether he agreed with him or not.
The sun shined brightly and there was less of a chill in the autumn air, though that wouldn’t last. Winter would be upon them soon enough and he wanted the people and land prepared. Sloan would see to it. He was good at seeing that things got done with little to no problems. And if a problem arose, then Cree would step in and settle it. Sloan and he had fast become friends after Cree had saved his life. He had come upon Cree trying to defend himself against a band of motley thieves. And though he had been doing an excellent job at keeping them at bay, there was just too many of them and he would have eventually been defeated. Sloan had joined his crew that day and had been an asset ever since.
Cree came upon Elsa’s cottage not far from the keep. He had had the men repair and add onto an existing cottage that had long been neglected. The men continued to work on it, most having volunteered for the job knowing the importance of getting it finished before the winter set in. Elsa had treated many of the men and saved many of their lives so they wanted to make certain that their healer had a good sound place to do her healing.
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