As servants brought in dishes, Lady Nighean spoke directly to her for the first time.
“It’s no wonder you are fatigued, my lady.” She spoke in her own language, as if until this moment she had been unaware Aila could understand. “If it will not offend, please accept my condolences on your loss.”
Aila swallowed around the constriction in her throat and inadvertently caught the older woman’s eyes. Instead of condemnation or anger that she had taken her daughter’s rightful place, only compassion wreathed her face.
Beneath the table, she gripped her fingers together and struggled for some semblance of control. The only way she could function was if she didn’t think about that night in MacAlpin’s war chamber. But now, for one blood-soaked moment, it flooded her mind and threatened her facade of serenity.
She would not crumble. But when she managed to drag her gaze from Fearchara’s mother and saw a sad smile of understanding from Lady Ealasaid, pain engulfed her heart.
They were being kind. She had not expected it. Yet kindness would undo her as cruel taunts and icy indifference never would.
Connor tossed back his third tankard of mead and tried, without success, to stop staring at Aila. She sat beside him, so close he had only to lean toward her to touch her, and yet she was as distant from him as if she still resided in Ce.
His mother and Lady Nighean kept up a constant stream of inconsequential conversation, as he knew they would, and Aila occasionally deigned to answer them. She hadn’t appeared in the least relieved that he’d managed, at great inconvenience to all concerned, to avert another huge, public feast for her.
Maybe he should not have bothered. Maybe she didn’t give a damn who saw her or not. And yet he couldn’t rid his mind of the bawdy comments at their wedding feast, nor the way Aila had fleetingly cringed beneath the onslaught.
Fool that he was, he thought she’d appreciate his gesture. That she’d look at him without that remote expression in her eyes. Look at him—as if she saw him.
But she’d ignored him as effortlessly as she had ignored him from the moment they had wed.
She rarely opened her mouth to him. Unless they were in bed. Dark lust gripped his loins, a torturous reminder of how eagerly she responded to his touch in the black of night. How she clawed his chest, dragged her fingers through his hair, dug her teeth into his flesh. She opened her mouth to him then, but only to drive him insane with need. She never uttered a single word.
“That’s a beautiful cross, my lady,” his mother said, leaning forward to admire the damn cross Aila never removed from her neck. Except in bed. His treacherous cock throbbed in remembrance of the last two nights, in anticipation of the night to come. Another night when she would open to him, accept his touch, but refuse, ultimately, to give him anything of herself at all.
“Thank you.”
He watched the way her fingers fluttered over the cross before dropping to her lap. He had the sudden vision of ripping it from her, slinging it into the fire, watching it blacken and finally melt.
As if destroying the cross would make any difference.
“It’s very unusual,” Nighean said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.”
“It’s very old,” Aila said. He glowered at the wall, despising the way he soaked up every word she spoke. Her accent enchanted him. Always had. “It was a wedding gift from my—my—”
“Her first husband.” His harsh voice cut through her stumbled words. He offered an insincere grin to the three ladies who stared at him with varying degrees of interest. Aila, he noticed, showed the least interest of all. “I, alas, am only the princess’ third lord and master.” And this time his self-loathing leer was directed only at her.
A blush seeped over her cheeks, but she didn’t break eye contact. In his peripheral vision he saw his mother and Nighean become suddenly absorbed by the contents of their plates, but he hardly registered their presence.
It was Aila’s response he wanted. Aila’s retort. Aila’s anger.
God damn it, why wouldn’t she lose her temper with him? Why wouldn’t she shout and scream and tell him how much she hated his king, his country? Why did she treat him with such indifference?
Except when they were in bed?
“Yes,” she said. Was that a thread of passion he detected in her voice? “I fear I have a reputation for husbands dying on me shortly after the ceremony.”
“Your fear is unfounded in my case.”
Her green eyes glinted. He raised one eyebrow, goading her, daring her to respond. Hoping she wouldn’t once again retreat behind that regal mask she wore like a shield.
She tilted her chin at him and the look she arrowed his way suggested she thought he was something disgusting one of the hounds had dragged in from the midden.
At last. He braced himself, hoped his mother and Nighean would grace them with privacy but mainly—fuck, the only thing that mattered was that Aila would finally discard this infuriating masquerade.
“How reassuring.” The smile she offered him could have frozen a loch in midsummer. And then she delivered her deadly thrust. “My lord.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aila lowered her knife and hoped neither lady would remark on her lack of appetite. But even the thought of eating turned her stomach. She’d scarcely managed to finish a meal since the night she had conceived Connor’s child.
“Aila.” Connor’s low growl in her ear quivered through her senses. It took everything she possessed not to turn toward him. “What are you attempting to accomplish by starving yourself?”
She looked at him then. She couldn’t help herself. He had noticed?
“I’m simply not hungry.” She kept her voice as low as his, as unwilling as he appeared to be for the older ladies to eavesdrop on their conversation.
His stormy eyes ensnared her. Despite how desperately she wished otherwise.
“You’re thinner than you were in Ce.”
He had noticed that too? For a moment words failed her. And then her pride rescued her, as it had so often rescued her in the past.
“Indeed? Or perhaps you have merely tired of your new wife already.” Her heart squeezed at the notion, but he would never know. Let him think she did not care one way or the other how soon his lust for her cooled.
His lips were by her ear. She struggled, without success, to hide the tremor of awareness that licked over her sensitized flesh.
“Rest assured, my lady wife, I have not tired of you yet. Nor do I anticipate doing so for quite some time.”
Not forever, then. She turned her head very slightly so she could look into his eyes and yet still feel his breath against her face. Tragic.
“Then in that, at least, we are in accord.” Her voice sounded chilly. “I have yet to tire of you also.”
His breath hissed against her, dangerously erotic. Awareness skated over her, along her throat, across her breasts, and her nipples hardened, aching for his familiar touch.
“Aye, lady.” It was a rumbled caress that ignited her blood. “Your ice melts when I part your thighs.”
Goddess. The thought tumbled into her mind unbidden, as the vision of Connor parting her thighs flooded her senses. Damp desire licked through her pussy and trickled over her tender folds.
“Such wifely duty is not unduly onerous.” Her whisper was scarcely audible, but she knew he heard. And he was the only one who needed to hear.
His lips grazed her cheek. A fleeting caress that branded her his.
“When I fuck you, duty is the last thing on your mind.” The low words hammered into her, raw and primeval. She barely prevented herself from squirming as arousal throbbed through her swollen clitoris.
He drew back, but only far enough so he could look into her eyes. She knew she couldn’t hide how much she wanted him and didn’t even try. Perverse power flooded through her when his own eyes darkened with lust, when his breath caught in his throat, when he reached out and captured her hand in a hard, possessive grasp.
Without care for etiquette, he stood and pulled her to her feet.
“I beg your leave,” he said to the older ladies, not releasing his grip on Aila’s hand. “My wife and I have matters to discuss.”
Aila barely heard the ladies’ responses. All she was aware of was the feel of Connor’s fingers threaded through hers. The way he looked at her as though he wanted to devour her. The urgency as he ushered her from the chamber toward the staircase.
He palmed her bottom as she climbed the stairs and Aila leaned into the curved wall, fearful she would lose her balance and tumble to her death. And then his strong arm encircled her waist and his solid body melded against her back and thighs, his hand molding her breast, teasing her nipple.
At their chambers he kicked open the door without relinquishing his hold on her. Floradh, mending a gown by candle and firelight in the bedchamber, leaped to her feet.
“Leave us.” Connor’s command brooked no argument and Floradh scooped up the kitten and hobbled from the chambers, casting Aila a troubled glance before she closed the door behind her.
Connor finally released her and she turned to face him, not even attempting to regulate her uneven breath. Why should she? He attempted no such thing.
“Remove your gown.” The order was harsh.
How dare he speak to her in such a manner? She, a princess of Ce, when he was nothing but a commoner?
“Or what?” Her words were low, taunting, no matter how she chided herself to remain silent. “You will rip it from my body? Ruin another of my gowns?”
“Aye.” As he spoke he tossed his length of plaid over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving hers. “If that’s the only way to strip you for my pleasure.”
She gasped at his arrogance, but twisted desire curled around her clitoris and quivered through her wet sheath.
“You would have me dress in rags?” Why was she encouraging him? All she had to do was discard her gown, open her arms and pretend they were back in Ce. There was no place in this life for the entrancing flirting they had enjoyed that night.
He bared his teeth in a parody of the smile that had once captivated her foolish heart. “Madam, I can well afford to ensure you have a dozen new gowns for every one I…ruin.”
Without thinking, she began to tug furiously at the ties of her bodice. “So you would clothe me in the way of your Scots ladies, would you?”
His leather belt skidded across the floor. “No.” He began to unwind the plaid around his waist. “Your ladies would continue to clothe you in the manner of a Pictish princess.”
Glaring at him, she pulled her gown over her shoulders. “At least sewing gowns will keep me occupied during my endless days of incarceration.”
He froze, as though her taunt had struck a nerve. She couldn’t imagine why. What did he think she would do with herself for hours on end? She might not be especially talented with a needle but it would surely be better than enforced idleness.
With one last shove, her gown dropped to her feet. Connor’s gaze licked over her, as hot as branding irons, as his plaid also dropped to the floor.
“Come here.” He appeared determined to exert his rights as a husband this night. But she’d be damned if she’d behave like an obedient wife. She remained where she was.
“Remove your shirt.”
The firelight distorted his features, because it appeared he smiled at her demand. A genuine smile, one that reminded her so forcefully of those he had given her in Ce that a dull ache gripped her chest.
“As you wish.” His deep voice sank into her, threatening to vanquish the fragile shields she had tried so hard to erect around her heart. She clenched her teeth. She couldn’t let her guard down. She had to remember what his people—his kin— had done.
His shirt landed on the edge of the bed and her breath rushed from her in a soundless sigh. His black hair tumbled around his powerful shoulders and in the flickering light his burnished skin and taut muscles glowed with an unearthly beauty.
Inevitably her gaze dropped to his magnificent cock and as her mouth dried and reason scattered, wet heat throbbed between her thighs.
“Aila.” His rough voice wrapped around her senses as his strong arms wrapped around her shoulders. It would be so easy to rest her head on his shoulder, wind her arms around his waist and let the ache in her soul spill free.
Instead she pressed her hands against his chest and levered him toward the bed. He laughed and sorrow stabbed through her. She longed to laugh with him. To laugh and then weep and allow him to reassure her that everything would be all right.
He didn’t protest as she shoved him back onto the furs. Instead he lay there, one knee raised, hands clasped behind his head, grinning as if—she could not quite fathom why he grinned at her so. But within the last few moments, his attitude had changed, so drastically she could scarcely comprehend why.
She didn’t need to understand. Didn’t want to. Because when he behaved like this, she found it all but impossible to remember the reasons why she could not simply offer him her heart.
Feverishly she climbed onto the bed, straddled his waist, plunged her fingers through his hair. Shadows obscured the color of his eyes but they were dark with lust.
“Do you enjoy having a fearless warrior at your mercy, my lady?”
Words trembled on her tongue. She pressed her lips together, kept them forever locked inside. She could love him with her body and he could imagine all they shared was mutual lust. But if she allowed him to glimpse that she loved him with all her heart and soul—her pride would wither. And her pride was all she had to keep herself from drowning.
She slid down his hard body until the head of his cock nudged her swollen pussy lips. He groaned, thrust his hips toward her, his gaze locked with hers.
“Your methods of torture slay me.”
Why did he keep speaking to her? She did not want him to speak. It reminded her of how easily she had offered him her trust. And how brutally that trust in his people had been betrayed.
She tilted her hips and teased her clitoris against his cock. Back and forth, her fingers gripping his shoulders for balance. His guttural moan of sensual pleasure quivered through her and slowly she lowered herself onto him.
He filled her tender flesh so wholly and completely. She expanded around him, accepting and worshipping his unyielding invasion, and a strangled sigh escaped when his hands cupped her breasts.
They were sensitive and yet she loved him to cradle her breasts and rub his thumbs over her hard nipples. She tightened her muscles around him and his grip became painful.
“Sorry, my love.” His erotic whisper threaded through her mind and she realized she had winced. He had noticed and drew her toward him and dragged his tongue over her ripe nipples.
She closed her eyes and relished the sensation of his mouth suckling her. His teeth grazing her. His cock inside her.
Need spiraled. She increased the tempo of her thrusts and he released her breast to allow her unhindered leverage. Tonight she would have him. Tonight he would take her as he had taken her that night in Ce. When want and need and desire had claimed him so completely she had known all he had thought of was her.
Her fingernails gouged his flesh. Their hot, erratic breaths mingled. Their gazes meshed. The world narrowed until all that existed was Connor MacKenzie, this bed, this moment in time. Tonight.
Desire shattered and a choked cry tore from her throat as convulsions rippled through her core. Beyond the frenzied beat of her heart, she felt Connor’s hands grip her hips, wrench her from him, toss her aside.
And pump his seed into his crumpled shirt.
Gasping, she wrapped her arms around her waist as a chill invaded where only seconds before an inferno had raged. Remnants of desire, of untamed orgasm, thudded through her blood but tainting all else the sting of rejection scorched her heart.
Connor had no compunction about bedding her. But he had no desire to father her child. Why else would he pull from her at the
moment of his release? And not just once. Every time since they had wed.
Even in Ce he had been mindful of conception, concerned that he had come inside her. In her ignorance she’d assumed he worried for her reputation. But it had been nothing of the kind. He had simply not wanted her to conceive.
As Connor sat on the edge of the bed she curled into herself and dragged the sheet around her chilled body. He had no idea she already carried his child. But at least now she knew what to expect when he eventually discovered the truth.
The only child he wanted was the one he had fathered with Fearchara. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed through her mouth so he wouldn’t hear her silent tears.
He pulled back the furs, slid beneath the linen and curved his body against her back. His lips nuzzled her behind her ear and his hand languidly caressed her breast. Her hip. Then rested possessively over her belly.
Over his child.
She could not bear it. Flinging back the sheet, she dislodged his embrace and left the bed.
“Aila.” He propped himself up on his elbow and she could hear the frown in his voice as she frantically pulled on her gown. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”
“No.” Her voice was muffled. She hoped he hadn’t noticed. “I need the garderobe.”
“But the chamber pot—”
“I would rather not.”
Blessed silence. She dared glance over her shoulder, but Connor hadn’t lain back in the bed. Hadn’t dismissed her and fallen into oblivion. Instead he remained upright and in the firelight his frown was pronounced.
“Are you ill?” He sounded tense.
“No.” Perhaps she would be ill. Her stomach churned enough. But she certainly wouldn’t reveal that to Connor. “I simply—prefer privacy.”
Incredibly his tension vanished.
“Don’t be long.” He even grinned at her. “I’ll keep the bed warm for your return.”
Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors) Page 26