by Jane Godman
Deciding against going to her own bedchamber, she made her way to the library on the second floor. Fraser was likely to be occupied with his duties as a host for some time, but he had ordered her to be present at the party, and he did not take kindly to having his will challenged. If it should suddenly cross his mind to seek her again, he would find her all too easily if she went to her own room. A welcoming fire roared in the grate in the library, and selecting a book, she curled up in a large wing chair, resigned to the fact that it would be several hours before she could safely make her way to bed.
I can’t even get away from his high-handed ways by just leaving this place, she thought, frowning into the leaping flames of the fire. I made Cousin Henry a promise that I would remain with Rosie until she is married. Jack had spoken to a minister, and once the battle was over, all would be in readiness for the wedding. Of course, if the battle was lost, a flight to France would be necessary, and she would have to cross the Channel with the betrothed couple. Either way, Martha would not desert her cousin until Rosie was the Countess of St. Anton. And Martha was honest enough to admit, at least to herself, that she had no real wish to leave Fraser. Whatever it was that had possessed him to start acting like her lord and master didn’t change anything. She sighed. Who am I trying to fool anyway? He is my lord and master. It is just that he must never know it.
She must have dozed, because the fire had died somewhat and the candles flickered in their sconces when she was roused by voices from the courtyard below. Rising from her seat, she went to the window and looked out to see those guests who were not spending the night at Lachlan leaving. With a sigh of relief, she tiptoed out of the room and made her way to her own bedchamber, shielding her candle against the draughts that plagued the castle corridors.
“Where the devil have you been?” She jumped slightly as she closed her bedchamber door behind her. Turning slowly, she was greeted by the prospect of a very large highlander seated on her bed. There was no way for her to know how long Fraser had been there, but he was clearly not happy. She placed her candle on the dresser before responding.
“In the library.” She remained by the door, her eyes on his face.
“Even though I told you I wanted you among my guests?”
“I ate my meal with your guests, as you requested,” she said quietly.
“You disobeyed me.”
“You don’t own me, Fraser. You are not my master.” There, she had said it aloud.
“That is not true.” His voice cracked out like a gunshot. “When I look into your eyes, when I am inside you…we both know you belong to me.”
“Then. In that instant. Not for all time.”
“By God, I will not be defied by you, Englishwoman.”
Martha lifted her chin. “You may as well get used to it, Scotsman.”
He rose then, his presence filling the small chamber. The expression on his face was not conciliatory, and Martha experienced a brief moment of nervousness. She had a feeling the effect would be the same if she had twitched a highland wildcat by its tail in a confined space. When he spoke, his voice was deceptively silky. “I will have obedience from you. Come here.”
She stood her ground. “I will not. Please leave my bedchamber.”
Fraser smiled, but the genial expression did not reach his eyes. “No.”
“Very well. Since you insist that you are the master here, I will be the one to go. I will join Rosie in her room.” She opened the door. “Oh!”
With lightning reflexes, Fraser had crossed the room and slammed the door shut, imprisoning her against it, with his hands either side of her head. The smile that wasn’t a smile at all deepened further. He leaned into her, using his superior strength to push her body up against the door. “You are not going anywhere. We are not finished.”
“You can’t keep me prisoner here.”
“I am the laird, Martha. I can do anything I want.” He threw her own words back at her.
“You said you would never take a woman by force.”
“And I never will. But you, Miss Martha Wantage, need to be taught a lesson in obedience. First, you will shortly be begging me to chastise you.” She started to protest, and he placed a finger over her lips. He leaned closer, his breath stroking her cheek. “Then, when you are sore and stinging—” he gazed deep into her eyes, “—and throbbing from your punishment, I will ask you again if you belong to me. And you will give me a different answer next time.”
She could feel the familiar moisture gathering between her legs. Despite her determination to remain aloof, her treacherous body was already responding to his words and the look in his eyes. Determined not to surrender, she kept her eyes on his and threw his challenge back at him. “I will not.”
Before the words had fully left her lips, he lifted her off her feet and threw her onto the bed, driving the breath from her body. Martha tried to bounce back up again, but he was on top of her, pinning her to the bed with one leg thrown over her as he held her arms above her head. With his free hand, Fraser jerked the laces at the front of her bodice undone, while she squirmed and struggled to be free of him. Twice, she managed to kick herself out from under him, but he calmly seized her, once by her upper arm and then by her ankle, and dragged her back to him. Martha was shaking now with fury and—she was outraged to discover—with an equal measure of desire. Catching him unawares, she was able to land a punch on his jaw that rocked his head back. Undeterred, he laughed and pressed his whole body harder against hers. Martha barely had space to breathe, let alone fight.
Using his hand to circle her neck, he turned her head, tilting her chin so that she was forced to look up at him. Slowly, he ran his tongue along the exposed length of her neck. “Still pretending this is about anger, Martha?”
He crushed his lips to hers, demanding her surrender. Jerking upward in an attempt to buck him off, Martha bit his lip. Hard. Beneath the rough cloth of his kilt, his cock hardened and quivered and another soft laugh escaped him. Lifting his head, he licked away a thin trickle of blood from his lower lip. Pulling her head back with his fist in her hair, he took his time as he slowly pulled her bodice and shift down over her shoulders, exposing her breasts to his gaze.
“I am not begging you,” she said stubbornly.
“Not with your lips. Not yet. But your eyes are telling me a different story. They are telling me the truth.” He smiled, bending his head to lick and then nip each nipple in turn. Heat and raging excitement flooded through Martha’s abdomen. She bit her lip in an attempt to stifle the involuntary moan that was lodged somewhere deep in her throat, but was doing its best to escape. As his mouth closed on hers, and his lips parted hers, she wanted to melt into his strong arms. She didn’t want to think about what it meant to give in to him, she only wanted this moment. Her tongue tentatively met his and joined in the wild action of taste and dance. Fraser’s fingers took hold of her nipple and teased, making her back arch.
Moving his hand lower, he lifted her skirts, one finger finding her hot, tight wetness. Martha could hold it back no longer. A rapturous, treacherous little moan left her lips.
“Did ye say something?” She shook her head. “You didn’t ask me to do this—” he moved the finger, probing deeper, “—some more? You wouldn’t like me to do this?” He dropped his head and licked his way along her collarbone, moving his tongue along to the nape of her neck, swirling it into the sensitive depression there. Then he moved down to her breast and sucked her nipple into his mouth and began to play with it. It was too much. Martha cried out. She reached for his head, twisting her fingers into his hair, trying to coax him to move, to press inside her.
“Say it,” he murmured, his lips continuing to tease her flesh.
“Please, Fraser…” It was little more than a whimper.
“Are you begging me, Martha?” He lifted his head to look into her eyes.
“Yes, I’m be
gging you. Please,” she said, her voice hoarse with longing. Her breasts and sex felt like he had trailed fingers of molten fire across her flesh. Reason had deserted her. She could no longer remember what their fight was about or why she was trying to resist him.
“First we need to get rid of these clothes.” She murmured a little protest as he pulled her to her feet and helped her to step out of her dress. “Then for the chastisement.”
“The what?” Groggy with lust, Martha shivered slightly at the sudden cold on her naked body.
“On your knees, crabbit one,” Fraser directed her, and with a slightly unreal feeling, Martha obeyed, kneeling on the hard wooden floorboards. “I need your arse on display for what comes next.” He knelt behind her, hauling her hips up against his thighs so that she was forced to support herself on her elbows. She could feel the length of his cock pressing hard up against her with each movement.
“Does that mean you are going to skelp my backside as you have so often threatened?” Martha turned her head to look at him over her shoulder and was scorched by the blazing look in his eyes.
“Would you like that, Martha? Is that how you want to be punished for your disobedience?” He ran his hands over the smooth curves of her buttocks, caressing and massaging the soft flesh. The thought, instead of repelling her as she had expected, made her quiver with sudden excitement. Fraser’s smile deepened at her soft gasp and the blush which heated her face.
He held her buttocks apart, pressing the pad of his thumb hard against the puckered ring of her anus and sending a lightning bolt of shock through her body, before running his fingers lower, between her outer lips and up to her clitoris. He began to circle the tiny nub slowly while caressing her buttocks with his other hand. Then he slapped her. The ringing sound of his palm on her flesh was shockingly loud, and she jerked wildly against him, crying out. One hand maintained the pressure on her clitoris, while the other rained down a flurry of fierce, stinging slaps on one buttock then the other. Moans of mingled hurt and arousal began to escape her. As the slaps became harder, he increased the speed of his circling fingers. Martha felt as though her mind had become unhinged. There was no thought, only sensation. The burning skin of her backside matched the pulsating lust that squeezed her inner walls together hard and tight.
The hand delivering the slaps moved lower so that his palm began to hit her entrance each time. His fingertips flicking against her clitoris increased the exquisite pain. As Martha’s orgasm hit her with relentless fury, Fraser slid two fingers inside her so that he could feel her muscles spasm and grip him.
“Now you’ve taken your punishment, I need to kiss you better.” Cradling her in his arms, he lifted her back onto the bed, laying her on the pillows and gently parting her legs so that he could position himself between them. Martha’s muscles were still fluttering from her orgasm so, when he began to slowly lick every inch of her—back and forth—she was instantly writhing. Holding her open with his fingers, he took his time to anoint her sensitive flesh with his lips and tongue, licking and sucking until she came again, thrusting her hips upward to bring herself closer to his mouth.
Fraser tugged his shirt over his head and removed the rest of his clothing before coming back to join her on the bed. His cock was huge, hard and pulsing. Martha reached out and took the iron-hard velvet length of him in her hand. His indrawn breath was a hiss as she ran her fingers lightly down his shaft.
“Weren’t you going to ask me who I belong to?” she whispered. Kneeling so that she could lean over him, she traced her tongue lightly around the rim of his cock. His back arched off the bed at a near-impossible angle.
“I’m not foolish enough to risk asking that question while my balls are exposed to your teeth.”
“But I belong to you, Fraser.” Sliding her lips slowly over the bulging head of his cock, she exulted in the power she had over him. Lifting her head again, she looked into his eyes. “You have complete power over me. Can’t you tell?”
Groaning, he gripped the back of her neck, pulling her head down as his hips jerked upward. He ground out her name. It sounded very much like a cry of submission. A soft, triumphant smile touched Martha’s lips as she took him into her mouth.
Chapter Fifteen
While the men engaged in increasingly difficult feats of strength, such as tossing large logs known as cabers and pulling carts laden with stones up the hillside, the women tended to the children and gossiped among themselves. Martha was conscious of most of their eyes upon her. She knew what they were thinking. She couldn’t blame them. Their thoughts, after all, echoed her own. What was there about this slight, timid Englishwoman that could drive their proud leader into such a frenzy that he had forgotten his place and betrayed his passion for her in front of the assembled clan folk? A secret smile touched her lips. Whatever it was, it had left her tail end stinging and both of them with dark shadows under their eyes after a wild, sleepless night.
“I’d no look like that, if I were you.” Iona took the seat next to her. “Not unless you want one of these fine, wee lasses who has a yen to be the next lady of Lachlan to scratch your eyes out for you.”
Fraser’s sister had arrived at the castle that morning, her arrival heralding a small whirlwind of excitement among the servants, who clearly adored the former daughter of the house of Lachlan.
“Which of them will it be?” Martha couldn’t resist asking the question. There were so many pretty girls present, and she had observed Fraser behaving with equal courtesy to each of them. She just wanted to be sure the one he chose was worthy of him. That was her only interest in the matter.
Iona snorted. “Din’nae talk daft to me, lass.”
Martha knew it had been presumptuous of her to ask. These were the hard lessons she must learn. She had never expected to be any man’s mistress, reduced to fading into the background when he took a wife. It was doubly hard because they were all of them, despite the gaiety of the gathering and the games, living in the shadow of war. The prince was becoming increasingly restless, and Cumberland, it was said, was prepared to face him at any time. The looming confrontation overshadowed everything else, and none of them could predict what the future would bring.
“We must away down to the loch side for the final test,” Iona said, linking Martha’s arm on one side and Rosie’s on the other.
They accompanied the procession of women and children out across the drawbridge to where the men were gathered. Once outside, they were joined by an older, dour-faced man, whose expression would have soured the milk before it even left the cow.
“This is my husband…Sir Donald,” Iona said. Martha managed to hide her shock that such a vibrant, young woman was tied, not only to a man old enough to be her father, but one who looked, moreover, as though enjoyment was an alien concept to him. A glance at Rosie’s face told her that her young cousin shared her surprise.
The men were gathered at the loch side, and all attention was on a group of younger men who were bare-chested and barefooted, clad only in the long hose known to highlanders as trews. Fraser was among them, and he turned his head, grinning in Martha’s direction and miming that he was cold.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“These are the winners of the strength tests. Now they must run to the other side of the loch before swimming back,” Iona said. “The winner will be declared lord of the games.”
“But they’ll freeze.” Martha looked out across the loch. There was something sinister about waters so quiet and dark. She remembered Fraser’s comment that this loch was said to be bottomless. The thought of him being drawn into those endless depths made her shiver.
“Young Angus seems determined to win.” Iona nodded in the direction of a tall, young man. “’Tis woeful afeared he is that yon lassie’ll favour him no more if Fraser chooses to look her way.” The lassie in question was called Brenna, and she was the blonde girl whose hand Fraser had
sought for the first dance of the previous evening. Martha observed the longing looks Angus cast at Brenna, and the dark glares that followed when she bestowed a glowing smile on Fraser. Martha’s own heart grew a fraction heavier.
“I’m cold,” she murmured, intent on escaping the situation. As she turned away, her head was bent and she wasn’t looking where she was going. She was soon brought to a halt by a large, immovable object. Since this object consisted mostly of muscle and smelled deliciously familiar, she knew immediately what—or rather who—it was. Fraser caught her by her upper arms and steadied her.
“Where are you off to, crabbit one? Not sneaking away again, I hope?”
“No, I was going inside to fetch my cloak.” She wished he wouldn’t smile at her quite that way. A fluttering heartbeat did nothing for her attempts to maintain her composure under the gaze of the curious highlanders.
“You look tired…almost as if ye did’nae sleep too well last night,” he said, the smile deepening into something that held a trace of wickedness. And a little something more.
“You should know,” she fired back swiftly. Biting her lip, she glanced around to see if anyone had heard. Fortunately, there was no-one close enough.
“Oh, I do. It was good, was it not?”
Instantly, the words and the accompanying look sent a dart of pure lust shimmying to her very core. “Stop it.”
“Stop what? Stop wanting you? I’ve tried that, Martha. I tried it with every fibre of my being when we were first at the old dower house together. It does’nae work.” A shout went up from the loch side, calling the men to the start line. Fraser sighed. “Hurry back. I want ye here when I win this race.”
“I’ve no desire to watch you kill yourself.”
“Ah, crabbit one, never did I think to hear you express such concern for the welfare of a hated Scotsman.” Fraser put his hand to his bare chest and covered his heart in a half-mocking gesture.