Long moments passed, and still, the sensation of her in his grasp did not abate. His flesh felt imprinted with the touch of her.
He could still smell her scent, impressed on his skin. His hands burned with the feel of her buttocks, round and firm, each cheek sized to suit the length and width of his hands like he was meant to hold her. He’d felt her arousal seeping through his hose, and he’d near gone mad with it, imagining the scent, the taste, how it would feel to plunge his engorged length into her silky wet depths.
He groaned, increasing the arousal that tormented him. Bronson felt near to bursting. His groin throbbed with the heavy beat of his heart, aching like a starved beast. He felt like a man possessed by some demon, intent on rending and ravishment.
Carnal thoughts did nothing to ease the turmoil of his mind—they merely enhanced it. He would gain no surcease if he did not turn them from the temptation of her woman’s sheath.
Still, the mystery of her presence eluded his probing. He’d gained no information from her thrusting his tongue into her mouth, and yet, he could not resist claiming her as his own, no matter what his brothers thought.
The girl … she must think him a monster. He behaved as one, unthinking, demanding, rough and intent on bedding her. How much did she know of men’s ways? Had she come to him tonight merely to apologize? It did not seem likely. It seemed more a covert act disguised with boldness, some intent to cause him ruin, though he knew not the reason if that was the case.
He didn’t want to believe it, but he had to keep such thoughts present, else he would indeed risk ruination.
“My lord,” a servant called from behind him, breathless from running up the stairs.
Bronson faced him, scowling at the interruption on his thoughts. “What is it?” he asked tersely.
The man stopped before him, holding a missive. “A messenger carried this, directing it to your attention.”
Bronson took it, unrolling the parchment and angling it toward the torch light.
Lord Bronson Blackmore,
You have refused our messengers and missives this week past. This is my final offer for peaceable negotiations. I ask again, return the girl tonight. Your failure to comply will necessitate our clan to reclaim her by force.
Hugh McPherson, Laird of the Clan McPherson
Bronson crumpled the paper in his fist and threw it to the stone floor. It was confirmed. The girl was, without doubt, a McPherson, but from the tone of the letter, they thought he held her captive. He could not fathom why they would think that, unless she had been scheduled to report back to them and missed her appointment. It made sense.
He was disgusted with himself and their defenses for allowing a spy in their midst, for allowing lust to overrule his senses. He did not know why the McPhersons would do this, nor did he care.
He would not easily give her up. Now that the time had come that he could, and should, he was loath to release her from his sight. What’s more, what information had she gleaned from their household? No, it would not do to give her over to them and spill their secrets. “Where is Lord Montague?” he asked the waiting servant.
The man blanched at Bronson’s black look, looking as though he would bolt, or faint, at any moment. “He … he is g-gone, my lord.”
“What?” Bronson roared, feeling blinding panic clutch his chest in a vice. “Where has he gone?” he demanded angrily, annoyed that the man didn’t immediately respond.
The servant blinked rapidly, clutching his heart. “He … he is with your brothers, my lord. They ventured to The Bristle Boar an hour past….”
Bronson listened no more—there was no need to once their destination had spilled from the man’s lips. He rushed past the gaping servant down the stairs leading into the castle, impotent fury building inside him with every ground eating stride. He tried not to think of what they had done, what danger they were in … what danger Alex was in from every direction. He strode through the belly of the castle and out to the grounds where he saddled his horse himself, too impatient to wait for a groomsman. Through every terse move, every breath, the image of them moving closer to doom bade his mind roil with frustration and anger.
There was only one reason he could think of why Gray and Rafael would tow Alex off and go to The Bristle Boar at this hour. He knew his brothers, knew they’d seen him with Alex. He was not grateful for their interference, and would not divulge his knowledge to them. It should be enough that his life was his own, not theirs, but it was not.
Bronson seethed with outrage and the unwitting error of their course. He prayed he would get to them in time to prevent their folly.
If the McPhersons did not set upon them as they left and slaughter the lot of them, Bronson would strangle his brothers when he arrived at the alehouse.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rafael and Gray tossed their arms to the gay sounds of music and merrymaking around them, singing along with a bawdy tune, sloshing their mugs as they danced in their chairs and tightened their arms around wenches kissing each one’s neck and chest. Every now and then they would pinch the backside of a passing maid to catch her attention and refill their mugs. Alex had never seen such out and out decadence and mingling of the classes. If she wasn’t so horrified, she might have been impressed that their differences in stature made no difference at all.
As it was, she could hardly think or breathe for the scent of unwashed men, stale beer, and a badly smoking fire that left a haze through the room that trapped the repulsive odors exquisitely.
Catching her ill look, Gray smiled and asked, “Alex, have you not found a wench to your liking? If you worry for coin, do not. It is my treat this night.”
Alex shook her head, fighting the horror climbing over her. She’d tried very hard not to look at her surroundings. The Bristle Boar was stuffed as a Christmas goose with men drinking and groping eager women, whose dresses were slashed and trimmed to expose their breasts. On some of the more brazen maids, she’d even spied the dusky hue of their nipples. She expected any moment to see one lift her skirts and expose the lot of them.
Her face surely deepened to three shades of red, her embarrassment ran so deep.
“You dawdle overmuch, young Alex. Surely you would enjoy a fire-haired maiden? All men do,” Rafael said, grinning as he dropped his mug and grabbed a passing barmaid. “Come, my lovely maiden. How fair you this even?”
The redhead made no attempt to pull free, but gave him a saucy smile, ignoring the scowl from the wench on his lap. “Right fine, milord. ‘Ave you somethin’ you wish o’ me?”
“Aye, lovely, a matter of grave importance,” Rafael said, his voice dropping as he glanced at Alex. “I’ve a youngling in need of rescue of his immortal soul. Might you be up to a challenge?”
Alex swallowed hard as the woman’s gaze crept to her and climbed her, up and down, particularly lingering on her groin. “Aye, I can be—fer a price.”
Gray grinned at her, setting his mug down as he dug into a pouch at his side. “But of course, fair maiden.” He fished some gold out and laid it on the table. “I trust this will do.”
The redhead’s eyes widened with lust. She took the coin up, tucking it into her bodice as she sauntered around the table to where Alex sat. The girl sat on Alex’s lap without prompting, threw her arms around her neck, and planted a messy, wet kiss on her lips.
Alex sputtered and pushed the girl back. The girl gave her a confused look, then looked back at the brothers. “What the ‘ell? ‘E got somethin’ wrong wit ‘im?”
“The poor lad has never had his coddles waxed. You’ll be his first. A special honor, it is, to be sure. I trust you can be … gentle?” Gray asked with a wink and a smirk.
“We’ve paid for a room upstairs—the usual,” Rafael said, giving her directions to it.
The girl pulled Alex up, holding her arm with unnatural strength as she guided her up the stairs to the rooms above. Alex felt a mounting dread crawling through her mind. The girl seemed eager to perform her
duty and keep the coin.
They were inside the room before Alex scarce knew what happened. A bed built with gnarled, aging wood stood against one corner. A small table stood beside it, holding a crock of some substance and a flickering candle. It was a dark room—mayhap the girl would never notice….
The maid closed the door behind her, startling Alex from her morbid stillness. Alex whirled around, faced with the smiling bawd.
“Do ye prefer your gels bare arsed or clothed, milord?”
Removing her clothes would give her more time, but Alex simply could not bear the thought of looking on a naked woman and having her hands on her as well. “Clothed,” she said hoarsely.
She advanced on Alex, swaying her hips.
“W-what is it you’re called?” Alex asked, stalling, backing away.
“Everyone calls me Red, milord. Yer a true gentleman fer askin’ me name. Now,” ---she pushed on Alex’s chest, upsetting her balance—“sit here.” Alex fell back, collapsing on the bed. She struggled back upright, swallowing convulsively.
“We need a bit o’ grease for this, lovey,” she murmured as she knelt between Alex’s knees and picked up the jar from the bedside table. A whiff of pungent, solidified oil assailed her nostrils as the girl passed it over her knees and dipped two fingers inside, scooping out the lubrication. She planted her other hand on Alex’s thigh, sliding it up toward where her cock should be.
Self-preservation kicked to the forefront. Alex put her hand over the woman’s, holding it still. “Please, madam, I am not prepared,” she said, her voice just shy of a shriek.
Red grinned, looking unperturbed. “Ye will be when I slick this on yer manroot.”
The door suddenly slammed open like it had been hit by a gale wind. Bronson stormed in as if he’d been thrown, and looked around the room with fury gleaming in his eyes. The girl jumped to her feet, gaping at Bronson. Alex’s jaw dropped.
Bronson pointed at the woman. “You, out.”
Red scurried past him with the cringing movement of someone expecting a beating. Bronson ignored the woman, and slammed the door shut behind her as she left, turning the lock on the door before facing Alex yet again.
Alex’s relief at being rescued from certain exposure was short lived as Bronson crossed the room in two short, swift strides, grasped her arms, and hauled her onto her feet. Her body bounded against his chest, stilled by the strength of his hands and the steel of his grip. Her breath caught in her lungs at his smoky, angry look. He gave her a slight shake as she continued to gape up at him.
“What mean you by coming here?” he asked, his eyes dark and unforgiving. “Was this mine brothers’ idea or your own?”
Through strength of will she’d not known she possessed, Alex fought back the rising tide of fright and excitement and found her voice. “’Twas your brothers, my lor—Bronson,” she stammered.
“Are you not over young to know the pleasures of the flesh?” His hands tightened on her arms. His jaw clenched with his anger, making her ache in secret places as she followed the hard line to his sensual lips. She feared he would kiss her—she feared he would not. She almost preferred a beating to this everlasting torment and the indecision that gripped her whenever he was near. Her body responded to his presence as though it possessed a separate mind, willing and eager to know the full extent of these sins of the flesh.
Alex shook her head, trying to make sense of him and the direction his thoughts lay. Why would he be angry at her for his brother’s action, unless he truly wanted to possess her himself. The thought, which should have dismayed her, thrilled her instead. “Nay. I am full grown. You know this.”
“I know nothing but what you tell me,” he bit out as if pained.
“’Tis the truth. Your brothers brought me here so that I would … that I could….” Certes, she could not tell him they sought to assuage her appetite for his sex.
“They think you aim to seduce me,” he said with a growl, his voice dropping to a husky murmur that rubbed along her nerves. “Do you?”
“Nay,” she whispered, flushing with the heat of his eyes as he dragged his gaze down her face and throat. Her breasts swelled as her desire soared. The bindings had never before felt so painful.
“Whether you willed it or no, you have succeeded,” he said, anger heating his voice. He bent his head and covered her lips, plunging her into instant, desperate hunger.
Her mouth opened of its own accord, allowing him inside, sucking his tongue as it plunged deep into her mouth. He groaned into her, tasting her essence even as she drank his with abandon. He stole her breath, her will to fight. The sanity of her mind burned away under the molten glide of his tongue in and out of her mouth. She was mad, mad to allow this, to not struggle in his arms and break away.
He tore from her suddenly, shocking her to stillness, turning her around and pushing her against the wall at the foot of the bed. She planted her palms on the surface to cushion herself, jerking in surprise as the wood cooled her feverish skin. An astonished gasp escaped her throat as he nipped the back of her neck, branding her with his lips, marking a trail around to her ear. She leaned her head back, trying to get closer, trembling as the wet swath of his tongue cut a shivering path round her neck.
He crowded her against the wall, forcing her to lay her cheek on it as he slipped his hands over her wrists and pinned them to the wall. He ground his groin into the cleft of her buttocks, sudden and hard. She moaned at the forceful push, gasping at the feel of his cod piece digging against that most intimate part of her. Wetness bloomed between her thighs, leaving her uncomfortably aware of how much he affected her.
A frustrated groan rumbled from his lips against her neck as he ground into her again, building that ache inside her. He clamped her wrists together with one massive hand, easing the pressure on her backside. She felt weak at the size of his hands, the strength he used to bend her to his will. His domination would be her undoing, and certes, she wanted it.
His sharp intake of breath against her neck made her shiver, and then he closed the finite distance once more. There was a change this time, from cold leather to hot flesh.
“I can show you the sins of flesh if you are eager, Alex,” he breathed against her neck, tickling the fine hairs on her flesh.
She shivered, wanting to say no, but wanting her exposure, wanting to know what it would feel like to have his manflesh deep inside her. She said nothing, and her silence seemed to spur him on.
His hips shifted, rubbed against her. The rigid length of his manhood pressed into the thin linen that covered her buttocks. The short hose felt as nothing compared to the fire that radiated from his groin. With that same free hand, he dragged both layers of hose off her buttocks, allowing them to hang down on her thighs.
The barrier gone, he nudged his cock against the naked cleft of her buttocks, searching for a hole. Heat curled in her belly, erupted through her veins like molten lead.
“Long has this beast hungered for sustenance,” he growled harshly against her ear, his breath teasing. “Can this sweet cleft appease its greed, I wonder?”
The sexual menace in his words turned her knees to water. She felt close to fainting with the desire whirling in her head. “There’s naught to feed it, my lord,” she whispered.
He grasped her and twisted, pushing her to the bed. She fell upon it, a surprised gasp escaping her as he came down on her from behind, between her legs. Oh God, no. She panted from excitement at what was to come, laying utterly still, digging her hands into the mattress. He would find her out now. She almost welcomed it.
The bed shook as he shifted his weight behind her, and a sharp scent drifted to her nostrils. Alex had no sooner recognized the pungent grease again, when she felt fingers spread her buttocks and a cold substance spread across her anus.
“What are you doing?” she cried, trying to raise up and twist away from him. One meaty hand held her in place, kept her from moving as a thick finger rang the rim and dipped suddenly inside, carr
ying with it the slick substance.
She moaned at the invasion, jerking with surprise as he stretched her, working the lubrication inside her tight hole. Could it be he still did not realize who she was, that he’d not seen her woman’s sheath or the lack of a manroot? He curled inside her, probing, and her womb clenched with a tremor of pleasure, wiping all thought from her mind.
He grunted with approval, slipping another finger inside her, stretching her more than she’d thought imaginable. The inner muscles of her anus clenched on him, the pressure easing as he stroked inside and out.
He withdrew his hands as she relaxed to the feel of him. She smelled more grease, and then he leaned over and urged her to her knees. He grasped her hips, bringing her back against him. Something prodded her rear hole, pushing, pushing, moving inward with slow, inexorable deliberation. Alex whimpered, digging her hands into the bed as fire erupted along the tender rear muscles.
Bronson groaned, relentlessly forcing his way inside her slick anus, coated with the grease that would soothe his passage. Her muscles gripped him like a vice, resistant to his invasion. She squirmed her bottom against his hips, near to undoing him.
He grit his teeth, sweat popping along his upper lip, dampening his hair as he pushed forward, past the fragile outer muscles and deep into the core of her anus. She cried out as he sank to the hilt in her, grinding her rounded cheeks against his groin.
Bronson held still, reveling in the agony that gripped his cock like a silken hand. Her inner muscles quaked, clenching and unclenching on his shaft, urging him to move, to ram deeper inside her again and again.
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