Hence, nothing had changed. He’d insisted she was his, had seared these words upon her soul in the passion with which they’d been spouted. Now, hours later, she believed that likely his words had been motivated by the heat of the moment, when the kiss and their touching still scorched their fingers and lips and skin.
She was returned to her previous and equally unsettling position here at Stonehaven, uncertain and unspecified. Pivoting, she considered the room in which she was kept. It was as she’d found it, without personal effects to say to whom it belonged. She had only her shoes, though they only sat atop the cupboard, drying still. And her knife, she supposed, might be considered hers. The gown and chemise, indeed even the hose she wore, when she did, belonged not to her.
Dirty shoes and a leather handled knife.
“You do yourself no good with lamenting,” she chastised herself and plopped down on the bed. Lying back upon the lone lumpy pillow, she folded her hands at her waist.
There were thirty-two rows of timber across the ceiling, from the door to the window wall.
“I haven’t prayed in so long,” she said to the boards above her head. “I am sorry for that.” And she was. “I beg Your mercy and blessings for those I love.” No other appeals came to mind, but she did add, through a yawn, “Perhaps You will show me, somehow, where and what I am supposed to be.”
GREGOR STOOD AT HER bedside, hands on his hips. It was nearing midnight. He and Alastair had agreed they’d done enough for today; if it wasn’t done now, it would keep until morning. He’d come just to see her, to know she was here, safe again. She slept without sound, not even one small breath pierced the quiet of her chambers. He’d watched her chest rise and fall, had been forced to wait until his eyes adjusted to the near complete darkness to discern this motion. Naturally, his thoughts wandered to this afternoon, her breasts naked to his hungry gaze. He swiped a hand over the stubble of his cheeks and jaw.
The debate was brief and one-sided. He stripped off his belt and sword. His tunic followed. Boots were loosened, quietly kicked off. She slept still. It was so damn easy, so damn satisfying to climb into the bed upon which she lie.
He had no answers to what the future held, specifically hers. And at the same time, he knew that she was the answer to every question he asked of himself.
Propped on his elbow, he traced a finger over the short length of her collarbone visible to him, above the neckline. Back and forth, warm finger on cool skin.
It was wrong. He shouldn’t be here.
He laid his head on his arm, saw her perfect profile, set his hand over hers at her waist.
Chapter 19
She opened her eyes, somehow knowing in that first second of wakefulness, that it was Gregor’s arm that weighted her down, wrapped around her middle. She didn’t move, felt his breath on the back of her neck. She faced the window. One lone stroke of gray morning light stabbed the dimness. He was behind her, pressed against her. She closed her eyes and thought of them back upon the cart that had delivered them to Stonehaven.
She didn’t want the morning, if he were here. She wanted him closer yet was afraid to move and wake him. She wanted more of his heat and his hardness, his hands. But morning had come, could not be put off. If he woke, he would leave. There was work to be done.
Anice pressed herself back against him. She could make him stay. Just for a little while.
His arm flexed, just enough to let her know he’d woken.
“But don’t leave me,” she murmured, and felt his lips against her neck, where his breath had been. “Not yet.”
She turned, rolled around until she faced him, stared first at his lips before lifting her eyes to his. Felt his fingers skim down over her hip. He wore no tunic. Anice lowered her eyes, her fingers finding the hard skin just below his collar. Her eyes followed her fingers, moving down over his nipple. He tensed as she nudged just one finger directly over the nipple. Gooseflesh rose on both of them. Anice jerked her eyes back to his. Their breaths joined between them.
And she kissed him. Softly, just touched her lips to his. His fingers stopped moving.
She kissed again, her eyes open, watching his, the amber narrow around the larger pupil. She needed more, and found his hand, lifted it, laid it over her breast, holding his gaze. His cheek twitched, as if his jaw were clenched. Almost imperceptibly, he shook his head.
Slowly, Anice nodded, wanting so badly to feel as she had yesterday, as if the two of them and their desire was all that was right and good, as if she were his. She held his gaze until her lips touched his again. She opened her mouth against him, took his bottom lip between her teeth.
Finally, he moved against her, pulling her roughly, almost violently against him. The slow and shy kiss she had given was shattered as he crushed her lips with his. She danced her tongue around his, her hands gripping his shoulders.
Incited, he pushed her backward, coming half on top of her as he pressed her back on the pillow. Frenzied, stirred by her actions, he yanked the fabric of her gown away from her breasts, his lips and teeth and tongue finding her nipple immediately.
Yes, please, she thought, holding his head close, streaming her fingers through his hair. She wiggled accommodatingly as he pulled the gown nearly to her waist, taking her shift along with it. When only his tongue came back to her hardened nipple, she cried out, moving her body against him in a natural rhythm that stirred a fire in her. He lavished attention on each breast, his fingers and mouth caressing the sensitive, swollen nipples. After several moments, he drew back, glanced down at her. They were naked to the waist. Anice feasted upon his beauty while thrilling at the hunger she found in his eyes.
Aroused and curious, she ran her hands over the width of his shoulders, over the hardness of his arms, across the muscles of his chest, her eyes following the path she created, her tongue licking at her lips.
They spoke only with their eyes, and just now, he was asking her if he should continue. Her answer was to tug at his arms and his shoulders, bringing him against her, chest to chest, skin to skin.
GREGOR WASTED LITTLE time removing her clothing completely, pulling the gown and chemise off, revealing inch by inch of pale and creamy skin, of her hips and the triangle of her woman’s place, her thighs, knees, and ankles, so that he stood now at her feet, his eyes taking in all this glory before him. As beautiful as she was, as much as the sight of her nude body amazed him, the very mutual desire he found in her heated gaze thrilled him more. Wasting no more time, Gregor dropped his breeches easily onto the ground and came next to her again, not pouncing but quickly enough that she had no time to be shocked or unnerved by the size and need of him. She cooed and quivered at the feel of their naked flesh coming together, groaning a bit as he pushed his erection into her side. Her kiss now showed her own growing hunger.
Gregor shook his head and lifted himself ever-so-slightly off her. “Slowly, love,” he urged. To do this was no hardship, as feasting upon her body with his hands and mouth met nicely with his intent. He favored her breasts again with the attention of his mouth, his hands skimming along her ribs and over her stomach. Leisurely, needing her to be more readied, Gregor trailed a line of soft kisses along her skin down to her navel and over her hips. Then sitting back on his haunches, he watched her as he placed just the tip of one finger on her mound.
Anice’s eyes had been closed, her head moving back and forth upon the soft pillows, but at this touch, her eyes did fly open, her startled gaze finding him. He knew a gleam had sparked in his own eyes, simple touch doing that to him. Anice did not demur but seemed willing to accept this and what else might come. Heartened, Gregor moved his finger in through the light curls to find her bud, the touch so whisper soft Anice nearly came off the mattress. He pressed on, two fingers now touching her, reaching more intimate places, one sliding into the wetness of her. Closing his eyes, he willed himself to be still, though the feel of that moist heat within such delicious tightness nearly sent him over the edge. He began to move his fing
er inside her, and soon she pushed herself against him, begging wordlessly for more. Her arms stretched above her head, her hips came up and down. She opened to him and Gregor was sure he’d never witnessed anything more vital, more consuming than what he saw now.
When he could bear no more, when he thought he might burst with such longing, he came on top of her again, exhilarated by her reaching hands and feverish kisses. He settled his erection between her legs. Anice moaned again and opened her legs completely so that his manhood now pushed at her entrance.
“Please,” she pleaded against his lips, rising against his hardness, offering herself.
With excruciating slowness and deliberation, Gregor entered her. While her body adjusted to him, while her hips still moved, he held back, forging ahead gradually, the tightness of her about to prove his undoing. Forehead to forehead, he finally met her barrier, and lifted his head to meet her eye.
“Jesu, lass,” he hissed raggedly. “You feel like heaven.” And loath as he was to harm her, this last did need to be done. “Just a moment of pain here, Anice.” And he surged ahead, filling her wholly just as she cried out a bit. “’Tis done now.” He kissed her brow and her closed eyes and then her parted lips. “You are mine, Anice.”
Beneath him, she opened her eyes. He read pleasure, read her desire, her lids half closed, though one tear did roll away. “You are mine,” she returned bravely.
With that, Gregor began to move again within her. Slowly at first, while she grew accustomed to the feel of him, buried so deeply within her. He kept his forearms on either side of her head and continued to regard her. Together, they found a tempo, her hips rising to meet his thrusts. Her eyes found his, widened with the sensations coursing through her. He watched her face, awed and astonished and delighted. Anice showed him a perfectly enchanted smile and Gregor claimed her mouth again, expressing his urgency with the fever of his kiss.
He knew when she was near to fulfillment; her hips moved faster; her kisses matched the urgency of his; her hands touched every reachable part of him. When she cried out her release, he recognized her amazement at the wonder of it. Her sensual moans of delight sent Gregor along to his own orgasm, while she still gasped and whimpered beneath him as her own continued. He pumped furiously into her, reveling at the prickling and tingling—indeed the very magnitude—of his release. Light and shadow and sounds, everything went away. He knew only Anice, beneath him, surrounding him, pulsing still around him. A guttural sound emerged, he bit it down, as he thrust one last time into her. And stilled. Let it wash over him. Jesu.
After a few minutes, he slumped carefully onto her heated body, burying his head in her neck while she caressed him artlessly. When his breathing had been restored to normal, he moved off her, gathering her into his arms, rejoicing in the feel of her next to him.
WHEN ANICE WOKE AGAIN, Gregor was gone. She stretched upon the small bed and ran her hand over where he had lain. She skimmed her fingers over her naked hip and belly. Closed her eyes, bringing it all back to mind. Smiling, she nearly purred again. She put such thought upon it, she imagined she could now feel his hands on her skin, which tingled again with the memory.
Like so many instances in her life, she now, after the fact, thought of the consequences. And she didn’t care. She might be sent away when he married or she might remain at Stonehaven and never know his touch again, and she still would not change this one decision. She’d made it for herself, after so many years of having no choices, of being directed and led and governed, this was for her. She was in love with him. Or rather, she assumed it was love—but what did she know?—this need to know him, the desire to be touched by him, the ache to be near him, waking and sleeping with him on her mind. She could recall no such delicious torment of mind or body or heart such as what she knew with Gregor. It must be love.
It was sad that they had no future, lest she be content to be only his leman, and she would cry one day when it all was done, as she knew it must be, but for now, she would revel in it.
Though she might have liked to laze about indefinitely with her thoughts, she knew Kinnon waited for her. She rose and dressed quickly, acknowledging a soreness she hadn’t expected but was delighted to know.
Anice was sorry she hadn’t spied upon the hall first before bouncing jauntily into it. While the tables were emptied and breakfast apparently done and gone early today because of the schedule in the village, Lady Kincaid walked through, dressed as regally as ever, her costly brocade velvet gown and fine silk wimple worthy of a queen. She spied Anice before she could retreat back up the steps and stopped, seeming to wait Anice’s presence before her.
She was still Lady Kincaid and Anice did make a brief dip of a curtsy, hoping only to get through the door, out of the hall and away.
“Funny, is it not? The lady of the castle is cast off and yet you remain.”
Anice was surprised that she sensed only resignation about her, less so hostility. She stopped and faced the woman. “I was there. You were not so much cast off as granted your leave-taking.”
She acknowledged this with a shrug and a twisting of her lips. “Jardine.” She lifted a finger, her hands devoid of any jewelry, to Anice’s hair. “I assume he is familiar with the place because of your association?”
“Like as not.”
“You think you will be allowed to stay? That you will not be so far behind me?”
“I haven’t any idea what might become of me, but I shall never return to Jardine.” At the woman’s frown, Anice offered, “You shall of course fare better than I at Jardine. You have your money and your title and your ... your—” nastiness, she’d wanted to say.
“You think I deserve this, do you not?”
Anice renounced this assumption with a shake of her head. “I think once there was a baby and then a small boy and a young lad and now a marvelous man, who was innocent of all the wrongs you charged him with. You had only to be kind to him. The sin was not his.”
Lady Kincaid smiled without humor and moved her eyes to the door behind Anice.
Gregor stood there, his eyes on Anice and not Lady Kincaid.
She didn’t smile at him, still cognizant of the woman’s watchful presence, but she did let her eyes show her joy. He allowed only a hint of warmth into his gaze before stepping inside and next to Anice.
“The cart is ready,” he said to the woman, his tone level.
Lady Kincaid looked as if she might say something to him. Anice watched as her entire face softened, as her eyes became liquid. Next to her, Gregor shook his head.
“It is done,” he told her. “And too late to undo...any of it.”
Lady Kincaid nodded, accepting this, and strode from the hall.
“Gregor,” Anice chided, “you might have—”
“I was no about to let her erase near thirty years of ill-treatment with one parting statement. I owe her nothing.”
Anice sighed.
“You come into the village now, lass.”
“Oh, no, I cannot. Kinnon is taking me down to the beach.” At his frown, she explained her plan for the reeds, which he seemed not to appreciate.
“I dinna want you out on the boat with Kinnon.”
She waved off his concern. “We are only going down to the next beach. And Kinnon will bring me to Stoney mayhap within the hour.” He still frowned. “Am I allowed to kiss you, right here in the hall?”
And now came the smile. His mouth curved with a sensuous and devastating grin. “Aye, lass, the chief says this is allowed, encouraged even.” He slid her arms around her waist.
Some new, unfamiliar emotion claimed her, a warm glow, a weightiness of pleasure. She recognized it immediately as happiness, wondered when last she’d experienced this. Anice lifted her lips to him, closed her eyes and gloried in this moment. He took her mouth with a slow and thoughtful kiss and Anice shivered at his tenderness. But it ended too soon. Anice clung to his hard arms.
He kissed her nose and sadly, set her firmly away from hi
m. “None of that now, lass. you get on with Kinnon and get to Stoney in an hour.” He stared at her, looked from her eyes to her lips. “Jesu, go on before I take you back upstairs.”
Anice’s lips turned up at this. The smile stayed with her as she left the keep and made her way down to the beach.
WHILE ANICE HAD EXPERIENCED much enjoyment over the last few months, more so than she had in all those years at Jardine, and greater than any of her meager memories of her life in Dunbar as a child, she understood that today’s joy easily outshone all other joys. She found Kinnon already down at the beach, boat at the surf, and Fergus at his side.
He threw up the Kinnon wave, arm flailing in a wide arc over his head. She skipped down the water’s edge just as Fergus lifted up a long and narrow basket.
“Will this do, sister?”
“Fergus, it’s perfect.” She took the basket from him. The length was perfect for even the longest reeds she might harvest. Carefully, squinting, she inspected the handiwork of the basket itself, curious about the strong, thicker woven parts.
“That’s willow, sister,” Fergus told her. “My gram made these when she lived.”
“This is perfect.” She climbed inside with the aid of Kinnon’s hand and sat on the board that crossed from one side to the other at the middle of the small boat. “I cannot remember the last time I was on a boat,” she said excitedly, spacing out her bare feet on the wide flat bottom.
Kinnon took up the oars and a position behind her. “But we’ll only go a few beaches away today.”
Fergus gave a shove and the boat glided out into the water, with the lad jumping in once they were afloat, his breeches drenched to his thigh. He sat on the floor in the front corner of the boat with his arms draped over the sides. “You can come fishing with us, sister. We row so far you canna see land all around you.”
The Memory of Her Kiss Page 26