by Kris Kennedy
“Why did I not swive you last night?” he clarified, blunt as always.
Direct as always.
Honest as always.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “That is my question.”
He wiped a hand over his face and looked over her shoulder a moment. “I’ve seen and done too much ruination in my life, Cassia. I do not want to ruin you, too.”
She put her hands on his chest and peered into his eyes anxiously. “But you will ruin me tonight, won’t you?”
His body stilled, then started moving in little shakes, up and down. Dear God, he was laughing. Full on, rumbling masculine laughter. His entire mouth was involved in this laugh—no half smiles or cryptic quirks here. He threw his head back and laughed some more.
He was the most beautiful being she’d ever seen.
Her heart expanded.
But she still did not see why this question was so amusing. It was not funny at all to her.
She desperately wanted to be ruined tonight.
The laughter lingered in the ease of his eyes, the relaxed curve of his mouth, the way he was looking at her, with something, maybe, more than simple desire?
What she felt for him was far, far more than that.
“Is that what you want, Cassia?” He slid his open hands up the sides of her body and began tugging on the laces again. “You want me to ruin you tonight?”
“Yes, please.”
He laughed again, softer this time, and slid one of the silk lacings free.
She was immediately wet and ready for him. She’d been ready for him all day. Ready her whole life.
“How bad?”
“Very, very badly.”
“I mean to say, how bad do you want to be, Cassia?”
A vicious, beautiful pulse of pleasure snapped through her. “Very?” she whispered.
His eyes held hers as he slid the other lacing free. “Take it off.”
She dragged the overtunic over her head, and together they took off the undertunic and chemise. She sat naked on his lap, trembling, as his gaze raked over her. He lifted one hand and cupped her breast, his thumb idly stroking it as he continued his leisurely perusal of her body.
She was painfully aroused. It hurt to want this much. A wicked, wonderful hurt.
“Take down your hair.”
She fumbled for the pins and loosed the tresses. They fell thickly down her back.
“You’re beautiful,” he said in a low, harsh voice. He leaned forward, covering her breast with his mouth.
She held onto his shoulders as he teased and taunted her again, his lips and tongue and teeth a dangerous, sensual amalgam of craving and affection. He was so rough, so forceful…and so careful. Every move he made conveyed care and attention. Everything he did, he did because it pleased her.
And everything he did pleased her. It was as if he’d once memorized her body in a dream, and now was tracing the pathways he’d learned, testing how well he’d mastered them.
His hands tightened around her waist and he urged her upward. She went up on her knees, pressing into the earth. He reached down and tugged at the ties of his hose and ripped them apart.
His erection strained free.
It curved up against his stomach. He curled one of his hard hands around the base and she felt dizzy with want.
“Please, Máel,” she whispered, shaking.
He guided her upward with one hand, the other still curved around himself. When she was positioned directly above him, he guided her back down again, then entered her, hard…velvet smooth…hard, so thick, filling her.
“Go slow,” he cautioned, his voice taut.
She looked up to find his gaze pinned on their union too.
Jerking strands of pleasure ripped through her. She wanted more, and more, and more again. All that he had, she would take.
She closed her eyes, tilted her head back and lowered herself, slowly, so slowly, just as he’d told her, taking him in deeper. Each inch spread her open farther, making her gasp and hold.
“Slow as you need,” he said, and she looked up into his eyes.
She lowered herself another inch and flung her head as the stretching fullness ratcheted pain and pleasure through her.
“Och, woman,” he murmured thickly, uncurling his hand from his erection to slids it down between their bodies.
Their eyes held as he stroked her with his thumb. His touch pushed back the edges of pain and brought pleasure surging forward. Long, undulating threads of it, thickening to ribbons that snapped through her blood.
Gazes locked, he lifted his hips the smallest bit.
She dropped her head on a low gasping moan, and he did it again, a little higher, a little harder.
She wished she knew foul words like Máel did, for she wanted to use them all right now.
He began to move faster. His free hand circled her waist while the other stayed between their legs, his thumb continuing the carnal, stroking beat that drove her forward.
She leaned over him, her wrists on his shoulders, and began to pump back.
“Aye, ban sidhe. That’s it.”
She laid a hand on his chest as he picked up the pace, moving her into a faster rhythm. As her body adjusted, she matched it.
There was silence in the woods as they rocked together but for the sounds of her ruination: her silky, broken whispers, his guttural murmurs of approval, her sharp cries of excited shock whenever a new shudder rippled through her.
He leaned up, his hips still lifting her, his thumb still stroking her. “More lass. I want more. Do you want more?”
Her head fell forward, stung by pleasure. “Oh…please...yes.” Always more with this man.
He clasped her ribs in one wide palm and guided her to lean back against his bent knees. His thighs were solid behind her as he laid an open hand on her breast and held her there. Their eyes locked as he pumped, his hips lifting her off the earth. Each powerful stroke pushed him high and deep inside her, spread her wider.
Her body began to jerk in a staggered, unsteady, glorious beat. She curled her fingers around the forearm holding her down, Her head rolled against his knees as breathless exhalations broke from her body and he told her she was magnificent with his body and his whispered Irish words of endearment. She knew they were endearments; she saw the truth in his eyes.
Her body shuddered as a huge rolling vibration shook her.
“Máel, oh…please,” she panted to the dark night sky. She felt as if she were made of half-broken glass, her body shattered.
“Aye, come for me,” he rasped, and moved again, a rolling thrust that unleashed her from whatever had once moored her to the earth. Her already-shattered body broke apart in a thousand fiery sparks of pleasure.
He held her for what seemed like hours afterward, kissing her, combing her hair with his fingers, whispering how she pleased him, and with every touch, every word, every kiss, he made her heart expand. She wanted him for far longer than just one night.
And so, in the end, he ruined her in two ways.
Chapter 29
Next morning, they were up before dawn. Green-edged storm clouds rumbled on the horizon. Máel wrapped Cassia in every blanket he possessed and put her on Fury.
“Why am I on your horse?” she asked.
“He is loyal and valiant and faster than yours.”
“But what—”
“Ride down the southern hill,” he ordered.
She stared in confusion. “Why? They will be coming from the north, up the ledge path—”
“Go home, Cassia.”
Her heart started breaking. “No. Do not send me away, not yet—”
“There is nothing more. Nothing you need to see. Go home.”
“I have no home,” she said in a broken voice.
His eyes darkened with anger. He put a hand on her knee. “You do have a home. You have a castle and lands and a title. Use them. Live the life you were meant to live. Be the lady you were meant to be. Forget m
e. It was a dream, nothing more. It is over now.”
He smacked Fury on the rump and the horse took off down the southern trail, sending rocks out from under his hooves.
Máel thought he heard Cassia say something as they disappeared down the path, but he didn’t look back. He’d already hardened his heart, returned it to its natural state—stone. He belted the armor around his heart, and no one would never touch him again.
He was stone and steel and jagged bits.
He trudged to a small, tree-lined copse of trees just above the narrow trail and sat against a tree root. The world was gray. The winds were picking up. It was going to storm.
He tugged up the hood of his cloak and stared into the gray world. Had it been a sunny day, all he would have seen was gray. It was all he would ever see again, because Cassia was gone from his life.
She had to be gone. He’d had to send her off. His life was not one that she could share—not one she should have to share—and nothing could come of a union but pain. And peril.
He would tolerate both for two lifetimes if it meant having Cassia. But she deserved better than that.
She deserved better than him.
His heart had tumbled over the precipice. Everything he felt for her—respect, irritation, amusement, affection, lust—all the emotions folded into a fist and simply punched him over the edge. He fell into the great, gaping abyss of love.
Truly a void, for there was nothing here. No future, no hope, nothing of value he could offer her.
Love was the abyss.
Love was the lie.
He stared straight ahead and waited for the rains to begin.
It started slowly, scattering pelting hard drops on his clenched fist, which he had wrapped around his bow.
Then he heard them. Hooves on pebbles. One horse, laboring up the steep climb.
Coming one at a time, as planned. As Cassia had planned.
He unraveled to his feet.
Cassia appeared out of the splattering drops of rain. Draped in her pink and purple gown, her blonde hair falling over her shoulders, she slid off Fury’s back.
“Jesus,” he said in astonishment.
“You’re going to need your horse back.”
He stepped toward her, his heart beating hard, the grayness receding under the color of her. “Cassia.“
“And you’re going to need me.”
“Dammit, woman, I—”
They heard the sound at the same time. Voices in the distance. Coming up the path. The rain started falling faster.
“You are a beautiful, stubborn woman,” he rasped.
She tilted her face up. Raindrops fell on her cheeks. “Tell me what to do.”
Her father rode up the trail alone, at the head of his line of men. They were wisely spread out far, respect for the narrowness of the trail and the dizzying heights on one side. His hood was pulled forward, his eyes on the trail as rain splattered in fat drops on the dusty trail.
His horse’s pace slowed and he looked up.
Cassia stood in the middle of the path.
He checked his horse. “Jesus God, Cassia.”
“Hello Father.”
“How…how did you get here?”
“The outlaw you hired brought me.”
“Hired?” He gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t,” was all she said.
He glanced around swiftly. “How did you get away?”
Máel stepped out from the trees. “She did not.”
Her father’s face washed white.
Máel lifted the bow to his jaw, an arrow nocked and aimed at her father’s heart. “Get off the horse. Tell your men to stay back or you die.”
Her father twisted in the saddle and called to his soldiers. The first of them was just rounding the bend. Her father shouted again.
The man stopped short. “What trouble, my lord?”
“Landslide,” Máel said quietly.
Her father looked at Cassia, but when she simply stared back, rain pelting off her hooded and cloaked body, he turned and called out, “There is a rock slide. Give me a moment. Take the others back down.”
“Get off the horse,” Máel repeated.
Her father slid to the ground and turned to Cassia, desperation in his voice. “Daughter, I do not know the meaning of this—”
“Were you ever planning on coming for me?” she asked. “Or did you always know I would be sacrificed?”
His mouth opened, then shut. He fumbled for words. “I was…collecting my men. I thought to sneak up…. I called the hue and cry on him, you know.” His eyes shot to the steep hillside, where Máel stood, motionless, the arrow aimed at her father’s heart. “People are hunting him down as we speak.”
“Methinks they are chasing the wrong criminal,” she said softly.
Her father held out a supplicating hand. “I swear to you, I did everything I could.”
“Did you?”
The rain kept falling in big, random drops, intermittent and shocking, as if the clouds were clutching tight to each one, desperate to hold on.
“Cassia, come nearer and we shall talk. I can explain—”
“Give Máel the sword.”
Her father gave an astonished bark of laughter. “What? Have you lost your mind?”
“Give him the sword and let him leave, unmolested, without being chased or hurt in any way.”
“I—”
“Or I will not be wed.”
He flung out his hands, palms up, as if she’d made a ridiculous argument. “None of this makes any sense. How could you not—”
“I will refuse.”
His face twisted. “You cannot refuse.”
In the trees, she detected movement. Máel stepped out of the woods and leapt down the side of the cliff, sliding down to the trail. His boots hit the rain-splattered ground and he took up a position directly beside Cassia. He lifted the bow again.
He never said a word.
A single, strangled sound came from her father’s throat. “What lies has the Irishman told you?”
“My life has been the lie,” Cassia replied calmly. “I now know the truth: you have no honor. Máel does. And if you do not return his sword, I will not sign my name to any marriage agreement.”
A fist of thunder punched the sky and the heavens broke open with a torrent of rain.
With a curse, her father stepped to his saddle. Máel angled the bow, following him, but he only reached for the long, wool-wrapped package lashed behind it. He drew it out.
The sword was as beautiful as Cassia recalled. Even in the rain-soaked, dismal world, small, glinting ripples of gold flickered down the polished blade, as if it was picking up hidden light not visible to the mortal world.
“Lay it down,” she ordered.
It felt quite wonderful to be so bold, so clear, so direct. Honest. To not bend her head when she wished to lift it. To not say “yes” when everything in her screamed “no.”
It was, perhaps, the most exciting adventure of all.
Her father did as she said.
The moment the sword touched the earth, Máel commanded, “Back up.”
Her father did. “Have you got what you want, bastard?” he called to Máel. “Can I have my daughter back now?”
The bow in Máel’s hand never moved. “If she wishes.”
Her father laughed.
But his words solidified the sensation she’d had a moment ago, the joy of saying exactly what she thought. Doing precisely as she wished.
It was sad, having so recently discovered the experience, she was now going to leave it behind.
She had no choice.
Or rather, she did have a choice. And she would make the honorable one.
If she went with Máel, they would hunt him down. There would be no reason not to. Her father’s men would attack with overwhelming force, encircling Máel, forcing him to give up everything that mattered to him.
T
he only way to save him was to leave him.
She stepped over the sword. It was raining harder now, which was good, for it mixed with the tears filling her eyes, disguising them.
Máel stepped with her.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Rain poured off his hood. The arrow was still pointed at her father’s chest.
“If anything, ever, happens to Cassia,” Máel said to her father in a low voice,“I will come for you. I will hunt you down. And I will kill you.”
“Run,” she whispered vehemently. “The moment I am with him, you are in danger.”
He jerked his gaze to her, his eyes more furious than she’d ever seen. Then he moved.
With a few leaping steps, he disappeared back up the hillside, gone in the woods.
The word was like a hammer in her heart.
Gone.
Chapter 30
The rains lasted the whole ride back to Rose Citadel, Cassia ensconced in a horde of Ware soldiers and her silent father. They did not speak.
They did not speak during the ride. They did not speak when they arrived at the keep as night fell. They said nothing as they entered the castle. Nothing as they strode through the revelers in the great hall—the music and dancing would last far into the night—nothing as they climbed the stairs to her room.
She sat on the bed, the room fairly rocking in its stillness, while her father paced, then inhaled a deep breath and looked at her.
“Let us put all this behind us,” he said in his best diplomatic voice.
Ah. So he’d decided which route offered the best chance of success: a lie. Then shape the world around the lie. The bigger the lie, the more chance it would be believed.
Loyal king’s man.
Devoted father.
Noble man.
“Yes, let us,” she agreed dully, staring at the whittled carving in her hand, the one Máel had given her.
He gave a curt nod. “Very good. Well then…” He cleared his throat and started to walk out, then saw the carving in her hand.
He stopped short. “What is that?”