“You will not do anything you do not wish to do. I swear to you. It will be all right, my darling.”
It was erotic in a way she had never considered before. All her life she thought she knew what sin was, how lust looked. This didn't feel like the crude leerings the priest had always droned on about in London. This was not a man who would tear her clothes off and push her down to the hard ground.
Instead, it was Reade, who made her feel more than a man ever had, who brought something forward in her that she had never felt before. She wanted him like a starving person wanted fresh bread, with senses that she didn't even understand.
The water revealed her clean pale skin, and it felt as if he were memorizing every single inch of it, every part that he would kiss, would claim.
Finally, without turning, she dropped the washcloth back into the water, and without turning to him, reached for her clean shift, tucked neatly under her pillow. Something about the sweetness and the familiarity of it struck her. For all that they had never loved each other fully, they were sleeping in the same bed, sweet as a pair of mated swans.
“I do not know how much longer I will take this,” Reade said, not moving from his place in the center of the room.
“One more moment.” Elizabeth licked her lips, her throat dry, her hands still on the shift, her body still bare.
She didn't even hear him move. One moment he was at the center of the room, and the next he was behind her. One hand grabbed her shoulder to turn her around. The difference between their bodies, hers bare and soft and warm, and his still clothed, was striking, and he was so much bigger than her that she knew she should be overwhelmed. Instead, all she felt was a deep and sensual thrill.
“No, Elizabeth. Not another moment.”
His mouth crashed down on hers, rough and almost vicious. Elizabeth knew that it might have hurt if she had resisted, but instead, she gave herself up to it, gave herself up to Reade. It might have been weak, and she might regret it in the morning, but with him so close, with the power of his body looming over her, she only wanted him more.
The kiss fanned the fire that had been so long banked inside both of them, and when she heard Reade's deep groan, she knew that both of them were pushed to the breaking point. This was who they were, this was who they had to be. This was right, and every hour spent not touching each other was wrong, no matter what the world said or what they had been taught.
“Can't get enough of you,” Reade panted between kisses. “I can never, ever get enough of you, love...”
Elizabeth's hands acted of their own accord. They went to his tunic and to his trews, tugging urgently. Her hands were clumsy, but the moment Reade knew what she wanted, he pulled off his own clothes, letting them fall to the floor. She thought the pause might calm him, but then he was back and kissing her again, ravaging her exactly as she wanted him to do. It was perfect, and she needed him so very badly.
His hands roved her body almost as if he were claiming her, learning her so that he could take possession. It should have been too rough; instead, it was only perfect. She could feel his arousal pressed between their bodies, and she could feel the changes in herself as well, the way she felt a deep hunger in her very core that could only be satisfied by the man in her arms.
She thought he might press her down to the bed, but instead, he scooped her up in his arms, pressing her against the wall nearby. Elizabeth gasped at the cold of the stone, but then Reade was leaned up against her fully. He brought her up and held her so that her feet were off the ground, and he pulled back just long enough to look her in the eye.
“Put your legs around my waist, hang on to me...”
Swallowing hard, she did as he said, and she buried her face in his neck when she felt the tip of his manhood press against her, just shy of entering.
“Reade...”
“Shush, dear heart, I will take care of you. I will always take care of you. But... I cannot wait any longer.”
“Don't...”
“Don't do this?”
“No! Don't wait. Please. Now?'
That was all the assent that Reade needed. He plunged deep inside her, and this time, there was no pain at all. There was only a deep and consuming pleasure that spiraled higher and higher as he thrust into her, making her whimper with pleasure and need.
With every stroke, it seemed as if they were coming closer and closer, and Elizabeth clung to him, aware of his strength in a way she had never understood before. He was the only thing holding her up, but it didn't matter. He would never let her fall.
Just as she felt his body tense, the same pleasure that had grabbed at her before took her now. She cried out with pleasure, digging her nails into him tight as it took them both at the same time. She clung to him as her body exploded with satisfied need, as her thighs shook and her heart beat fast.
It felt as if the pleasure must go on and on forever, and when it finally halted, she was still clinging to Reade. Somehow, despite his own climax, he was still standing. Instead of letting her down, he carried her back to the bed, where he lay her down and crawled in beside her.
If only the entire world would go away. If only it could be us, in this room, forever.
They lay in silence for a long while, Reade's hand coming up to touch her face with a nearly unbearable sweetness. She was almost asleep when he finally spoke.
"Elizabeth, can you ever forgive me?"
The urge to forgive him was there. There was nothing else in the world she wanted more. She wanted him, and no matter what happened in the future, no matter what strange twists and turns her life took, toward Reade or away from him, she still wanted him.
Her pride stood in her way, but it was more than that. It wasn't just pride that stilled her tongue from giving the yes that she longed to give. It was also the knowledge that after what he had done, trust would be a long time in coming, if it came back again, even after what they had just done.
She thought she was going to stay silent, but then she found her voice again.
"Would you do it again?"
"My family, my clan—"
"That is not what I asked."
"Yes."
"Then there is nothing else for us."
“Even after what we have done together. Tonight, in the hunter's hut...”
“It means nothing,” she lied, and Reade spat a vicious curse.
He turned her to look at him, his strength surprising her all over again. The fire had died down, but she could still see the fury in his face, something savage in his eyes.
How in the world had this man ever passed himself off as something other than what he was? He had been into the South and back, letting the world believe he was nothing more than a blank-shield soldier. How had he never lost his temper the way he was doing now?
I have done this to him, Elizabeth thought with an ice-cold certainty. This is something only I could bring out in him.
"You are playing a terrible game, Elizabeth. If you think you are going to torture me..."
"I am who I always have been," she responded. "Now I want to see who you are, who you truly are."
For a single moment, she thought that she had pushed him too far. He was in the safest place in the world for him; she could find few more dangerous. She could feel the need and the desire that seemed as if it was always lying in wait between them come up with a terrible roar. In that moment, he might have been capable of anything, and she welcomed it.
Then to her surprise, he leaned down and kissed her gently on the mouth. It was a kiss that asked nothing from her, that sought only to give her pleasure, and it was somehow more devastating than something more vicious would have been.
Elizabeth would have been as still as stone for something savage, something that wanted to break her or to make her afraid.
"I am sorry," he murmured. "Someday, perhaps you will forgive me."
She watched as he went to wash, but before he was done, the exhaustion from the days previous sent her into a da
rk and thankfully dreamless sleep.
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chapter 37
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As tired as he was, Reade found that he could not sleep much past daybreak. He rose from his bed, as always reluctant to pull away from Elizabeth's soft weight. When she slept it was as if her body forgot that she was so angry with him.
Is this my punishment? Is she going to torment me like this for the rest of my life?
Reade had no idea how long he could tolerate it. The girl had a talent for pushing him to his breaking point and beyond. The only thing that held him back with a thin thread of honor and the realization that having her even in this strange half-place was still better than losing her entirely.
He dressed silently and made his way down to the common area. Perhaps it was time to see what work Aidan needed done on the borders. Being away from Elizabeth struck him to the very heart, but perhaps some space would do them good.
He was anticipating a slow morning of people recovering from moving the herds, but when he came to the common room, there was an uneasy tension in the air. He saw Aidan speaking with Conor, one of the young men who lived on the edge of MacTaggart lands, and Aidan's face was a thundercloud.
"You're sure?" Aidan was saying, as he came up. "You are dead certain of this fact?"
"As sure as I am standing here," Conor replied. "First a company of blank-shield soldiers, and then a small riding group, no more than ten."
"And their device?"
"As I told you before, a red field with a silver bear."
Reade felt his stomach twist. He knew that banner. He had met it more than once in battle, and Elizabeth would know it at once.
"All right. Have yourself some breakfast, Conor. Thank you for the report. Reade?"
"The stables?"
"Aye, you have it."
Wordlessly, they made their way to the stables, saddling their mounts and riding out. The day was a drizzling mess, and all of the crofters were staying close to home. That more than anything made it simple to cross their lands using the paths that only they knew, to confirm the truth of Conor's report.
Reade recognized the blank-shield soldiers that he had tangled with before, and the wound through his shoulder, mostly healed, twinged with irritation. The band traveling behind them, looking for all the world like a pleasure trip, was new, but the device was correct, and the older man with the unforgiving face of a hawk who rode at their head could only be one person.
Reade and Aidan watched for a moment, and then with a nod from Aidan, they disappeared into the forest, making their way back to the keep. They had time yet, before the Englishmen arrived, but Reade could feel something slipping away, something ending.
"That was Sussex then,” Aidan said. "Likely after his prize."
"And what will you do about that, brother?"
Aidan flashed him a hard smile, the scar on his face gleaming white.
"Do? Whatever I need to do, Reade. He's on our land in peacetime."
"Are you going to give him Elizabeth?"
"You must know that she is not the most important thing here..."
Reade loved his brother like he loved his own soul. However, he had never come so close to striking him as he had in that moment.
Aidan saw the conflict in his face and shook his head.
"I want to see what he says, no more. Elizabeth is a sweet brave girl, and I've no urge to give Sussex anything he wants, not even for a moment. We'll see, then."
Reade knew his brother was right. He couldn't weigh Elizabeth against the safety of his clan. However, that knowledge was a dim comfort when he returned to Doone Castle and found her in the common room, sharing a slice of bread and butter with Maisie. He pulled her away, and because there was no way he could conceal the truth from her for any length of time, he told her the truth.
"Sussex, your uncle, has entered MacTaggart lands."
In that instant, she looked like the frightened girl he had first met in Ayr. All of the color drained from her face, and she looked as if there was not a single person in the world who could help her, no one at all to reach a hand for her when she was falling. The terrible thing was that she might have been right.
For a moment, he thought she would simply spin on her heel and run away.
Instead, she swallowed hard and looked at him.
"And what is going to happen to me?"
"I don't know."
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chapter 38
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Elizabeth knew that it was only in her head, but it felt as if the world was shaking, as if thunder was rumbling from the top of the mountains. Everything was going to change again, and all she could do was wait.
Aidan tried to be gentle with her. She had to give him that.
"You needn't come up to the battlements," he said.
"If he has come all this way, he knows I'm here," she said. "He won't be fooled. Are you going to give me to him?"
The laird of the clan didn't lie to her.
"I've no wish to give a single thing to the English, especially not ones who have come so far north without so much as a by your leave. But we don't know what he wants."
Reade stood close by, silent and armed as if for battle, and Elizabeth stepped a little closer to him.
It was ridiculous. Why did she still think he was a safe place for her to stand? Why did she still trust him?
They came up to the battlements, perched high on the heavy stone wall that protected Doone castle. Beyond the gate, looking around as if everything in the glen disgusted him, was her uncle.
The Earl of Sussex was a tall and gaunt man, carefully shaved and in armor that gleamed. He looked more like a scholar than a warrior, and Elizabeth knew his clothes were of the finest quality. After spending even a short time in the North, however, his clothing looked ridiculous to her, too fine for one man to work in, too delicate by far to stand the harsh winds, even as the spring was descending the mountains.
"What business have you here?" called Aidan.
It was curt to the point of rudeness, but a disdainful look crossed her uncle's face. She knew that he couldn't see the insult as it was meant and only saw one more example of Scottish crudity.
"You have something of mine," came the reply. "I want her returned immediately."
"Aye, and you are the one to be giving orders here?" asked Aidan. "Tell me what you are after, and maybe that will help."
"My niece has been stolen away from me in one of your raids, MacTaggart. She belongs to me."
Beside her, Elizabeth could feel Reade stir. She could almost feel the anger rising up off of him like steam from a kettle.
"We're not trespassers like some, and what is ours, we will keep. Go back to England, and hope your bride-to-be returns for you."
Elizabeth saw her uncle shift at that. He had obviously not known that his plans to marry her were public knowledge, and the black look in his eyes told her that she did not want to be anywhere near him.
"You cannot keep an Englishwoman in your cow byre, MacTaggart. She belongs to me."
"Aye, and all this land belongs to the MacTaggarts," snarled Reade, unable to keep still any longer. "As will any arrow that I care to put through your throat from this distance."
The soldiers around her uncle stirred uneasily, but the man himself only smiled thinly.
"And have Robert's precious peace broken to smithereens? You wouldn't dare."
"We might," Aidan said easily. "Barbaric Scots might not know any better. But you've said your peace, and we shall think on it."
Her uncle's lips skinned back from his teeth. He looked like a skinny hound displeased with his portion; he looked like a grinning skull.
"You will give me guest right, and you will allow me to talk to my niece—"
"We will give you an arrow through the man standing closest to you if you keep on standing there," called Reade,
and the men closest to her uncle stood away with an almost laughable speed.
Her uncle looked mad enough to shout, but he was not done yet.
"The Bruce is biding at Hartwell or so I hear. Only a day's ride from here. I wonder what he might have to say about all this."
As departing words went, there were worse, but a cold fear reached up from Elizabeth's chest and squeezed around her throat.
Robert the Bruce held his peace dear, and he had commanded all of Scotland during the war. In the future, he might be the king. What would the MacTaggarts do if he commanded them to give her up?
"How the hell did he even find her?" Aidan growled. "It wasn't as if you were followed."
"One of Ava's men, no doubt. The Blair bastard herself wouldn't have said aught, but her men are connivers one and all."
Aidan started to say something, but Elizabeth stepped forward.
"What are you going to do with me?"
She was asking Aidan, but she couldn't stop looking at Reade. Reade looked as if there were murder in his gaze, and for some reason, it made her take heart.
"I am sorry, lass, that I cannot say. But I will offer that I wouldn't spit on your uncle if he were on fire, and I would rather give him a flaming arrow to the gullet than you."
Reade was silent, but he took her hand in his. It shouldn't have been comforting after all this time to touch Reade and to have him so close, but it was, and Elizabeth clung to him.
All of the running I have done, everything that has happened... It can't end here, can it?
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chapter 39
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Sussex's men had taken the warnings about arrows to the heart, so that was something. They did not ride up to Doone to make their demands, but that did not stop them from making their presence felt throughout the countryside.
They settled on the common lands, grim and ghastly, and all around, Reade could feel the tensions of the clan tighten down harder and harder.
Claimed By The Highlander (The Highlands Warring Clan Mactaggarts Book 1) Page 18