Always Mine (24 page)

“Ye can be sure I will ask. What ye seek has always been safe.” He withdrew a large velvet bag from the chest behind her. “Ye may wear it when I say ye may.” He turned her back to him and fastened the chain about her neck. The pendant took on a warm glow.

When they entered the hall, Brianna knew everyone felt the air crackle between them. Asceline’s eyes lit with glee when

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she looked at Damron. Brianna glanced at him and wished she had not, for his face was set in grim lines.

Damron addressed the room. “I have learned a new expression today: a sheep’s patoot. I know not the meaning. We all ken sheep, but what of patoot? We will discuss what it means to ye at the noon meal on the morrow.” He motioned for everyone to sit and start their meal.

Damron’s chuckle was wicked as Brianna studied the trencher between them.

“I can read yer face, but can ye read mine?” Damron gazed down at her. “I think not. Do ye ken my thoughts, madam? It has to do with totals. I would have ye keep up yer strength, for ye may need it afore many suns rise if ye dinna curb yer tongue.”

He held a bite of wild duck with wine sauce to her lips, but she didn’t take it. When the sauce dribbled onto her chin, he leaned over to lick it off. She quivered and jerked, but he was too quick for her to stop him.

“Ye will open for me when my fingers are close.” His voice was soft, suggestive. His words must have struck him, for he shifted uncomfortably.

She took the meat, and a hot flush covered her face and neck.

She dipped her head and kept it down until the end of the meal.

“If my lord husband will allow, I would wish to retire?”

Brianna asked courteously.

“Dinna forget, people.” He stood and addressed the room.

“I will await yer understandin’ of patoot on the morrow.” He looked down at her expressive face, and a sound rumbled up from his chest. He did not laugh often, but a laugh it was, though it held a hint of danger.

Brianna could not shake the clouds of doom when they entered their room. The air felt heavy with a storm closing in on the castle high on the cliffs. Thunder began to roll.

“Why dinna ye disrobe?” Damron asked. When she started to go behind the screen, he acted. “Nay. Afore ye say a word, listen

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to me,” he commanded. “When I say nay, it is what I mean. Nay, ye willna hide yer body from me, and nay, ye willna hold yerself from my attentions.” Their eyes locked in a battle of wills as he settled in the chair beside the window opening.

Well, hell.
She turned her back and began to whip her clothes over her head and let them drop to the floor.

“Mari is no slave to ye. Ye will pick up yer clothes and fold them,” he said, close behind her.

How had he crossed the room without making a sound?

She broke out in goose bumps and bent her knees with her body straight, careful not to touch him. After she gathered and folded her clothes, she stood on one foot to remove her shoes. She wobbled and swayed until he grasped her waist and lifted her onto the bed.

“Ye are as ungainly as a wee pup. Or is it yer way of askin’

for my help?”

He bent to hold one foot in his hand and slid off her soft shoe. When his hand moved up to untie the ribbon holding her stocking in place, her heart pounded. His hands lingered, and she looked up to see he was staring, fascinated, at the vee of her body.

Oh, God. Was she supposed to have plucked her pubic hair? She knew highborn women did this in early times.

Almost as if he had heard her thoughts, his gaze moved to meet hers. The blazing intensity in his look made her mouth go dry as the Mojave Desert.

“Ye are beautiful there, Brianna.”

A bolt of lightening flashed and lit the room, making the passion in his face look diabolical. He turned his back to bring the branch of candles close to the bed. After placing it to his satisfaction, he began to remove his own clothing. His gaze challenged her to look away. She scooted beneath the covers and clutched them beneath her chin.

The candlelight cast a warm glow over his bronzed body. Was

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he often naked at practice to be such a golden bronze? She gasped, realizing how she knew, for he had released the string of his breeches. They slithered past the heavy nest of black hair surrounding his sex. When that frighteningly large part of him burst free, she blinked but couldn’t turn her gaze away.

She watched, spellbound, as the falling breeches unveiled hard thighs and bulging calves. Gordon had been slender and lithe, his body toned from playing tennis. When Damron bent to retrieve his clothing, his heavy ballocks swung free. While he neatly folded his garments, she had ample time to study his beautiful, muscular back, his firm buttocks and magnificent legs. When would she learn about the horrific scar there on his thigh?

Swallowing, she slid deeper in the bed and pretended she’d had the blanket over her eyes all along. Cold air chilled her when he tossed aside the covers. His body’s weight pulled the mattress on the rope bed, and she slid toward him.

“I would gaze on ye, wife,” he murmured. Kneeling, he cupped each foot and explored its softness. His fingers closed around her ankles, enfolding the small bones there. Callused hands smoothed slowly over her calves, across her knees and came to rest at the top of her thighs.

Brianna’s heart jitterbugged against her ribs. When had she learned to respond so rapidly to his hands? Her body quivered and quaked like she suffered a raging fever. She held her breath.

Sounds hummed deep in Damron’s chest as his gaze followed his hands’ path. They swept over her flesh to tangle his fingers in the curls hiding her sex. After a slight tug and another low growl, he brought a hand to lay it flat against her stomach from the top of the curls on her mons to her rib cage.

His fingers touched her ribs. He frowned, deep in thought.

His assessing gaze pricked Brianna’s temper.

“I am no brood mare, if that’s what you’re checking.”

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“When I plant my seed, ye will hold it. Surely ye have more growin’ to do.”

“Grow? I’m no longer a child.”

“Ye will,” he ordered.

His scowl was so fierce she clamped her mouth shut, not wanting him to start proving the point. As stubborn as he was, he would likely put her on a rack to see if he could stretch her another inch. That was her last coherent thought as his hands moved up to cup her breasts and gently heft them.

Damron’s nether parts ached, watching her nipples grow to pink hardness while his thumbs played over them. He forced his hands to leave there and travel over her chest, shoulders and down her arms.

He flipped her over without warning, and she gasped. He tugged the pillow from beneath her face to give her ample breathing room.

Beginning with her feet, he again studied her body, moving his hands over her heating flesh until they cupped her sweet arse. His big fingers kneaded her cheeks, then moved on up and over her waist to her hair. He murmured, a content sound, as he played with it, fanning it over her silky back so her buttocks peeked through the curls. He placed nibbling kisses on each sweet nether cheek and felt her tense as though to spring from the bed.

“I willna hurt ye, Brianna,” he crooned. His hot, wet tongue wandered from the dark mystery nestled there to follow the crack in her bum and lick its way up to the nape of her neck. “Ye are honey and whiskey goin’ straight to my head.” He chuckled, acknowledging it was not that part of him with a brain that troubled him at the moment.

“May I turn over, Damron?”

“I wud be pleased, love,” he crooned, his voice husky.

He turned her until she lay with her neck on his left arm that folded around her to fondle her breast. His head low-

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ered and, as he nibbled and drew on her lower lip, his other hand traveled over her body. He caressed her until his mouth coaxed her lips open to sweep her resistance away. His hand became more urgent.

He stopped to comb his fingers through the hair there between her thighs. He slid his lips from hers to rain kisses across her face, down her jaw and past her neck. Slowly, he reached his target.

Closing his mouth over one straining pink bud, he released his breath in a sigh that sent shivers over the dampened flesh.

He sensed Brianna nearly came unglued when he suckled lightly and then more urgently. Her breasts swelled; her stomach quivered. Her eager body was ready for him, but she clamped her legs together to deny him.

Damron’s hand cupped her mons, his fingers delving between her nether lips to find unmistakable hot, wet heat there.

He sighed with pleasure, then damned himself for his fool’s promise their first night. He grasped her bottom to grind his manhood against her. When that hard and scorching part of him tangled in her curls, she stiffened.

He knew Brianna fought for control. Why did she deny him?

Deny herself, when he knew she wanted him? He would not let her hide from her need for him. Seductively, he pressed his slick tarse against her mons and rubbed her there. When she gasped, his middle finger sought the tight entrance he longed for. Her heat and slickness were almost his undoing. He probed deeper and felt the tight membrane proving she was his alone.

He wanted to roar with triumph when her body finished betraying her. His mouth left her breast and covered her lips to catch her moans of release. Her muscles clenched, pulsated against his finger as she arched against him with the ferocity of the release she could no longer deny.

When her tremors ebbed, he kissed her cheek and murmured soft words he knew she did not understand. Each time she tried to speak, he touched her lips, stopping her. He

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soothed and comforted her until her eyelids drooped and her body softened in sleep.

Thunder rolled and lightning lit the room. Brianna startled awake. Without looking, she knew Damron was not beside her. Where had he gone? She put on a cloak and shoes. When she opened the door and left the room, Guardian awoke and followed, but the sleeping squire did not stir as she headed for the winding staircase.

She wanted to watch the beauty of the approaching storm from the parapets and went up to the next landing. She heard moans coming from within the first chamber. She paused, and Guardian growled and stared at the door. A woman cried out in ecstasy, and Brianna fancied it was Asceline’s voice. A deep male shout told of a man’s own release.

Cold dread swept through her. Surely that wasn’t Damron?

She wanted to fling the door wide to see if it was, but Guardian shoved between her and the door. He pushed her with his great head and tried to herd her back to the stairway. She shoved the wolf aside and flew up the last flight, her tears near blinding her.

Reaching the battlements, she thrust open the door. A gust of wind wrenched it from her and crashed it tight to the outer wall. Guardian struggled to pull her back, but she leaned against the wind and made her way to an opening between merlons to stare out across the storm-tossed Kyle of Tongue.

Driving rain lashed her. Wind whipped her robe high.

Lightning flashed closer and closer. Guardian scrabbled back to the opening, and raced down the steps howling with all his strength.

Chapter 15

Damron jolted to a stop, his hand gripping the massive door to the keep, his foot raised to step outside on the wooden stairway landing. Fear for Brianna kicked the breath from his lungs on hearing what sounded like a demented animal wailing, the eerie sound rebounding off the keep’s walls. He spun around to the great hall and leaped up the stairwell, his feet barely touching the steps long enough to spring to the next one.

Guardian near bowled Damron over as the wolf raced to find him, then stopped to scramble around, its paws slipping and sliding, to head back in the opposite direction.

Damron followed and burst out onto the battlements, Bleddyn but a few paces behind. Brianna stood close to the edge of the battlement, defying God and the elements. The dark beauty of the scene struck Damron’s heart. Thunder crashed, rain pounded and lightning streaks crackled so close together there was no silence in between. Her hair and cloak flew about her like dark angel wings.

“Lydia. Nay!” Bleddyn’s voice roared above the storm’s din and Guardian’s howls. The mystic leapt and wrapped his arms about her waist. The screaming wind lifted his peacock-colored cape

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around them. His ancient talisman glowed with the light of a hundred stars. Bleddyn clutched the amulet just as lightning struck.

Time suspended. The air smelled strange, sharp. The small hairs on Damron’s neck and arms stirred. He stood dumb-founded, gaping at the scene afore him. Bleddyn and Brianna hovered in the air. Blinding light surrounded them. Their bodies doubled—like a shadow above them. A blue aura circled Brianna. Purple lights spread around Bleddyn, encompassing her blue.

‘Twas then Bleddyn again commanded, “Lydia. Nay!”

He had called her Lydia. The auras locked together, each seeming to battle the other’s will. Their images, surrounded by the lights, rose higher above their bodies. Damron’s heart near stopped. In desperation he fought an unseen barrier to reach them, her name tearing from his throat.

“Brianna!”

His demand swelled with the wind to tame the thunder.

With arms stretched wide and grasping, he reached them and fell to the stone floor with Brianna and the mystic locked in his arms.

Dr. Christian MacKay gazed into his patient’s expression-less eyes, hoping this would be the hour she would show some sign of recovery. He didn’t understand his need to be with her, but every minute he could wrench from his hectic life, he spent by her bedside. He stopped only to grab for fast foods, whenever he remembered to eat. At night, he showered and slept a scant three hours before returning to stay with her until time for morning rounds.

The backs of his long fingers gently stroked the soft face on the pillow. Suddenly, strange lights flashed into the room to settle at the head of the bed. He was rooted to the spot.