Come the Morning (37 page)

She shook her head. “No one!”

His expletive cut the night like a blade, and despite herself, she winced, moving backwards, hands clenched into fists. He started down the aisle toward her, strides long, eyes sharp. “Then why are you here?”

“I just came to—to—”

“To what?”

“See my mother's grave.”

He stopped, just six inches from her. She had to hold her ground or trip over the dais where the altar stood.

“In the middle of the night?” he challenged. “To commune with her? To ask her if your father hadn't been a plundering, thieving, raping conqueror when he first came here?”

“Aye, maybe!”

“You're a liar,” he told her.

She opened her mouth to protest, but his hand suddenly shot out. His fingers entwined in her hair and he dragged her toward him, tilting her head. He stared into her eyes, then lowered his mouth to hers, covering it, encompassing it. His tongue moved into her mouth with a coercive, invading force. His lips punished, and yet seduced with a strange, wild, fire. She struggled against him, unnerved by his mood, and his sudden actions. He had touched her before, and pushed her away. Time and again. Yet now it seemed that something exploded within her, liquid, like mercury, dancing in her blood. She wanted to free herself, she wanted to go back, she had taunted him too far, and she knew it, and she wanted the evening to start over, she didn't want to feel this cataclysm of scalding heat sear through her with such wicked design …

“Stop, we're in a chapel!” she whispered, breaking from him.

“So, confess your sins. Who were you meeting?” he demanded against her mouth.

“No one!”

“You're a liar,” he said, and his fingers, threaded into her hair, tightened their hold so that she nearly cried out. She didn't think that she'd ever seen him so incensed. “You were expecting someone to be here. You wretched little fool. You'll bring about the deaths of a dozen men yet.”

“No!”

“You're right. Because I won't let you,” he said suddenly, and he ducked, picking her up, hiking her over his shoulders.

“Waryk, what are you doing. Waryk, let me go, I can walk, someone will see us—”

“Oh? Who?”

“Let me go, let me walk, let me stand on my own feet, I will go where you want me to go—”

“Aye, that you will.”

He was very angry, and she was flopping against his back as he moved with long, heedless strides. “Waryk, you're tossing me about like a sack of flour—”

“Aye, and I've only just begun.”

He carried her back to the main stairway to the second floor apartments, and down the corridor to their rooms.

He laid her down upon the bed, and was with her, over her. Firelight played in the room, catching the ice in his eyes, and it seemed that they gleamed red, and gold, a demon's eyes, eyes of fury, relentless. She started to speak, to protest, to fight; but once again, his mouth covered and consumed hers, and the taste of him seemed to fill her, even as she felt as if he raided her soul with his kiss, the force of his lips and tongue sweeping thought and reason, protest and strength away from her. Her robe was split open she realized, as was his, and she felt his nakedness pressed to her. Her linen gown was shoved high to her waist; she felt his hand on her flesh, fingers brushing her nakedness, touching, probing. She couldn't breathe; she was pressed deeper and deeper into the bed, she wanted to jump, to scream, to leap atop the walls as she felt him probing, and then shifting, and then …

She did scream, into his throat, against his lips. Her nails dug into him. Conflicting sensations tore into her, warmth, unbearable warmth, filling her, blood seeping into bone, overwhelming. She wanted to cling to him, she wanted to throw him away. Something seemed wonderful, touching, feeling, breathing him … his lips, still so close to hers, his scent, still so subtly sensual, compelling, tantalizing, even while …

The pain seemed to knife right through her. She wouldn't cry, she thought, wouldn't whimper. Would never falter, allow him to see, to know, how he had hurt her …

But he would see, he would know, because he was dead still, and even in the shadows and darkness he was staring down at her.

“Why didn't you tell me?” His voice was harsh.

“Oh, you idiot, I did tell you, you didn't want to listen, you didn't want to believe! I swore on my father, and—”

She broke off. He'd made some sniffing sound of impatience and begun to move again, and she gasped, fingers clinging into his fur-clad shoulders and a cry escaping her no matter what her promise to herself. “Quit, quit, quit …” she pleaded, eyes locked on his in serious entreaty, but his mouth covered hers, and something … began to change. His lips moved with such subtle persuasion, his tongue caressed, beckoning as much as plundering, his fingers moved down the length of her, tips stroking her flesh …

The pain faded slowly … and she was numb. No … not numb. She could feel him, the taut constriction of his muscles, the increasing fever of his movements, the heat that threatened to overwhelm her. His breathing came like a north wind, his heart beat like thunder. Enveloped in his arms, she suddenly felt as if he impaled her to the bone, and she twisted in his arms, amazed at the shuddering force it awakened within her. He moved again, and again, and she was still just clinging, feeling broken and split … and amazed, and strangely gratified by the feel of wet, steaming heat that seemed to fill her, permeate her body, and her being …

He withdrew slowly, and lay on his back. She was cold, and instantly sore once again, keenly aware of what had taken place. Of course, she had known what it was to be married, expected what had come, and yet …

She'd never expected to feel a strangely awakened hunger. With him. When she still hurt, yet felt a need to touch his flesh, lie against him, bury herself within him. Be held by him, and soothed by him, caressed, and …

Wanted.

It was one thing to accept all this.

It was another to long for it, for him …

She turned away, curling to a ball at his side, tangled in her gown and robe.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a moment.

“You should be.”

“Well, milady, it's really your fault—”

“My fault!”

“You liked the game you were playing. You played it well, you taunted me, and enjoyed my discomfort.”

“I never!” she bed. “I told you the truth, and you chose not to believe me.”

“I was wrong.”

His answer surprised her so much that she lay silent for a long moment, then whispered, “What?”

“Obviously, I was wrong.”

“Obviously,” she said, surprised at the tears that stung her eyes and glad that her back was to him.

“Glad, too, of course. I really do like Ewan.”

She swung around at that. He wasn't looking at her, but up at the ceiling, and he seemed annoyingly complacent. “You're glad because you like Ewan?” she said.

“Aye.”

She rose up in her tangle of clothing, raising both hands to pummel him at that, but he caught her wrists, surprised. “Now, what, madam—”

“You should be glad, sir, to discover that your wife had told the truth when she swore to you—on her father's honor—that she'd not taken a lover!”

“Ah!” he said, and suddenly she was swung down upon her back, and he was straddling her. “I see, you didn't want me to like Ewan, you wanted to see us both ever tormented and suspicious, ready to tear into one another at all times.”

“No!” she cried. His robe still clung to his shoulders, but that was all, and she was so newly aware of his scarred and muscled body that she felt as if her own reddened at the simple contact. “Oh, will you get off of me, please, you refuse to understand, you are simply wretched, you—you—”

She broke off because he was staring down at her, smiling.

“What do you find so amusing?” she inquired.

“Not amusing. Pleasing,” he said softly.

Again, she felt her flesh flame.

“Waryk, get—”

This time, she didn't finish because his lips were on hers again. Once more, his touch had changed. His kiss was slow, a caress with mouth, lips, and tongue, subtly tasting, exploring, tantalizing. She wanted to remain untouched, offended, and indignant; he had far too much patience at that particular moment, savoring the kiss with such determined leisure that she felt a trembling begin deep inside her, blood and bones, heart and mind. His fingers moved over her cheek, he broke away and the tip of his thumb traced the dampness on her lips while his eyes studied her. “I never wanted to hurt you,” he said softly. Then shrugged. “All right, perhaps upon occasion, I have been truly tempted to beat you black-and-blue. But not in this …” Again, his mouth touched hers. Briefly now. He straightened, shrugging out of his robe. She longed to reach up and spread her fingers over the broad expanse of his chest. Scars crisscrossed his shoulders. She wanted to trace each one, and hear the tale that went with it. She kept very still, suddenly afraid not so much that he would touch her, but that he could become a need greater than any she had known. She lay very still, and he tugged upon the robe tangled around her. “Off with this now …”

“Now, wait, we've—”

“We've been introduced, my love. Now we become better acquainted.”

“You've just apologized for mistrusting me, for hurting me—”

“Nay, dear wife, only for hurting you. You were highly instrumental in the mistrust.”

“But—”

“I've been exploring the prize; I thought myself insane at times that I agreed to marry you when I had been offered the land without the bride. But the land, of course, is nothing without the heart, and now I am discovering even greater wonders.”

“But it did hurt—”

“It will not hurt again. Come now, you didn't suffer so at the end.”

“Oh, but I did—”

“Then I'm so sorry, and wretched, decrepit old knight that you've been saddled with, I'll still do my best to see that you want me.”

“I came with the land; I was not what you wanted!” she reminded him as he eased her up, discarding her robe, pulling her gown over her head.

His eyes touched hers then, cobalt, as deep a blue as a tempestuous sea, and the smile he offered her was an honest one, not touched with mockery or amusement. “Ah lady, don't be so modest! Tonight, when I watched you seduce the household, I saw that you knew your own power. You're beautiful, Mellyora MacAdin, and you know it well, and the lads around you might well trip over their own hearts—and other regions!—since you would so cruelly rip them out and so carelessly cast them about.”

“Oh, aye, and this is what you feel?”

“I'm not such a fool, my lady.”

“That's right, you had no desire to marry me.”

“It's not such a hardship.”

“I shall lose my head with such ardent declarations of your desire.”

He smiled, watching her. “Do you question my desire?” he demanded, and pushed her back against the pillows, continuing to speak with intensity. “Nay, lady, I was not fond of the idea of marriage with you because I am too fond of the idea of living. But as to desire, well, just what is it that you want? You know that there are poems about you, songs that range Highlands and Lowlands, you're aware that scores of men came to your father and the king, wanting you—”

“Coveting Blue Isle.”

“Aye, the land is important, lady, when is land not? Fine. I'll not turn your head. You're dangerous enough as you are.”

She wanted to protest that, but he shifted quite suddenly, moving against her. She felt his lips against her throat, his tongue tracing a pattern along her vein. He surely felt the wild speed of her pulse within it. His kiss went on, forging a trail to the valley between her breasts. She realized she had ceased to breathe; her fingers fell upon the richness of his dark hair. His mouth covered her nipple, and she burned with the lightning bolt it created, a shaft of heat that seemed to radiate within and without, tearing through her limbs, centering somewhere low in her abdomen. She remained very still, wishing she could protest, hating that he could do this, and yet suddenly wondering if she did have the power to please him. She wanted that, wanted him to want her, to feel the strange compulsion and longing that she felt, no matter how much she had wanted to deny him any part of her life.

Why did she want so much to deny him? she wondered vaguely. Simply because he had taken her life, been given her life …

The question, at the moment, faded. She had to breathe. She gasped in a tremulous breath, fingers tightening in his hair as he continued to move against her. His hand moved against her hip, his lips continued to lave her breasts, a slow assault, teeth and tongue teasing, touching, the heat of his breath whispering … he moved lower again, kisses brushing her navel, her abdomen. Her fingers remained gripped taut within his hair. And still he moved, bathing her with his touch, his kiss, everywhere, thighs, stomach, hips, thighs, and then, between.

She gasped, a startled scream that barely touched the air. She ceased to breathe again, she writhed in protest, and then …

She writhed.

She seemed to pulse within, body, blood, bone. Sweetness, heat, hunger, filled her; she ached, she longed. Mercury whirled within her, molten steel, sweet, explosive. She couldn't bear it, she couldn't stop him, she would die if he did cease …

Then suddenly he was atop her, lips against hers, whispering, “Lady, you need never question my desire for you …”

He brushed her lips with his kiss, caught her palm, kissed its center, drew her hand down the length of him. She trembled, and he taunted, “Ah, lady, you may touch a man. Such a region is vulnerable, and does not bite.”

He closed her fingers around the fullness of his manhood. “Nay, it does far worse!” she murmured. “It …”