Authors: The Bride of Rosecliffe

Rexanne Becnel (17 page)

BOOK: Rexanne Becnel

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His tongue invaded her mouth at the same time his wet hand curved over her breasts.

“Wait—”

“No more waiting.” With one tug he pulled her off balance so that she sprawled over him. She was suddenly wet, overheated, and utterly confused by the war of foreign emotions raging inside her. What was she doing?

But Rand obviously knew what he was doing and what he wanted her to do. For he deepened the kiss, using his tongue to excite all her senses. Did he know how the rhythmic stroking of her inner lips lit a fire in her belly? Did he know how his palm circling her breasts sent sparks of lightning shooting through her? Did he know how swiftly he’d converted her opposition to enthusiasm?

For despite all logic, she tried now to do the same to him, to excite him with her tongue and tease his flat male nipples with her fingertips. He would not rob her of all control. She could master this game. She could master him.

But when he slid one hand down her back to bunch up her skirts, then moved beneath the voluminous fabric to find the bare skin of her hip and thigh, she knew she had no control at all. He possessed it all. She was a novice in the hands of a master, a simple instrument played to perfection by one who knew how.

“Let’s be rid of all this wool.” He straightened up so that the water lapped over the side. Now her skirts were wet too. She was kneeling in a warm puddle that cooled quickly on the stone floor. “Where are the ties?” he asked as he felt for the side laces of her simple gown.

“Wait. You can’t … What are you doing?”

He drew her down for a kiss and did not relent until her full weight melted against him. How did he woo her so easily?

“I’m teaching you how a man likes to be bathed. Any man,” he added as he slipped the neckline of both her gown and her smock off one of her shoulders, then blessed her newly bared flesh with a trail of searing kisses.

“This … This isn’t bathing,” she gasped, then kissed him when he turned his face back up to hers.

“It’s a prelude to bathing.” In a moment he had her laces untied. With another tug he had her bodice off both shoulders and then pulled farther down so that her breasts were suddenly revealed. Only then did he pause.

Josselyn still knelt upon the floor. Her arms were trapped now against her side by the opened neckline. Rand sat upright in the tub, his eyes feasting upon her newly exposed flesh. No man had ever seen her thus. She’d certainly not intended to let him do so. Yet as his eyes ran over her, Josselyn quivered with excitement. Her nipples pebbled, dark and rosy, standing out pertly from her pale skin.

He reached out with one finger, tracing a circle around first one, then the other. A small sigh escaped her lips. He thumbed over one taut peak and her entire body jerked in response. This time she groaned.

“Shall I kiss you there, Josselyn?” He lifted his gaze to her face. “Is that what you want?”

“Yes.”

That could not be her response to such an outrageous question. Surely not. But it was, and when he drew her nearer, then licked first one, then the other of her straining
nipples, Josselyn knew it was she. How else could she possibly answer?

“I’m going to bathe you with kisses,” he murmured as his mouth trailed across her fevered flesh. “I’m going to lick every portion of you,” he whispered between nibbles so intense they were almost painful. Almost. “I’m going to eat you up. Consume you. Make you mine …”

Make you mine.

“What … what of your brother?”

He cupped her breasts, one in each hand, and looked up at her. His expression was one of fierce possession, of burning desire. “Forget about my brother.”

He thumbed her nipples with excruciating precision. She nearly fainted from the overwhelming pleasure of it. But she knew she must not succumb. Not yet.

“Then I shall not be forced to wed him?”

He moved as if to kiss her nipples again, but she managed to catch his head between her hands. “I have to know what you plan for me. Will you make me wed this Jasper?”

He shook his head. “No.”

She gasped with relief. She hadn’t known how desperately she’d wanted to hear him say that he would not foist her upon his brother. “Then what will you do with me?”

His eyes had become clearer, though desire still ruled him. “I should think it clear, even to a virgin, what I plan to do with you.”

It was clear indeed, especially when he stood, and stepped from the tub, dripping wet, fully aroused. He pulled her flat against him. “I plan to make love to you. Here. Now.”

He gave a hard tug on her abused gown and she heard a small rip as a seam gave. He pulled again and it fell to her hips, though her hands were tangled still in the sleeves. She tried to free them but he wouldn’t let her. With her naked breasts pressed to his damp chest, their faces were but inches apart. When he tried to kiss her again, however, she tilted her head away.

“Am I to remain your hostage?”

He grinned. “Yes, but I promise to make you a very willing one.”

“So I need not wed this brother when he arrives.” It had suddenly become more important to her than ever that he was being honest about that.

“No.” He sought her lips again, but still she eluded him.

“How long must I remain your hostage?”

She felt his sigh. The wet curls on his chest teased her nipples and sent new quivers through her. “Nothing will change by our joining, Josselyn. You remain my hostage so long as I need to ensure peace between our people.”

Not an unexpected answer. Still, it was not the one she sought. “So you will take me to your bed—for who knows how tong—then return me, ruined, to my family?”

In the long tense silence she heard his answer and her heart sank. She’d had no reason to hope for more from him, but it seemed she foolishly had.

She began to struggle away from him but he caught her chin in his hand and forced her to face him. “Did you expect me to offer marriage to you?”

“I would never marry the likes of you!” she spat.

“If I thought you could be—” He broke off and something changed. His eyes became opaque. His expression shuttered. “It appears neither of us wishes to wed the other. But it is equally apparent what we do want from one another.” For emphasis he thrust his hips against hers, then held her there with a hard hand over her backside. “You want to know the secrets of womanhood and I want to teach them to you.” He splayed his hand and rubbed it in a slow circle over her derriere until she squirmed at his fiery touch.

“I don’t want it.” She shoved against his chest but he only laughed.

“You lie. Shall I show you?” So saying, he bent her back over his arm and took one of her breasts in his hand. She struggled to right herself, but to no avail. He was too strong. Then he began that small, scintillating motion, just
his thumbs grazing back and forth over her sensitized nipples, and she could feel her opposition melting away.

“You are forcing me. This is … This is rape.” She murmured the word even as her eyes fell closed and she began to pant.

“’Tis anything but,” he retorted, and she knew it was true. Oh, what a pitiful creature she was!

Somehow he walked them to his bed. Somehow he tugged her gown past the swell of her hips. Somehow she found herself lying on her back with his magnificent warrior’s body weighing hers down onto the mattress. The bed ropes, so newly strung, stretched and creaked.

His lips had taken over the task of his thumbs, and his stubbled chin scraped her skin. But the pain was a part of the pleasure, just as the wrong of what they did was entwined so thoroughly with the right of it. Like the devil had tempted Eve. The demon serpent was so beautiful, the apple it offered was so sweet. But it was wrong just the same, and like Eve, she knew the cost of tasting of the fruit would be high.

“You must not. Rand—”

He heard her and he raised his head. Their eyes met. He lay sprawled half on the bed, half off, his hips between her knees, his chest pressed against her belly. She was completely exposed to him: naked, open. The very picture of wanton desire. Against his wide muscled shoulders her hands looked small and ineffectual. She was no match for him, not his raw strength, nor his raw appeal. But he was a man of some honor, or at least she believed so. She had to try to stop them both before they went too far.

Before she could collect her scattered wits, however, he spoke. “You want this as much as I do.” So saying, he slid his body lower against hers, trailing hot kisses and small bites down her stomach to her navel and farther still.

She caught his dark hair in her hands, staying his progress before she entirely forgot her intent. “’Tis wrong. I … I wish to save myself for my husband.”

He looked up at her. In his eyes there burned desire, hot and hungry. Yet he was not so far gone as to be oblivious to her words. “You wish to remain a virgin?”

She hesitated. Of course she did.

Of course she did!

She had to force herself to nod.

His jaw clenched; his breathing came fast and harsh. Finally he nodded. “So be it.”

Flooded with relief, overcome with disappointment, Josselyn scrambled back on the bed, pushing with her heels and elbows. She needed to cover her nakedness, to escape the overwhelming aura of sex and desire that vibrated in this room. But his hands caught her hips and without warning he pressed the side of his face against her lower belly. “I will leave you a virgin, Josselyn, if that is what you truly want.”

“It is.” She whispered the lie.

Then the breath caught in her throat, for he began to kiss the dark curls that guarded her feminine core. She began to tremble when his tongue parted those curls and found her most vulnerable spot. And when he began a rhythmic stroking, hot, wet—impossible to fight—her very heart seemed to stop.

His hands sought her breasts. His thumbs moved in concert with his tongue and lips. He urged her on and though a voice in her head—the voice of reason, and caution and rational choice—told her to fight him, to escape him any way she could, she hadn’t the will to do so.

She arched into his sinful caresses. She opened her legs and her arms to him. Her entire being. And when she could bear no more, she erupted beneath him, giving him everything he wanted and more. Her free will. Her woman’s body.

Her Welsh heart.

Fifteen

H
ow long Josselyn lay there, she could not say. She was roused from her sated state only when Rand loomed above her, damp with perspiration, rigid with his own unfulfilled desires. Without thinking, she stroked her fingers up the powerful contours of his arm, marveling at the restraint in those hard, bunched muscles, the heat seething beneath his smooth, unmarked skin.

“That’s only the half of it, my sweet. There’s more pleasure still to be had. Better. Far sweeter.”

She looked up at him, too drained to speak, too befuddled by the sensations he’d wrought in her to think or argue. Taking her silence for consent, he drew her legs up and she felt the prod of his manhood. She was frightened, and yet enticed. Somehow she knew he did not lie. She knew it would be incredible.

She wanted him inside her.

He began to push, and she felt the moist pressure, the stretching. It hurt a little, but it felt good as well.

She stared at him. In the golden glow of the candles he was a gilded being. A god of old come down to earth. Certainly he was more than any mere man, for he’d cast a spell on her that she was unable to break.

As he came farther into her, her lethargy fled. With short rocking movements, in and then out, he roused her anew.
Just like before, and yet it was somehow different. The pleasure was centered lower, it was more basic. The other had been sex in all its physical delights. But this was more. This was mating.

The very thought brought tears to her eyes and they spilled over before she could prevent them. He frowned at the sight, then gently kissed them away. “It will not hurt for long. Just a moment to breach your maidenhead.”

He caught her mouth in another stinging kiss, long and hard and unbelievably sweet. Then, when she gave herself up to the kiss, arching up to him, his hips thrust forward again. She gasped as something gave way and he rested wholly inside her. He let out a groan, half relief, half frustration, it seemed—and someone pounded on the door.

“Rand! Are you asleep? Rouse yourself, man! One of the boats is on fire!”

Josselyn and Rand both froze as reality, cruel and unflinching, invaded the room. He lay over her, pinning her to his bed with the hard proof of his masculine prowess. Sweat beaded on his brow, passion burned like coals in his eyes. But reality would not relent. The fist thumped its harsh interruption.

“Come on, man! I know you’re in there. ’Tis the Welsh. They’ve set fire to one of the boats on the beach!”

With a particularly foul English oath, Rand rolled off her. “Damn you, Osborn! Damn your pitiless soul!” He shoved up from the bed and yanked on his braies.

Josselyn remained where she lay, dazed. And yet she suddenly saw everything with startling clarity. Dear God, what on earth had she been thinking? Lying with her enemy, sharing his passions. Welcoming his seed. He needed no one to dress or undress him. He needed no one to assist his bath. Every step of the way, every word, every caress, had been calculated to seduce her. To lure her in and demolish her resistance. To gain him that ultimate power that every man sought to wield over a woman. And she’d provided him with precious little opposition.

While her countrymen plotted her escape, she’d opened her arms—and tegs—to her enemy. But not anymore. She would not be seduced by him ever again.

She stared wildly around. Had she a dagger she would have severed the source of all his male arrogance, all his male power over her. She would sever it from him and feed it to the pigs!

“Stay here,” he ordered as he jerked on his boot. He glanced only briefly at her, and if his expression was at all regretful, it was only that he was as yet unrelieved of his disgusting male seed. She meant to ensure he remained unrelieved.

She glared at him. “If you think—”

She broke off when Osborn burst into the room. “God’s knuckles, Rand.”

“Dammit, man!”

“Uffern dan!”
Josselyn yanked the sheet over her—not that it could disguise what had just happened.
“Cer!
Begone from here!”

To his credit Osborn did not stare but instead averted his eyes. But he did not leave. “Alan is hurt. ’Tis bad.”

“Did he see anything?”

Osborn glanced at Josselyn then away. He did not answer.

“Bloody hell.” Rand tugged on the other boot then snatched up his chainse and started for the door. “I’ll be back,” he said, giving her a brief parting glance. He gestured for Osborn to leave before him. Only then did his grim expression ease. “Stay right where you are, Josselyn. We will finish this ere the night is through.”

Slowly she shook her head. “We are finished already.”

His eyes glittered in the faltering light. Cold outside air rushed over her but his gaze was as hot as ever. “You and I are far from finished. If you wish to rage at someone, I suggest you rage at your countrymen. ’Tis they who have interrupted our lovemaking.”

Then with the sharp crack of the solid door against the
oak frame, he was gone, leaving her no one to rage at save herself.

Heads would roll, Rand swore as he strode through the chill night. They had but three boats, two small tubs and a larger flat barge. They were for fishing and ferrying supplies from the seagoing vessels that would call periodically at the partially sheltered cove beneath Rosecliffe. But now the barge was gone, if the orange glow down the cliff path was any indication.

Damnation!

“Who was on the watch?”

“Geoffrey. If Alan hadn’t come upon the marauders when he did, it would have been worse.”

They picked their way down the path that hugged the cliff face. On the narrow strip of beach the blackened frame of the barge showed like the bones of a great sea beast come awkwardly to its final rest. A cluster of men doused the remaining flames with buckets of seawater, but it was clear the damage was grave. As for Alan and Geoffrey …

With the harsh orange light of the fire gone and only the smoky flickerings of the stubborn embers remaining; the two soldiers lay like gray lumps upon the shore, one hunched over, holding his head, the other prone and not moving at all.

The figure so deathly still was Alan.

“He saved me skin,” young Geoffrey moaned, unconcerned by the tears coursing down his dirty cheeks. “He took the blade meant for me.” He sniffled and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “He won’t die, will he? Will he, milord?”

Alan’s face was so pale and the bloody stain on his tunic so large that Rand feared the worst. A man bent over Alan, stanching the bloody flow with a wad of cloth. “How fares he?” Rand asked.

“Bad, milord. But he yet lives. And he’s a strong lad,” the man added hopefully.

The stench of smoke mingled with blood was not unfamiliar to Rand. It was the smell of battle and his nostrils flared in recognition and rage. Someone must pay for this. Someone
would
pay.

“Make a litter,” he ordered one of the guards. “Take him to the kitchen.” Then he turned to the shaken Geoffrey. “Tell me everything. What was said. What you heard. I want every detail, starting with how many there were.”

“I … I only saw three, but there may have been more. I was … I was sitting there,” he stammered, pointing to a grassy hummock where a torn fustian blanket lay in a heap. “I wasn’t asleep, milord. I swear it.”

“Where did they come from, land or sea?”

“I didn’t see any boat.”

“We’ve searched the area,” Osborn put in. “The only access by land is down the path and we know they didn’t come that way.”

Rand was silent a moment. “Three men or more come in by sea, yet not on a boat. Were they wet?”

Geoffrey blinked and slowly nodded. “Aye. The one as held me was wet. D’ye think they swam here?”

Rand did not reply but asked another question, one he knew the answer to already. “What did they say? Did you hear any names?”

Geoffrey grimaced. “They was Welsh. I couldn’t understand a blessed word they said.”

“Not even a name?”

“Wait a minute! Maybe that’s what he was sayin’. The one that cut Alan. He wiped the bloody blade clean over his chest, then he laughed and said owin’ at mad dog. He said it twice. Owin’ at mad dog.”

“Owain ap Madoc,” Osborn mused out loud. He met Rand’s steady gaze and nodded once. Then he hurried back up the narrow trail.

Rand turned away and stared blindly out into the black night hanging over the sea. So it was begun. He did not often pray, but in the dark, with the sea lapping peace-fully—deceptively—at
the thin gravel shore, he prayed.
God, save Alan. He is a good soldier and a good man, and he’s too young to die.

He didn’t pray for help finding Owain ap Madoc, however. When it came to revenge, Rand needed no one’s help—least of all God’s.

Two hours later there was every hope that Alan would survive. The cut in his side, though bloody, had sliced through muscle only. No entrails spilled through the fleshy wound. Alan had roused briefly and despite his pain had confirmed Geoffrey’s story. Three men and Owain himself at the fore. The man already wanted his bride back, Rand mused. Would he want her now that she’d been ruined?

He frowned, then quaffed the bitter dregs of the red wine in his cup. He’d heard the Welsh did not value a woman’s purity so highly as did Englishmen. Under their law, Welshwomen could not be forced to wed, though likewise, they could not marry against their father’s wishes. Some English lords allowed their daughters a similar freedom, though they were not required to do so. But it was on the issue of a bride’s virginity that the Welsh and English parted ways. An unmarried Welshwoman could even take a lover if she so desired, without it reflecting poorly on her eventual husband.

He gritted his teeth and worked his jaw back and forth. Josselyn had done no more than that. Taken a lover. Owain would not be shamed before his people by that fact.

But Rand wanted him shamed. He wanted him dead.

And he wanted to finish what he’d started this night with Owain’s woman. With Josselyn.

He slammed the cup down and shoved to his feet. It was the darkest hour of the night, with neither moon nor stars to break the cavernous blackness. The watch had been doubled. Alan slept. It was time for him to visit his lonely hostage.

To his surprise two men stood guard, one at the door, the other at the window.

“She tried to escape, milord,” the shorter man said. He took a step away from Rand. “We had to tie her up.”

“You what?” Rand’s anger flared like a pitch torch. No one had the right to touch Josselyn save him.

“She was like a wild woman!” the man cried as Rand advanced on him. “She nearly scratched my eyes out. See?” He pointed to a jagged scratch on his upper cheek.

“And she tried to set fire to your bed!” the other man said while keeping his distance. “She tried to burn your quarters right down to the ground. But we put out the fire before it could rightly catch.”

Rand drew up. Fire? That conniving little bitch! She would be well matched with that bastard Owain. “Go find your own beds. I’ll see to her the rest of this night.”

The two men exchanged glances, relief being their first reaction, followed swiftly by a leering understanding. But Rand didn’t care what they thought. He slammed into the room in a cold rage. He could not mete out punishment against Owain. Not tonight. But he could damn well mete it out against Josselyn. And he would.

She was tied to the bed, slumped against one of the posts. Her arms had been lashed behind her, her hair tumbled over her face, and the neckline of her gown was torn, exposing her chest and the upper swell of her left breast. Despite his fury toward her and her countrymen, a sick knot twisted in Rand’s gut.

They hadn’t taken advantage of her, had they? They hadn’t fondled that creamy flesh or feasted their eyes on her rose-tinged nipples?

God help them both if they had!

“Josselyn?” Even to his own ears he sounded far too concerned for her welfare. She was his enemy, a willful warrior bitch who would do anything to drive him out. He’d best think with his brains, not with his cock.

She lifted her head slowly, then tossed her hair out of
her face with an arrogant jerk, and glared her hatred at him. A smudge of soot marred her fair skin, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.

He could not say the same for his bed.

The sheets were charred and a hole in the close-woven mattress cover let burned straw protrude. Wet, burnt straw. The room stank of smoke but at least there was no blood. Rand expelled a long breath as weariness stole over him. What more madness could this night hold for him? He braced himself against any show of weakness and met her scowl with one of his own.

“You have sealed your fate. Any freedoms I might have been disposed toward granting you are no more.”

“Freedom to labor on your behalf? Ha! ’Tis just another sort of servitude.”

BOOK: Rexanne Becnel

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