Page 100 of Come the Morning

“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 talethat 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.