Her eyes were on his. Her lips were parted and dry. “No!” she whispered.
“Yes.”
His hold upon her hair eased. His hand cradled the back of her head, and he swept her into his arms, easing her back down to the bed. She trembled beneath him, but her dark lashes barely flickered and her eyes remained riveted to his, or perhaps he had been swept anew into the enchantment of her dance, of her seduction.
He lay down beside her before she could move, one leg cast over her limbs, his eyes never leaving hers. Nor did her silver gaze fall from his. “You’d said that you’d not beat me or rape me. You promised—”
“I didn’t exactly promise, but neither have I beaten you or raped you.”
“But you intend—”
“It will not be rape. Cease to fight me. The battle is lost. It was lost before we came to this room tonight.”
“No …” she whispered, shaking her head. There was a touch of desperation in her wide-set eyes. She knew that her protest was futile. He smiled, and placing his hand beneath the swell of her breast, over her heart, he felt the rampant beating. He curved his fingers over the fullness of her breast, and though she jolted with the new sensation, she caught her breath and did not speak or protest.
She could not protest, she was afraid to protest; indeed, she was afraid to move. She despised him, she reminded herself, truly she did; he was her enemy to the gates of hell, she was certain, and yet there was something mesmerizing about his very arrogance and confidence. He would do as he chose always, and damn the consequences. And there was something haunting in his voice ….
And in his touch.
She trembled, for she could not escape him, not his sinewed thigh or the strength of his arms, or the magnetic power of his eyes. Her lashes fell, and she could see his large bronze hand moving upon the ivory of her flesh. She did hate him, and she should hate his hands upon her, but what she felt was an ever-mounting fascination. An unbidden excitement swept through her. It seemed as if a slow-building fire had been ignited within her so deeply that she could not distinguish the source. Then she realized it was ignited from where his callused palm skimmed over her nipple, and it swept down into her, deep into her, into the very center of her being, into the apex of her thighs and her most womanly recesses.
“Please …” she whispered.
“I do not please.”
“What if—”
“You are a liar, Rhiannon,” he told her, and he did not cease to touch her. She was maddening, she was perfection, she was a dream of heaven and wicked delight.
“But—”
He smiled slowly, tauntingly. “Have done with your protests. I am no monk, and will not live as one. Nor are you such a sweet and tender bride. Still, we will soon know the absolute truth about your meeting with Rowan in the woods. There is nothing for you to fear. Barbarian that you call me, I could not harm an innocent babe. Should you carry the spawn of another man, that child will be promised simply and surely to the church. I would not kill the child of any woman, not even you, lady.”
“I—I don’t believe you.” She moistened her lips. Her protests were futile. He would soon discover for himself that her tryst with Rowan had not been consummated.
Nor had proximity to Rowan ever made her feel as she felt at this moment. She loved Rowan, yet his kiss and his touch never had ignited such strange, startling fires as these, created by a man she hated.
He smiled, and it was a strange, crooked smile now, boyish, wistful, and nostalgic. “I’ve nine living siblings, lady. Six brothers, three sisters. My mother lost but one child, and yet for that child she grieved deeply and long. Barbarian though I may be, I have been taught that all life is sacred, and most especially that of a child.
“In truth, lady, I had meant to let you be this night. Aye, I meant to torment you, but then to leave you untouched until the battle was over, until I knew that the land Alfred gave me had been won. But I don’t believe that you were ever really with your lover, and since you brought this on yourself, in all kindness, I must make you accept what you have done.”
“What I have done!” she gasped. Candles flickered around them. The light danced upon his features and he was both forbidding in the ethereal glow and enchanting. Accept … this? She could never accept this stranger, draped so intimately upon her, this Viking with his blond hair and beard and piercing Nordic eyes and hard-sinewed body. He spoke softly, he seemed to take his leisure, and still she could feel the fires in him, the hard shaft of his sex, the lapping flames and the tension that sizzled between them. Fear surged through her once again as she realized that she was lying still when he touched her freely. She drew her hand up against his arm, but she quickly realized that the gesture was pointless. The corded muscles of his arm were like steel.
He caught her wrists and held them taut above her head, his gaze brooding upon her. “Men would have died for your reckless taunt this eve, lady. Alliances are precarious. I have come here to fight for Alfred because I believe in his cause, and I believe that he is a great king, a man to rival Aed Finnlaith, my grandfather, the Ard-ri. He is wise and he is pious, and he is a warrior-king with limitless courage. I have come here to find my own place, to seek out my fortress and my land, and I will not let you—or anyone—destroy what I have determined by my will.”
He was done talking, she realized. He lowered his head, and though she thrashed aside, his mouth covered and claimed hers. His tongue parted her lips and thrust hotly and deeply into her mouth. He ravished with his tongue, caressed … and ravished again. It seemed he entered more and more deeply inside of her with the melding of their lips. In the flickering candlelight he seemed to steal away her very heart and soul, give them back, then take them once again. She fought the fires but they were there. She wanted to twist away but could not, and the kiss was so very forceful and demanding that she had no choice but to return it. His lips parted from hers and touched down upon them again and again, until her lips were swollen and her breath came raggedly.
When his lips left hers, they traveled a slow, demanding trail across her cheek to her earlobe, and she felt the hot moisture of his breath there, and then upon her throat. His eyes found hers. She wet her lips and tried to protest, but she had no breath for words. He freed her wrists but caught her hands, his fingers entwining with hers. He moved his body against the length of hers. She felt the rough hair of his thighs rubbing against her, and the power of his body as he wedged apart her knees, and settled his length between her thighs. His throbbing manhood lay intimately against her, and a desperate sound escaped her. His mouth covered hers, sweeping away her words and her protests. Then his lips moved again. He drew them slowly over her throat, pausing at the heartbeat that pulsed against a soft blue vein. His tongue flickered over her flesh, his kiss moving lower. His mouth closed slowly over her nipple, and the sensation of it caused her to gasp. Still he took his leisure, his tongue circling the rosy bud, his teeth grazing it, his lips moving once again. She whispered fervently and frantically, her head thrashing against the pillow. She surged against him, but their fingers were still entwined; his body was a prison of heat and muscle and sinew about her.
He trailed his kiss across the valley between her breasts to give attention to the second sweet mound, sucking the crest deeply into his mouth and causing new rays of fire to leap within her. He tasted the fullness of her, sweeping his tongue over the areola, then circling the very fullness of her breast. And his touch moved lower and lower.
She felt his hair, his beard, rough and evocative, moving over her belly. He swept his lips from one side to the other. He nipped lightly at her flesh, bathed it with the searing fire of his tongue. His hand moved over her, cupping her heat, stroking her thigh, covering the soft, downy mound between her thighs. She realized suddenly that her hands were free, that her fingers were now entangled in his hair. She tugged it, fighting the intimacy, whispering a frantic protest. He caught her hands again, recapturing her fingers. His eyes met hers with b
old, blue determination and he smiled. Then he lowered his head once again.
Her thighs were spread wide, for he lay between them. She gasped and choked and cried out at the intimacy he took then, surging hard against him. She tugged hard to free her hands, but he would not release his hold upon them. Slamming back against the pillow, she had no choice but to ride the startling, savage sensation that invaded her as surely as the shocking sweep of his tongue. Intimate, gentle, light, his lips just tasted her, barely caressed her. He teased, and then ravished and invaded. Still she twisted, still she fought, but even as she did so, the warmth seeped into her … deeper, deeper still. The little fires that had lapped into her body began to burn with a frightening ferocity. She was moving against him in a rhythm, she realized dimly. Somewhere, somewhere in the very heart of the assault, she had ceased to battle. She did not seek to escape him but to know where the fires were leading. Slow, throbbing tremors built within her until they were unbearable. A honeyed liquid coursed through her veins and coiled and simmered in her heart and loins. Then it seemed that the world exploded, that stars burst forth to extinguish the candlelight, that everything within her melted into a feeling of ecstasy so sweet, she had never imagined such a sensation could be so. She was still and breathless, surrounded by darkness after the fire of the light, and then she felt that she was drifting back.
He was on top of her then. His whisper fell against her ear. “Did your lover ever know you so?” he demanded. “Did he taste your own sweet nectars with his kiss?”
Her eyes opened. The startling, shocking magic faded, and rage and embarrassment swept through her. She cried out, seeking to strike him, but her fists fell flat against his shoulders, and his lips claimed hers with passion and fire. She felt the brush of his hand against her thigh, and then she felt the searing heat and strength of his sex as he moved into her at last.
She screamed with the sudden, blinding pain, but her scream was caught by his kiss. He held very still, letting her body become accustomed to the invasion of his. Sobs rose in her throat and she twisted from him, her fingernails curving into his shoulders.
He whispered to her, and she wasn’t sure of the words. And then he began to move. She did not think that she could survive his thrusts, for she would be split in two. But to her amazement the pain slowly ebbed. And as it ebbed, the depth, the heat, the velvet thrust within her, the slow, sure rhythm … all created little fires again. Flames that touched and lapped at her, that danced throughout and heated her blood. It was coming again, she realized, the startling ecstasy that was both terrifying and exalting. It was building within her with each stroke of his body. Drumbeats sounded within her head and her fingers moved frantically over his shoulders. Muscles rippled and corded beneath her touch, smooth and sleek and shockingly powerful. A damp sheen of perspiration covered them both. The earth pitched and rocked and whirled madly, and still she felt the smooth slide of his body claiming hers again and again.
He threw back his head, letting out a harsh cry. Cords strained in his neck, his shoulders bunched and tautened. And then Rhiannon felt him climax inside her, and the magic within her was again released. Sunlight burst upon her and then faded to near darkness, and she thought that she was passing out or that perhaps in truth she had died ….
He rolled from her body and drew her close. It was then that she felt the pain again, a soreness between her thighs. She swung around within his arms and pummeled him fiercely. To her further fury he laughed, capturing her wrists and pulling her close.
“Bastard!” she hissed.
“A pleased one,” he told her, his blue eyes mocking. “Your lovers’ tryst was interrupted, so it seems.”
“Then let me go now. Your honor has been satisfied. You’ve had your way—what more could you want?” she cried.
“What more? Oh, I want much, much more. I want everything, every little thing, that you were willing to give him.”
“I’ll never give you anything.”
He smiled. “Oh, I think that you will. Indeed, my love, I think that you will.”
9
“Never, I swear!” Rhiannon promised him vehemently. “All that you shall receive from me will be my ardent prayers for your swift demise!”
He laughed. “Because you hate me so deeply, madam? Or because you enjoy me?”
She swore softly and would have twisted away, but he caught her shoulders and pinned her with icy eyes. “Pray, then, for my demise. You had best do so. Yet if I do survive the coming battle, you had best then pray for your own soul. I will demand it as my due. I will demand everything, and I will have it—barbarically, if need be. I will always have what is mine.”
She freed herself at last from him, shrouded herself in the bedcovers, and turned her back on him.
“I see that you have already begun to pray that I fall in battle.”
She did not answer him. His hand fell upon her shoulder, and she shuddered, spinning around to meet him. He couldn’t mean to—to start it all over again. But he could. It was his wedding night.
Her body quickened and burned at the thought. Did she despise him merely for being what he was … or perhaps she did hate him even more deeply for what he had drawn from her. For what he knew he had drawn from her.
She would give him no more, ever. Yet her eyes widened with alarm as he watched her because she had quickly learned a lesson this evening—he had the greater strength, and he did have the power to bend her will with his touch.
But he did not touch her again. “Go to sleep,” he told her quietly. A glow fell over his features, over the mysterious blue power of his eyes, over the proud and handsome lines of his face, over his neatly clipped mustache and beard, over his shoulders, reminding her of their breadth and of his strength. She shivered. He stared at her a moment longer, then suddenly he swept his own covering aside. Naked and at ease, he sought out his sword.
In rising panic Rhiannon watched him. She saw him pick up the blade and stare at it almost lovingly, then run his fingers along the sharpness of the blade. He turned back toward the bed and began to stride toward her.
Something bubbled within her, a horror of death, some sweet instinct for life. He had lied; he meant to slay her, after all.
She paled. And as he came closer a cry escaped her. “Nay, you cannot!”
He paused, arching a brow. Then he began to laugh, and the sound of it was deep and rich and amused.
“Lady, with your temper, ’tis possible that I shall beat you at some time. But slit your throat … nay. Not yet, anyway.”
He climbed back into the bed, laying the sword on the floor by his side. “One never knows in foreign lands,” he murmured. Then he turned his back on her, pulling the covers over his shoulders.
Beside him, she lay in shock, so vastly relieved that she was perplexed. She wanted to jump from the bed and blow out the oil lamps, for she craved darkness to shield her body and her thoughts. She could not bring herself to leave the bed, and so she lay still and listened for his easy breathing. His back was to her, and she saw the bronze expanse of his shoulders and began to shiver.
She had been wed to this curious demon, this beast who mocked her very fear of him and now had turned from her. She wanted no part of him; she truly wanted him to fall. She was in love with Rowan.
No, she could never be in love with Rowan again. Not since this man had touched her. She might despise him, but still she shivered because of him, shivered and burned ….
She swallowed, for she could not bear to see that broad expanse of back and those bronzed shoulders. She eased up at last and moved toward the trunk at the foot of the bed, where the two lamps burned. She leaned down to blow out the flame, and then she paused, for her eyes had fallen upon his sword.
She could pick up the blade and pierce his heart. Then he could no longer hurt or humiliate her, could never again claim her as his wife.
Nay … She smiled ruefully, scornfully, at herself, for she could not do such a thing. She could not take a
blade against a sleeping man, no matter how she despised him.
“Vixen!”
The sharp, snarled word came from him in a startling rush of fury. She had not heard him move, she had not heard him breathe! But suddenly he was out of bed and was before her, holding her to him. He was hot and potent and in a seething fury, and she gasped with new fear as he held her, her head wrenched back and her soft form crushed against his hard one again.
“You would think to slay me! Your arrows did not find their true mark, so you would slice open a man you have wed!”
“Against my will!” she cried in her own defense. It would do her no good to claim that she had found herself unable to perform the treacherous deed. She quaked, and yet she forced herself to hold her chin high.
He swept her cleanly off her feet, into his arms. She felt his nakedness keenly. He cast her back upon the bed, but this time his back was not to her. His arm remained around her, and he pulled her taut to his body. Taut so that his chest and hips and loins were flush with her back and buttocks and he could feel each subtle shift of her movement.
And she could feel his body against her tender flesh. Pulsing, vibrant, alive …
“Go to sleep!” he snapped. “Move again and I shall promise to flay you with twenty strokes this very night, and then prove to you upon a later occasion that I can force myself to be very barbaric—and excruciatingly savage.”
Tears stung her eyes but she did not move. She lay barely breathing, hating the intimate feel of him against her.
She did not sleep. She spent the next hours wide awake. She did not turn, twist, or shift—indeed, she barely blinked. When at last her eyes closed and sleep claimed her, she was entirely unaware that she eased against him for his great warmth.
Or that he, too, had lain awake, in truth far longer than she.