Page 80 of Tempted
“I’ll find him,” Heath offered, knowing the young Kennedy would be paying Zara for her favors.
That evening, Tina ate dinner with Ada and told her the gossip about Nan Howard. She also repeated what Heath had told her about the English raids. She did not, however, repeat the things he had said about Ram Douglas. After dinner, Ada helped her hang the tapestry depicting the tawny lynx above the wide bed. It complemented superbly the luxurious fur that spilled to the floor.
When she retired, Tina stretched out in the big bed, recalling how impossibly narrow the berth had been last night. She was restless, her mind like quicksilver running over the events since that fateful night when her brothers had gone to Douglas on a raid. She tossed and turned, refusing to acknowledge to herself that the empty bed felt lonely.
At first she was too cold, then too hot, until finally she threw off her nightgown, sighed deeply, and settled into a light sleep Somewhere between the hour of three and four, when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb, Ram Douglas undressed in the pitch dark and slipped quietly into bed He was shaking with fatigue He had driven himself to the limit of his endurance that day, capturing an English vessel with an unarmed ship, literally carrying the heavy cannons from one deck to the other. He had put the captured crew ashore on the Isle of Man, then towed the English ship with the Revenge. A storm had blown up in the Irish Sea that he had fought for over three hours. It had been no easy task to bring the two ships safely into the Solway Firth. As soon as darkness fell, he had seen the beacon fires signaling a raid as they sailed past Gretna. It was in the territory Douglas patrolled, and he knew he had been derelict in his duty. They had to disembark, take the horses from the hold, and beat back a sizable raid that had been launched from Liddlesdale, England, up into Nithsdale, Scotland.
Once again, they were far outnumbered, but the fury with which Ram and his moss-troopers had attacked the enemy eventually made the raiders turn tail and flee back across the border. He had slaughtered many, perhaps a score, but two of his own men lay dead and one was mortally wounded. What they had found at Eaglesfield was too much for even the hardest-bitten of his men. The women and children had taken refuge in the church, but the English had committed the atrocity of putting it to the torch. The little charred corpses lay piled behind the stone altar.
Back at Castle Douglas, in the bathhouse close by the knights’ quarters, the water had run red with blood. By the time all the wounds had been tended, Ram staggered on his feet, but he still found the strength to climb the stairs to his chamber—to his woman. Though he was physically and emotionally drained, his mind was overactive, alive with scenes he could not blot out. Death’s skull grinned at him. He had provided the gravediggers with employment this night. His eternal soul was damned, anyway. He’d done an obscene amount of killing in the king’s Highland campaigns, and then there had been the part he’d played in the death of Damaris.
Tina stirred in her sleep, and Ram’s mind mercifully became centered upon her. He turned on his side, reached out his arms, and drew her against him. She too was naked, and the feel of her was so comforting, it gave him solace. She awoke with the feel of his lips feathering kisses on her brow into her hair. She could hardly believe this was the same Ram Douglas who made love like a storm.
His kisses were so sweet, so gentle, so breathtakingly tender, her heart skipped a beat, then quickened its pace. As her arms went about him, she was shocked to feel him shaking “Hold me,” he said huskily. The need in his voice was palpable. In this vulnerable moment, she knew he would allow her to draw closer to him than he had ever allowed before. She slid against the hard length of him and tightened her arms. He sighed, and she felt the great slabs of muscle in his back relax. “Hold me,” he repeated low, and incredibly she knew what he wanted.
She arched her mons and lifted herself upon his marble manroot. He eased up inside her until she sheathed the entire length of him, then he buried his lips in the warm hollow of her throat and drifted in and out of blissful repose It was as if he had found sanctuary.
It was early morning when Tina awoke. They still embraced each other, but Ram was now in a heavy sleep. As she eased her body from his, he mumbled an unintelligible protest, but did not awaken. She noted that his jet black hair had blood caked in it and he had a two-day heavy growth of beard, yet in his sleep he looked younger than his thirty-two years. If he hadn’t been born a Douglas, if part of him hadn’t been blackened by hatred and killing since boyhood, who knows what might have been?
She sighed and slipped a bedgown over her nakedness, then went next door to Ada’s room. “Have the servants heat water for a bath, and then would you be an angel and ask Mr Burque to prepare a special breakfast for two? He knows I cannot eat oatmeal without a jug of syrup and another of cream. I want some sort of fruit and a fillet of tenderloin beef—no mutton, I pray you.”
The best part of an hour elapsed before Tina carried the breakfast tray to the bed. The irresistible aroma of the food caused Ram to open his eyes and sit up. Tina climbed onto the bed and perched cross-legged with the tray before them. He looked amused. It was a novelty for him to eat in bed. “What are ye doing?” he asked curiously.
“You were exhausted last night. I am restoring you to your normal state of vigor. I’m going to feed you.”
He picked up the jug of syrup, stuck in his finger, then licked it. She slapped his hand, took the jug away from him, and poured a thick layer of it onto the steaming porridge. Then she drenched it with cream and lifted a spoonful to his mouth. “Open up!” she commanded.
Miraculously, he obeyed. They devoured the pears filled with red currant jelly, and the beefsteak was so tender, she was able to cut it with the edge of the fork.
“Jesu, that’s almost as good as sex,” Ram said.
“Better!” she teased, and he grabbed her with mock ferocity. A knock upon the chamber door sent her scrambling from the bed. She admitted the servants with the bathwater, and Ram lay back against the pillows, intending to enjoy watching her bathe. When they were again alone, she smiled at him and announced, “Now I’m going to bathe you.”
He hooted, thoroughly bemused by all the lavish attention she paid him. Then his eyes narrowed. What did she want? Some devious purpose lay behind this most pleasurable interlude. If he kept a wise silence, she would soon make her point.
Ram got out of bed and put the empty tray upon the table, then stepped into Tina’s pretty tub and sat down in the scented water. She laughed at the sight he made. She could sink down up to her chin, but he was so large, the water came only to his hips. She slipped to her knees beside the scallop shell and plunged her hand beneath the water for the sponge. “I will be your handmaiden, my lord.”
“Ye have a fantasy tae be a houri in a harem?” he teased.
“Ah, I will never reveal my fantasies—all my mystery would vanish.” She lathered his broad back and then the crisp black mat upon his wide chest. The hair in his armpits wasn’t wiry—it was like black silk and at least three inches long. “There are things about you I am only just discovering,” she murmured.
“I am a man of many parts, some of them more prominent than others,” he punned and her eyes flew to his groin. It reared its head above the water like a sea serpent and she studied its shape and contour with curious eyes. She reached out a finger and delicately ran it along the ridge beneath the head. He shuddered erotically.
“Why is it made so?” she asked.
Huskily he explained. “The purpose of the ridge is tae draw the delicate skin of yer sheath out and in tae create friction.”
Her throat went dry, and she hastily arose. He glimpsed her naked limbs when her bedgown parted, and his eyes followed her every movement as she gathered a towel and his shaving razor. His eyes went from her to the tawny lynx tapestry, and he saw the resemblance immediately. The golden eyes were almost identical, and all her movements were decidedly feline. She had a wild, elusive, and untamed quality that held him in thrall, and he knew he wanted her no other way.
She saw the smoldering intense look of desire and held up her hand to keep him in the water. “Your hair is caked with blood.” She brought the water jug. “You soap, I’ll rinse.”
He scrubbed his head impatiently, and she drenched him with the cold water. It had no effect on his raging desire, nor hers. She handed him the large, thirsty towel and purred, “Don’t shave until after you’ve made love to me.” She opened the bedrobe and let it slither to the rug.
He lifted her against him onto his engorged phallus. She wrapped her slim legs about him and he carried her before the polished silver mirror. “See—ye look exactly like a cat.” In the mirror’s depth she saw the reflection of the tapestry behind them, and indeed she felt like a wild little animal. She could already feel the sensuous lynx fur beneath her back. Her nails clawed his back, and she bit him on the neck. He growled, and she felt him lengthen. Her tight gloving lured him deeper, and unable to stand up a moment longer, they sprawled across the bed.
They both made fierce demands upon each other. Tina did not love him, but before God, she loved the things he did to her, loved the way he made her feel. She was aware of her whole body, from her tingling scalp to the soles of her feet, from her fingertips to the tips of her breasts. His beard was so masculine and abrasive, she felt a bone-softening passion. She asked herself how he could have this effect upon her, but she knew the answer. It was his danger, his violence that attracted her This thing between them was as dangerous and as hot as fire.
His long, rampant maleness was buried deeply within her. Her sheath possessed him convulsively. They were so hot, they scalded each other, and she imagined she could actually feel the ridge beneath the head of his shaft drawing the honey-drenched walls of her sheath in and out until it quivered with exquisite pulsations.
