Page 75 of When a Highlander Loses His Heart
Chapter Twenty
Her plea cleaved his heart and battered the control he had worked hard to find in the week he had been gone. She had used the words he’d uttered to her against him, and he knew well the submission she desired was his heart. He also knew well that eventually she would cease asking for it. He just needed to stay strong. Until she could accept how it would be between them—how it must be—he could not join with her, though every part of his body burned to caress her, to hold her. He would deny himself because when he touched her, when they joined, he felt his very soul moved by her. Who could defend against that?
He looked away from her. He did not want to see the hurt he was about to cause. He gently removed his hand from the beautiful body he wanted to worship. He heard her sharp intake of breath as he bent down and gathered her cloak in one hand and the heavy breastplate in the other. When he stood, he forced himself to meet her gaze. The pain he saw there cut him to the core, but he could not relent.
He held the cloak out to her. “Ye must accept that what ye ask for kinnae be. The sooner ye acknowledge this truth in yer heart, the better it will be between us.”
Fiery anger flashed in her eyes. She snatched her cloak from him and jerked it on. When she was done, she tossed her hair over her shoulders and glared at him. “Bybetterdo ye mean ye will join with me once more?”
His mind leaped to the times he had held her in his arms. Her skin had burned with the heat of passion; her sweet breath had come out in short pants. Both memories were exquisite torture, but the most poignant memory was her curling so trustingly into his arms. He feared how she trusted him so completely. What if he failed her as he had failed his sister?
“Aye,” he finally croaked, his chest feeling as if it contained too much emotion and would burst. “I will come to yer bed again after ye have accepted how we must be.”
“Passionless?” she growled.
“Nay,” he denied. “There will be passion. Always.”
“As before?” Her words rang with challenge.
He stared at her, knowing she knew it could not be.
“Dunnae bother answering,” she snapped and then poked him in the chest. “Ye kinnae control everything in yer life, Graham.”
“Ye are mistaken, Isobel. I can, and I will. This is the way it will be between us from now on. Ye are my wife, and ye will accept this.”
“Ye believe I will accept ye pushing me away and erecting a wall between us simply because ye tell me to?” she yelled.
His blood rushed with his own building anger. “Aye, I do. And ye will. Ye will accept what I tell ye and do as I say,” he rebutted in harsh tones. Then he grimaced. He had only just returned and his infuriating, beautiful wife had already managed to so rile him that he had failed to contain his emotions. He needed an outlet for all the frustration inside him. “I need to train,” he snapped. And here in the woods was as good a place as any. “Return to the castle,” he commanded, turning away and drawing up his sword to go through the moves he knew as well as breathing.
She muttered behind him and then stomped around gathering her sword from the ground. The air swished as she swung onto the destrier, and then clopping filled the silence as she led the beast toward the castle. His shoulders sagged the moment the noise died. Holding himself back from Isobel was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he had done it. And he would do it again. But the next time she angered him, he would not lose control.
Suddenly, the thunder of horses’ hooves filled the air, and Graham swung around just in time to see his willful wife, bent low over her destrier, charge past him in the opposite direction of the castle. His mouth dropped open, and disbelief kept him rooted to his spot. She sat up as her horse raced ahead through the trees. She glanced over her shoulder with a look of defiance and triumph, and then she turned back around and screamed.
For the space of a breath he thought it was in anger, but when she ducked a low-hanging branch, icy fear twisted around his heart. He glanced toward the ever-thickening woods she was still headed toward, and he roared a command for her to halt. When she did not heed him, he gave a shrill whistle to the horse he knew well. “Alante!” he roared, whistling twice more.
The horse stopped so suddenly Graham feared Isobel would fly off the front of Alante and be trampled. She held on but barely. His heart beat a frenzied rhythm in his chest as he raced toward her and pulled her off the horse to set her hard on her feet. “Ye almost got yerself killed!” The swell of emotion that filled him made him shake with the effort to contain it.
“If ye had nae stopped the horse, I would have managed it!” she thundered back.
But he could see the doubt of her own words in her eyes. “Ye almost killed yerself disobeying me!” he growled. The truth of it slammed him in the chest. “Dunnae attempt to ride a horse again until I personally give ye lessons. And if ye ever disobey me again,mo nighean dubh, I will smack ye on the behind. This is a vow,” he added threateningly.
Instead of looking fearful, his wife had the mettle to smile smugly, and he understood then that somehow she thought she had just won a battle between them. It was on the tip of his tongue to inform her she had not, but when he saw the trembling of her body, he clamped his mouth shut, helped her onto the horse, and swung up behind her.
He drew her back into the protectiveness of his embrace as he battled the desire tightening his groin. He gritted his teeth and called upon the little will he had left not to worship her body as he yearned to. After halting to gather the breastplate, he rode them to the courtyard in silence and helped her off the horse. The distance between them could not have come sooner. He sagged with relief because he knew without a doubt that he would not be able to keep control the next time he so much as touched Isobel, which meant he could not even graze her hand until she had accepted how it had to be between them.
Isobel was entrenched in bloody warfare, and she knew well the winner would set the pattern for the rest of their lives. Her opponent just so happened to be her husband. Seduction was not working. Graham erected walls faster than she could even consider how to knock them down.
She’d had small gains, such as his spending time with her each day to show her how to properly ride a horse and use a sword, but the gains had been so miniscule that they could not even be considered victories. He’d not touched her once in the training as he had the day he had returned, and he’d not come to her bedchamber, either. She was greatly disheartened and quickly losing hope, so when she went to the great hall to break her fast and Marion told her that Graham had received a letter from the king ordering them to make their way to Brigid immediately to formally claim her castle and for Graham to take control of it, she felt as if her time to reach him was slipping away. If she was going to flee with the hope it would make Graham realize he loved her, she was going to have to go soon. She was so torn.
She quickly excused herself and started out the door as Lena was entering. “Where are ye away to?” Lena asked.
“I’m seeking Graham. The king has sent a letter ordering us to depart immediately, and I have an overwhelming feeling here”—she touched her fingertips to her chest—“that my time to destroy the barriers he has put between us is disappearing.”
Lena nodded. “Dunnae lose faith. He loves ye, I believe; he simply dunnae wish to accept it.”
Isobel nodded, but her heart was heavy. Shewaslosing faith. She had been so sure she could reach him, but now she simply did not know. “Thank ye, Lena,” she said, squeezing the woman’s hand before departing. It did not take her long to find Graham down near the loch where he trained for hours every day.
As she walked down the seagate stairs she met Rhona coming up them carrying jugs of water. Isobel took a deep breath as the woman’s face became white and then her eyes narrowed. Rhona made the sign of the cross, reminding Isobel that with Father Murdock still gone, Rhona had never been spoken to about hearing the priest say Isobel had bewitched Graham. All Isobel’s frustration burst inside her, and anger roiled through her. She was weary of this.
