Page 20 of Claimed
“Stop it, Drew.” He forced the words out. He had to prevent this exchange from escalating. She’d already gone too far. “Ye are wrong … it’s not that I don’t desire ye … it’s that I’m yer guard. Craeg charged me with yer protection.”
“And Craeg will never know,” she replied. Drew’s heart-shaped face had gone taut with determination. She wasn’t a woman used to being thwarted. “This is between ye and me … no one else.”
Satan strike me down, why is she asking this of me?
Carr felt as if he were hanging off the edge of a cliff, clinging to a rope that was slowly fraying. In just a few moments, he’d be plummeting to the rocks below, and there was nothing he could do about it.
For years he’d dreamed of Lady Drew wanting him. How many times had he taken himself in hand in the quiet of his cramped bed-chamber, alone in the darkness, and brought himself to climax while thinking about her.
But those fantasies had been safe, private.
The things that Lady Drew was saying to him now were dangerous for them both—even more so for him, for this woman had his heart.
And she had no idea.
Lady Drew was asking him to service her, like he was a prize stallion she’d chosen to put over her best mare. To her it was nothing more than an exchange, yet to him it would be everything.
Did she think he could just plow her and forget?
Drew stepped toward him, closing the gap he’d deliberately created. “I know that I am asking ye to break vows ye take very seriously,” she said, her voice soft now, her gaze imploring. “But I will ask no more of ye than this. Lie with me just once, Carr … please.”
Carr swallowed, hard. He hated that she was on the verge of begging him. This wasn’t how he wanted to remember Lady Drew. And yet, her nearness was intoxicating. The utter lack of guile upon her face, the way her lips parted, transfixed him. Her breast rose and fell sharply, and she clutched the bread and cheese he’d given her as if her life depended on it.
It was taking everything she had to ask this of him.
Yet she didn’t realize what it would cost Carr. That wasn’t her fault though—he’d been careful to keep his feelings hidden from her.
Letting out a slow exhale, Carr resisted the urge to reach out, to trace the determined line of her jaw with his fingertips. His gut twisted then. It would already be hard enough to leave her at Inishail and ride away, knowing their paths would never cross again.
After this, he’d be broken—inside where no one would see. But, he’d have one memory to treasure, to hold close as the years passed.
“Very well,” he murmured, his voice barely audible over the roar of the wind through the overhanging spruce. “Tonight?”
Drew’s eyes darkened, her pupils dilating so wide that her irises turned completely black. She then bit her plump lower lip.
Lust jolted through Carr’s groin, a sensation so sharp that his breath caught. Heat spread through his limbs, making him feel feverish. God, how he wanted to take hold of her, then and there, pull her behind this spruce, lay her down upon the mossy ground, and give her the servicing she so desperately wanted.
Instead, he clenched his jaw, suffering the ache in his groin, and watched as she nodded and took an unsteady step back from him. “Tonight,” Drew agreed softly, before she turned and walked back to the horses.
10
The Waiting
DREW HAD NEVER known a day to pass so slowly.
She’d barely been able to eat her bread and cheese. Her belly had closed in excitement—and as the sun traveled across the sky, that anticipation grew.
She’d done it. She asked him, and now Carr Broderick would lie with her. She was relieved he’d agreed. There had been a point in their conversation when she’d been sure he’d refuse her.
But now that he hadn’t, she felt as giddy as a lass at her first dance.
It was silly really, yet she liked the recklessness that had caught fire in her veins since leaving Skye. If she was going to become a nun, she might as well know what she was giving up.
All her life she’d flirted with men, danced around them like a colorful butterfly, enjoying the game. She’d lived as if she had a hundred years to waste. But time was running out now, and she’d not let this opportunity slip through her fingers.
She and Carr barely spoke for the whole afternoon. She let him and Aidan ride ahead, and kept her own counsel. However, she was now acutely aware of him, and her gaze kept returning to his broad shoulders.
It would happen tonight. Her belly flip-flopped at the thought. When and where, she didn’t know—but he’d agreed, and that was all that mattered.
