Page 87 of Rebellion's Fire

“You could leave when it quietens down,” she said, unwinding his bandage again. “When everyone’s asleep.”

“I could,” he agreed. “But I won’t. I’ll stay until morning.”

“When you’ll be granted absolution by the priest and your mother?” she said bitterly. And yet her hands were gentle, laying aside the bandage, spreading her damned ointment.

He said, “I won’t need absolution.”

Her gaze flickered up to his eyes as if wondering what he meant by that. He wasn’t sure himself; he was still feeling his way. He kept his gaze on her face as she worked, forcing the edges of his anointed wound together, binding it tightly. After which, she turned her attention to his more minor cuts and bruises. As she spread something across the large hurt on his back—he thought it was merely a bruise—her massaging fingers felt all too like those of a lover. He had to hold himself rigid and still, but it was hard to control his breathing. He had to resort to the tricks of his childhood when he’d had to cover his foolish fear of horses and his horror of fighting.

When she touched the old arrow scar, frowning, he could stand no more and seized her hand, drawing it away. “Enough, Cairistiona. I didn’t come to be healed.” Didn’t he? There were more hurts than those inflicted with swords and arrows.

He tugged her hand, forcing her to sit on the bed beside him. It was unfair that she couldn’t choose, but he knew she’d never say so, for it was too obvious and too irrelevant.

Gazing at their joined hands, she said, “What if you’re wrong? What if I’m not descended from Malcolm Canmore at all? You’ll have a useless marriage.”

“Useless?” He stared at her. “You have, I think, a very limited idea of the uses of marriage.”

Giving her no time, he pushed her onto her back and leaned over her.

She jeered at him. “You forget. I’ve been used before.”

He reached beneath her, drawing up the annoying garment, pulling it roughly over her head. The mask came with it, and for once, she made no attempt to retrieve it. Instead, she stared at him with defiance, and he saw that she imagined it was her secret weapon, her hidden dagger to repel him.

He stared back, only at her face, at the seamed, blotched scarring, drawing the skin of her cheek and the corner of her eye into unnatural positions. The scar pattern was intricate, interesting in its own right, but there was more, far more of her to see. Her breathing had quickened, her naked breasts rising and falling under him, spreading heat all the way through him.

He couldn’t pretend her reaction was desire. He knew fear when he saw it, and it stood out now in Cairistiona’s desperate eyes, even though she tried to hide it. But what appalled him more than the fear was the resignation. If she had to, she’d take this punishment as she’d taken William’s in the early years. William had raped her.

Adam heard himself swear under his breath and swallowed the rest of his words. He was doubly glad he’d killed William, but he had no wish to frighten her further.

“Ugly, isn’t it?” she mocked. “Well, I won’t put the lamp out for you. They’re already bedding down in the hall. You’ll be able to leave in a few minutes with your manhood unimpugned.” She tried to turn away from him, perhaps to pretend to sleep, to curl into a protective ball since he’d stripped her of all her outer defenses. Didn’t she know those weren’t the ones that mattered? Either way, he wouldn’t let her.

He held her beneath him, cupping her face, and pressed his parted lips to the damaged skin of her face, kissing his way from her temple to her chin, and then across her mouth to the other side.

She stared at him in bafflement, but at least, realizing he wasn’t repulsed enough to leave her, she wasn’t trying to escape him. Since she was still, he eased his weight off her so that he could finally gaze at her whole, naked body.

He swallowed. “Do you really not know you’re beautiful?” It came out as little more than a husky whisper, but words had never been his strong point. He set about showing her, caressing her with slow hands and lips that he had to force to patience because they were too greedy and wanted all of her too quickly.

Touching her, stroking her with ever-increasing intimacy, he lost himself in the worship of her body, in a lust more intense than any he could remember. He was no stranger to women. In them, he’d found pleasure, release, comfort, forgetfulness, whatever his need of the moment. But this with Cairistiona was somehownew, exciting, blissful, perhaps because it wasn’t just her body he wanted. He wanted all of her,beginningwith her beautiful, silken body…and he was falling far too deep to stop.

Well, perhaps if she begged him to stop, he still could, but as the bafflement in her brilliant eyes changed to confused wonder and her quickened heartbeat no longer felt like fear, he knew she wouldn’t.

Slowly, achingly slowly, he trailed his fingers across her soft, warm skin and found the heat between her legs. Found her desire.

For the first time since he’d come into the room, he closed his eyes. He’d found his way.Thank you, God.

*

Nothing in Christian’sexperience had prepared her for what Adam MacHeth was doing to her. She’d hoped to scare him off by her unsightly scars, but if that didn’t work—and it hadn’t—she knew she just had to grit her teeth and wait for it to stop.

But he didn’t behave like William at all. Hekissedher scars, kissed her everywhere until the hot, heavy lethargy she’d felt in his arms the night he’d escaped began to grow with more and more intensity. She began to realize this was nothing like her wedding night with William, though exactly what it meant, she had no idea. He didn’t climb on her, force himself inside her.

Slowly, her clenched hands unfurled on the sheets. Although she couldn’t give in to this, it was good not to hate it. Sweet, even. She held her hands flat on the bed, fighting her curiosity as to how his skin would feel under them. His fingers were rough in texture, and yet they touched her with such gentleness that she was astounded. This wasn’t the brutish berserker she’d first met over the bodies of her guards. And yet, he was still the man who’d deliberately killed her husband and would marry her for her supposed bloodline.

His wild, tangled hair brushed against her breast, its blackness sharp against her pale skin. It felt curiously soft, although there was little softness anywhere else on his body. Not on the powerful arms which held her or the hard chest pressing against her shoulder as he looked down into her face and slid his hand between her thighs.

She gasped, jerking against his fingers in shock. His eyes closed. A smile flickered across his lips as his fingers stirred lethargically and pleasure surged through her, astonishing her more than anything that had gone before.

His eyes opened, blazing into hers. Her heart thundered as his free hand gathered hers and raised it high above her head on the pillow.

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