Chapter Thirteen
The night had been long and cold, though Sorcha was thankful that it had, at least, not been storming. She and Brandt had tucked themselves into a small copse of trees near the river and lit a small fire, the rush and gurgle of the water the only noise throughout the night.
She’d barely slept, fearing both another attack from ruthless bounty hunters and an infection settling into Ares’s injury. She’d washed the wound the first chance she’d had, applied her mother’s salve liberally, and then bandaged it up. None of it, though, was a promise against infection. They needed Ares. Brandt needed him, and not just to transport him from place to place.
Ares was Brandt’s companion. If something were to befall the horse, it would hurt him deeply. It would also be yet one more bad consequence of her scheming back in Selkirk. She didn’t want to think of how Brandt might blame her, so instead, she’d looked up at the stars most of the night, the sky clear enough to show off every last twinkling constellation. She’d traced Orion and Gemini with her eyes, the Plough, and the Seven Sisters. It had been some while before she realized Brandt was not sleeping, either. His breathing was too quiet, his limbs restless as they stirred under his plaid. He might not have been keeping watch outside their encampment, but he remained alert. Alert and a few arm’s lengths away from her own bedroll.
As dawn lit the fields, Sorcha had found her husband already at Ares’s side, inspecting the animal’s leg, the bandage off.
“It looks well,” she said. The wound had started to heal instead of fester.
“Because of you,” he replied, discarding the old strip of linen bandage into the meager flames of the fire. Sorcha tried not to flush at his praise, but her mind was relentless in the way it sought the pleasure such a thing brought.
She got to her feet and stretched, then went to her pack for the salve.
“Because he is a strong animal,” she rejoined before moving toward Ares and reapplying a new layer. Brandt then bandaged him again.
“He’ll be fine until we reach Montgomery,” he said with a gentle caress of his palm over his mount’s knee. “Once there, he can rest in more comfort until he recovers.”
Sorcha bit her lip against the instant reply springing to her tongue. What if the Montgomerys aren’t welcoming?
Saying as much would only cast a shadow over what was, so far, a fine, blue-sky Highland morning. The air was crisp, but with the sun and the rare lack of wind, it would soon warm. It might even get hot.
Self-consciously, she took stock of herself. They’d washed up at the monastery, but drenching rains and a night spent in a muck-filled field hut had made her feel as if she hadn’t bathed in days. Before leaving the monks, she and Brandt had been welcomed to fill their packs with supplies for both themselves and their horses. Among the piles of stores found in the cellarium, there had been a crate of charity clothing and fabric. She’d found a simple green dress with few marks and mendings, a threadbare but clean linen shift, and a shawl that had but one spot of well-done darning.
Showing up at the Montgomery keep in her current grime-covered clothing was out of the question. She would already have to withstand the stares and whispers about her face; she would not give them anything else to gossip about.
“I’m going down to the river,” she announced as she took the dress and shawl from her pack. As her hand reached, she saw how dirty it was. A small amount of her lavender soap remained in her saddlebags, and she palmed the jar now along with a square of linen.
Brandt gave her a small nod. “I’ll keep watch.”
Of course he would, she thought with a smile as she walked out of the trees, toward the wide, languid river. It wasn’t as loud as it had been the night before. Sunlight did that; it muted things. Sounds, sensations, fears. Though as she stopped at the river’s edge, placing her clothes and soap on a flat-topped rock jutting halfway into the clear water, she thought of how little it muted her longing for her husband. At night, yes, it was more pointed, but even now as she pictured him at the camp tending to their mounts and stomping out the fire, she longed for him. It was silly really, how thirty or so yards felt like miles upon miles.
Sorcha shook her head and undressed to her shift. The icy river water bit at her feet as she entered, but she knew the longer she took to get in, the worse the cold would be. So instead, she gripped her jar of soap and went straight into the shallows. The riverbed dropped into a pool, the rocks at her feet worn smooth, and the bracing cold sent a rash of gooseflesh all over her skin as she submerged nearly to her shoulders. Sorcha couldn’t stop the little yelp of surprise, then a jittery burst of laughter.
Quickly, she lathered her body with soap, scrubbing at the streaks of dirt on her arms and hands, scouring her neck and chest and legs, concentrating hard on the rims of her nails. She took a breath and dunked her head, the cold water stabbing her cheeks and nose. She pushed back to the surface, another bubble of laughter at the cold releasing.
Her hair! It was a mess of knots, and as she lathered it with soap, tried to untangle each one. But it would take far too long, and already she was starting to feel numb from the knees down, her jaw beginning to chatter. The sun would warm her quickly once she was out, and then she could sit on the rock and comb out the tangles. So she gave up, simply dunking her head once more to rinse before turning to go back to shore.
Sorcha stopped, a pulse of shock skittering through her at the sight of Brandt, standing on the flat-topped rock next to her pile of discarded clothes. He held a length of clean plaid, one side of his mouth bowed into a mischievous grin. Sorcha felt another shiver through her body, though this one was unrelated to the cold. Instead, a spike of pure heat shot through her, centering low in her abdomen.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.
The grin intensified, encompassing his whole, beautifully formed lips. “Long enough to think you need to pay better attention to your surroundings.”
“I was distracted,” she said, the excuse and the cold making her voice high. “The water is freezing.”
Brandt’s eyes dropped to the twin slopes of her breasts beneath the wet shift just cresting the surface of the water, and Sorcha felt the graze of his stare to her shaking bones. The river water was clear, and she knew that despite the slight distortion the surface may provide, the outline of her body in her sodden garment was plain for him to see.
Though her nipples had tightened into hard, pebbled tips from the cold, her breasts still managed to suddenly feel heavy and full. And warm. This man. He was a flame, and she craved his heat. She wanted to throw herself in the very center of it and burn to willful destruction.
“I brought you this,” he said, holding up the length of plaid. “To dry off.”
He set it on the rock, by her clothes, and straightened to leave.
“Wait.” Sorcha’s feet moved over the smooth riverbed rocks, and her breasts cleared the surface of the water. She didn’t know what had made her do it, only that she hadn’t wanted him to turn and take his flame away from her. Or maybe because this was the last time they would truly be alone.
Brandt came to a halt, his smile fading as he took in the sight of her. Emboldened by the sudden smoldering press of his gaze, Sorcha took another step, the water sluicing down the clinging linen to her waist. She hesitated, her lips numb as well as her feet, and yet every inch of her somehow sparking with life. The drenched shift would leave precious little to the imagination, but it did cover her scars, and that made her bold.
That, and the blatant desire flaring in his eyes.
She stepped upward again on the angled riverbed and took a shivery breath. The rippling surface dropped drastically, to her hips, exposing the tops of her thighs to his view. Though she was chilled, a blush heated the underside of her skin. Brandt took a visibly sharp breath, his chest expanding as he gazed at her, drinking in every newly bared inch of her. Another step, and his stare hitched on her legs, a muscle beating in his cheek.
With a stab of shyness, she paused, torn between flinging herself back into the freezing depths of the river and making a mad dash for the plaid that lay on the rocks between them.
“Don’t stop now,” Brandt said in a low, husky voice.
Sorcha felt the familiar stirring of thrill she had every time someone challenged her. Only this time, there was something different about the thrill. It wasn’t about winning the challenge. It was about sharing it, reveling in it.
She kept toward the shore, unable to stop, knowing that she could not. She didn’t want to. Brandt’s expression revealed more than simple lust. He looked dazzled, utterly fixated, as water droplets coursed from her hem down her bare knees, then her calves, and finally all the way to her ankles. No man had ever looked at her the way he did…like she was the sun and the moon and everything in between. She wanted more of it. Brandt took up the plaid again, his eyes slamming back into hers as she stepped up onto the rock and let him wrap her shivering body in the length of fabric.
And then his mouth took hers, his lips searing hot against her tingling ones. He held her close, his arms folding her against his body, her bare feet treading on his toes. He didn’t need to coax her lips to part; she opened for him, seeking the warm thrust of his tongue. Needing it more than air. With swift, sweet licks he gave her what she wanted, one hand falling to her plaid-encased hip, and another raking up through her damp hair. His fingers caught on a tangle, and the pain only made Sorcha kiss him harder. She nipped his lower lip, and Brandt growled, fisting a handful of the quickly warming plaid at her hips.
“You are exquisite,” he murmured as he rounded his free hand over her backside and filled his palm.
“No one has ever seen me like you do,” she said, her voice cracking over the soft admission. Whether from cold or emotion, she wasn’t sure. She knew she didn’t want Brandt’s hands to pull away, to stop touching her. How could she ever grow tired of his hands or his mouth? Just the weight of his gaze as she’d emerged from the river had made the deepest, most intimate part of her burn for his touch.
He pulled her closer, skimming his fingers up and down her back while his teeth found the lobe of her ear and suckled. The combination of his searching fingers and mouth, together with the open air against her lower limbs and the hot sun beating down on them, made Sorcha light-headed. She arched into him as his lips traced the shell of her ear. If possible, more gooseflesh prickled over her arms, and she sighed in pleasure.
Brandt’s beautiful mouth went still, as did his hands…and for a moment she feared his untimely sense of duty had once more caught up to his rampaging desires and had finally convinced him to stop. She opened her mouth to protest, but then he gave a frustrated grunt and swept her straight off her feet, lowering her to the warmed, river-smoothed stone. With a sound of satisfaction, he covered her body with his, his arms caging her as he kissed her lips, then her chin, and dragged his tongue down the column of her throat.
He paused with a sharp exhale at the rounded slope of her right shoulder, and Sorcha knew he’d seen some of the minor scarring there. It wasn’t as bad as the ones lower down, but ugly nonetheless. She didn’t want to hear him gasp in shock, or pull back his hands in horror. She clutched at the fabric, not wanting anything to ruin the moment.
“Brandt, no. Please.”
“Every part of you is magnificent,” he replied fiercely, staring down at her. “These”—his knuckles brushed the scars on her clavicle and moved to the ones on her cheek—“and these.”
His changeling eyes met hers as his lips feathered along the rough, reddened gouges. Sorcha shivered at the tenderness of his touch, but she wasn’t ready to expose herself fully. She didn’t know if she would ever be, but for now she wanted to enjoy every sensual jolt without feeling unworthy. If only for a moment.
“Please,” she whispered. “Leave the shift.”
“As you wish.” He nodded, his gaze clouded with desire. “This is madness. I can’t seem to stop myself from thinking about you…from thinking about touching you. What have you done to me, Sorcha?”
“No more than you’ve done to me,” she whispered.
His mouth descended to graze her jaw. “Why can’t I resist you?”
“Because I’m nearly unclothed?”
A chuckle broke from his finely molded lips, making her want them on her skin again. “There is that.”
“I’ve heard the women at Maclaren say men can become so inflamed by their desires at the sight of a woman en déshabillé that they can’t see reason…that they think with other…parts of their anatomy.”
Brandt’s eyes sparkled with mischief and humor. “Is that so?”
“Is it working?”
He laughed then, a deep-throated sound that made a lightness overtake her chest. “You’re in a shift, and I’m at your mercy, so I’d be hard-pressed to say no.”
“At my mercy?”
“Your devoted slave.”
God, she loved their banter. It was as stimulating as the feel of his powerful body on hers. She wriggled her hips slightly, the motion making her gasp as his lean hips pressed her to the warm stone at her back. She went mute, as did he, their levity transforming into something deeper and darker.
The sunlight made golden flecks appear in his eyes, while passion darkened the green to the color of a stormy loch. A lock of sun-bronzed hair curled into his forehead as he bent his head to her collarbone, nibbling along the edges of her shift. His wide palms roamed her sides and skipped past each rib. His mouth and fingers met at her breasts and he filled his hands with her linen-clad flesh, kneading and caressing. A moan escaped her as his lips closed over the taut peak of one breast through the fabric.
“Brandt,” she whispered, tugging at his hair, wanting to push him away and grasp him to her at the same time.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
His lips scorched her as he drew its rigid tip into his mouth, dampening the linen to wet, near transparency once more. His tongue raked over her nipple before he took it between his teeth with just enough pressure to make her arch her back. Crying out in mindless pleasure, Sorcha gripped his shoulders and tipped back her head, pushing her chest closer to him, only wanting more. The sight of him feasting on her body nearly made her faint.
“This is indecent.”
He lifted his head to grin at her. “The only indecent thing is the depth of my hunger for you. I want to kiss every inch of these”—his voice was a rough rasp as he dropped a kiss to the peaks of both aching nipples protruding through her shift—“and touch every last inch of this beautiful body until you scream with bliss.” He watched her, the devil in his slumberous eyes, as his erotic words seduced her as effectively as his mouth did. “And you’re going to let me.”
“Am I?” she gasped.
“Yes, you are. I’m your devoted slave, remember?” He flicked her taut, aching nipple with his tongue, the coarse graze of it beneath the dampened linen making her senses dilate. “The question is, what do you want, my lady?”
“I want…I want…” She wanted his kisses where it ached the most. She trailed off, biting her lip in mortification. “I can’t.”
He bit gently on the underside of her breast, his fingers pinching its tip. “Yes, you can. Tell me what it is you want.”
Damp heat gathered between her thighs at the unconscionable images flooding her brain. What she wanted was this man, body and soul. She wanted all the pleasure that was in his power to give her. She wanted him to soothe where the fires blazed the hottest. The heart of her throbbed almost violently as he held her eyes, waiting.
Sorcha wanted nothing more than to be honest with him. To be honest with herself, bugger propriety and modesty. Blushing furiously, she gave him her answer. “I want you to kiss me everywhere.”
Brandt grinned and licked his lips like a man about to sit down for a banquet. “Now that I can do.”
And it was a banquet. He gorged himself on her, leaving every part of her stroked, bitten, and suckled as he inched his way down her quivering abdomen. Sorcha felt like a river nymph, lying there in the sun, with her own adoring paramour serving her every need.
“May I?” he asked, his fingers reaching down to bunch around the hem of her shift. His knuckles grazed the bare skin of her thigh, and she couldn’t breathe. She nodded, her throat tight. What she needed covered was above, not below.
Slowly Brandt pulled upward, and she felt the fabric slide until cool air chased through the curls at the junction of her thighs. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her navel, and she nearly came off the rock at the lush feel of his mouth on her bare skin. It almost made her want to tear off her shift, fears be damned. But then she forgot her thoughts as he circled the shallow indent and trailed lower, sending bolts of shivery warmth panning out wide. Reaching for his hard shoulders and tugging his shirt upward, she kneaded his muscles, splaying her hands over the hard, masculine planes of him.
Brandt shifted out of the reach of her greedy hands, and she held her breath as his knuckles drifted over her hips, gently brushing the raven thatch between them. His touch was sinful. Divine. Some tangle between the two.
“You’re so beautiful, Sorcha,” he whispered, his hand grazing her again. This time, lower. A wild gasp left her mouth. Her world spun into blinding sensation at the fire his fingers left in their wake, stroking and seeking entry.
“Easy,” he murmured when she clenched her thighs together. “You’re safe with me.”
Sorcha knew it was true, and slowly, let the rigidity out of her legs. Without hesitation, his fingers slid to the burning heat of her. She made a soft sound of protest, embarrassed to feel how damp she was there, but Brandt only murmured his satisfaction.
“You’re perfect,” he said, watching her intently as she felt the exquisite pressure of his finger glide into her. Her body felt like it was being pulled in different directions as wild currents coursed through her, centering at that one pulsing place where all her nerve endings seemed to gather. Instinctively, Sorcha curled her hips upward, wanting more, needing to be closer to him.
With every push of his finger, he stroked deeper into her, his thumb grazing over the small, sensitive pearl at her entrance. The pressure grew deliciously as another finger joined the first, stretching her, making her moan, but then he moved away, taking his clever fingers with him, and Sorcha whimpered her frustration.
“Brandt.”
He laughed quietly, his breath tickling her skin. “Patience, my fierce lass.”
Levering himself over her body again, his mouth moved down her overheated legs, finding sensitive spots behind her bared knee and inside the arch of her ankle. The pleasure he had stoked earlier seemed to turn into something more languid as he took his time crawling back up her legs, kissing every inch of her skin.
Basking in the sun, she gloried in it. Reveled in the sensation of being thoroughly ravished. But when Brandt’s fingers slid between her wantonly spread thighs, his wicked tongue traveling in their wake, it made all the lethargy instantly depart her limbs. A burst of intense fervor built as he again parted the sensitive, slick folds of her body.
“You’re so hot, so wet for me, Sorcha.”
A deep flush suffused her at the raw need in his voice, and then she lost all capability for thought as he set his mouth to her with a strangled growl.
“Wait, what are you doing?” she gasped, pushing up onto her elbows. The lushly erotic vision of him kneeling between her legs was too much. She closed her eyes weakly. “Brandt, that can’t be…decent.”
He drew back, though just far enough to speak. “I believe I told you every last inch. You’re not going to deny me, are you?” He lifted her ankles to his shoulders and Sorcha nearly expired on the spot when he bit her inner thigh. “And any shred of decency I possessed left me the moment I saw you splashing in this river like a naughty sprite.” He grinned, his eyes turning mischievous. “Suffice it to say, I am thoroughly inflamed at this glorious, luscious display of skin, and as your devoted slave, I endeavor only to please my mistress.”
Their teasing banter from earlier…come back to deliciously torment her.
Eyes glittering with purpose, Brandt’s mouth descended, and Sorcha fell backward with a soft cry as sensation after sensation tore through her. The feel of his fingers had been divine; the feel of his mouth was positively sinful. Intolerably aroused, she writhed on the stone as his tongue lapped at her with swift strokes, and she clutched at his hair when it swirled, lashing against her swollen flesh without mercy. Pleasure ran through her, low and deep. He wrung it from her like Poseidon wielding dominion over the sea. One finger slid deep into her aching passage, joined by another, and she arched into the velvet intrusion, her breaths turning into shattered gasps.
“More,” she bit out on a sob. “Brandt, now.”
With a triumphant sound, he gave it to her, swirling, nibbling, devouring with his mouth and tongue, while his busy fingers retreated and plunged until her last ounce of control disintegrated. She felt suspended. Untethered. Alive. Sorcha cried out as the paroxysm crashed over her, wave after wave of pleasure rolling and convulsing until she could barely breathe. Brandt crept up her limp, sated body, kissing her skin as if he couldn’t get enough, even while little tremors continued to crest inside of her.
“You taste like heaven and heather,” he whispered, his voice caressing her drugged senses. Her fingers curled around his back as he gathered her close, his warm skin sealing to hers. “Like sunshine in the middle of a summer storm.”
As her world righted itself, Sorcha shifted her body. She froze as Brandt hissed, his jaw clenching. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he groaned. “Just…try not to move.”
Oh. The hardness of him pressed into the warm, quivering crux of her…the place he’d so efficiently pleasured. Her body throbbed. Sorcha wriggled again as the fabric of his trousers rubbed against her over-sensitized body, making the brand of his engorged length settle between her thighs. She rocked upward, and he gasped. Pleasure stabbed through her core.
“Sorcha, stop, you’ll undo me.”
She caught his eyes and gave him a wicked smile. “I want to undo you.”
“You don’t know…” But he lost his words as she tilted her hips up and wrapped her legs around his. He obviously liked the friction, because his body started to grind against hers. A tortured groan left his mouth, and his eyes clouded with desire as he quickened his motions. Sorcha’s fingers found his face, stroking over his sharp cheekbones and bristled jaw. She wanted to remember him like this, lost in the throes of passion.
She dragged his lips down to hers, even as he mimicked the act of lovemaking with his hips. The soft fabric rasped rhythmically against her core, and Sorcha moaned into his mouth. The second climax caught her unawares, dragging her down into its blissful depths. Her release incited his, and a shout tore from his lips as he collapsed against her, his hot breath fanning her temple.
In the midst of so much pleasure, Sorcha felt a tear trickle from the corner of her eye. Brandt looked up, his lovely eyes concerned. “What is it? Am I hurting you?”
“No, it was better than I ever imagined.” She faltered for the words to explain the unexpected hollowness that had descended upon her. It’d been beautiful and ferocious, but strangely empty. A parody of the real thing. “I just…want more.”
“I can’t give you more, Sorcha.” He raked a hand through his tousled hair, regret creeping into his eyes and dousing Sorcha’s insides with ice. “Hell, I shouldn’t have allowed it to go this far. I can’t seem to think straight when I’m with you.”
“That makes two of us.”
Brandt swallowed with an embittered expression and reached for his discarded shirt. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t be doing this with you.”
Sorcha stared at him, her heart thudding painfully, adolescent fears rising from the dead to taunt her. “Because I’m a duke’s daughter? Because you’re illegitimate? Or do you think you’re not good enough? Or I’m not good enough? Which is it this time, Brandt?”
Brilliant gold-flecked green eyes bored into hers, shimmering from warmth to impenetrable frigidity in the space of seconds. “All of the above.”
Sorcha exhaled. It was suddenly hard to take in air…to breathe at all.
“Those are all true, but you left out the most important bit,” he went on in a carefully detached tone. “This agreement was a means to an end. I have but one desire and that is to take possession of your horse.” His words were as dead as his eyes…eyes that had been so full of heat and life only moments before. “What just happened between us was a moment of weakness.”
Anger and shame exploded within her. “Weakness? You deceive yourself, and you know it. We both wanted this, and if you can’t admit that, then you’re more of a coward than I thought.”
His furious gaze met hers. The coldness there made her shiver. “I am not a coward, but you’re right. It wasn’t weakness, it was pure idiocy.” She flinched. His expression gentled somewhat, though the damage had been done. “Regardless of motivation, this cannot happen again. Once you are on Brodie lands, my part will be over.”
“Your part?”
“My role as your husband.”
His role. What they’d just shared had been nothing more than an act. Something fractured within her. Her body felt numb and empty, much like the state of her mind. Once more, she’d been a sublime fool when it came to understanding him. Or understanding men in general.
He was no better than any of them. Once he’d gotten what he wanted, his tune had changed. At least Malvern hadn’t hidden the fact that he loathed the sight of her, and bedding her would be a nightmare. There’d been no risk of falling for his kisses or wanting more.
She was the groveling fool here, no one else.
“So what was this, then?” she asked, her voice shaking with an awful combination of misery and fury. “A scene in some sordid play you felt compelled to enact?”
“This was pleasure.”
If that were true, pleasure seemed like a hollow and lonely place.
Sorcha grabbed for her plaid, pulling it around her like a shield. “Ye’re nothing but a clot-heided bastard, Brandt Pierce.”
“I know,” he said as he started to turn away toward the riverbank. “And for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”
She wanted to stand, but her legs, still limp from his efforts, and now trembling with frustration, wouldn’t hold her. “Ye can take yer bloody apologies straight to hell.”