Chapter Twenty-One
The second those damning words left Brandt’s lips, another deluge arrived, begging to be released. Words he hadn’t wanted to think, let alone say. But just as everything he’d believed about his birth mother had been turned over and reordered, so had everything he’d believed about himself and what he wanted.
Brandt had thought he’d wanted his peaceful, orderly life at Worthington Abbey, and the solitude and freedom that came with being a lifelong bachelor. He’d been so damn convinced that he’d be able to leave Sorcha with her sister, say good-bye, and be on his merry way home.
How had he not seen his world crashing in on itself?
“You are mine,” he whispered, his breath coming in staccato bursts. His body pulsed as she touched him, the hesitant press of her hands as she skimmed them up his forearms feeling more like a pair of anchors in rough waters. Her eyes were guarded, and she had every right to be. He’d been a boar. “Tonight, right now, you are my wife.”
“You do not want a wife,” she said, her nails scouring along his skin and stirring up an agonizing heat within him.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
She turned her lips into his palm and kissed him. “Then don’t push me away, Brandt.”
He couldn’t have stopped touching her if the horns blew and bells tolled, signaling an attack on the keep. Brandt angled her chin and kissed her, the brush of his lips gentle but earnest, and when Sorcha answered it, parting her mouth and dragging the tip of her tongue over his lower lip, Brandt let go.
His tongue clashed with hers, twisting and stroking as their kiss evolved into a battle of possession. She pushed against him, her breasts coming flush against his chest and her hands winding into his hair with frenzied tugs. Brandt was the first to relent. He stumbled back a few paces, his wife’s trim body surprisingly powerful. Or perhaps she only weakened his resolve. He couldn’t resist her, not when she looked at him as though he was her axis or when she kissed him as though someone might yank him from her at any moment. All Brandt wanted to do right then was please her, comfort her, give her every damned thing she’d ever wanted—and what she wanted was him. The thought alone sent a torrent of lust through him.
Brandt filled his palms with her tight curves, starting with her hips and rounding down over both firm buttocks. “God, you feel perfect,” he groaned, his lips trailing along the slope of her neck, tasting the salt on her skin. With an instinctive thrust, Sorcha rolled her hips forward, grinding against his burgeoning arousal. He sucked in a breath, the aggressive advance of her body against his doing nothing to quell his desire for her. If anything, it made him even harder, and ready to give her exactly what she wanted.
He laughed into her mouth, their tongues gliding together and apart then joining again. He’d be a damned liar if he tried telling himself this was only for her. Never had he felt so unhinged for a woman. Never had he wanted someone with such blinding desperation.
“Did you just…laugh?” she asked, her voice breathy. Distracted.
Brandt nibbled down her throat and into the hollow of her neck, his fingers climbing up to knead her heavy breasts. He pressed his thumbs over the peak of each one, straining even through her chemise and bodice, and heard her gasp.
“Purely maniacal,” he replied, rubbing hard, insistent circles over her nipples. Sorcha threw back her head and arched her back, seeking more pressure. “I’m crazy to have fought this for so long.”
She made a murmuring sound of agreement, slivered through with a moan. With a grunt, he hooked his fingers under each shoulder of her bodice and tugged.
Her hands covered his, stalling him. “No, Brandt, wait.”
“What is it, love?”
She hesitated for a beat, as if unsure of what to say. “Leave it be.”
He recalled her reticence at the river and her insistence on remaining in her shift. Was she self-conscious of her body? Her innocence made him smile. He feathered gentle kisses along her collarbone. “I want to see you.”
She huffed a tiny breath. “No, you don’t.”
Brandt blinked, his eyes focusing on her tremulous blue ones. Fear and self-disgust warred in them, hinting at secrets. “Tell me.”
“The scars there,” she whispered, unable to hold his gaze. “They’re worse than the others.” She swallowed hard. “Far worse. I’m afraid you’ll be…revolted.”
“You are more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen, Sorcha. Scars or no scars. Trust me when I say that whatever lies beneath this gown will make little difference. I would desire you if you had the body of a potato.”
Laughter glimmered in her eyes, and after a moment, her hands fell away.
Sorcha closed her eyes, her breathing becoming shallow when Brandt dragged down her bodice and her stays to expose her to his view. His heart climbed into his throat, though he wasn’t revolted. Far from it. The fullness of her breasts, tipped by dusky, petal-smooth nipples rushed into his hands. But they weren’t equal in appearance. A ragged patchwork of glistening scar tissue traversed the flesh from her shoulder across the entirety of her left breast and across her upper ribs. Shiny pink gouges marred the creamy skin, puckering the flesh in uneven lumps. The wolf had not let her escape unscathed. In fact, the scars on her face were the best of it.
His heart bled. “Oh God, love, what you must have suffered.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she whispered, unwilling to look at him. “Just kiss me, Brandt.”
“Sorcha,” he said softly as he brushed his thumb along the point of her chin.
She took a shaky breath before lifting her eyes to his. The vulnerability in them speared him. He’d never seen her so uncertain. No words, however reassuring, would be enough. Brandt leaned forward, his lips trailing down the column of her throat before kissing each breast reverently. The salt of her skin was as heady as the finest whiskey. His fingers cupped her mangled flesh, his thumb gently stroking the misshapen welts, before he laid his tongue to each one. She arched into his caresses, seeking more, and he gave it.
“Does this hurt?” he asked, squeezing gently.
Her eyes flicked open. “No…not physically.”
Brandt stalled. She meant in other ways. While she distinctly held the scars on her face as a marker of strength, these she viewed as a deficiency. A blemish against her femininity. No wonder she’d sought to remain clothed. Her next words confirmed his thoughts as she turned her face away. “They’re hideous.”
“Someone has told you this before,” he said, understanding striking him like a blow to his midsection.
She closed her eyes, her dark lashes a shroud against what he presumed to be a painful memory. “Just a few boys, when I was younger and didn’t know to bathe with my drapes drawn shut.”
He wanted to throttle them, these nameless, faceless peeping toms. Though she sounded blithe, Brant sensed effort behind it. “Who were they?”
“Boys from a neighboring clan. I fancied one of them. Or at least I thought I did.”
And he’d broken her heart, her spirit, with whatever thoughtless comment he’d made. Brandt wouldn’t ask her to repeat it. No, he needed to pull her away from it.
“The sun must have addled your brain today, Your Grace, if you worry I am anything at all like those spying gits.”
Her startled stare caught his. “Your Grace?”
“Aye, my duchess.”
His hot, possessive gaze swept her, his body stirring at her lush, fierce beauty. The terrible scars did little to detract from the svelte perfection of her long limbs, her flat, muscled stomach, and the sweetness he knew lay between her thighs. Instead, they branded her as a fighter. A woman of fury and strength and passion. Brandt was mad for her. All of her. He kissed her again deeply, and then met the blazing, sapphire gaze that had captured him from the first.
“Sorcha, you are perfect. Every part of you. Every scar.” He kissed her ravaged cheek. “Every freckle.” He kissed her nose. “Every lovely unique thing that makes you you.” He nuzzled the space between her breasts, his hands and tongue finding the taut silk of her nipples once more. “And especially these. You taste like ripe, succulent berries.”
She arched against him, her breathing quickening. “You’re certain they don’t repel you?”
Brandt grinned and directed her palm to the bulging fall of his breeches. “Does it seem like I’m repelled in the least?” He groaned when her fingers closed around him and he gathered her into his arms. “God, I can’t believe I waited this long.”
“You could have taken me on the river rock,” she whispered, her fingers rising to pluck at the hem of his shirt and, mimicking him, scraped her fingers over his nipples. The sensation, paired with her heady, bold talk, awoke the basest of desires inside of him. His erection pulsed and hardened.
“I could have taken you on our wedding night,” he rasped, joining in as he continued pushing the top of her dress down farther, the chemise caught in the quickly disappearing fabric. “Tell me the truth, my sweet. You would have given yourself to me, even then, wouldn’t you?”
He lowered himself, his tongue and teeth and lips exulting over the newly bared skin. He snagged the waist of her drawers on the way down, and knowing neither of them wanted to move slowly or with caution, took those down as well. His tongue circled Sorcha’s navel as he bent onto one knee.
“Tell me,” he insisted, wanting to hear his warrior wife’s bold words. Needing them. He lifted her foot and set it on his thigh, opening the most private part of her to him. He touched her silky thatch of curls and ran one finger along her heat. “Say it, Sorcha. Tell me what you would have let me do to you.”
Her eyes were hazy with want, her cheeks and breasts flush with her longing for him. Paralyzed with desire, she moved her lips wordlessly. Brandt pushed his finger into her wet heat and she moaned, tightening her thighs to grip his hand. But she let out a disappointed cry when he retreated.
“Tell me,” he repeated.
“I…I would have let you fill me,” she said, her voice weak but clear. “I would have let you touch every part of me, kiss every part, take every part that was yours to take. God, Brandt, your tongue is wicked.”
Fill her. That was what he wanted, to pour himself into every part of her body. To breathe with her, feel with her. Make her his. This woman, a stranger less than a fortnight ago, now called him to her with a voice he recognized deep in his heart and soul.
“It is yours.” He set his mouth to her, sliding his tongue where she desired it most.
“Brandt!” She gasped and clutched his hair in two fists as he licked and sucked at her dewy flesh. She tasted just as she had before, like a blazing Highland summer sunset, hot and sweet. He clung to her, devouring her with long, needful strokes.
“And I am yours,” he heard her say as the blood rushed through his ears, swirled down into his acute arousal, and made him dizzy with need. “I am yours.”
…
Sorcha’s head fell back on the bed as her limbs turned boneless beneath his hands. Brandt had taken her down this road to pleasure before, but something was different. It wasn’t in the way he touched her or the feel of his mouth on her skin. It wasn’t in his words, though something had changed…something profound and unqualifiable. It’d been in the tender way he’d kissed her ugly, lacerated flesh, loving her as if she were perfect and unscarred. She’d never imagined willingly baring herself to anyone…but with Brandt, she’d done what she had feared most. She’d trusted him with all of her. The worst of her.
He hadn’t told her he loved her, but he had said she was his and that she was his wife. The change she saw was in his eyes, in the way he looked at her, as he was now from the juncture of her thighs while his mouth did indecent things. His hands cupped her buttocks, lifting her hips as his lips continued their tender onslaught. Their eyes met and held, and what she saw swirling in their hazel depths made Sorcha’s body come apart with the force of a shooting star. Possession. Dominion. Surrender.
Pleasure broke through her veins in igneous waves, cresting and swelling, until her entire body felt limp. And still Brandt didn’t stop, prolonging the bliss with each decadently punishing stroke of his tongue. The shattering pulses wound through her, making her body arch like a bow even while it felt like her bones had turned into strings of gossamer.
“Brandt,” she called out weakly, and only then did he relent.
Her husband inched up her sweat-dampened body, kissing her stomach and each rib, nipping gently at her breasts. She focused on him, on his handsome face, and those glittering eyes that seemed more golden than green. Sorcha never put much faith in Scottish fairy tales, but right now, she would swear that he was indeed part summer fey.
“How did I ever find you?” she whispered.
“With a kiss,” he murmured, taking the peak of one breast into his mouth and drawing on it gently. Flickers of sensation spread from the flesh caught in his mouth to her still-trembling core. “With your courage,” he said, switching to the other breast. “With your fierce heart.”
He turned his head sweetly, as if to listen to the heartbeat that pulsed erratically beneath his ear. Sorcha wound her fingers into Brandt’s soft hair, the tenderness of his words wreaking more havoc than his touch. But his words faded as he resumed his efforts, busying himself with teasing her breasts to hard, aching points.
Sorcha took in a breath as she felt the thickened girth of him on her thigh. She was ready. She wanted to take him into her…for him to fill the emptiness inside. Lifting her feet, she ran them along the backs of his and reached down, her hand closing gently around him. He groaned at her touch, his teeth closing over one nipple with more pressure.
“Brandt,” she said. “I need you.”
He moved higher, to take her lips in a soft sweet kiss, and then surprised her by detaching her slack grip and rising up, onto his knees. “First, I plan to explore every velvet inch of this property of mine.”
“Property?” She gaped at the beautifully erect sight of him but wasn’t allowed to fully appreciate it, for in the next second, her husband gripped her hips and flipped her onto her stomach.
“Yes.” He leaned over and bit her gently on the shoulder. “You belong to me.”
“As you belong to me,” she breathed, her voice partially muffled by the sheets.
“Yes.” It was the only word he said before she felt the hot surfaces of his palms run the length of her back to the indent of her waist, to her buttocks, kneading gently there before resuming their slow return journey. “God, woman, you are exquisitely formed.” His voice sounded thick, as though he were having difficulty breathing.
Her voice pulled low with what remained of her concern. “Even with my scars?”
“Especially them. My brave Highland lass.” His fingers traced the filigree of welts that curved around her ribs down to the rise of her buttocks, making her shiver. She’d never known that the bloody things were so sensitive, but when Brandt’s mouth replaced his fingers, she almost fell apart in his hands. She made to turn so that she could pleasure him as well, but he held her firmly in place. “No, I want you to enjoy it.”
Her wicked lover proceeded to do as he’d promised—exploring every single inch of undiscovered territory with his hands and lips, mapping each and every contour of her. By the time he turned her over, Sorcha was a whimpering mess of aroused frustration. Her entire body tingled and ached with need.
“Brandt, please,” she begged, and he acquiesced, settling himself between her parted legs. His face was strained, too, as if his explorations had cost him more than he’d expected. She’d hoped to entice him with a little more grace, but she wanted him with a desire that could not be contained. She clutched wildly at his shoulders. When he positioned himself at the apex of her thighs, Sorcha almost wept aloud at the head of his erection nudging the swollen, wet folds of her entrance. “Mo gràidh,” she gasped.
Brandt’s forearms were corded with muscle as he held himself above her, his hips making small tantalizing circles against her, pressing in more deeply each time. Sorcha tilted her hips upward in a desperate attempt to take in more of him, but Brandt’s control was absolute.
“Sorcha,” he commanded hoarsely. “Look at me.”
She did, and when her eyes connected with his, he pushed into her. She gasped and dug her fingers into the unyielding muscles of his back. They were hard like the rest of him. Like the rock-hard length anchoring her body to his. Sorcha had taken him into her mouth. She knew his size, but still, nothing had prepared her for the breath-stealing thickness of him as he filled her. Completely. Fully.
Struggling to accommodate him, she shifted, feeling her passage adjusting to his girth, and gasped as white-hot sensations streaked through her core.
“Are you in any pain?” he whispered, his voice wrenched tight. “I can stop.”
Sorcha blinked, her useless brain catching up to the question. It didn’t hurt…not like a blade strike or a tumble off a horse. It felt uncomfortable, more like an odd pressure than any real pain. She shook her head and shifted again, rocking her pelvis into his. More pleasure spiked through her. That felt better, she decided. She wanted more of that. “No, it doesn’t hurt, and no…I don’t want you to stop. What comes next?”
He chuckled. “My sweet lass, everything comes next.”
And then Brandt started to move, retreating almost all the way. Her eyes widened as he slid out of her. The sense of loss was tangible, until he moved forward to fill her again, and ripples of pleasure at the lubricious friction began to gather and build. He watched her carefully, and when he slid his hands down between their bodies to caress the sensitive bud of flesh nestled in her curls, she moaned her approval.
No longer passive, Sorcha felt her body begin to respond to her husband’s long, penetrating strokes and his nimble fingers. Again and again he withdrew and filled her, his pace quickening and her own desire mounting. His back felt slick underneath her palms as she arched upward to meet every thrust. Sorcha could see his passion building, too, in the tight clench of his jaw and the dilation of his beautiful eyes, and she was so busy studying him that her release took her by surprise.
Mind-numbing, overwhelming surprise.
“Oh,” she cried, her legs tightening around his hips as pulse after pulse of pleasure swept through her. Giving in to the drugging bliss that saturated her senses, her inner muscles clenched around him, holding him tight in the warm clasp of her spasming flesh.
“Oh God, Sorcha, you feel so good. I can’t…” He was hanging on to his control by a thread.
“Let go, Brandt,” she said, touching his cheek. “I won’t break.”
His voice was a growl. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’ll never hurt me.”
Desperately, Brandt pounded into her, intensifying the waves of pleasure cresting within her, until his entire body seized. With a harsh cry, Brandt joined her in bliss, groaning his own release. Neither of them moved for several minutes, their breathing harsh in the silence. He rolled them onto their sides, his body still intimately joined to hers, and cradled her close.
She smiled shyly. “So that’s consummation.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not what I expected,” she blurted out with a blush.
Brandt’s brows drew together slightly as he lifted a damp curl out of her face. “Was it not pleasing?”
“You most certainly pleased me, husband.” Sorcha drew a breath, feeling her cheeks heat more, and decided to blurt it out. “It’s just that, well, I saw a stallion and a mare…er…consummating at Maclaren once, and well, I guess I expected when you turned me onto my stomach that it would be so…” she trailed off miserably, her face on fire. “Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned, seeing her husband’s twitching lips and the humor twinkling in his eyes.
He bit his lips. “I’m not laughing, I swear.”
“You must think me a goose.”
“I think you’re adorable.”
“Adorable is for puppies,” she grumbled. “I’m the feared Beast of Maclaren. Trumpets blare and knees quake at my approach.”
Brandt drew her close and kissed her nose and then her lips. “Fierce, then. Glorious. Magnificent.”
“I do like those.”
Laughing, she rewarded him with a kiss, and it didn’t take long for their chaste kissing to turn into something else completely. With a shock, Sorcha felt the part of him that was still inside her surge to life, and she met his amused gaze. “Is that normal?” she asked.
“For some men, yes.” He nipped at her jaw. “And I’ll tell you a secret, my innocent little wife. A man and a woman can…come together the way you saw with those horses as well, though it’s not typical for a lass’s first time.”
Assailed by a barrage of wanton, thoroughly lewd thoughts at such an animalistic coupling, Sorcha blushed as she felt him move within her again, growing and lengthening with every breath. She wondered whether he was thinking of those very same things. Meeting Brandt’s eyes, every inch of her warmed at the blatant desire she saw burning in their depths. Apparently, he was.
And as it turned out, the desire was very, very mutual.
Her husband liked it when she told him what she wanted, so screwing up her courage, she licked her lips and ran her hand boldly over his tight, bare arse. “Will you show me?”
He gave her a lusty smile. “That will be my pleasure, my lady.”