CHAPTER 17
Sybil’s heart ached for Rory. Sensing he did not wish to speak, she simply rested her head against his back and held him close as they rode in silence.
When it grew too dark to ride, they made camp in the shelter of a large boulder near the winding river that ran through the valley. Sybil’s frozen feet prickled as the heat from their small fire seeped through her boots while they ate the supper of smoked kippers and oatcakes that Malcolm’s wife had packed for them.
Sybil drew her cloak up to her chin against the wind and watched the night clouds blowing across the moon. Rory put his arm around her and wrapped the extra blanket around them both.
The misery in his hollow eyes made her stomach hurt. Was it only this morning that he had been so happy and proud at the prospect of showing her Eilean Donan?
“I’m sorry we’re living rough again tonight,” he said.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “’Tis hardly raining and blowing at all, so I’d call this a bonny night to sleep outdoors.”
Rory lifted a tendril of her hair and twirled it around his finger. “I promised ye a hot bath and servants to wait on ye.”
“With so much weighing on your shoulders, ye shouldn’t trouble yourself over my lack of a hot bath.” She tilted her head. “Or do I smell that bad?”
Her effort to cheer him was rewarded with a brief smile, but his eyes soon clouded again. She leaned her head against his shoulder and wished she knew how to comfort him.
“I can’t understand why Brian took the risk of leaving the protection of MacKenzie lands to travel to Edinburgh,” Rory said. “It was not in his nature to act rashly.”
“Then he must have had a good reason,” Sybil said.
“I need to know what that reason was.” Rory clenched his fist. “Brian died because of it.”
“Didn’t Malcolm say Brian went to see your sister before he left for Edinburgh?” she said. “Perhaps he told her.”
“Perhaps,” Rory said. “In any case, I must see Catriona and break this sad news to her. She lives at Killin, the property I inherited from my mother. It’s just a few miles from Castle Leod.”
“We have a plan now.” Sybil brushed Rory’s hair back from his forehead with her fingers. “There’s nothing more ye can do tonight. Try to save your worries for tomorrow.”
When Rory turned and their gazes locked, the raw need in his eyes made her breath catch. Men had wanted her before, but not like this. The strength of his hunger was a bit frightening—and all the more thrilling for it.
Before she could make her mind work and figure out what she wanted to do about it, he broke their gaze and stood.
“’Tis been a long day,” he said. “Ye should get your rest.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not ready to sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep yet either,” she said, and clasped his hand before he could walk away.
Sybil had made up her mind. She was not going to argue with herself about it anymore. Rory needed her, and tonight she wanted to be whatever he needed.
“Lie with me,” she said.
“I don’t know if I can sleep beside ye tonight and not touch ye like I want to,” he said in a strained voice. “I need ye too much.”
“I know that,” she said, and flipped back the blanket for him to lie down.
His eyes flared with heat, but he remained standing over her, his stance rigid. “You’re certain that ye want this? That ye want me?”
Her life was in turmoil, changing every day. She and Rory could have died today, and they could die tomorrow. No matter what the future held, she wanted this night with him.
The men at court had seen her as a prize to be won, a beauty with a large dowry and powerful family. But Rory saw her for who she really was, stripped of her dowry and jewels and position. He wanted her.
Even if it was only for one night, she wanted to be made love to by a man she trusted, a man who understood her. Better that she have that once in her life than not at all.
“Aye,” she said. “I’m certain.”
Rory dropped to his knees. Gripping his fingers in her hair, he kissed her fiercely. His mouth was hot and demanding, and his tongue thrust into her mouth in a sensual assault that sent her reeling. He kissed her with unchecked passion, holding nothing back.
Though she had not known it before, this was precisely what she wanted from him. Nay, what she needed. Throwing all caution to the wind, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him down onto the blanket.
With a need on the edge of desperation, they tugged at each other’s clothes until, at last, they were skin to skin. The sensation of his hard-muscled body against hers made her moan into his mouth. When he pressed his full erection against her, she had to break their kiss to gasp for breath.
She felt drunk on the pleasure of touching and being touched. She ran her hands over his rock-hard body, wanting to claim every inch of him for her own. Never had she expected it would feel this good.
He held on to her, fingers bruising, as if she was his anchor in their storm of passion. All the while, he covered her face and throat with endless kisses that stole away every sense of caution and made her forget where she was and even who she was.
In the far recesses of her mind, a fleeting thought tried to catch her attention. Something important she was supposed to remember. She struggled to recall what it was while his lips and tongue moved down between her breasts.
Lord above! The moist heat of his mouth was on her breast, pulling sensations all the way from her toes and emptying every thought from her head, except that she never wanted him to stop.
***
All day, Rory’s grief had been a blade that cut deep and flailed him by turns with sorrow, guilt, and rage. His emotions were raw, and his need for Sybil was so intense it shook him to his soul. He wanted to lose himself in the smell of her skin, the taste of her lips, the sensation of her breasts pressed against his chest, and the silky weight of her midnight hair cascading over his arm.
Praise God Sybil had finally made up her mind to have him.
He ought to tell her how beautiful she was, that he had wanted her from the start, that he would cherish her forever. But he could not speak, could not begin to find words for the feelings raging inside him.
He splayed his fingers in her hair and covered her face with kisses—her cheeks, her eyelids, the side of her mouth, the sensitive place below her ear.
“A chisle mo chroí,” pulse of my heart, he murmured against her skin as he ran his lips along the side of her throat.
He always knew she would be passionate in bed, but she was everything he had hoped for and more. When he suckled her breasts, her sighs and moans drove him to near madness. He squeezed his eyes shut and told himself he must slow down and be gentle this first time. But he wanted her so much.
“Oh, lass,” he gasped as she ran her hand up his cock, “you’ll kill me for certain.”
Sybil’s bold sensuality, like oil on an already burning fire, sent his desire into shooting flames. His bride was making it damned difficult to remember she was a virgin.
***
Sybil sensed she had driven him to the edge of control and felt a thrill of feminine power. She wanted him over the edge, to feel his passion full force and without restraint. Her own desire grew with his as she stroked her hand up and down his engorged shaft, and she swallowed when she felt the wetness on the tip.
He groaned and removed her hand, then pulled her hard against him. They rolled together, their mouths devouring each other while her hair fell in a curtain around them. Sybil was mindless, lost in deep, wet kisses, as they rolled again.
When he broke the kiss, she was on her back, and his hand was between her legs.
She was only vaguely aware of calling out to the saints and the fairies as he worked his magic with his fingers. When he began circling and flicking her nipple with his tongue as well, she thought she would go blind with pleasure.
“Mo rùin,” he said in a harsh whisper, “you’re so hot and wet.”
Then he suckled her breast, and it was too much. The tension in her body grew until she felt as if she would shatter. She bit his shoulder.
“Please!” she said, not even knowing what she wanted.
In one smooth motion, he covered her with his body. Her breath caught when she felt his shaft press between her legs. The sensation was so intense it was almost painful. And yet she wanted more.
She wrapped her arms and legs around him, needing him closer still.
“Oh, God,” he said in gasps between hot, wet kisses. “I’ll die if I can’t have ye.”
He gripped her hip, kneading, demanding, while he thrust his tongue into her mouth with a rhythm her body understood. She sank her nails into his shoulders as she kissed him back with the same fierce need.
“Are ye ready?” he asked in ragged whisper.
“Aye.” Whatever he wanted, she wanted too. And she wanted it now.
“There’s no turning back if we do this.” His short, harsh breaths were warm on her face as he paused to look into her eyes. “Ye want this?”
“Aye, more than anything!” she said. “Please, Rory.”
He made a strangled, animal-like sound and kissed her in earnest again. Through the desire fogging her mind, that niggling thought tried to surface again, but it was beyond her reach.
“Oh!” she gasped as he eased the tip of his shaft inside her. All her senses, every fiber of her being, was focused on that part of him that was just inside her.
“I’ll try to be gentle,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt ye.”
The tension inside her was unbearable. Instinctively, she lifted her hips.
“Oh my!” she cried out as he slid inside her and pushed the air from her lungs. She pulled him down into a deep kiss.
He broke the kiss, rose up on his arms, and plunged into her to the hilt. His brief attempt at gentleness was gone, thank goodness. He was all hunger and need. And an edge of something else.
“That feels…so…so…ah…ah.” She lost the ability to form words as he thrust into her again and again.
Powerful sensations built inside her, and she clung to him, needing more still from him. She felt like a frayed rope pulled to the point of breaking. Her release came in pulsing, frenzied rapture. The intensity of it battered her, making her cry out as he called her name and surged inside her.
Rory rolled onto his back, taking her with him. Their breathing seemed loud against the soft night sounds. She lay depleted and utterly amazed that something so wonderful could ever happen between two people.
When she had the strength to lift her arm, she ran her hand over his chest, exploring the hard muscles with her fingertips and enjoying the sensation of the coarse hair against her palm.
“Don’t ye think ye have something to explain to me?” Rory said in a flat tone that startled her.
How could he sound so cold when their bodies had just been joined in such magical passion? What on earth had she done to offend him?
“Explain what?” She felt herself flush. “Was I too loud?”
“Ye know damned well that is no what I’m asking about.”
She tried to think what she could have done to upset him, but her mind was still sluggish.
“How is it, my sweet bride,” he said between his teeth, “that you’re not a virgin?”
The realization struck her with the force of a blow. God help her, she had forgotten to pretend. It should have been so easy. There was no white linen that would fail to show bloodstains. All she had to do was make a show of crying out in pain at the right moment.
She had lost herself to such unexpected passion that she utterly forgot to make the pretense. When he thrust inside her, she cried out in ecstasy instead of pain.
“I’m sorry,” was all she could muster.
“Sorry is not nearly enough,” he said. “I need an explanation.”
This was exactly why she should have pretended to be a virgin. The reason for her lack of virginity was not something she wished to discuss or remember. Once it was over, she’d put what happened firmly behind her and refused to let it ruin one more day of her life.
Besides, why should her lack of virginity matter so damned much?
“’Tis not as though you’re a virgin,” she snapped, which she knew was a mistake even before Rory rattled off a long string of Gaelic curses that included slanderous statements about her, her family, and the entire Douglas clan.
He leaned over her, his face hard and angry, and demanded, “Who was he?”
How could he ruin what had just happened between them? She had felt so close to him when they made love, as if their very souls had touched and become one. And now he was ranting at her. And worse, he was making her remember things that she had vowed never to think of again.
“I won’t do this!” She tried to hold her hands over her ears, but he held her down by her wrists, trapping her.
“Tell me,” he said, leaning down until his face was an inch from hers.
He was frightening her now, and she was having none of that.
“I was forced,” she spat out, and shoved him hard. “Now get off me!”
She rolled onto her side and held herself in a ball, overwhelmed both by Rory’s anger and by the memories that she had succeeded in burying for so long.
“Oh, God, Sybil.” Rory rested his hand on her shoulder and his voice was thick with emotion. “Ye were raped?”
Rape was what it had felt like, though her husband had the right to do what he did to her.
She stared into the embers of their dying campfire and remembered how much her grandfather’s betrayal had hurt her. She had idolized him as only a young girl can, and he had always told her she was his favorite. When she learned he had arranged the marriage to that despicable man, she was so sure she could change his mind.
He turned a deaf ear to her pleas to release her, or at least to delay the marriage until she was older. The political and material benefits to the family outweighed the certain unhappiness it would bring her, and so the marriage went forward as planned. At least it was brief.
“I will kill him,” Rory said.
“Ye can’t,” she said. “He’s already dead.”
“I wish I’d been there to protect ye.” Rory ran his hand up and down her arm. “And failing that, I wish I’d been the one to kill him.”
“What I wish,” she said, “is that ye had taken me away before it happened.”
“I should have been gentle with ye,” he said in an anguished voice. “I meant to be, but I wanted ye so much. And then, when I realized ye weren’t a virgin… Well, I didn’t understand that I still needed to be careful with ye.”
“Ye didn’t hurt me,” she said. “Not until afterward.”
***
Rory was awash in guilt. He had been an unfeeling brute, and that is what she would remember of the night he made her his wife.
“I am sorry for being such an arse.”
“Ye were angry,” she said in a flat tone, still with her back to him. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I was angry,” he said, “but that’s no excuse.”
He’d been angry because his pride was hurt when he discovered his bride had not saved herself for their marriage. And even more than his pride, it had torn him up inside to think of another man having Sybil before him.
Or ever.
“It does matter that I hurt you.” He gently rolled her onto her back so that he could look down into her face as he said it. “It matters verra much to me.”
“I want to believe that,” Sybil whispered.
He knew how much she hated to show any vulnerability and that it cost her to let him see the tears glistening in her eyes. He kissed her forehead.
“I don’t want to disappoint ye like the men in your family,” he said. “I will keep ye safe, and I’ll do my best to make ye happy.”
“Ye have a good heart, Highlander,” she said, and rested her palm against his cheek.
At her touch, desire surged through him, but he dared not hope that she would let him make love to her again tonight.
When she gave him a soft, lingering kiss on the lips, his heart swelled with an overwhelming tenderness. His bride was more forgiving than he deserved.
“Make love to me again,” she whispered. “Give me a night to remember.”
This time, he savored every moment, every touch, every sigh. He would never have enough of her.
Hours later, he held his sleeping wife in his arms as he watched the dawn break in pink and gold over the green hills. His wife. He liked the sound of that.
The question was finally settled. Sybil had made her choice, and there was no going back. Last night they had consummated their marriage—repeatedly. He drew in a deep breath and sighed. She was good and truly his now.
The road ahead would not be easy, and the loss of his brother lay heavy on his heart. But having won Sybil’s trust and commitment, he felt as if he could accomplish all the tasks that lay before him.