Chapter 24
Temair wasn’t sure whether it was rabid lust or a hunger for power that coursed through her veins as she held Ryland prisoner against the wall. All she knew was that she was burning with need, craving his touch, and she meant to have her way with him.
Which luckily seemed to coincide with his wishes.
He withdrew his hands from her hair, exploring her with unbound eagerness, letting his fingers trace her throat, her shoulder, her bosom, cupping the leather armor that shielded her breasts.
His caress was heavenly. But she was still unsatisfied. She released him long enough to drag the top of her léine down, baring herself to his touch.
“Oh, m’lady,” he sighed, gazing down at her. His tongue slipped out to lick his lips, and he closed his eyes in yearning.
She shivered with desire as his palms grazed her flesh, kneading her tenderly. He nuzzled her neck, kissing the place beneath her ear that sent lightning coursing through her. Her hands closed into fists as she sipped a breath between her teeth.
He licked his way down her throat, and she turned her head aside to grant him access. He moved lower, tickling her with his thick curls. Then he lavished attention on her breasts, lifting them up to kiss her responsive flesh, bathing them with his tantalizing tongue, sucking gently there until she felt like sobbing in hunger.
She burrowed her fingers in his hair and tipped back her head, reveling in the hot vibrations traveling through her body.
The craving between her legs was strong now. It would not be denied. There was nothing to stop him taking what he wanted. She only had to make him want her.
When he had laved her thoroughly, she pushed him back against the wall and unbuckled his belt. He made no protest, not even when she cast the belt aside and boldly reached inside his braies for the treasure within.
He let out a ragged breath as she enclosed his firm, smooth warmth in her hand. Drunk on her own dominance, she rubbed against him, delighting at the way he shuddered in response.
“I want ye,” she whispered.
“I can see that,” he growled back.
“Do ye want me?”
He chuckled once. “You can’t tell?”
Her smile was smug.
But not for long.
In the next instant, he wrapped an arm around her waist, picked her up, and turned to pin her against the wall.
Her outrage was quickly replaced by naked lust as he pressed the heel of his hand against the throbbing place between her legs. When he circled slowly, grinding against the bone there, she cried out in pleasure.
“Hush,” he whispered. “They’ll hear you.”
“Don’t hush me,” she hissed. “’Tis your fault.”
“What?” He circled over her again. “This?”
She clamped her lips against another outcry.
He chuckled as he reached under the hem of her léine. She squeezed her eyes shut with anticipation. His hands glided over her naked buttocks. Then he slid one hand to the front of her, caressing the curls guarding her womanhood. While she held her breath, he slipped a fingertip between her curls to delve into her most secret place.
“Oh!” She clenched the top of his shoulders. “Faith…what are ye doin’ to me?”
“Don’t you like it?”
At first she couldn’t decide. She liked it. But it felt…forbidden.
At her lack of a reply, he withdrew his hand. “You don’t like it?”
“Nay, I…” She felt strangely bereft without his touch. “Aye, I like it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Aye.”
“Because I can—”
“Aye!” She groaned in relief when he replaced his hand.
“Shh,” he said on a laugh. “They’ll all come running in, thinking I’ve molested you.”
“Ye are molestin’ me.”
“Aye, that I am.”
As he continued to rub across her—sometimes in long, fluid motions, sometimes in flurries that made her tighten and swell as if she might burst—she felt an increasing ache deep inside, a yearning for something more.
Still, a tiny voice of reason spoke to her in the haze of passion. She knew she should pay heed to it.
“I should tell ye,” she gasped out. “I’m a virgin.”
“I should tell you,” he replied. “I’m not.” Then he smiled, kissed her tenderly on the brow, and promised, “On my honor as a knight, I vow I’ll be gentle.”
She shuddered as a particularly strong wave of desire surged inside her. “I can’t make ye the same promise.”
He must have sensed something then, for he slipped his hand away and murmured against her hair, “Let’s find a softer place.”
There was a stack of straw-stuffed pallets beside the cave wall. He quickly pulled one down and threw one of the winter coverlets over it to form a makeshift bed. He helped her onto the mattress.
For a moment, she felt too vulnerable, too exposed. Without her armor, on her back, she was at his mercy. He loomed over her—a massive, rutting beast that could smother her with the coverlet or throttle her with one hand.
But in the next instant, her fears were put to rest. With exquisite tenderness, he cradled the back of her head in one hand, brushing the hair from her brow with the other. By the faint firelight flickering through the vines, she could see him gazing down at her with such adoration that it took her breath away.
He bestowed upon her a sweet kiss, not of lust, but of cherishing…a kiss so full of love and wonder that it made her feel like a precious jewel in his hands.
Slowly, he reached beneath his long linen shirt to untie his chausses, removing them and his braies, and freeing his staff. Then he stretched out beside her, propped on one forearm.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.
His words moved her.
“May I?” he asked, lifting the hem of her léine.
Amused by his polite request, she took the léine off over her head herself.
To her satisfaction, his gaze turned smoky. He used his free hand to trace her contours, leaving ripples of desire everywhere his fingertips touched, until she was quivering with need.
“May I?” she asked him, snagging the hem of his shirt.
His smile twisted, and he bent down to let her do the deed.
She was unprepared for the effect the sight of his broad shoulders and naked chest would have upon her. While it was true he possessed nothing that not every man possessed, somehow he was different—more powerful, more magnificent, more commanding.
And the quick glimpse she’d had that night of what nestled in his black curls hadn’t prepared her for the bold manifestation of his hunger for her.
Her eyes widened. Her heart throbbed. Her breath quickened.
“Are you afraid, m’lady?” he whispered.
She shook her head. She wasn’t afraid. She was aroused.
He leaned down to murmur in her ear. “I’ll take care. But it may hurt the first time.”
She knew that. The woodkerns could be quite forthcoming with the details of their sexual exploits.
“I’ll take revenge later,” she vowed.
Her humor took him by surprise. “I believe you will.”
Then he moved above her until their bodies were mere inches apart. She could feel the heat between them as if it were a living thing. Supporting himself on one brawny arm, he nudged her knees apart until she opened to him like a flower.
When he lowered his body, and their skin made contact, the sensation was so divine that she let out a drawn-out sigh of bliss. It felt as if they melted together like candle wax. His body was warm and vital, firm yet yielding. She arched up against him, delighting in how the muscles of his chest compressed her breasts.
He kissed her then, and this time it was a slow, deep, intense kiss that seemed to draw her soul from her body. When his hand moved betwixt her thighs, it was with a leisure that belied the raging lust he displayed.
Simultaneously possessed of both the need to pursue and the desire to surrender, she floated in a curious enthrallment, captive and captivated by her own emotions.
Again, he intruded upon her most secret spaces, coaxing her with his fingers to yield. Again, she soared upward to a heavenly realm until she was gasping against his mouth and liquid need filled every vein.
Then, just as she thought she could fly no higher, he surged forward with a groan, embedding himself inside her like a dagger.
She rasped in a gasp of shock.
He froze, but didn’t withdraw.
“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice laced with a strange mixture of regret and ecstasy. “I didn’t mean to injure you.”
Injure her? He hadn’t injured her. Not really. She had known far worse pain, growing up. This was but a sting.
He clasped her head between his hands. “’Twill get better, I promise. Try to relax.”
She nodded.
It did get better. Much better.
Soon, as he glided smoothly within her, she began to ascend again. His beastly grunts and the sweat of restraint that glistened on his brow excited her almost as much as the seductive friction of their movement.
Together, they rode a wave of increasing passion until, breathless with yearning, they crested the wave to explode into a thousand droplets that scattered across a shimmering sea of release.
Ryland grimaced, fighting the need to bellow in rapturous relief.
But Temair cried out, and he had to quickly clap a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound.
As they struggled to catch their breath, he thought he’d never felt such a union before, such a perfect blending of body and spirit. She’d entrusted him with a precious gift, and he felt honored and completed and more in love with her than before.
He hoped he hadn’t hurt her too much, for that was the last thing he wished to do. As he uncovered her mouth to press a worshipful kiss to her lips, he thought he must be the luckiest man alive.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
“Nay,” she croaked.
“Nay?” He furrowed his brow.
“Ye’ve won the battle,” she said, gasping. “I’ve been soundly defeated.”
“Indeed?”
“At least if I die from my wounds, Sir Ryland de Ware, I shall die content.”
He grinned. She’d made him unimaginably happy. Exhausted with pleasure, as he gently rolled off of her onto his back, he admitted, “Then we shall both die content, for you’ve defeated me as well. I fear I shall ne’er rise again.”
A lazy grin curved her lips as she looked over at him with shining eyes “So say ye now.”
Then she turned away from him, snuggling back against him, her lovely backside teasing his loins. If she wasn’t careful, he would rise again.
Still glowing in the aftermath of ecstasy, he enveloped her in his grateful arms. “Ah, lass, I love you.” The words surprised even him as they dropped easily off his tongue.
In answer, she took a deep breath and exhaled a long sigh of contentment.
Ryland kissed the back of her head, marveling at the softness of her ebony tresses. But though his body was spent, his mind was wide awake, marveling over this extraordinary turn of events.
Everything was going to work out now. He was sure of it.
By a few slips of her tongue, Gray had given herself away. And the confirmation that the beautiful, enchanting, spirited outlaw that he’d fallen in love with was in truth his bride Temair could not have pleased him more.
Even better, though she didn’t know it, their salvation was on the way.
On the day his men had left the camp to collect the ransom, Ryland had given Warin a secret message.
To the woodkerns’ ears, it would have sounded innocent. He’d simply asked Warin to bring his brother’s sword.
What the outlaws didn’t know was that his brother’s sword was in his brother’s hand—in faraway England. In Ryland’s absence, his brother Adam had taken charge of Ryland’s remaining knights—three dozen well-armed and well-trained soldiers. What Ryland had conveyed to Warin was that, rather than going to collect the ransom, they should return to England to summon the rest of his fighting forces.
He didn’t expect there would be cause for battle. But he’d reasoned that if he was going to live in this country, he couldn’t let common criminals believe they could abduct people and hold them hostage whenever they liked. A show of force in the form of a great company of magnificent knights marching through Ireland in full battle armor would rein in their unlawful habits.
Of course, now he understood that the woodkerns were a force for good. They were the sole champions for those victimized by the villainous chieftain.
Now he knew about the evil scheme Cormac had concocted to fool the king and fleece his clann.
Now he realized the depths of Temair’s suffering.
He meant to right those wrongs. And it seemed to him that a retinue of powerful English knights under his command might be the way to do that.
His only worry was—when it came time for Ryland to gather his knights and march on the tower—whether his bride-to-be would view them as a rescue force or an invading army.
He should explain everything to her before his men arrived.
He should tell her that he knew now who she was.
He should reveal his plans to overthrow Cormac O’Keeffe, to ensure prosperity for the clann and clemency for the woodkerns.
He should confess that he would be honored to be her husband.
And then he should ask her formally to marry him.
But before he could open his mouth to tell her all that, she began snoring—the long, loud, sawing snores of a woman at peace and well-satisfied.
He grinned. He supposed he’d have to learn to sleep through all that racket if they were to be man and wife. In any case, he supposed his news could wait till morning.