He brought his knuckles down over her cheek, noting its marble beauty against the rough texture of his huge, battle-worn hands. Her eyes were so very wide, so liquid in their violet shimmer.
“I tell you, Melisande, you are mistaken. There is nothing I want so much as you.”
Her lashes swept over her eyes. “I don"t believe you.”
“When I am done this eve, you will.”
Her eyes rose to his again.
“You gave your word, Melisande. When you give it to me, you will keep it.”
“I cannot!” she cried out softly, her lashes falling again. He could feel the fierce pounding of her heart. Could she be afraid? Melisande?
“How strange!” he said softly. “I would have thought that Manon"s daughter would keep a vow.”
Once again her gaze was upon him. He had struck upon the perfect words to reach into her soul, he saw, and realized then that she trembled violently beneath him. How odd. She had drawn such a fury from him today, and even in the hall tonight. He would have taken her swiftly, and with a certain violence, if he had been forced.
But now he wanted to draw her to him. Gently. “Bathed and perfumed, waiting and willing,” he reminded her softly.
She didn"t reply, and he rose from her, keeping his eyes locked with hers.
“I"ll give you a few minutes, Melisande. When I return, I expect you to keep your promise.”
He turned, departing her room by shoving the tapestry aside, opening the small connecting door, and entering his chamber.
He closed the door thoughtfully behind him. “You fool!” he charged himself aloud. He walked to the hearth and spread his hands out before the low flame.
What would happen now? Was she already tearing through the door, ready to disappear downstairs and give Rhiannon a tale of some terrible illness that required the soothing hand of a servant through the long hours of the night?
“Ah, lady! It must be done, it will be tonight!” he whispered to the flames.
And still he waited, weary and aching, wishing that this particular battle could be over.
His face grew warm with the heat from the flames. He pushed away from the fire at last and headed for the connecting door. She would be gone. And he would be forced to retrieve her. He didn"t know what he would do then, only that he couldn"t allow her to escape him.
But his heart seemed to shudder and then stop when he quietly reentered her room.
Melisande was there.
She had changed into a soft, sheer gown that was very nearly the color of her eyes. Her back was to him, for she, too, faced the fire. Her hair was loose, just brushed, and like the finest silk he might find for trade anywhere along the Mediterranean. It curled and waved in a glorious black tumult down her back while the sheer gown gave away everything and nothing at all. The elegant curve of her back could be seen, the curve of her hips.
He found himself striding swiftly to her, his hands falling upon her shoulders. He lifted the length of her hair, and felt the fierceness of her trembling. He placed his lips against her throat and felt the speed of the pulse beating there.
A soft mauve cord was tied just below her neck. He pulled it and stepped back as the flimsy garment fell with a soft whisper to the floor. A small sound escaped her, yet she remained with her back to him. He pressed his lips to her shoulders, his fingers easing down her back, tracing the shape of it.
“I thought you"d be gone,” he said huskily, spinning her into his arms.
She gasped again as the tips of her breasts were crushed to his chest, as she felt him with the naked length of her beauty.
“I always keep my word,” she murmured.
“Do you? Or did you think, perhaps, that I would find you, wherever you were to go?”
Her eyes rose to his, deeply, richly violet with wild emotion. “Could we please … get this over with?”
“As you wish, my love. As you wish.”
He lifted her again, feeling the fierceness of the hunger she so swiftly awakened within him. He stretched her out on the bed and lay beside her, still aware of the way she shook. She longed to leap up and flee and fought the wild desire to do so, he knew. She did not close her eyes, but stared at the ceiling, avoiding his. He smiled slightly, seeing her start as he touched her, the tips of his fingers running softly down the valley of her breasts to her waist, then circling the flesh of her belly below. By all the gods, she was glorious. Her flesh was as pure as cream, silk to the touch. Her breasts were large and firm and beautifully shaped, the nipples a deep dusky rose. Her waist was slim, her hips delicately curved. Down the soft expanse of her abdomen, a soft display of ebony temptingly triangled about her sex. He let his fingers wander there and heard the sound she tried to choke back too late.
He smiled again and leaned over her, capturing her lips with his own. She tightened against him for a moment, but he forced her lips apart, his tongue plunging deeply into her mouth, demanding a response. He lifted his lips from hers and her breath came in great ragged gasps.
“I cannot breathe.”
“You don"t need to breathe.”
His mouth descended upon hers once again, raw now with its hunger and need, giving excitement as well as demanding it. Her hands lay at her sides, fingers curling. They fell upon his shoulders at last. He didn"t know if she had intended to push him away, but it didn"t matter. Her fingers went still. He kissed her until he had his fill of the sweetness of her lips, then parted from her mouth at last and met the dazed look in her eyes. He kept his eyes upon hers, then lowered himself against her body, capturing her breast within the palm of his hand, cradling it, stroking it, running his thumb erotically over her nipple.
Her breath caught, she froze, swallowing hard as she stared at him.
And still he kept his eyes locked with hers even as he closed his mouth over her nipple, teasing it with the tip of his tongue, surrounding it with the fullness of his mouth, sucking upon it until the bud hardened like a pebble beneath his liquid touch.
Again a sound escaped her. She closed her eyes, her face pale once again.
She still trembled, ceaselessly, but she was no longer rigid against him. He brought his lips to her left breast, teased and tarried there, and while he did so, he began to move his hands upon her again, cupping and stroking her hip, her thigh, her belly, and once again her thigh. At first he touched her everywhere but that sweet, tempting triangle. And then he began to stroke it lightly with the tips of his fingers, with his palms. He rose above her again, capturing her wild gaze as he wet the length of his fingers with his tongue, then brought them back to that silk and ebony triangle, delving within it to find the pink petals of her sex.
She gasped, her knees rising, her head twisting. He lay the pinioning weight of his body half atop her again, leaving him free from her protest to have his way. He parted her, stroked her, sought out the most sensitive of places, then delved more deeply within her with his sure, demanding stroke. She was incredibly tight. Sweetly damp, but tight.
Touching her, feeling her warmth, her movement, seemed to create all of the fires of hell within him. She had instinctively tried to close herself, yet had whispered no protest. Still he found himself fighting the strength of his hunger for her, the ache in his loins. He had demanded her bathed and perfumed, waiting and willing. Perhaps that had not been quite what he had received, but she was definitely bathed and perfumed, her own sweet scent mingled with that of lilacs, enticing, tempting. “Look at me,” he demanded, and when she did, her eyes huge, shimmering and challenging still, he smiled slowly, still touching her, and lowered his lips to hers, tasting wine and mint. She did not twist from him. Indeed, her lips parted slightly. He felt the rush of her breath before his mouth devoured hers.
He began his descent down her body once again, stroking her breasts, her thighs, rubbing his palm over the ebony triangle, slipping his fingers within it, dipping deeply into her. His mouth touched her breasts, her belly. He watched her face as he descended. Her eyes had clo
sed again. She did not touch him.
Her fingers were wound into the sheets. He stroked her thigh, lifted, then slowly slid his tongue upon the tender flesh his touch had so recently awakened. She did cry out then, trying to turn. His hand was firm on her leg, his weight strong against hers. A “no” formed upon her lips, but the desperate whisper didn"t quite reach the air. He slid his tongue very slowly over her once again, felt the wild pull of her body, the trembling, the arching. Then his touch was not so light. He stroked and delved, tasted, plunged.
Her fingers moved, tearing into his flesh, his hair, the sheet again. A searing heat shot through him as he felt the response of her body, tasted its sweetness.
Mercilessly he continued his seductive assault upon her, ignoring the thundering in his skull, the agony of tension and desire that gripped him.
A cry suddenly burst from her. She writhed and went as taut as stone. A wave of victorious pleasure swept over him, and in seconds he felt the hot burst of her body"s sweet release. He had longed to arouse her, seduce her, and he had done so. She was incredibly wet and warm now, and that very fact seemed to goad him to a greater, white-hot desire.
He rose, kicking off his boots, stripping down his chausses. Even as he did so, she tried to curl within herself, turning from him, drawing her knees to his chest.
“Nay, lady!”
He drew her back, heedless that his shirt remained upon him. He straddled her, fanning her hair out in an ebony arc. Her eyes closed, she sought not to see him, not to meet his gaze.
Not to face the truth of just how swiftly and surely he had touched her.
But he brought his lips to hers again, forced them apart, forced his tongue within.
“Taste our love,” he whispered, then wedged his weight determinedly between her thighs. His sex throbbed with a fury, and she swallowed hard, feeling it against her. He touched her, carefully thrust the smooth tip of himself just against her. She was as pale as the sheets. She bit into her lower lip. He pressed farther. She gasped, and bit her lip again, determined not to cry out. He moved as slowly as he could, but his next movement at last drew a ragged cry from her. He wrapped his arms tenderly around her, aware that she reeled with the pain. “It"s over,” he assured her, and held her against him. He felt the pulse of himself inside her, the desperate need to be assuaged. He held her close, caressed her buttocks. She buried her face against his shoulder, fingers gripping like steel into his arms. He could no longer bear it. He began to move.
She was slick, warm, yielding. Her body closed around his like a fitted sheath, each stroke driving him to new heights of searing desire. He held her achingly tight against him, thrusting himself more and more deeply, his rhythm growing with his need, with his thirst for release. He filled her again and again, impaled her, held her, began his storm anew. He kept his hand firmly upon the smooth beauty of her rounded buttocks, molding her to him, forcing her to meet his thrust, to come, to arch against it.
To writhe.
To seek something herself once again, the sweet surcease she barely knew.
Hot, slick, wet, their bodies met and melded. Then Conar felt the heat of a thousand flames burst forth within him. He climaxed wildly, thrusting, thrusting again, filling her with the burning rush of his seed from his body, once, again, again. His climax was volatile, exquisite, a storm. It swept over him, shook him, riddled him. He nearly fell atop her with the full bulk of his weight, yet caught himself in time.
And in time to feel the arch and trembling of her supple form against him, the proof that he had reached her, touched her.
He eased himself swiftly to her side, gasping raggedly for breath. Long moments passed before he gazed her way and saw that her eyes were open, dazed, and fixed upon the ceiling once again. She must have felt his gaze, because she lowered her lashes swiftly and turned away from him.
He clamped down hard on his jaw, amazed at the pleasure she had brought him, bitterly disappointed by the hostility she still seemed to bear him.
“Was that too barbaric, my love?” he mocked softly.
“You told me I must be willing!” she hissed in return.
Her back was to him. Incredibly tempting. He stroked his fingers up and down its length. “I"m ever so delighted that you were.”
“I had no choice.”
“No, of course not, you gave your word. Yet I truly thought you might run again, denying me.”
She swung on him suddenly, her eyes a tempest in violet. “And if I had?
What then? Would you have let me be?”
He smiled, leaning upon an elbow, fascinated anew by the view he was now receiving of her full, dusky crested breasts.
“Perhaps.”
She let out a strangled oath of fury and tried to turn away again. He caught her, encircling her in his arms even as she struggled. He laughed. “But probably not. I am Viking. I would have found you and ravished you one way or the other. Is that what you want to hear?”
She clenched her teeth hard in fury. “Is it what would have happened?” she demanded.
“We"ll never know, will we? Because you were here, bathed and perfumed.
Waiting … and at least pretending to be … willing.” Her lashes fell again. “Well, then, milord, you are well served. All is yours.
The marriage is legal—and consummated. Perhaps now you will be good enough to let me be. You"ve everything that you wanted.” He stroked one of the magnificent tresses of ebony hair that fell over her shoulder and lay tangled between them. The touch against his flesh was as soft as silk, sensual, enticing.
He smiled. “I told you, Melisande, that I wanted you.”
“And all that goes with me.”
“You,” he said firmly.
He sat up, ripping his shirt from his shoulders at last. Her gaze fell upon the breadth of his chest, the ripple of muscle within his arms.
Then it fell lower upon his body, down the length and strength of the shaft bulging there once again, growing even as she stared.
“No!” she murmured, starting to draw away.
“Yes,” he returned, and slipped her beneath him once again.
Her hands strained against his chest.
But her lips …
Her lips parted sweetly to his kiss.
Chapter Thirteen
At some point she at last slept, and in sleep the night seemed to take on the soft, hazy unreality of a dream. Yet there were solid elements within that dream. The feel of his arms around her, that of his shoulder beneath her head, the soft stroke of his fingers, even when they lay at rest. The dreaming was sometimes sweet. She felt that she had fought so bitterly, surrendered so completely. But in her dreams she dared marvel at the intimacy between them, at the tenderness he offered when he chose, of the magic in his rough touch.
While dreaming, she could forget that she should have fought herself as well as him, should have stayed strong, should have kept her pride, her dignity, her soul, all away from him. She could remember the outrage of each first intimate touch he so arrogantly took and demanded, but then the memory of the excitement it created would sweep upon her, even in her dreams. She couldn"t have fought him and won. But surely she could have waged a better battle with herself.
She would deny him forever, she promised herself.
But the promise was no good.
Several times it seemed that he reawakened her when she had just fallen asleep at last. Yet he did so in such a slow and sensual manner that she was doing his bidding before she awakened once again.
It seemed she had slept deeply for a long while when she opened her eyes and discovered his searing gaze burning into her, studying her face. She was startled by the intensity of his stare, and for one unwary moment she was also startled by the striking, rugged handsomeness of his face. She didn"t want to see it, didn"t want to admit in any way that he was arresting, yet how could she deny it now? Even as he stared at her, she felt a trembling begin deep within her. He always managed to cause some passionate stirring
of emotion inside her. Now things had changed, and she could never change them back again.
Now she could never escape him.
Most of all she didn"t want to care about Conar, didn"t want to wonder or care whether he slept through the night. He took what he desired and would then do what he chose, and she had yet to learn why he had come.
Except for this.
But why now, when he had let her be for so very long?
His hand cupped her cheek, and he murmured harshly, “No annulment, Melisande. There will be no annulment.”
Had she ever mentioned the possibility of trying to get an annulment to anyone before she had so swiftly and rashly whispered the words to Gregory yesterday? It seemed like eons ago. She might have been a different person, living in a different place. She closed her eyes, still exhausted, shivering. He would have found her last night, she thought. If she had not stayed, if she had not kept her word to him, he would have found her anywhere she might have gone. He had been absolutely determined to consummate their wedding vows.
His voice stroked her ear now. “You know that now, milady, don"t you?” She rolled to her side, curving her back to him. It was no deterrent. His hand moved lightly but possessively over her naked hip. There was even a feel of tenderness to the touch. Oddly, after everything else, that brought a glistening of tears to her eyes.
“There will be no annulment,” he repeated. The words were soft yet fierce.
She had to respond to him, lest he take his touch further once again.
And she respond once again.
She clenched her teeth tightly together, then spoke. “Aye, milord Viking, I am aware that there can be no annulment now.”