Colin tipped her chin up and peered into her face.
"What manner of trickery is this? Tis common knowledge witches cannot weep."
Tabitha gave him a watery glare, but her voice still broke on a strangled sob. "They can if you're breaking their heart."
Both bewildered and beguiled, he touched her cheek with shattering gentleness, smearing a salty teardrop with his thumb before bringing it to his lips. As he tasted her tears, an expression of helpless wonder surged across his face.
"Oh, Tabitha," he whispered. "My brave, sweet, beautiful witch…"
His kiss was different from any that had come before it. Losing none of its eloquence, his tongue swirled over her lips, begging her pardon, coaxing her to part them and let him taste the balm of her forgiveness. When she did, he deepened his kiss, drawing her lower lip into his mouth and tenderly suckling.
All the while he was kissing her, his hands were working at the knots of her bonds until all she had to do when they fell away was melt into his arms.
Chapter 18
Colin scooped her up as if she weighed no more than Jenny and carried her toward the cottage. Tabitha buried her tear-streaked face against his throat, inhaling the leathery spice of his skin. He kicked the cottage door open and laid her down on the threadbare mattress as if it were a bed of roses. She supposed it should have bothered her that Colin and Regan had once shared that same mattress, but the present was too precious to allow it to be overshadowed by the past or the future.
As he stood over her, unbuckling his belt of braided silver, his eyes smoldered with a hunger that took her breath away. "There's no help for it, my lady. If you're to burn, then we shall burn together."
He drew his tunic over his head, rumpling his dark hair. The sight of his bare chest made Tabitha's mouth go dry with want. He'd been a stranger to her less than a week ago, but now she ached to know his body the same way she knew her own. Every crisp, curling hair, every pale scar, every delectable inch of it.
Embracing the role of wanton enchantress, she seized his hand and pulled him down on top of her. He succumbed to her bidding without a struggle, sinking into a wet, openmouthed kiss that should have qualified as a sex act all by itself. Then, as if to atone for that bit of naughtiness, he tenderly sipped the last traces of tears from her cheeks. As his lips nuzzled her cheeks, her eyelids, the sensitive cleft above her upper lip, Tabitha sighed, adrift on a sea of bliss.
When her eyes fluttered open, Colin was gazing down at her, his face somber in the moonlight streaming through the open door. "Would you lay with me, my lady?"
She had expected a mandate, not an invitation. The humble entreaty of this powerful man touched a chord deep in her soul. Threading her fingers through his hair, she whispered, "I would be honored, sir."
She expected him to kiss her again, but he surprised her by drawing her up and gently wrestling Magwyn's gown over her head. Before Tabitha could prepare herself for the shock, she was in his arms wearing nothing but the amulet. Her palms darted from her breasts to the toffee-colored curls at the juncture of her thighs, then back again. Knowing she must look utterly ridiculous, she finally contented herself with fluffing up her hair.
Colin studied her with blatant fascination before offering her a crooked grin that made her heart thud dully in her ears. "I've never seen a woman blush all over. 'Tis a most enchanting trait."
"Why, thank you," she replied breathlessly.
He drew her close for a kiss, but she pushed at his muscled shoulders. "Not so fast. I'm afraid my advanced state of nudity puts me at a distinct disadvantage."
He arched one eyebrow at her. "And what would you suggest we do about that?"
She gave his hose a nervous nod, utterly captivated by this wickedly playful Colin. "You might dispose of those."
"Very well, my lady. Your wish is my com – "
Tabitha clapped a hand over his mouth, shaking her head in warning. He simply kissed her palm and nodded, reassuring her that the time to discuss that particular quandary would come later. Much later.
As Colin drew off his boots, then untied the points of his hose and peeled them off, Tabitha's facade of sophistication shattered. Her first instinct was to recoil and protest that he was crazy if he thought he was going to put that thing anywhere in her. But her bout of maidenly horror was overwhelmed by a compulsion to touch him, to run her trembling fingertips along the velvety shaft springing so boldly from its nest of dark curls. So she did. And although she would have sworn it was impossible, she felt him lengthen and thicken even more beneath her touch.
With a heartrending groan, he tore himself away from her. He sat on the edge of the mattress and buried his head in his hands, breathing as if he'd been wrestling a dragon.
Tabitha gazed helplessly at the moon-gilded curve of his back, fighting the urge to weep with frustration. Had she, in her ignorance, done something unacceptable? Had she feinted left when she should have dodged right?
Practically forgetting that she was naked, she crept up beside him and gently touched his shoulder. "Was it something I said?"
He lifted his head, his expression haunted enough to frighten her anew. " Tis not you, Tabitha. Tis me."
Without even thinking about it, Tabitha blurted out the worst fear of any single woman living alone in New York City. "Oh, God, you're not gay, are you?"
He slanted her a strange look. "No, I'm rather morose at the moment."
Tabitha might have laughed with relief if his expression hadn't been so glum. She waited for him to elaborate.
"If I had been able to resist Regan when she offered herself to me, she might not have died. 'Twas my own voracious carnal appetites that cost an innocent girl her life."
A shiver of mingled apprehension and delight danced down Tabitha's spine. Would she be woman enough to satisfy those appetites?
"Despite those appetites" – he shook his head as if to clear it – "no, because of them, I swore an oath of celibacy before I took up the cross. I vowed to keep myself chaste as long as I was marching beneath the banner of the Lord. So while others sought out whores to relieve their baser needs, I was on my knees. Praying for fortitude," he added wryly.
She frowned, touched and confused by his confession. "I don't understand. If you've been celibate for the last six years, what were you doing in all those Egyptian brothels?"
He rolled his eyes heavenward. "Waiting for Arjon."
Tabitha didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She couldn't help but appreciate the irony of a virgin trying to seduce a celibate.
She patted his shoulder. "Don't be afraid. It's probably just like riding a" – she rejected "bicycle" and "camel," then fumbled for a more appropriate reference – "horse. It'll all come back to you once you begin."
His eyes sparkled with amusement as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "I haven't forgotten what to do, my lady. 'Tis simply that I want you so desperately I fear 'twill be over before it's begun."
Tabitha sighed, her heart melting along with various other nether regions of her body. "Oh, Colin. I don't mind a little urgency. There'll be plenty of time for the rest later."
But would there be? She tried to ignore a pang of doubt. If the amulet had taught her anything, it was just how capricious time could be.
Determined to set both her mind and his own at ease, she smiled brightly. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?"
She lay back on the mattress and squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the medieval version of "wham-bam-thank-you-wench."
"What in the holy name of St. Andrew are you doing?"
She opened one eye to find Colin scowling down at her. "Waiting for you to make love to me."
"You look more like you're waiting for the blacksmith to pull a tooth."
Sighing, she opened both eyes. Shouldn't he look more pleased that she'd decided to suffer his lusty mauling with such good grace? "I haven't forgotten that you're a semibarbarian, you know. You've never had the chance to read Cosmo so it wouldn't be
fair of me to expect you to label all my erogenous zones or know precisely which button to push to drive me wild with desire."
She'd never seen that one expressive eyebrow of his shoot quite so high. "No, I don't suppose it would." He leaned over her, the thoughtful gleam in his eyes making her quiver with alarm. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps you should just close your eyes and suffer my brutish attentions without complaint."
Tabitha obeyed, if somewhat suspiciously.
"And don't open them," he whispered, brushing his warm lips down the side of her throat. "No matter what I do to you."
His husky voice ignited a dark shiver of anticipation. As he nuzzled the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat, a dreamy languor melted through her limbs.
"The women at the brothel always considered my celibacy something of a challenge," he murmured between slow, luscious tastes of her skin. "While Arjon was upstairs taking his pleasure, they would wager among themselves who would be the first to coax me into breaking my vow. They amused each other by gathering around me and describing in delicious detail all the sinfully wicked things they yearned to do to me and those they wanted me to do to them."
"Oh," Tabitha breathed as his mouth wandered lower, grazing the swell of each breast with exquisite tenderness.
"I've never seen this Cosmo of yours, but they did show me ancient illustrated manuscripts that depicted acts of love certain to test both the agility and the imagination of the lovers. I found them to be very instructive."
"Oh!" This time her voice came out somewhere between a squeak and a sob. The sob deepened to a moan as he lapped at one distended nipple, his tongue rough as a cat's, yet smooth as silk. Her illusions that foreplay had been invented in the twenty-first century crumbled like sugar candy beneath his erotic kiss.
As he drew her nipple into his mouth and suckled her, stirring a kindred tug deep within her womb, she tangled her hands in his hair. "Oh, Colin, I thought you couldn't wait."
He dipped his tongue into her navel, eliciting an even more primal shiver. "Ah, but those cunning women also taught me 'twas possible for a man to delay his own pleasure in order to prolong his lady's."
"But you've already delayed yours for six years and if you prolong mine anymore, I think I'm going to die," she wailed.
"Then you shall suffer the sweetest death a woman can know."
Her eyes flew open, but he warned, "No peeking. Barbarians haven't any patience for peeking."
Even with her eyes closed, Tabitha could feel his gaze burn her naked skin, more tangible than a touch. Or at least she thought so until his fingers grazed the soft curls between her legs. Whimpering in latent shyness, she turned her face toward the mattress while Colin petted and stroked her. When she was nearly purring with pleasure, his fingers delved deeper, breaching her damp curls.
"If I weren't such an untutored barbarian and I wanted to drive you wild with desire, I might just touch you here." The flick of his fingertip against that sensitive nubbin of flesh made her gasp with delight. "Or here." His clever fingers dipped lower still, gently probing as if he were parting the petals of some delicate flower to seek the teardrops of nectar within.
Tabitha's whimper deepened to a moan. Through a haze of bliss, she felt Colin's hands stroking her thighs, easing them apart. She tensed, bracing herself for a foreign invasion, only to realize with a shock that it wasn't his sex pressed against her, but – oh, wonder of wonders – his mouth. She arched off the mattress, utterly beguiled by the hot, moist sweetness of his lips, the swirling magic of his tongue.
Colin might not have succumbed to the wiles of those decadent women, but he must have memorized their whispered enticements. He proved himself a master of devilish invention, holding her in bondage to the darkness and her need until molten pleasure was dripping from the very core of her. When she was poised on the brink of madness, he filled that aching hollow with his thickest finger. She cried out his name as waves of rapture racked her entire body.
Then he was on top of her as he'd been in that meadow the first day they met, kissing her sweat-dampened throat and whispering in her ear. "That, my lady, is what I would do were I a learned enough man to drive you wild with desire."
No longer content to be passive, Tabitha fisted her hands in his hair and dragged his lips to hers. It was his turn to moan with delight as their tongues entwined in sweet communion. Her trepidation had been replaced by a primitive compulsion to drive him wild with desire, to make him cry out her name as if it were a magical incantation. Her sex was throbbing for his attention and she knew from the feel of him, hot and heavy against her belly, that he was more than willing and able to provide it.
She opened her thighs in invitation, but there was no need to guide him into her. He found the heart of her with unerring instinct, grunting into her mouth as he thrust deep and hard, filling her to the brim.
Tabitha had braced herself for a twinge of discomfort; she had not expected this searing pain as her body struggled valiantly to welcome him. She bit her lip, but not before a sharp cry could escape.
Colin froze. He was so still she could feel her sheath pulsing around him with each of her shuddering heartbeats. She opened her eyes to find him gazing down at her with a perplexing mix of awe and shock. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought she'd betrayed him for a second time.
Longing only to erase that inexplicable expression, she wrapped her legs around his waist and gave her hips an amateur wiggle.
Colin threw back his head with a guttural groan, then shook it as if to ward off a spell. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again, something both fierce and reverent in his touch. As his body began to move within her in a tender, deliberate cadence, her pain slowly melted to a different kind of ache – an ache that craved the sweet friction of the man she loved riding deep inside of her, an ache that demanded to be satisfied. Satisfy her he did, stroking her mouth with his tongue and her body with his sex until she was meeting his every thrust with one of her own.
Only then did he liberate himself from six years of brutal self-denial. Only then did he roar her name and allow his ecstasy to come spilling out of him in a white-hot torrent. Tabitha cried out her own delight as he buried himself as deep within her as he could go, shuddering to miraculous completion.
They lay entwined in each other's arms, their breath mingled, their sated bodies slick with sweat, their hearts beating in perfect accord, as if they were still one flesh.
Until Colin lifted his head to glower at her. "You didn't…?"
Tabitha nodded smugly. "Oh, yes, I did. Before."
"But not when I…"
"Of course not. Women aren't designed for that. Mutual orgasms are nothing but a myth like Bigfoot and unicorns and knights" – her voice trailed to a whisper as she blinked up at him – "in shining armor."
A slow, dangerous grin curved his lips. "Is that so, my lady?"
Tabitha squeaked in surprise as Colin gently guided her over on her stomach. "It gives you great pleasure to prove me wrong, doesn't it?" she asked breathlessly.
He brushed his lips across her nape, making her shiver with anticipation. "Not nearly as much pleasure as it will give you."
Chapter 19
Sunshine draped Tabitha's naked body like a warm, fuzzy blanket. She stretched without opening her eyes, exulting in the delicious languor melting through her muscles. For the first time, she truly understood why Scarlett O'Hara had awakened with such a feline smile on her lips the morning after Rhett had carried her up those curving stairs. Summoning barely enough energy to lift her hand, she gave the mattress beside her a seeking pat. It was empty and cold.
Her eyes flew open.
A shirtless Colin sat on the edge of the hearth, dragging on his second boot. His brooding glower had returned, darker than ever before.
"Good morning," she murmured, hoping he would find the husky edge of sleep in her voice irresistibly sexy.
"Good day, my lady."
His clipped words s
napped her fully awake. She fumbled for the threadbare quilt, drawing it up to her chin. He probably found her shyness ridiculous, given the nature and shameless variety of the intimacies they'd shared during the night. But this surly stranger seemed like an evil twin of the man who had given her pleasure so intense it had made her sob aloud, then dried her tears with his kisses.
Oh, God, she thought, what if he was the kind of man who lost interest in a woman after he'd slept with her? Not that they'd done much sleeping.
Colin donned his tunic, his motions as curt as his expression. Leaning over a tarnished basin, he splashed his face and hair with water he must have fetched from a nearby stream while she was sleeping. He was without a doubt the cleanest barbarian she'd ever met.
With his unruly mop of hair slicked back from his unshaven face, he looked younger and more vulnerable, giving Tabitha the courage to confront him.
She sat up and forced herself to relinquish her death grip on the quilt, letting it catch on the swell of her breasts. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you had a wife waiting at home."
His hands froze in the motion of securing his silver belt around his lean hips. He slowly lifted his head, his stricken stare betraying the last emotion she'd expected to see on his face.
Guilt.
She was suddenly afraid.
Then his expression was masked, and she wondered if she'd imagined it. "I should be getting back to the castle. I've tarried here long enough."
Tabitha sniffed. "That's odd. You didn't seem to be in any hurry last night."
He strode toward the door without answering. For one heartbreaking moment, she thought he was actually going to leave her there – naked and alone, the provocative musk of their lovemaking still clinging to her skin.