His Stolen Bride BN (24 page)

Behind her, Drake’s face reflected hot triumph. The searing ebony of his eyes moved
over her body. To her shock, Averyl felt an answering note within her belly.

After removing the vestiges of her smock from her, he guided her to the bed, then
followed her down to the mattress. He reached to remove his hose. Somehow, she found
the strength to grab his hand and stay him.

Tonight, Drake had shown her how easily one’s emotions could be revealed during an
ecstatic loss of control. She’d seen her own face and knew now she could never hope
to learn Drake’s true feelings for her when he maintained such command over his body
and mind. Nay, she must drive him to the madness he’d sent her tumbling into moments
ago.

“Let me,” she whispered into Drake’s questioning face, as she rolled him to his back
and reached for his hose.

His burning expression told her he found the suggestion pleasing, but when she grasped
the edge of the garment and pulled down slowly, he grew tense. She moved her fingers
tentatively over his hard male flesh. Drake clenched his jaw, appearing the picture
of pain.

Averyl bit her lip in indecision. Did she stop?

Uncertainly, she removed the garment from his feet and tossed it to the floor. Drake
answered her confusion by bringing her hand back to his shaft. Curling her fingers
about his thick length, he guided her in an up-and-down motion.

Following his lead, she was soon rewarded with a toss of his dark head and a groan.
She smiled. Aye, he could lose himself like this to her.

She moved faster. Drake’s fingers curled around her thighs, clutching, biting.

Gratified, Averyl refused to relent but watched his face. Cheeks taut, eyes shut,
jaw hard, he looked magnificently aroused. She clenched her fingers around him more
tightly.

“Look at me,” she whispered.

Upon her command, his eyes flew open. The heat of a thousand infernos raged within
their depths. She sent him a sultry smile.

“Nay,” he rasped. “I will endure this torture no more.”

Before Averyl could protest, Drake loomed above her and sent her onto her back. He
entered her completely in one hard thrust, pushing, fingers grasping her hips as if
to make his way deeper. She gasped as sensations washed over her and she wrapped her
legs about him.

“Now look at me,” he said, voice strained, eyes probing.

Averyl met his gaze as he withdrew and entered once more. The connection of their
stares she felt into the depths of her soul. The answering flicker in Drake’s eyes
filled her with yearning and hope.

Boldly, she kissed him. He answered with a sweep of his tongue and a thrust of his
hard body. ’Twas as if he wanted to be upon her, inside her, in as many places as
he could at once.

He seared her with another lunge of his tongue, his body. She gripped his shoulders,
nails cutting into his flesh as the pressure-peak of pleasure rushed upon her again.

With another push of his hardness, she exploded around him. Averyl fought to keep
her head, even as the honeyed sweetness of her release lulled her mind, dulled her
thoughts.

But her eyes remained open, enough to see the bright need in Drake’s glowing eyes
as he found his own pleasure. His hoarse cry and stiff body did not surprise her.
’Twas his eyes she looked to for answers. She saw a flash of something anxious and
needy, warm yet vulnerable. Something that reached out to her and wrapped itself around
her heart. She smiled in relief.

Moments later, she laid a soft hand to his cheek to give comfort. Instantly, his shoulders
and back turned stiff at her touch. He closed his eyes to her searching gaze, ground
his hips against her once more, then rolled away.

Averyl felt his loss immediately. ’Twas more than the usual withdrawal of his body.
A glance into his closed expression revealed the removal of his thoughts and feelings.

“Look at me,” she whispered again.

Several deep breaths later, he complied. His black eyes reveled naught, no want, no
satisfaction, no contempt. Their flat depths crushed her heart.

Averyl rose and dressed in the silence, tears clawing her eyes. Drake would never
love her, she realized. Any feeling he had, he would ruthlessly stifle, never admitting
it to himself, much less to her. He would give her pleasure. Lord knew he could. He
would see after her, protect her.

But as Averyl dressed, she knew Drake would never love her.

* * * * *

“Drake, I would speak with you,” she said the next day.

The gravity of Averyl’s voice behind him made Drake turn to her slowly in the fading
daylight the next afternoon. Uneasiness slid through him as he lay his blade next
to a pile of logs. The scent of wood hovered pungent about him.

Assuming a casual pose, he wiped the sweat from his brow. He tried not to notice her
unsmiling regard. “Would you, my wife? About what?”

She cleared her throat. Folding her hands before her, she blinked several times, then
wet her lips nervously.

Had she come to explain why she had turned away from his embrace three times last
night, and again this morning? Never since succumbing to the flame between them had
she refused him the sweet solace of her body—until now. Why?

“I would talk with you about the end of our handfast,” she said finally, interrupting
his reverie.

“’Tis barely begun.” He scowled.

“Aye, but I would have you understand a few things.”

“Would you now?” he tossed back, little liking her tone.

She paced several steps before turning to him again. Shoulders tense within her muted
blue gown, she stood fragile yet firm.

“When our handfast is at an end and I am no longer of any use to your revenge, I must
insist that you give me the funds promised to save Abbotsford.”

Her home. She worried over its walls, its people. ’Twas in her caring nature. That
quality that made her different from his greedy mother. Drake relaxed.

“As I promised.” He caressed her cheek. “Unless I have gone to my grave, I will find
a way to give you all that Murdoch agreed to lend your father. You need not worry
on that score.”

Averyl turned her face from his touch. Through narrowed eyes, he watched her tense
fingers clench each other in a prayerlike pose again.

“I also expect that there will be no further contact between us, that you will set
me free in every way.”

Glowering, Drake stared. Had he heard her correctly? She wanted nothing more to do
with him? Everything within him rebelled at the thought.

Her greenish gaze crashed into his a moment later. She squared her shoulders, thrusting
forward the firm mounds of her breasts. Of course he did not wish her gone. Too many
of her body’s delights he had yet to sample.

He sidled closer, backing her against a nearby tree. “My dearest wife, you forget
that the pleasures we have shared can often bring consequences.”

Through stiff lips, she replied, “This morn I awakened to the proof that I did not
conceive. ’Twould be to everyone’s advantage if we kept it that way.”

Resistance and regret sliced through him. Alarm followed, winding through Drake’s
body, centering in his suddenly tight chest. “Do you wish to deny me your wifely comforts
for the better part of a year?”

“I wish to deny you the chance to use me at your will. ’Tis not me you desire, but
feminine companionship, and we would both be better served to avoid further involvement.
Until June next, I am your wife. Our marriage is consummated. Murdoch cannot dispute
that. ’Tis what you wanted. You need no more of me.”

The inflectionless precision of her speech stunned Drake. Where was the passionate
woman he’d grown accustomed to having beside him? When had the caring woman he’d come
to enjoy disappeared? In her place stood an unfeeling enchantress—someone who suddenly
resembled his mother more than he liked.

Turning away from her, he reached for his ax again and glanced blindly at the wood
before him. An emptiness clawed at his belly, and he hacked at the branches to dispel
the feeling.

“You will have your money or my death,” he snarled. “As for our marriage bed, do not
imagine I will endure more refusals. I am within my right to take you any time I wish.”

“Use your conscience and leave me be.”

Her cool voice poured over him like salt on an open wound. “You’ve known from the
start I am a heartless bastard without a conscience. When I want you, I will have
you, wife.”

Averyl’s wide eyes dimmed with disappointment before she looked away. Drake stifled
an emotion that felt too much like guilt for comfort. Long moments of silence ticked
by.

Finally she raised her gaze to him once more, face somber. “As you will. But do not
expect me to respond.”

Before his stunned mind could form a reply, Drake found himself glaring in incredulity
at Averyl’s retreating back. She would cast aside their marriage? Just like that?
Aye, he’d never wanted the arrangement permanently, but never had he intended to treat
it as callously as she.

“By God, you will respond to me, Averyl,” he called after her. “You will respond every
bloody night!”

She paused, turning until the last of the day’s rays cast a halo at her back. Lengthening
shadows of dusky pink accentuated her fair coloring, her luminous beauty. He wanted
her. Now.

Drake took two steps toward her. She threw up a hand to stay him.

“Though you tell me you are a heartless bastard, I know better.” Her voice quivered.
“Think well on the fact that if you make me respond to your touch, I will only hate
you for it.”

With that, she turned and disappeared into the cottage.

A week later, Averyl woke slowly, warm and languid—and aware of a heated tingle in
her womanly core. Soft lips plied magic in the curve of her neck. On instinct, she
arched toward them, seeking pleasure. She was rewarded her with a hot hand upon her
breast.

Fingers sizzled her skin as they caressed her through her smock, teased her nipple
into a hard pebble. Something within her shouted warnings to withstand the artful
mastery of those hands. Then she felt a mouth to her breast, and she moaned at the
moist blade of a tongue upon her. Gasping, Averyl struggled to recall why she should
resist this.

“Aye, lass,” the voice encouraged. “Feel me.”

Drake!

She opened her eyes to find his gaze fastened upon her, a hot black in the burgeoning
light. Such utter male beauty never ceased to amaze her, nor did the depth of her
desire. Swallowing, she fought the ache pulsing in her belly.

“This is good and right between us. We need naught else,” he assured, his voice coaxing.

Except love
, her mind shouted. Love he possessed not for her. Love he would never feel.

Coming fully awake, she pushed against his shoulders until he eased away, frowning.
Averyl clasped the sheet to her.

“Where is my dress?” she demanded.

He glanced at the floor. “’Tis an inconvenient habit you have of wearing too much
clothing, my wife.”

Averyl espied her gown beside the bed as Drake leaned closer, allowing her the feel
of the velvet strength of his chest. She closed her eyes, praying for fortitude.

For ten nights, she had rejected the arousing advances that curled her toes, the sensual
suggestions that shallowed her breathing. Aye, how she wanted him, the sense of joining
she always felt with him. ’Twas nothing less than torment to refuse that which she
wanted so desperately, his attention, his tenderness, his touch. But her mind, her
pride, refused her heart the bliss of surrender.

She would not become his whore, to be used and discarded as he wished. Though with
each day, each kiss, he became harder to deny. Not only did her body respond to his
seduction but her heart responded to his seeming confusion at her refusals.

His dark hair brushed her cheek as he loomed closer. Before Averyl could turn away,
his lips covered hers. The breadth of his hand encompassed her hip, wound around her
thigh, raised her smock to her waist. Eyes closed, she clasped fistfuls of their sheets
as she clenched her legs together to fend off the pleasurable onslaught of his nimble
fingers.

“Do not touch me,” she whispered.

“Your words say nay, but your voice breaks and pleads,” he breathed, pressing his
hot erection directly against her. Her arousal climbed.

Sweet mercy, he was naked. The warm expanse of his golden skin surrounded her, as
did the scent of man, musky, wild, not to be denied, as he pressed against her again.

Averyl stifled a groan. How could she ache for him so badly when he wanted naught
from her but her body? When he cared so little?

At the apex of her thighs, Averyl felt his fingers, gentle, insistent, coaxing. Her
body felt as liquid as a river, her mind as empty as Abbotsford’s fields. She must
resist, for her future, for herself. She must…

“I say nay!” She pushed against him again.

This time, Drake sat up and stared at her through a dark scowl. He was very unhappy,
indeed.

’Twas no problem of hers. She had all she could manage resisting him, Averyl thought,
rising to find her dress.

As she donned the garment, she felt Drake’s eyes upon her, intent.

“Averyl, why—”

“Hello?” called a vaguely familiar voice through the morn’s heavy gray mist, ripping
through their solitude.

Drake stiffened and cursed a string of unkind expletives before rising to yank on
his hose and tunic, then open the door.

On the other side stood Kieran wearing a lopsided grin.

Holding the door, Drake stepped back, jaw tight, silent.

“Hello, Drake.”

“Greetings,” he intoned, closing the door as Kieran entered the small cottage and
sat upon a nearby stool.

“Mind you that I used the key to let myself past your gate?”

“’Tis why I gave it to you.”

Averyl winced at Drake’s abrupt answer. Kieran regarded him with a long look, then
a raised brow in her direction.