Lord of a Thousand Nights (13 page)

The kerchief opened and the gown fell out. “It is wet,” he said, looking at the lovely nape of her neck.

“It will have to do,” she muttered, snatching it up and shaking it out.

“You will not put it on, Reyna. And you will remove your shift.”

She clutched the garment to her body. He touched her hair, his fingers gently prying for the pins that bound it. Her whole body trembled and a blush ran up her neck. The gorgeous, bright tresses spilled down her back. He stepped closer and ran his hands lightly up her arms and pressed his mouth against the silken fall.

“I want you,” he said again.

“Do you always take what you want?”

“Usually. Eventually. I am not well practiced in denial.” He bent to press a kiss on her shoulder, still stroking the length of her arms. Little paths of heat rose beneath his touch. He could not see her face but he knew that she had closed her eyes in resistance. Hopeless, of course, but he admired the strength that made her worth pursuing.

“You think Edmund and I were lovers, and so I am of loose morals and free to be used,” she said.

“Nay. You are in my head all the time and I can not fight that forever.”

“So you seek to get rid of that inconvenience.”

He nuzzled the side of her neck and took her waist in his hands. So small, almost breakable. But a spirit that would never break. Still, he would bend it to his will, in this if nothing else. “I want to give you pleasure. It fills
my dreams.” He kissed her ear. “You want this, Reyna. If not, you can run away. But you haven't yet, and I do not think that you will. Something tells me that you feel as I do, and that you know this will be good between us.”

His arms moved to embrace her. He heard her sharp intake of breath. The wet gown fell from her clutch. He felt her expectant wariness, sensed her amazed surprise, almost smelled the sensual fear mixing with the subtle scent coming from her thighs. All of it stirred primitive, dominating reactions in him.

He caressed her, pulling her closer until her hips pressed against him. She grabbed his arms as if to wrench them off her body, but she did not. For one tense moment she hovered on indecision. He could almost hear the clash of steel as rational thought battled sensual need. Then breathing deeply, trembling gently, she sank into his embrace and yielded.

Elated triumph flooded him. He caressed down her slender curves, reveling in the frail feel of her, his senses clouding to everything except her slow, audible sighs and her clean, cool scent and the dewy taste of her skin beneath his lips and teeth as he found the places on her neck that made her gasp. And so he barely heard the words carried on her low exhales.

“If I do this, will you let me go?”

His hands halted. He raised his head. Sympathy twisted in his chest for the mortal fear that made her offer such a trade. “Nay, but only in part because of my duty to Morvan.”

“Later, when you tire of me?”

“You do not leave now or later.”

She twisted her neck so she could see him. “They will kill me.”

“They will not. I will not let them.”

“You are only one man.”

“I will not let them. Even if you deny me now or later, it is so. You do not have to whore for me to have that protection.”

A pitiful hope flashed in her eyes. Then she closed them and laid her cheek against him. He took her closer and she did not resist, but instead tilted her head back to accept his kiss.

He cupped her breasts and teased her until she arched into his touch and her bottom pressed against his body. He lowered them both so she knelt between his spread thighs, sitting back into him, grasping him above the knees.

He played at her until she was whimpering and caressing his thighs. The aimless progress of her small hands and the rhythm of her bottom against his lap drove him mad. He separated from her a little and pushed her hair over her shoulder. “Take off your shift.”

She hesitated and glanced back at him. Then rising slowly to her knees, she slid the hem of the thin garment up. His gaze and hands followed its progress as it unveiled creamy thighs and round buttocks and thin back. Her delicate muscles stretched elegantly while she pulled it over her head and dropped it beside them.

He traced the beautiful curve from her waist to her hips and pressed kisses onto the small of her back and up her spine. Her head lolled back with her sighs. When he rose on his knees and embraced her naked warmth, she moved into him with a sinuous, pliant stretch.

He laid her in the flowers and grass and swung to straddle her legs. He knelt tall and looked down at her parted lips and passion-blurred eyes.

His heart thought that he had never seen a woman more beautiful. He bent down and kissed her slender
thighs and blond mound, her curved hips and flat stomach, the perfect round swells of her breasts, smiling at the sounds and flexes each contact summoned from her. Leaning forward, hovering over her on his extended arms, he sought her mouth and kissed her deeply, biting, probing, savoring the taste and warmth of the intimacy, feeling her whole being rise into it. She tentatively touched her tongue to his. He suspected she had never done that before, and he encouraged her, withdrawing, parting his lips until she ventured her own kiss and her delicate, innocent tongue flickered.

He turned his kisses to her neck and she groaned when he pressed the sensitive places he had discovered. Putting his weight on one arm he traced along her shoulder and chest to her breasts with the other hand. The lighter his touch the more she cried out. He moistened her taut nipples with his tongue and teased with his lips and teeth for a long while before he drew more demandingly. Her body was out of control beneath him and her hips rocked in that begging way of women, but he would not be denied this slow love-play.

Kneeling up, he unbuckled his belt and drew off his shirt. She looked up at him, her eyes wild, her breath coming in short, deep sighs, her silver-shot hair spread out around her. He lowered himself until he felt her breasts against his chest and her leg between his and closed his eyes so as to know only this perfection of her welcome embrace. He caressed down her body and her soft groan of pleasure undid him.

A storm of desire and sensation clapped through him. Leveraging his weight on one forearm, he kissed her again and again, devouring her mouth and neck and breasts, claiming her whole body with his hand, reveling in her sharp responses, relishing her submission and his
complete control of her. The scent of grass and flowers and sweat and her need filled his head, intoxicating him.

He slid his hand between her thighs and stroked. She gasped with startled pleasure and clawed at his shoulders. He looked down at her shocked expression. He gently touched her again and again, finding the spots that made her cry, and she accepted it, closing her eyes in ecstasy. Her stunned abandon pushed his body to its limits.

He slid his hand down her thighs and spread them and settled over her.

“Oh, my God,” she cried, looking up at him, terrified alertness suddenly in her eyes. “Oh, my God. Nay.
Nay
.” Her body thrashed beneath his and she pushed frantically at his shoulders and weight. “Nay, I can not,” she yelled, squirming and pushing. Over and over she yelled her denial. Her face held a despairing panic.

Anger was his initial response, but the force of her reaction stunned him. Concern pierced his single-minded desire. He pushed off of her and wrapped her in his arms. “I will not take you. I will not,” he reassured again and again.

Finally her body calmed. She lay there with that sad expression he had seen when she pushed him away in her chamber.
I can not
. She had said the same thing then.
I can not. I must not.

She turned her face away with a devastated expression. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I did not mean to do this to you.”

“I will live. I think.”

That made her laugh in an embarrassed, painful way. “You must think I am either a madwoman or truly a half-sized bitch. It was not intentional, last time or this.”

“I know.”

She glanced down, suddenly aware of her nakedness,
and blushed. She turned her head to find the shift and reached for it.

“Nay,” he said. “Not yet. Lie here with me a while longer.”

She raised an eyebrow. “If you think to seduce me past my resolve, it is not possible.”

“As I have learned to my pain.” He touched one finger to her brow and traced down her nose and across her lips. Slowly he continued the line lower. Her pink nipples hardened as his hand neared. “I think to give you pleasure. I will not enter you in any way, I promise.”

She began shaking her head in wary denial, but he kissed her objections away. He would bet a year's plunder that she didn't know what he referred to.

She was helpless against his touch. Her passion climbed again with stunning quickness, refiring his own desire. He spread her legs wide so he could caress her freely. Burying her face in his shoulder, she accepted the pleasure.

He thrust his leg across hers and pressed himself against her rocking hip and watched her half-hidden face tense as the sensations became excruciating for them both. Then she was crying out lowly, grabbing him frantically, raising her hips to demand more. Her end was beautiful and violent. He kissed her and swallowed her scream and let her tremor carry him with her.

She lay in his arms gasping and spent. He did not have to look at her face to know her surprise. He experienced a boyish pleasure in having brought her to this before any other man.

“There are many ways to give and take pleasure without joining, Reyna. Lie with me at night. I will show you.”

That sad look returned and she slowly shook her
head. “I am weak with you, Ian. Eventually—Nay, I can not.”

He did not coax her. There would be time enough for that. And she was right. Eventually he would find the pleasure that obliterated her resolve or fear. He wasn't known as the Lord of a Thousand Nights for nothing.

He bent to kiss her sweet lips.

Quick movements in the brush stopped him. Close. Clumsy. A new scent, sharp and human, drifted on the breeze.

Danger shouted through him. He quickly covered her body with his and stretched for his dagger in the grass. And then, in one broken instant, his head split open and oblivion swallowed him.

Chapter NINE

N
ay! Do not kill him!”

Her cry caught Reginald as the blade began its downward stroke. He paused, the sword hovering.

She frantically pulled on her shift and gown. “Those are his men in the keep. If you kill him, they will come with vengeance, and may rampage in the tower and town before they do.”

Reginald glared at his victim. Blood oozed through Ian's hair and glistened on the discarded tree branch lying by his side. “Did he have you?”

“Nay. I fought him off. Surely you heard me.”

“Aye, I heard your screams. It is how I found you. I had seen you in the river from the ruins and came down.”

She bent and felt Ian's neck. Her horror retreated when she found a pulse. “We should leave at once. He has been gone overlong, and others will come to find him.”

Reginald's knuckles whitened as he gripped his sword tighter. “Damn English bastards. Think Scotswomen were born for their use.”

“Did you find horses?” she asked, trying to distract him.

“Aye. They are nearby.” He looked up to the sky. “We will wait at the ruins tonight and go north in the morning.”

“Nay, we must be away now. It will not take them long to think about the old castle. We can be in my father's lands shortly. They will not cross the border.”

“I smell rain, my lady. We will be safe at the motte, and can see if any approach. I'll not spend the night in Graham lands, getting lost on those paths in the dark. If we leave at dawn, we will get through by nightfall. You must follow me on this. I know what I am about.”

Reyna shot a worried glance back at Ian. He had not moved, had not made a sound. She said a prayer that someone would search for him soon.

The horses were a half-mile upriver, hiding in the growth. Reginald lifted her onto hers and swung up on the other.

She noted his frown and thin lips. Straight blond hair hung down to his chin, and broad flat cheekbones defined his craggy face. His blue eyes held a dangerous glint. He looked like a man determined to complete a mission, and prepared to fight demons from hell if they interfered.

They rode up the ruins, and Reyna was relieved to see that Reginald had made his camp behind some stones and not in the donjon's cavernous foundations. For a man who had escaped from Black Lyne Keep only days ago, he had managed to provision himself very well. Blankets and a pot and a water bladder sat to one side of the cold hearth circle. He had somehow procured a bow.

She had never minded Reginald's taciturn nature before, because he was always just a silent shadow in Robert's presence. Now that she was alone with him, she found it a little unsettling. She realized that while Reginald had been a part of her life for twelve years, she really didn't know him. Certainly not as well as she had known his brother Edmund after one month.