Stolen Vows (29 page)

“N-nae,” Isla gasped hesitantly.  “It just - it feels so odd,” she confessed breathlessly. 

Odd?
  He most definitely had to do something about that!  But Isla wriggled unexpectedly beneath him, shifting her hips and Roan sank further into her body.  His eyes, which had been closed to slits that he could barely see out of, sprang open.  He nudged forward again to be certain, eyes now narrowing when he encountered the unmistakable barrier of her maidenhead.

“Yer a virgin?” he spat.

Isla’s face had slowly been relaxing, softening in pleasure, as she got used to the feel of holding Roan’s sex inside her body, but at his vicious question she tensed in terror all over again.

“I am?” she whimpered, but Roan was in no state to attend her confusing query.

“In which case,” he growled.  “This is going to hurt, Cameron,” Roan hissed nastily, making her feel his betrayal, and then he thrust, driving forward as hard as his hips could propel him.

Isla’s shriek of pain sliced through his heart, and Roan instantly regretted his cruelty with an enormity that could not be exaggerated.  His body was in heaven, but his soul was in hell.  He stilled inside her.  She could have been made for him, so hot and tight and wet, clenching around his cock like a sodden fist, but her eyes - her eyes were bright with tears.  He moved to capture her lips, silently begging her forgiveness, but Isla turned her head away from him, and Roan had never felt so completely in the wrong.

He couldn’t possibly stay still a moment longer however, so he slowly began to thrust, desperately trying to soothe the hurt he’d caused Isla.  It must have been guilt that was holding his body in check, stopping him from coming, as he loved her.  He was aching to hear a gasp of pleasure and not pain trickle from her lips.

“I’m sorry,” Roan panted into her ear.  “God, Isla, I’m so sorry,” he groaned, hips still rolling into hers. 

This had to start feeling good for her, didn’t it?  Pleasure was fairly crackling though Roan’s veins.  It seemed nonsensical that his body could be racing towards such a towering peak of bliss, while Isla suffered beneath him in pain - and then Roan heard a sound that nearly sent him spilling himself inside her right there and then.  Isla moaned him name.  The single word so infused with passion and need that it was hardly recognizable.

“Oh God,” he grunted, plunging harder. 

Roan heard his wife whimper, and then at the change of pace, Isla began to writhe against him, bucking and grinding, mindless as she thrashed her head back into the pillows.  Her nails clawed at his back, gripping him cruelly through the fabric of his shirt.  Lord, he wished he were naked so he could feel the slick heat of their skin moving together.

Roan wasn’t sure if it was due to him, or simply an eighteen-year wait, but he could feel the walls of Isla’s sex tightening as she approached her second orgasm.  The sensation dragged him to the very edge of his limits.  One more thrust would be all his body could take.  He pulled back, as far as he was able without slipping out of her heat, and caught Isla’s eye.  She looked drugged with pleasure.

“
Please
,” she begged breathlessly, catching Roan completely by surprise.  He slammed home, stealing both their breaths, as they both broke in ecstasy. 

It had never felt so good
… was the one thought flashing through Roan’s brain, as he was nearly rendered unconscious by the force of his release.  He jetted his seed deep into Isla’s womb, loving the feel of her jerking beneath and around him.

“Oh God,” he panted, collapsing on top of his wife’s body, bearing down upon the ample pillow of her breasts.  “Oh God,” he swore mindlessly.  He couldn’t think, he couldn’t move, he could barely breathe.

Roan let himself lie like that, in a sated exhaustion, until he felt Isla begin to shift uncomfortably beneath him.  Using what little strength he retained, he managed to roll off her body, but clasped her very firmly against his side.  He waited until enough of his breath had returned to let him speak, and then he turned his head to look at her.

She looked utterly dazed, and Roan couldn’t contain a satisfied smile when he read the expression of blatant fulfillment on her face, but neither could he forget the discovery he’d made, or his cruel reaction to it.

“Isla,” he sighed, sitting up and stripping off his damp shirt.  “I’m - sorry I did that to ye -
but
do ye want to tell me why ye lied this time?” he asked wearily.

“I dinna!” she cried, the blissfull little smile instantly vanishing from her lips.  She blinked tearfully and then tugged at her gown, covering herself from his sight.

“Ye told me MacEantach raped ye,” Roan growled, some of his anger returning.

“R-raped?” Isla blinked still anxious, but clearly confused.

Roan glanced down at her with some confusion and sighed.  “Ye ken -
forced
himself on ye?”

“He did!” Isla argued adamantly.

“He did nae!” Roan growled.  “He could nae
possibly
have forced ye to do what we’ve just done!”

Isla opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. 
No
… Tavish hadn’t forced her to do
that
exactly, but that must have been what he’d intended to do to her.  She shuddered in disgust at the thought her despised ex-fiancé doing anything so intimate to her body, of having him joined with her, of feeling him moving inside of her.  Isla took a gulping breath and willed the heat that was rushing to her cheeks, at the memory of
Roan
doing those things to her, to go away.   She hadn’t known that it was possible to do such things, to feel such things.

Isla glanced down at her hands to try and hide her blush.  Her body was still tingling slightly, and she felt incredibly sore inside, but she wouldn’t take any of it back.  Well… maybe Roan’s anger, his disgust…

“Isla?” he pressed firmly.  “The truth.”

“I - I dinna ken,” she mumbled.

“Ye dinna ken what?”

“I dinna ken that - that
this
,” she flailed her arms helplessly in the direction of the bed “- was what happened between a man and a woman,” she blurted, humiliated. 

Roan didn’t laugh at her, as she had feared he would.  He
did
smile, but it was in the same kind manner that she remembered first seeing light his handsome face.

“Oh Isla,” he whispered, placing a kiss on her forehead.  “
My
Isla,” he added, sounding quite possessive.  Isla found that she liked it.  It warmed her poor, battered heart.  “What did he do to ye?”

“Tavish?” she whispered, curling into Roan’s side and laying a hesitant hand on his now bare chest.  He nodded his head, gently stroking a hand through her curls.  “He - well the morning before I ran away and met ye, he came to my room,” Isla explained in a small voice.  “He said he - he’d come to advantage of his rights as a husband.” 

She watched as Roan frown darkly.  “Go on?” he pressed.

“I dinna want him to, but he give me nae any choice,” she whispered, shivering.  Roan pulled her closer.  “He t-touched me with his hands like ye did,” she whimpered, “only - but I dinna - it felt -” she cried softly.

“Where did he touch ye?” Roan growled.  Isla could clearly hear the anger in his voice again now.  She hoped desperately that it was directed towards Tavish and not herself.

“H-here,” she sniffed reluctantly, waving a hand across her breasts as if she couldn’t bear to linger over the memory.  “And l-lower down -” she dropped her hand towards the core of her femininity, where Roan had been just minutes before, loving her fiercely and obliterating the taint that Tavish had left behind, but then she broke in into a full flood of tears.

“Oh, darling,” Roan breathed, sitting up and bundling her into his arms.  He kissed her temple, and then he cheek, before finally finding her mouth.  Isla melted in his arms.  It wasn’t passion, but comfort, that he was imparting.  “I’m so sorry,” he growled.  He paused for a moment, but then asked: “How did ye get away?”

“He said he was going to tell my father,” she croaked wretchedly.  “He said that he’d go to him the morning after our wedding and tell my father that I was whore,” she wailed, “that I’d already been with a man.  I could nae let him do that!” she sobbed.  “I fought back, I - I think I must have surprised him, and then I ran.”

Roan sighed heavily.  “And then I found ye and handed ye back over to that bastard,” he spat, self-disgust evident in his tone.

“Ye dinna ken,” Isla said quietly.

“That night, he tried again?” Roan scowled, and Isla nodded.

“But ye saved me,” she said, with a small smile.  “And then look what I did to ye,” she finished sadly. 

Roan kissed her again instead of responding with words, deeply and fiercely, his tongue surging between her lips as he trying to relate something that he was unable to say.

“I am sorry, Roan,” Isla gasped breathlessly when her mouth was released from its sweet imprisonment.  “If I’d only thought - if I could do it all again I’d -” she was silence by her husband pressing a finger against her lips.

“Thank ye.”

“Thank ye?” Isla echoed, a note of confusion evident in her husky voice.

“For letting me have ye,” Roan murmured, running his fingers lovingly through his wife’s hair.  She was still and silent for a moment, but the words she then spoke cut like a knife being plunged into Roan’s heart.

“Tis nae as though I had a choice.”

The accusation was softly spoken, but it pierced Roan’s very soul.  He froze.  His whole body seemed to catch its breath as he processed her words.

“Ye -” he began, but he just couldn’t find the words.

“Wait!  I dinna mean to say that out loud,” Isla blurted.  She looked desperate, but Roan
couldn’t
forget what she had just said, despite what she might try to say now. 

“But ye would have been thinking it,” Roan breathed.  His voice had taken on a surreal note of calm.  

“Roan, please listen,” she said quickly, wringing her hands.  “I dinna mean it like ye think,” she squeaked.  “
Please?
” she begged, but he shook his head.

So she saw herself as being unable to deny him, unable to refuse him his “rights” as her husband…
hadn’t he heard her say something similar in relation to Tavish?  No wonder he felt sick to his stomach!  Roan didn’t know how he’d managed to get this all so wrong, but he was determined to put it right if it killed him - which there was every possibility that it might.

“I’ll deal with it,” he muttered cryptically, sitting down on the edge of a chair and pulling on his clothes.

“Deal with what?” Isla croaked.  “Roan what are ye going to do?” she cried.  She picked up a shawl off the end of the bed and hurried over to him.  “Please Roan, I only meant that ye -” she paused, frantically trying to find the words.  “That ye can - well, make me feel things I dinna always want to.”

Roan winced.  How was that any better than his interpretation of what she had said?  What was the difference between forcing her to feel things and forcing her to do things?  He loved her too much to continue to do that.

“I dinna want ye to feel that way, Isla,” Roan breathed difficulty.  He stood up, towering over his wife.

“What way?  What do ye mean?” she asked anxiously, trembling as she spoke.

“To be always afraid, always scared of what I might do next.”

“I’m nae afraid of ye!” she gasped, so passionately that Roan couldn’t bear to believe that it was a lie.

“But ye hate me - ye said so yerself,” he murmured, flinching at the painful memory.  “I thought -” Roan stopped himself.  “It does nae matter what I thought,” he sighed, shaking his head mournfully.  “Tis over now.”