The Virgin's Pursuit (3 page)

She was home, and yet not home at all.

Isolda walked as a ghost through the corridors and staircases of the keep where she'd grown up, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the stone steps leading out of the courtyard.

Cormac had been by her side every moment since they'd arrived, but she felt utterly alone in this place that had once been so familiar to her. The words he exchanged with his servants and retainers were a dull drone she hardly heard. Her ears were attuned to the sound of a squeaking lift used to raise water from the well and the soft ring of the chapel bell to signal Mass. Her heart ached with the memories of the life she'd lost when the Normans came.

“It has grown desolate under your care,” she accused softly as she followed him up the staircase leading to the private chambers.

Iness had a circular keep, with a courtyard in the center and the great hall, smaller hall and sleeping quarters ringing that open area. Brilliant tapestries and hanging lanterns had brightened the way up this passage just one year ago. Now the spring sun did not touch the covered steps where so many trespassers had trod.

“A man lives simply when he has no family.” Cormac shoved aside the broken door at the top of the steps, the bent hinges hinting at the violence that had torn through the keep. “But I would think you would rejoice that the Normans have been driven back. The destruction of Iness was complete before I set foot on the drawbridge.”

She nodded vaguely as they passed her mother's former chambers. “You would not use violence without cause. I believe that much about you at least.”

Reaching the laird's chamber, he held the door open for her. When her feet halted, their eyes met in the same sort of challenge that had volleyed between them all day. Now she was too tired to argue a battle she knew she would lose.

She needed to recover her strength if she hoped to escape him and his absurd notion of marriage.

“If I did not know you plan to run away at the first opportunity, I would not insist you share my chamber.” He reached toward her as if to usher her inside the room.

Unwilling to test her reaction to his touch again after spending most of the day aboard his lap, Isolda ducked inside and found the same echoing emptiness in the antechamber. Beautiful wooden furnishings had vanished, though a few scant remains of broken pieces lay near the hearth. How sad that the lazy barbarians had destroyed the fine workmanship on those pieces rather than haul their own firewood. She could not see into the bedchamber with the door partially closed, but she guessed the room would be equally somber.

“I do not fear your proximity.” She folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin, needing to make sure he understood why she accepted his arrangement so meekly. “I am untouched and still marriageable. Since I know you will not resort to force to take me, I believe you will guard my innocence until you can barter me away to some loyal supporter of yours and strengthen his allegiance.”

He shook his head as he closed the door behind them, sealing them inside his private quarters for the night. A hearth fire blazed at her feet, but it was not enough to ward off the shiver that overtook her when he approached.

“A more politic man might choose that route,” he agreed, moving right past her toward the door to the bedchamber. “But don't forget I have already tasted your kisses and your passion. I will not part with such a prize.”

He held the bedchamber door for her now and seemed to expect her to enter the intimate sanctuary willingly.

“You will not experience that privilege again.” She trembled at the thought. Or did she tremble at the dark look in his eyes, the same one that had precipitated his kisses before?

The day had all been too much for her.

“I will. And soon.” He did not wait for her, but snaked a hand about her waist and nudged her closer. Not to him, but to the bedchamber entrance. “Until then, do you care to tell me why you were so insistent on seduction in the woods this morn?”

Her skin heated in the place he had touched her, even though she'd hastened forward immediately to free herself from him. It was as if her body remembered the feel of his hands upon her and now simmered with anticipation each time his fingers neared her. In one short day, Cormac of Glenmore had imprinted himself upon her.

“No.” She searched the laird's bedchamber as she stepped inside, finding it warmly appointed if not exactly furnished. The massive bed frame had disappeared, but in its place a high pallet covered in heavy furs rested close to the hearth. Another fur hung behind it where a tapestry used to be. Aye, the hunter had put his skill to admirable use here.

What would it be like to take refuge in that soft retreat beside this hard and unyielding man? The image that blazed across her mind only grew more vivid when she shut her eyes to block it out.

“Isolda.” He took a seat at the foot of the bed as he toed off his boots. The act was simple and unthreatening, yet it underscored a marital intimacy she had no intention of sharing. “Come sit beside me.”

Her gaze went from his powerful shoulders to his broad palm, which was gently stroking the rich brown fur near him on the pallet. She had sat astride his thighs for many leagues this day, and before that, she had flung off her surcoat and pressed her half-naked body tightly to his. Yet committing to this seat alongside him on the laird's bed seemed a line she dared not cross.

Her heartbeat quickened as she shook her head.

“I will take my rest in the antechamber.” Her breath caught in her throat, her whole body in an uproar as she watched the firelight cast bronze shadows in the hollows beneath his cheeks. “You can spare a fur for a guest, can you not?”

He did not seem to hear her. He stared at her hard, his amber-colored eyes traveling the length of her body as if she were a map on which he planned his journey.

“If I had not insisted on the honorable course, where do you think we would be right now?” When his eyes met hers at last, they were aglow with an inner heat. “Would we be in your cottage in the woods? Some forest retreat where you've taken no other man?”

She opened her mouth to respond and found she could not speak. Her mouth went dry as she thought about her thwarted hopes for this day. She had not just wanted a babe. She'd wanted the hunter.

As if sensing her dilemma, Cormac reached for a stoppered flagon of wine beside the bed. Pouring from it into a crude wooden cup, he filled the vessel before passing it to her.

She drank thirstily, mindful of that unsettling gaze still upon her. Only now, her thoughts were every bit as jarring. She'd sought the hunter because she wanted him. What would she do now that her hunter and the new laird of Iness were the same? It was like her home no longer being her home—Cormac was not the man she once thought him.

He was far more powerful. Infinitely more dangerous.

But as captivating as ever.

“I prefer not to consider things that did not come to pass,” she told him finally, once the wine had loosened her tongue and taken the edge off her scattered emotions.

Returning the cup to his hand, she purposely did not touch him. But she did not miss the way he turned the vessel in his palm, twisting it until he could place his lips over the same spot that she had. He tipped the cup to his mouth and drained the contents, then set it at his feet.

“But since we are bound together to keep you safely in residence at Iness, yet I have sworn not to hold you against your will, I find myself in need of conversation at the very least.” He leaned one elbow back on the pallet and watched her. “How else will we pass such an interesting night?”

She began to wish she had simply lain down in the bed and feigned sleep the moment he'd invited her onto the fur next to him. But she had not survived a harsh winter in the lowlands by doubting herself. She would not start now.

“I wanted a babe.” Her cheeks heated with an admission that was far from maidenly. “I longed for a child even last summer when I was poised to wed a man for whom I felt no tenderness. He fell in battle even before my father did, so our union will never come to be. Yet I still longed for a child of my own. A child who might one day gather the strength to reclaim his birthright.”

Cormac wondered if Isolda would ever cease surprising him.

She wanted his child? Or she had, until she discovered his true identity. By the saints, she was a rare and bold woman.

“If you had succeeded in your plan and I had not revealed myself, you would be raising my son to make war on me.” The very real possibility chilled him. “I would have never left you alone if I thought there was any chance you carried my child, Isolda. I protect what is mine.”

“Then we are both fortunate I did not succeed.” She rubbed her arms with her hands, as if a chill had settled over her. “Perhaps it is no surprise since I have never—.”

She waved away whatever she'd been about to say and turned toward the hearth fire, allowing the blaze to warm her instead of his hands. Curse his promise not to touch her unless she wished it. All he needed was a few moments with his hands upon her. His mouth upon her. Then again, had his mouth been ruled out?

He made a note of that weapon in his store before he returned to an earlier tactic he suspected had yielded at least some awareness on her part.

“Do not think I've forgotten my question.” He reached to lightly brush a hand against her skirts. Not enough to touch her leg beneath, but enough to set the worn fabric swaying against her. “Where would we be right now if I had allowed your touch to ensnare me for this child you seek? Did you fashion some kind of hut for yourself, or did you find an abandoned shelter for refuge these past moons?”

He was genuinely interested. Not having been raised to take care of herself, Isolda showed admirable resolve to survive on her own these months. He could not guess what dangers she must have faced in the wild.

“I found a ramshackle hut and assembled some fallen logs and sticks to fashion a new roof. It is not a fortress, but the spot is well concealed in the landscape so that you must really search to find it.” She had turned to face him as she spoke, her fair features animated as she revealed this small secret. “I transplanted thorny hedges to completely surround it this spring, so it is even more difficult to discover now.”

“A keep is only as strong as its walls.” He enjoyed this vision of her toiling in the soft spring earth, coaxing life from the most dangerous plants to protect herself. “And what of me? When did you first see me venture near your holding?”

She gave him a wry smile at his use of the term for the home she'd made. It marked the first hint of softening he'd seen in her since he'd revealed the truth of his position.

“I first saw you the week of Twelfth Night.” She paced before the hearth a bit, and he sensed she was trying to warm herself still. “That might have been the only time I saw you leave the forest empty-handed. There was a bitter chill.”

“I searched for you even then.” He remembered those early forays into the woods. “I had not claimed Iness yet, but even then I was touched by the tale of a nobleman's maiden daughter who ventured out into the forest rather than let a Norman claim her.”

“All that time you sought me?” She quit her pacing, surprise arching the brows above sky-blue eyes.

“I will not lie—the birds and beasts were plentiful. But I hunted for you as well.” He gestured toward the pallet again, moving farther from the spot himself so that she would not feel threatened. “Sit. You will never warm yourself while you wear wet boots, and I have no other seat to offer in our ransacked keep.”

She bit her lip a moment, but practicality won out over modesty. Settling herself on the thick fur, she lifted her hem a fraction to expose her bootlaces and went to work unfastening them while he tried not to watch her like a hawk.

“I cannot afford to catch a chill if I wish to escape.” Perhaps she intended the statement as a reminder that he had not won their battle yet, but her defiant warning only made him smile. “Last winter, I feared sickness more than any other predator since I had no one to care for me.”

His smile vanished. The thought of her helpless and alone was a cold fist in his gut, steeling his resolve to not let her out of his sight in the future. He did not know when she had become so important to him, but he recognized that she had. Perhaps he'd fallen for her long ago, compelled by the whispered legends that had sprung up about her among the villagers who'd once known her as the lord's daughter. Some piece of his imagination had been fascinated with her long since then. Today, when she'd flirted with him so artlessly and offered to wash his clothes, he'd been completely won.

His hand covered hers as she worked the laces on the boots. He eased aside her fingers until he could unfasten them the rest of the way.

“You have someone to care for you now.”

Isolda had been flustered by his touch before. But now, combined with such tender words, she was devastated by this slight brush of his fingers along her stocking as he eased off her boot.

He did not hold her. He'd promised he would not do so against her will. But this caress stroked so sweetly up her ankle, his thumb curving about her thin woolen hose, that she could not find the strength to deprive herself of his gentle attention.

With one foot, he shoved aside her discarded boots and moved to the floor in front of her. That could be no more risky than him being beside her on a luxurious pallet, could it?

“You have been alone for a long time.” He maintained the light contact just above her heels, then lightly kneaded the backs of her legs. “Many of the villagers worried and wondered about you. They would be relieved and proud to know you fared so well on your own.”

She had not considered the crofters and their families, who had always been kind to her as a child. Their hard work had supported her father and made Iness strong.

“I have forgotten what it feels like to be a part of a community. A family.” The maternal instincts that had flared inside her for so long returned, but this time, they were bound up with something more.

Desire.

The magical vibrations curling over her skin right now did not stem from any wish to be a mother. They originated wherever Cormac touched her.

“I would like nothing more than to make you feel very welcome here.” He punctuated the sentiment with a sly trip up the inside of her knee with one finger. “But I do not want to tax you on your first night back. Are you tired?”

Tired
was the furthest thing from her mind as goose bumps chased over her skin.

“I think you know very well that I am not.” She could not stifle all the feelings that she'd stored up for him over the past moons, her secret longing stirring her blood as thoroughly as his unhurried exploration of her legs beneath her skirt.

He did not rush her. He would not press her. And the knowledge that she could yet stop him made her relax in his care.

“Then I will touch you only for as long as you wish.” His chest pressed against her knees as he leaned closer for a kiss.

Without thinking, she shifted to make room for him, parting her legs slightly. But then, with no barrier keeping him at bay, her thighs were suddenly pressed to his hips, and no amount of bunched fabric between them could hide the hot, hard length of him against the place where she ached most.

Her gasp of pleasure turned to ragged breathing as he sealed his mouth to hers and kissed her with all the unrestrained passion she had longed for in the forest. This had been what she'd sought from him then, only she had not imagined the raw power of such kisses and such intimate caresses. Her womb clenched and her breasts tightened against the soft linen kirtle. Her whole body felt afire.

His mouth played with hers gently, nipping her lower lip and licking a soothing swipe along the plump softness before he deepened the kiss. But each time sparks flew behind her eyes and she sought more contact, he went back to that soft, coaxing nip at her lips until she wanted to shout her frustration. Her fingers twisted in his tunic, urging him closer, seeking more.

The hard width of his chest teased the tips of her breasts into pebbled points until she arched into him. Her surcoat fell away at his bidding, and she realized he had not been entirely stingy with his touches—he had been carefully unlacing her until her clothing fell away. The heavy surcoat lay about her waist, but the kirtle remained to veil her skin from his.

He angled back to observe her, his gaze dragging along the length of her body before meeting hers.

“My heart stopped when I saw you dressed like this in the middle of the forest.” He hooked a finger in the neckline of the thin fabric she'd washed and worn so many times since her escape from Iness. “Do you know how much restraint it required not to shred this infernal cloth so I could feel your skin?”

She was beginning to have a good idea. Her heart hammered so loudly the fabric fluttered softly with the vibration.

“You have no need of such restraint now,” she reminded him, knowing she should stop this madness soon before she tied her future to his irrevocably.

But not yet. Not when she needed him like she needed her next breath.

The finger that he'd hooked in the neck of the kirtle slashed downward, disintegrating the fragile material and laying bare her skin beneath. Cool air hit her for an instant before his lips brushed over the pink crest of one rosy nipple. She cried out at the exquisite feel of his mouth fastened on her. He licked lightly at first and then drew hard until her fingers wound in his hair to hold him there.

He wrapped his hands about her hips, tugging her tight to him, reminding her of the fire between her thighs. Each swirl of his tongue over her breasts sent an answering ribbon of desire through her belly and lower still….

His kisses ceased suddenly and he lifted her higher onto the bed, placing her carefully in the middle of the furs. He dragged the remaining garments down her body, hose and all, leaving her utterly naked.

Desperate to feel his skin upon hers, she tugged his tunic from his braies and hauled the garment up and off. She contemplated freeing the rest of him, but while she hesitated, he captured her hands and held them still.

“Isolda, wait.” His breathing matched hers in its uneven rhythm. “I can bring you pleasure without taking your innocence. But if that is what you wish, you should not touch me.”

His skin burned her palm where she touched him and she felt the coiled tension of his muscles. He held back for her sake? Her heart softened toward him all the more and she realized she would need to hold back something of herself as well if she wished to arise in the morning with her heart intact.

No matter how sweet his seduction, Cormac had only sought her for her name. Her political value. The thought helped to stay her hand when she wanted to reach out more than anything.

“I would not see you suffer.” She skimmed her nails up his chest, marveling at the raised network of scars that snaked across his skin.

He returned his hands to her hips. Her belly. Firelight danced over his flesh, calling to her fingers to stroke him the way he did her.

“Seeing you find pleasure will be a reward I'll never forget.” He had scarcely finished saying this when his hand dipped between her thighs.

She gasped as his fingers plucked at the sleek, sensual knot of nerves he found there. The warm slide of his sure touch was a decadent thrill unlike any other he'd shown her.

Liquid fire surged in her blood. His touch seemed like a lightning strike, burning a wicked path all through her body. Her hips pressed against him, all thought of reserve smoldering to ash at this consuming blaze.

She opened her eyes, seeking her hunter for reassurance as his touch worked sultry magic. The flush of desire on his skin and the rapt intensity of his gaze told her how much his promise to her was costing him. His manhood throbbed with every heartbeat under the barrier of his braies. She could feel the impressive length of him against her hip as he gave her pleasure.

“Hold me,” she commanded, stilling his hand with her own. She needed to delay her response until she could help him feel what she was feeling.

She did not know what their future held, but she understood their destinies were bound together somehow. No man and woman quested and searched for each other the way they had without creating a bond. She wanted the power of that connection now.

“Are you sure?” He spoke with a fierceness that might have unsettled her at any other time. But she understood the source of that fire all too well now.

“Yes. Please. I want to touch you and feel everything with you.” She reached for the ties on his braies, knowing she could make him understand immediately once she touched him.

Would she affect him as powerfully as he affected her?

The growl low in his throat told her yes. She stroked him lightly, reveling in the fiery heat of the velvety skin.

“I need to be in you now,” he whispered hoarsely, the urgency in his voice assuring her she definitely affected him.

Gladly, she parted her thighs wider, welcoming him. He nudged her sleek folds and the tension inside her seemed unbearable. She wanted—needed—this completion so much.

“We must move slowly,” he warned her, his tawny eyes darkening as he held her hips steady.

“Nay.” She shook her head, the need for him strong as some unknown fulfillment awaited. “Now.”

She thrust her hips up in spite of him, and he had no choice but to answer the rocking motion with his own. She knew the wrenching hurt was the tearing of her maidenhead, a sharp pain that she clenched her teeth through, determined to find the pleasure to follow.

“Are you all right?” Cormac held himself very still, but already the hurt faded.

“Aye.” She nodded, her nails scraping gently over the heavy muscles of his back. “Please.

Restraint fell away. He shifted inside her, slowly at first. Once. Twice. Then the rhythm altered, rousing a cry of delight from her. She held fast to him, refusing to be left behind in the groundswell of the coming storm. All the feelings that he'd roused when he touched her returned with a vengeance. Sleek. Sensual. Insistent.

Her eyes remained heavy-lidded, but she watched him as he moved over her, finding the rhythm that pleased them both. He was a considerate, honorable man with a passion that made her dizzy.

When the storm of sensation finally tossed her into a tailspin of luscious fulfillment, she clung to him helplessly, her wondrous cries following his shout of completion. Wave after wave of rapture rolled over her, drowning her in unimagined joy. As she sighed her sweet satisfaction into the night, she listened to his heartbeat grow slow and steady.

They were connected in ways he didn't realize yet. He'd come to the woods for her for more reasons than he acknowledged. He must have.

She only wondered how to prove to him they were meant to share more than a stronghold. More than a name. With such a passion flowering between them, they could surely find the greatest prize a man and woman could reap.

She wouldn't have given herself to him if she didn't believe it. And she would never submit to the political marriage he wanted if he did not seek that deeper bond with her. She might have only just returned from her life alone in the woods, but she would rather return to such solitude than live alone beside a man who would never love her.

As physically sated as she felt right now, her spirit remained restless. So as she watched her hunter-warrior fall into sleep, she considered how to ensure she had a path back to her old life, just in case the new one did not yield the love she hoped for.