Windstar (3 page)

* * * *

“Whatcha looking for?” he asked as he caught up with Angie.

“Stuff,” she answered and kept walking, ignoring him.

He turned to face her, walking backward so he could look at her. “What kind of stuff?”

“Granny stuff,” she replied. She was wearing a long calico gown and perched atop her head was an old fashioned sunbonnet.

“You need to act your age,” he informed her and moved directly in front of her so she had to come up short, lest she bowl him over.

“I
am
acting my age,” she said. “You need to act yours.”

“I have an old soul,” he said and put a hand to her cheek to cup it gently.

“I have shoes older than you,” she sniffed.

“Not the kind of soul I meant,” he countered and ran his thumb over her lower lip.

She batted his hand away and stepped around him. “I have stuff to get.”

Rory Keith had never had a woman ignore him in his entire life. To his way of thinking, it wasn’t right and he shot out a hand to grip her arm and pull her back, dragging her against him, her pudgy body molding tightly to his.

“I’ve got your stuff right here, wench,” he growled and lowered his head to claim her lips.

It was a kiss unlike any he’d ever experienced. He probed her mouth with his tongue—tasting her, sensing her, staking claim—as his hands tightened on her upper arms and he ground the lower part of his body against her belly. It was a wild, savage kiss and it affected him in such a way it propelled him rudely from his dreaming and into the harsh, lonely expanse of reality.

* * * *

Rory sat up with a gasp, his eyes flaring wide, his heart racing, his cock as hard as steel pressing against the front of his jeans. He was so unnerved by the images still flowing through his mind he could barely lift a shaking hand to plow through his hair.

“Mother of God!” he whispered. “What the fuck was that?”

* * * *

Across town in the rented room where Angela lay tossing and turning in bed, her dreams had carried her to a place she had visited many times in her daydreams and night visions alike. It was a fanciful setting from one of Rory Keith’s medieval adventure movies and, as it always did, it beckoned to her to enter and stay a while.

The keep was alight with rushes sputtering in the cold north wind. Ice rimed the battlements as the guards wrapped in heavy furs walked their hourly tours of the crenulated walls. Snug for the duration, the drawbridge was locked into place, the portcullis lowered, and the inner bailey bare of human life. Deadly creatures that dwelt in the moat were in their underwater caves or buried deep in the wallows along the water’s edge. A dog barked, a cat screeched, but otherwise the fortress of Lord Kendryck MacPhee, Earl of Silvarn, was silent and secure with the inhabitants lying in bed on this frigid winter night as sleet plucked at the mullioned windows.

She dreamt she was walking up the curving stone staircase to the high laird’s chamber high atop the fortress. She could feel the bite of the cold air on her shoulders through the thin wool shawl and the flimsy soles of her slippers. In one hand she carried a silver tray upon which sat the nightly posset brewed for Lord Kendryck by the court’s physician, Vardar Brock, while the other held her long wool skirt as she climbed.

There were guards to either side of the Earl’s door and they barely gave her a glance as she neared them upon reaching the fourth floor of the keep. She knocked lightly on the portal though neither man deigned to open the door for her when the call from beyond the thick oak panel bid her enter the laird’s chamber.

The room smelled of sandalwood and myrrh as she fumbled the latch and pushed the heavy door open, the scents wafting over her as she walked softly into the presence of her master, bringing the tray to the bedside table where a lamp flickered with a low flame.

“You are late this eve,” Lord Kendryck said from the settee that flanked the massive stone fireplace.

“Your pardon, Milord,” she said softly. “It will not happen again.”

She kept her head down, bobbing a rushed curtsey to him before she backed away from his presence.

“Come here, wench,” he said in his thick brogue that never failed to make her shiver.

Swallowing the lump suddenly lodged in her throat, she went to him, keeping her eyes on the plush carpet at her feet. She stopped a few feet away, awaiting his pleasure, her heart hammering in her chest.

“Look at me.”

It was her greatest delight to look upon him and she slowly lifted her gaze, prolonging the moment until she saw his angelic face and the sensuous green eyes that held her spellbound each time they rested on her. Her heart ached just looking at him as he lounged there on the settee. His dark hair fell in thick waves to the collar of his fine lawn shirt—left open halfway down his broad muscular chest with its sprinkling of dark curls. His long legs were encased in black trews that fit him like a second skin. He had discarded his boots and now one bare foot was braced on the edge of the settee cushion.

“My feet are cold,” he said in his husky voice. “I would have you warm them.”

“Aye, Milord,” she said breathlessly.

Nothing would have pleased her more than to touch him. She came forward and dropped to her knees before him, reaching out to take the foot stretched out toward her onto her lap. With gentle but firm pressure, she began to knead his flesh, looking down at the perfection of a male foot any sculptor would admire though she longed to gaze up into his beautiful eyes.

“What is your name again, wench?” he inquired, reaching out to take a snifter of brandy from the table by the settee.

“It is Angie, Milord,” she responded, daring a glance up at him, going still as a statue as his heated gaze shifted down her with speculation. She felt like a deer caught in lantern light, unable to move, to draw a decent breath.

“Angie,” he said then took a sip of the brandy. He lowered the snifter and rested its base upon his rock-hard belly, just where the dark hair streaked down beyond the waistband of his trews. “And are you married, wench?”

“Aye, Milord, I am,” she said.

He tilted his handsome head to one side. “So you are no virgin, lass?”

“Nay, Milord,” she said and blood rushed to her face as she forced her gazes from his and back to the task at hand. She massaged his toes tenderly, fascinated by how properly manicured were his toenails.

“Have you bairns?” he inquired, setting the snifter on the table again.

“I had two sons, Milord, but they be grown now,” she replied.

“Can you have more?”

It was a strange question and she slowly lifted her head, locking eyes with him despite the instinct that warned her not to be so careless or unmannerly.

“Nay, Milord, I cannot. I am too old now,” she said so quietly she was not sure he had heard her.

“So you would not bear a child were a man to bid you to his bed for a night of comfort?”

“C … comfort, Milord?” she echoed and a strange gripping took hold of the lower part of her belly.

He pulled his foot from her light grasp, lowered his other foot to the floor, and leaned forward. “Come closer, wench,” he ordered, spreading his knees wide.

She walked on her knees, dragging the hem of her skirt up so she could position herself between his legs. Her heart was racing so fast she thought she might pass out from the thunder of the beat pounding in her ears.

“Closer,” he said.

Angie pressed her body to the edge of the settee, feeling the span of his inner thighs touching her at the elbows.

“Put your hands on the tops of my legs,” he instructed.

She hesitated, for his hands rested on his knees and she had to reach up farther along his leg, her fingertips almost at the crease of his thigh. When he moved his hand so his palms grazed her forearms—running lightly up them, barely in contact with her skin—she had to bite her lip to keep from moaning from his touch.

“You have very soft skin for a servant,” he said and turned his hands so the backs of his fingers trailed up the inside of her forearm from wrist to elbow. He willed her to meet his gaze. “Are you a witch, then, tempting me to stray?”

Angie’s eyes widened. Such things were forbidden to speak of and she could be hauled before the magistrate, turned over to the Tribunal, tortured and—worse still—burned at the stake for heresy.

“Nay, Milord!” she said, her lower lip trembling. “I am but ….”

“Shush,” he said and his fingers closed around her hands. He held her wide-eyed, fearful stare. “Are you right handed or left, little witchling?”

“R … right,” she managed to answer.

He lifted her right hand from his leg and held it up, staring down at her work-roughened palm. “I would have you touch me,” he whispered and carried her hand to the juncture of his legs and laid it there on the hard mound that tugged at his trews. He molded her palm over that thick bulge. “Touch me. Make me feel.”

Outside the sleet peppered the window glass and the wind skirled in the eaves. The flames in the fireplace leapt and crackled, the wood popped and fiery cinders snaked their way up the cobblestone chimney, lending the comfortable scent of burning wood to the sandalwood and myrrh.

A veritable prisoner in his own fortress since the king had sent word that the laird was not allowed to leave Silvarn Keep under penalty of arrest, Lord Kendryck often walked the battlements late of an evening, staring to the horizon and the freedom he had lost. Not allowed visitors, he was a lost soul wandering from room to room, loneliness eating away at what was left of his ravaged soul. Only the nightly posset brewed for him helped him to sleep, to gain some manner of ease in this living hell into which he’d been thrust.

“My lady-wife hates me,” he said of his wife who had taken herself from Silvarn months before rather than suffer the same imprisonment as her husband. “She would see me hanged at Barrowmore if she had her way.” He caressed Angie’s hand over his hard erection. “She wishes to be free of me.”

Angie’s heart went out to the brave warrior who had led the rebels to victory at Derryn Cross over the brutal king only to fall victim to his own wife’s treachery teamed with that of his half-brother Stephen. If not for his noble birth, the laird of Silvarn would have met his fate in the summer.

“Ease me, Sweeting,” he asked and released her hand, letting his own fall to his sides. “I beg you, ease me.”

As she looked up at him she saw tears in the great warrior’s green eyes and it struck her to the core. She massaged the steel of his shaft but wanted more than just a taste of his hard body.

“Let me ease you as a lover would, Milord,” she said boldly and took her hand from him. She got to her feet, letting her shawl cascade from her shoulders to the carpet. She put her hand to the ties of her chemise and tugged them apart, letting the cotton fall over her breasts to bare her to his fevered gaze.

She saw him sweep out his tongue to lick his upper lip, curling it downward over the full bottom lip before his lips parted to reveal the stark whiteness of his straight teeth as he took breath through his mouth. His chest rose and fell in a faster rhythm and she saw the pulse beating at the hollow of his throat—a sight that made heat gather between her legs.

He laid his head along the back of the settee and watched her as she unhooked her skirt and let it pool around her bare legs. There were no fine stockings, no coarse wool to keep her limbs warm in the harsh Northlands winter and only the threadbare drawers to hide her womanly assets from his avid view.

Angie untied the tapes of her drawers and let them slide down her legs, stepping out of them so she was naked before him, ashamed of her plump body with its birthing marks and slight pouches of fat.

But he didn’t seem to notice her body was not curvaceous like that of his lady-wife or the many lovers it was rumored he had known in his thirty-odd years. His gaze was locked on the triangle of dark hair that curled at the apex of her thighs and when he leaned forward to draw her to him, to place his cheek against her fleshy belly, his arms curling around her, she threaded her fingers through his dark curls and held him to her.

“I need you this night,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning across her belly. She could feel one strong hand cupping her right buttock as he held her to him and shuddered with delight at his touch.

“As I need you, Milord,” she replied.

He got to his feet—his body sliding upward against hers, his clothing dragging against her naked flesh—and he bent his knees to sweep a hand under her legs, while the other stayed at her back and he lifted her as though she weighed no more than a small child, hefting her high against his chest as he carried her toward his bed. The muscles in his arms bunched and flexed and she laid her head on his broad shoulder.

As gently as a feather floating upon the wind he lay her down on the soft mattress and slid his arms from under her. Never releasing her gaze from his own hot hold, he tugged the shirt from his trews and pulled it over his head to bare his wide chest to her view. It was but a moment before the remainder of his clothing was gone and he was placing a muscular knee upon the mattress, weighing it down as he arched his other leg over her body to ensnare her beneath him.

Angie stared up at his perfect features—the dark hair, the sensual mouth, the startlingly beautiful eyes, and the breadth of his splendidly honed shoulders—before dropping slowly to the jutting awareness of his cock.

“Put your hand to him, wench,” he asked, straddling her, his knees wide, his arms with their bulging biceps hanging loosely at his sides. “Let him know he is wanted.”

Her hand shook as she reached for him, wrapping her fingers around the velvety steel that pulsed with life and warmth and eagerness to know more of her. She stroked him gently and put her other hand to his sac to cup him in her palm. She saw his eyes close. His head fall back, and his thick hair falling past his shoulders as he knelt there. His lips were parted and as she worked his flesh—tugging gently, running her fingers up and down his hard length, molding him, caressing him, kneading his balls, she heard him groan low in his throat and it was a sound that made her hotter than the fires of hell to which she would, no doubt, be sent for this adulterous interlude.