Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Sabrina did not consider six feet and three inches of smirking Highlander a wee problem. A momentous obstacle seemed a more apt description. Since she had just outlined for his obvious amusement her entire cowardly plan of retreat and abandonment, she chose to attack rather than wait for his own sally.

“You followed us,” she accused him.

“Aye, and a wee bit dizzy we were gettin’.”

“Dizzy?”

Morgan stepped aside and swept out an arm toward the ground. Enid managed to look both miserably guilty and shamelessly happy to discover Ranald standing behind him, holding Pookah’s reins. Sabrina would have sworn she saw a maniacal gleam of satisfaction in the horse’s eyes.

Puzzled, she studied the path they would have bisected if Morgan hadn’t stopped them. The sugary snow had been flattened, baring the twigs and bracken beneath as if someone had taken a broom and swept them clean. Sabrina glanced over her shoulder at the sodden, unwieldy train of her pelisse.

Morgan nodded, confirming her sinking suspicion that they’d done nothing but amble in a wide circle since leaving the castle, drawing him a map so unmistakable, he could have followed them all the way to Cameron had he chose.

“Proud of yourself?” she asked.

“You might have made it more of a challenge.” He plucked Pugsley out of her arms. The dog arched his back, wiggling madly to lick Morgan’s face.

“Traitor,” she muttered.

He handed the dog to Ranald. “Take the dog and the woman back to the castle.”

Pretending he was talking about her, Sabrina headed for the relative sanctuary of her husband’s cousin. Morgan caught her by the hood. “The other woman.”

Sabrina twisted around to glare at him. “She has a name, you know.”

Morgan sighed. “Mr. MacDonnell, would you please escort Lord Pugsley and Lady Belmont back to the castle?”

“Aye, that I will.” Ranald leered. “With pleasure.”

Casting him an apologetic look, End ducked beneath Ranald’s outstretched arm and threw her arms around Sabrina. “I won’t let you take her.”

Morgan rolled his eyes skyward and locked his hands at the small of his back. His tone was almost painfully reasonable. “Miss Belmont, I have been very patient with your interference in my marriage, even choosin’ to forgive what I suspect was your rather clumsy attempt to murder me.” Enid blanched. His gaze shifted to Sabrina, afire with an unholy light. She clung to Enid, feeling her frozen knees melt beneath its heat. “But no one, not you, nor a regiment of Camerons, nor the devil himself is going to stop me from takin’ my wife tonight.”

With those words, Morgan bent and neatly hefted Enid over his shoulder. Ranald staggered as Morgan handed her off. Dodging Pookah’s snapping teeth, he heaved Enid headfirst over the horse’s back. Enid pulled a handkerchief from her cloak and gave Sabrina a forlorn little wave as Ranald led the horse away. They melted into the trees, leaving her alone with her husband.

“You’re not …?” she said, backing away.

“I am.”

He did.

Sabrina bounced along over his shoulder, hands fisted as if she could somehow deny the indignity of being carted off like a sack of turnips. But when his long strides nearly upended her into a snowdrift, he took it upon himself to anchor her rump to his shoulder. The possessive heat of his hands molded the wet pelisse to her vulnerable curves.

“Your plan impressed me, lass.”

“It did?”

“Aye, but there was one thing you overlooked.”

“Aside from the fact that we were never more than thirty feet from the castle?”

He nodded. “Aside from that. If you’d have succeeded in reachin’ Cameron, I’d have been forced to declare war on your father.”

She tried to twist around to see his face, but his grip prevented her. “Over me? You’d have risked your clan over me?”

His shrug almost dislodged her. “I couldn’t have the Camerons sayin’ a MacDonnell couldn’t hold on to his wife, could I? ’Tis a matter of pride, lass.”

Everything was a matter of pride to Morgan, Sabrina thought bitterly. His reputation. His clan. His marriage. She just prayed she’d have enough pride of her own to resist him. A fat feather of snow drifted down to tickle her nose. She irritably brushed it away. They should have reached the castle long ago. Perhaps he was going to toss her off the icy cliffs to punish her for running away. A quick death would be preferable to a slow, lingering one beneath the blunt artistry of his hands.

They emerged in a clearing. Sabrina peered under Morgan’s arm to find a darkened stone cottage thatched with snow. “How quaint,” she murmured. “And to think I expected a cave.”

He gave her rump an infuriating squeeze. “Ah, but even we savages enjoy our creature comforts.”

The door thumped open to a cozy blast of warmth. The world righted itself as Morgan lowered her gently to her feet. She barely noticed when he shut the door, unfastened her damp pelisse, and plucked off her frivolous slippers. Nor did she see his hungry gaze rake her, noting with obvious pleasure that above her thick stockings she wore only the tattered gown she had worn in the hall.

She was too busy staring. The cottage wasn’t dark after all. Luxuriant furs had been pounded over the windows, imprisoning them in a gauzy web of firelight and warmth. The air danced with the scattered light of tall, familiar tapers. A heather tick had been dressed with crisp sheets and laid beside the stone hearth. Dried rose petals simmered in a pot over the fire. Their heady fragrance wafted to Sabrina’s nose, making her feel reckless and drunk. She was in far more peril than she had realized. This was no scene of rape, but of seduction.

Morgan’s possessive gaze caressed her.

“Why, you scoundrel! You had this planned all along.” She spun around for the door.

His hands reached it first, splaying on either side of her. “You’ve left me little choice, lass. I can’t risk you sneakin’ off to get an annulment every time we quarrel.”

She swung around to face him, half afraid he could hear the wild beating of her heart. “What are you going to do to me?”

His expression was resolute but not cruel. “What I should have done the night we were wed.”

Sabrina was unprepared for the shock of his big hand coming down to frame her abdomen. Its unexpected gentleness was somehow more intimate than his earlier caresses. Ribbons of heat unfurled from his fingertips like the tender sprouts of a new bloom.

“I’m goin’ to put my child in you, Sabrina Cameron. ’Tis our duty to preserve the peace between our clans by givin’ your da a MacDonnell bairn for a grandson.” He nudged her chin up with his knuckle. “Don’t look so crestfallen, lass. If I’m willin’ to suffer through it, so should you be.” Their breath mingled as his lips lowered. “Remember the sacrifices your brave Odysseus made for his clansmen.”

Panicked not so much by what he intended as how he intended to accomplish it, Sabrina ducked beneath his arm. All the warnings she’d never heeded about him flashed through her mind. She knew he was accustomed to being savage in his own needs, heedless of his mate’s pleasure. He had the power to tear her apart without meaning to, to break both her body and her heart. For a moment she feared she was going to swoon like the terrified virgin she was. How could she have ever thought herself woman enough to handle a man like him?

He took a measured step toward her.

She took a step back. “I’ll scream.”

A roguish grin curved his lips. He drew the bodkin from his plaid. “Aye, lass. That you will before this night is done.”

A rush of longing mingled with her fear. Morgan tossed a fold of the plaid over his shoulder, revealing an alluring expanse of golden skin. “No need to be afraid. I’m a patient teacher. Ask any lad who’s trained on sword or ax beneath me.”

The potent masculinity of his swagger sent her backing against the warm stones of the hearth. “What of the many women who’ve trained beneath you? Did they find you patient as well?”

His reproachful gaze failed to shame her. Another fold of the plaid unraveled, exposing the sun-gilded planes of his chest and abdomen. As if beset by sudden modesty, he left the plaid hanging low on his hips, anchored by his fist. Sabrina knew it would take only a tug to make it fall. She tried to swallow, but her throat had gone bone dry. Once again Morgan MacDonnell wasn’t playing fair. She found herself with no refuge but the past.

“Damn you!”

Morgan ducked as a lit candle went sailing toward his head. Melted wax spattered the wall behind him. His eyes widened. “Was it somethin’ I said?”

Sabrina turned her profile to him. “It was some-something you did. Something mean and spiteful and unforgivable. Do you remember Isabella?”

He frowned, obviously at a loss.

“She wasn’t one of the Cameron maids you dallied with. She was my kitten.”

A dim memory stirred in Morgan. Scraggly, paint-spattered fur. A comic, wobbly gait. “Isabella! The wee tiger who used to nibble my toes.”

“So you do remember! Papa told me she ran away, but I saw you talking to the traveling peddler on the morning she disappeared.” To her horror, Sabrina felt long-forgotten tears clog her throat. Her hands curled into fists. “I know you sold her to that awful man. But I kept my vow. I never told Papa. I never said a word.”

Without giving Sabrina a chance to resist, Morgan gathered her against him, rubbing his cheek against her hair. “I’m sorry, lass.” One of her tears slid down to tickle his abdomen. “But, Sabrina?”

Her palms flattened against his chest, making his heart leap. “I’ve nothing more to say to you.”

“I’ve somethin’ to say to you. I didn’t sell your kitten. She choked on a bug and your da thought it’d be easier if you thought she’d run away. I bought a nice cheroot box from the peddler and helped Brian and Alex bury her in your mother’s garden.”

For a lingering moment Morgan felt nothing but the stunned whisper of her breath against his skin. A faint shudder raked her, then another. Her shoulders convulsed beneath his hand and he realized she was laughing. “All these years…I thought it was the worst thing you ever did…why, I almost hated you!”

Morgan was unprepared for the rewards of being absolved of a sin he had never committed. A wild shiver danced across his skin as her hands stroked and explored the rigid definition of muscle in his chest. Even more jarring was the rush of tender emotion that seized him as she flowered her soft lips against his breastbone, over his pounding heart, across the turgid bud of his nipple. A groan escaped him.

He had never known how tender a woman’s touch could be. The women he had known had all wanted to be subdued, conquered, dominated beneath the punishing weight of his body. Not one of them had ever dared to make love to him with their hands, their mouths, the luminous eyes Sabrina lifted to his face. The pure emotion he saw restrained in their depths devastated him.

Growling deep in his throat, he plunged both of his hands into the sable mass of her hair and tipped her head back. “I may not have sold your kitten, Sabrina, but I’ve wronged you in many a way. I’m no gentleman.”

“I never asked you to be.”

His effort to seize control failed dismally as her lips melted beneath his, letting his tongue have its way with her in all its rapacious greed. The wet, yielding silk of her mouth tempted him, tormented him, made him ache to wrap every honeyed inch of her around him.

Sabrina felt the downy wool of Morgan’s plaid slide down to cover her feet. She took a startled step backward.

Another man might have appeared vulnerable, diminished by his nakedness, but not Morgan. Nothing her mother had told her could have prepared her for the sight of his sleek warrior’s body honed by blades of firelight.

“Sabrina?” His husky plea let her know just how close he was to begging a Cameron for her favors.

She stretched out a trembling hand in invitation. Morgan knew how much that simple gesture cost her, knew how many times he’d rebuffed the hand she’d offered him. He bridged the distance between them in one stride, tugging greedily at her clothes until she stood before him as naked and graceful as the flames that crowned the candles.

His eyes devoured her, drinking in the tumbled fall of her hair, the elegant flare of her hips, the ripe shade of rose that tipped her breasts and stained her cheeks beneath his hungry perusal, the ebony curls nestled at the juncture of her milky thighs.

“I don’t deserve this,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat.

Her cheek dimpled in a shaky smile. “I know.”

Sabrina hadn’t expected a man like Morgan to waste precious time on kisses or caresses, so when his hand pierced the shelter of those nether curls, the shock was doubled. She clung to his shoulders, fighting to remain on her feet. No one had ever touched her there before, and to have his big, blunt fingers stroking forth that liquid fire was almost more than she could bear. She writhed, maddened by the flood of pleasure and the coaxing Gaelic words he muttered against her lips.

When Morgan felt her satiny flesh glove his longest finger, sending tiny ripples of shock through her entire body, he did something he thought he would never do. He dropped to his knees at the feet of a Cameron. He pressed his mouth to her damp curls, never dreaming surrender could be so sweet, so utterly delectable.

Determined that his surrender would become her own, he curved his hands beneath her buttocks and lifted her, laying her back on the heather tick. Leaning back on his knees, he braced her thighs over his shoulders until she was completely vulnerable to the tender attack of his lips and tongue.

Sabrina squeaked, jolted into mortified shyness by the tickle of his hair across her belly. “Morgan, you can’t do that! It isn’t seemly!”

He lifted his head. His wolfish grin sent a shiver of reaction through her. “Do you remember all those horrible tales your brothers used to tell you about the MacDonnells?”

She fought a swoon as he stroked one finger in and out of her with paralyzing gentleness. Her words came in breathless gasps, punctuated by tiny whimpers. “They said you had great tufts of hair on your feet and that you”—her voice broke on a groan as he pushed deeper, measuring, filling, laving her taut flesh for the pleasures to come. The words spilled out of her in a rush—“that you ate up black-haired little girls like me for breakfast.”

“’Twas a vicious lie, princess. I’ve just a scatterin’ of hair on my feet and I eat up wee black-haired lassies like you only for dessert.”

His teeth came down, nipping her most sensitive flesh with exquisite care. Sabrina cried out, twisting in his grasp as his tongue, his fingers, his lips, wove their own dark dance of delight over her flesh. She’d lost her heart to the boy he had been, but she was afraid she might lose her very soul to the tender, relentless mastery of the man he had become. Even as she tried to writhe away from him, his big, warm hands cupped her buttocks, arching, lifting, spreading, refusing to let her escape the maddening pleasure he would give her.

She hung, suspended on the tenterhooks of his sweet torture until his tongue took mercy on her and set her free. Then she was falling, her body convulsing, raked by shudders of pure ecstasy.

Morgan lowered her, covered her trembling body with the heat of his own. His lips touched her throat, luring her eyes open. She was surprised to feel the wetness of fresh tears on her cheeks.

“You’re still a bully, Morgan MacDonnell,” she whispered.

He captured a tear on the tip of his tongue. “Aye, that I am. And you broke your vow, lass. That’s three times tonight you’ve cried for me.”

She sniffed. “I don’t intend to make a habit of it. I’ve just never…” A latent shudder rocked her.

“Neither have I.”

Her eyes widened in misty shock. “Never? Not even with Alwyn…or any of the others?”

He shook his head, his gaze oddly intense. “I never even wanted to. Until you.”

For a man of his experience, he couldn’t have given her a more precious gift. Sabrina wanted to give him something in return. She locked her arms around his neck and pulled his lips down to hers, reveling in the fierce sweetness of his mouth, flavored with both the salt of her tears and the balm of her fulfillment. A deep-throated growl escaped him.

Sabrina thought that surely he would lose control now, mating her with the stark animalistic greed she had expected from him. But his hands softly stroked her breasts, then her inner thighs, coaxing them apart. She felt the heavy press of his flesh against hers. When she would have turned her face into her hair to hide her sudden panic, Morgan cupped her cheeks in his hands, his smoky gaze no less piercing than the blunt weight of his manhood.

The harsh tenor of his voice betrayed the cost of his restraint. “I want to see your eyes when I take you, Sabrina Cameron. I want to know you’re mine.”

Sabrina had been his for as long as she could remember. He was her first and only love. Her eyes glazed with both pain and pleasure as he filled her, inch by maddening inch, breaching the barrier of her innocence with relentless patience. She writhed beneath him, wanting to pull away, wanting to draw him deeper. Her fingernails scored his back, but he never flinched, never wavered in his determination to make her his woman. His wife.

His teeth clenched. “Take me. All of me. That’s it, angel. More. Ah…” His guttural groan was both prayer and demand. “Just a wee…bit…more.”

Sabrina moaned, believing the more of him would never end. But finally she lay fully impaled beneath him. She had witnessed examples of Morgan’s iron control before, but never had she imagined a restraint so exquisite, a patience so consuming.

His jaw was locked, his eyes hazed with raw hunger. His muscles strained toward every primitive instinct, yet he remained utterly still, waiting until the wild nether pulses of their bodies began to beat in one accord. Each mad beat shuddered Sabrina, leapt in her throat, her heart, and between her legs, where the blunt weight of his flesh throbbed.

Only when Morgan felt Sabrina’s taut sheath adjust to accommodate the full measure of him, only when he saw her eyes roll back in a half-swoon of naked delight did Morgan close his eyes and began to move.

He had never felt more like a man. He’d lost his innocence at the age of fourteen to an eager young Cameron maid, but all his previous dalliances now seemed nothing more than the clumsy fumblings of a rutting beast. His father had entreated him to “Be a man!” before he even knew what the word meant, but it had taken this beautiful, innocent woman to make him one.

Bracing his weight on his palms, he angled his hips, deepening his thrusts to let his ravenous body taste every delectable inch of her. It was becoming more difficult to temper his ferocious need with restraint, but still he hung back, knowing how easily he could bruise her with his size, his brute strength.

Sabrina’s slight body absorbed each of Morgan’s slow, heated thrusts like blows to her heart. They shattered the shell she had erected around it, leaving her totally vulnerable to this man whose magnificent body held her in thrall. His name spilled from her lips in a broken litany, only to be caught by the passion-roughened heat of his own mouth descending on hers. The pleasure was devastating. The wild, pounding tempo of his possession increased, driving her back until she reached behind her and braced her palms against the stones of the hearth, arching to take him deep into the very core of her.

A Gaelic oath escaped Morgan’s lips, its reverent violence belied by the roar of pure masculine ecstasy that rumbled from his throat in the next breath as he suffered the sweetest death a MacDonnell had ever known at the hands of a Cameron.

Sabrina awoke to the provocative sensation of being tenderly bathed between her legs. Her eyes fluttered open to find Morgan silhouetted against the dwindling firelight. Unaware that she was watching him, he dipped a rag into a basin of water, then dabbed inward from her thighs, his hands unspeakably gentle as they soothed her fragile, swollen tissues.

Sabrina had witnessed more than once the tenderness his hands were capable of while he had nursed some small, wounded creature back to health. But she had never dreamed to experience it herself. The jarring intimacy of the act laid her heart bare. A haze of pleasure spread from his touch. A soft, helpless sound escaped her lips.

Morgan lifted his head. Their eyes met across her naked length. Her breasts swelled and tingled beneath his perusal. Heat crept up her body, half shyness, half arousal.

The tapers had melted to fragrant pools of wax, but Sabrina didn’t need much light to see the unguarded vulnerability in Morgan’s eyes. He lowered them quickly, staring at the rag in his hand. She realized it was a scrap of wool cut from his plaid, stained now with her blood.

He dipped the cloth into the water, water he’d warmed for her comfort. “I never meant to hurt you, lass. You’re so damned delicate. I was half afraid I’d gone and killed you.”

Morgan stroked the wool across her, but the innocent benevolence of the gesture was lost as their gazes met again. Sabrina’s lips were parted, her cheeks flushed. Morgan felt his traitorous body responding against his will. Raw hunger flooded him. He knew it was too soon for her; her battered body couldn’t possibly be ready to accept him again. He could only hurt her more.

“You should sleep, lass,” he said gruffly, rinsing out the rag. “’Twill be dawn soon enough.”

Dawn, Sabrina thought, with its harsh winter light cast across their doubts and differences. She didn’t care if dawn never came. She wanted to remain there forever, cloaked in nothing but the waning firelight and the heated regard of her husband’s eyes. She wanted to stir the banked embers she saw in their depths to roaring flame. To break his rigid control and prove to him that she wasn’t some fragile figurine that could be shattered by his touch.

When Morgan reached to draw the plaid over her, she sat up on her knees, caught his fist, and brought it to her lips. Her tongue played lightly over his knuckles.

She mocked his burr deliberately. “So ye think a puir wee Cameron lass too puny for a MacDonnell’s legendary stamina? Perhaps ye’ve been takin’ those songs about yer clan a mite too seriously, sir.”

Morgan was stunned by the mischievous sparkle of Sabrina’s eyes. He had expected more tears, perhaps bitter accusations. His gaze dropped to the pert tips of her breasts. They tightened to rosy nubs beneath his perusal. His breath caught in a near groan.

He jerked his gaze back to her face and cleared his throat. “Now, lass, I cannot blame you for bein’ wary of me. ’Tis only natural. I was a wee bit rough on you.”

“Och, is the big, bad MacDonnell worried about scarin’ the Cameron lass?” She nipped his knuckles. “If you must know, I found you rather…civilized for my tastes.”

“Civilized?” The word fell from his lips like the vilest of curses. She might as well have called him a eunuch.

She gave him a provocative glance from beneath her lashes. Morgan didn’t know why she was playing such a dangerous game. But he could no more resist her teasing challenge than he could resist a generosity brave enough to unleash his most selfish lusts on her tender body.

He hid his grin behind a leer. “So you’d like a taste of what all the songs and legends are about, eh, lass?”

Sabrina braced her palms against Morgan’s chest, her courage nearly deserting her at the open voraciousness of his gaze. “Only if it pleases you,” she whispered timidly.

The devilish sparkle in his eyes deepened. “Nothin’ would please me more.”

Morgan pounced on her like a tawny beast. With deft hands he turned her away from him and bent her over the tick in a position that gave her no choice but to obey every dark command of his majestic body. As he filled her, she arched against him by primitive female instinct, determined to prove she could take whatever he could give her. Her fingernails dug into the tick, freeing the heady scent of the heather. He wrapped his powerful fists in her hair, murmuring sweet, rough words against her ear.

Just when Sabrina believed the pleasure could grow no more intolerable, Morgan decided he could not bear to go to that place of wild release alone. So he reached around and stroked her, his artful fingertips an exquisite contrast to his crude ravishing of her body.

Spasms of ecstasy racked them both until they could do nothing but collapse as one into the welcoming folds of Morgan’s plaid.

The cheery crackling of a freshly stoked fire lured Sabrina from sleep. A woolen fuzz tickled her cheek. She pried open her eyes to find Morgan straddling a chair backward and watching her sleep, his green eyes bright with an intensity that jarred her to total wakefulness. He was still naked. She didn’t know if she would ever grow accustomed to his absence of shame regarding his body. But as he’d taught her twice in the night and again by the misty light of dawn, there was nothing about his body of which to be ashamed.

A cascade of erotic memories came flooding back. She averted her face shyly, hardly daring to believe he had tapped such a wild vein of passion in her civilized heart.

“I’m out of firewood, Sabrina, and it’s gettin’ a wee bit chilly in here.”

She toyed with the soft folds of wool beneath her hands. “Then why don’t you get dressed?”

He dragged a hand through his hair, his sigh fraught with patience. It was then she realized he was naked because his plaid had been lovingly tucked around her, enveloping her in a warm cocoon. Still painfully aware of his scrutiny, she unrolled herself and handed him the plaid, jerking her damp pelisse up to cover her.

Morgan arranged and belted the plaid with casual grace, then sank back down in the chair, crossing his arms on its ladder back.

Sabrina could bear it no more. “Why are you staring at me?”

His avid gaze dropped from her face to her belly. “I was wonderin’ if you might be carryin’ my child.”

Tendrils of heat crept up her throat and Sabrina resisted the urge to pull the pelisse over her head. But the calculating light in Morgan’s eyes froze her embarrassment to hurt and then to anger.

She snatched up her gown, only to discover it was beyond repair. “I certainly hope your efforts were successful.” Holding the pelisse closed in the back, she crawled to retrieve her slippers. “I’d hate to think you made that terrible sacrifice for nothing.” She shivered beneath the brief, cool caress of the air as she dared to drop the pelisse over her head. The hood covered her face and she realized it was on backward. She punched at the thin velvet, trying to right it, her words muffled. “We should know quite soon if you’ll have to suffer through it again.”

Strong, warm arms encircled her from behind. Morgan’s husky lilt stilled her struggles. “A MacDonnell never quits workin’ until he knows his task is done.”

Her head emerged. She furiously raked her hair out of her eyes. “Forgive me. I’ve never known a MacDonnell who worked.”

“You do now, lass.” His lips grazed her throat.

Sabrina felt herself melting against him along with her anger. She closed her eyes, fearful of the power he wielded. If she had thought the night might weaken it or temper it with power of her own, she was wrong. It had only made it more potent.

“I intend to devote myself with great enthusiasm to the task of gettin’ my brat on you.”

“Your devotion to duty is inspiring.” And irresistible, Sabrina thought, moaning as his hands glided up her sides, easing the damp velvet up with them. “You can’t mean …?” Her voice cracked. “Again?”

Each of his words was punctuated with a gentle kiss along her hairline. “And again. I wouldn’t be much of a man if I gave up tryin’ now, would I?”

Without bothering to remove either pelisse or plaid, her husband eased her to the tick and proceeded to show her just how much of a man he was.