Chapter 25

It hadn’t taken long for the belief to form in Melinda’s mind that she was in the place she most wanted to be—Rob’s arms. They might be talking instead of making love, but discussions, explanations, had been sadly missing since he brought her here, and one might lead to the other.

“Yer childhood must have been happier than mine. After my mother died, my father barely let me outside to play, and with no brothers nor sisters, my nursemaid was the only company I had as a young lass. The idea of an underground cavern sounds exciting, though scary. I wonder if I’d have found the courage to venture inside. Or if my father is even aware it exists.”

“The place had been used, and I doubt much happens at Wolfsdale without yer father being told of it.” Rob’s voice rumbled through his chest. Its manner had always been deep, virile compared to some of the effete Norman knights who had come from Alnwick to converse—plan—with her father. She knew which she preferred. The low, gravelly timbre of Rob’s voice sang of comfort, safety; and she realised that until his original arrival at Wolfsdale as a hostage, she had never really felt safe.

“That is true, but no subject for a woman wrapped in her lover’s arms.” She felt Rob’s sharp indrawn breath echo through him. She was close yet needed to be closer, wanted to be closer, ached. “The only time I felt truly alive, truly a woman was during those days ye were with me at Wolfsdale.”

“That’s as may be, lass, but yon wasnae real life, simply a space out of time. The way we were at Wolfsdale, sneaking off to be together any hour of the day and night, can’t happen here. Daylight is filled with work, training, listening to my father’s advice so I will be prepared—God help me—for the day when he is nae longer with us. The night is best saved for the delights a couple can find in each other.” He stopped to pull back and grin down at her. “However, that isnae saying I would be averse to us sneaking away together if the chance ever arose.”

She took hope from that grin, for the only time she remembered him baring his teeth at her since the day he abducted her was when she unwittingly called him a bastard—a day best forgotten, since he seemed able to leave what he had considered her blasphemy in the past. She clung to his humour as a rope to pull her out of the pool of tedium her life had sunk into, feeling alive only when she lay abed longing for him, his touch, his kiss; and now it was all within her reach. And reach she did. Her hand slipped under the fold of his plaid to find Rob’s heat, his hardness that pressed against her belly, saying with a chuckle, “Is this what might be called a chance arising?”

Rob cursed himself as a fool as he practically leapt back frae her searching hand. Christ’s blood! He blamed his reaction on the direction his thoughts had taken as he sought to excuse his mindless behaviour after she had cursed him for a bastard, when it was naught but the truth. Now that memory of Kalem’s hand seeking to fondle him lay perilously near the surface.

Swiftly he brushed away the truth to quash the insult. “Nae, lass, dinnae touch me. Ye have me so stirred up my seed might burst into yer hand.” He smoothed one hand down her back, caressing, while he sought her lips for a kiss, leaving nae room for questions he didnae want to answer—shamed by them.

She rose on her toes to seek out his mouth the way fledglings did the linnet’s beak, desperate to feed. Soon he couldn’t remember why he had shied away, for he wanted naught more than to feel her hand work its way up and down his hard length and groaned at the loss. He lifted her into his arms and sought out the bed, his plaid trailing behind them as Melinda did her best to unwrap his hips from its folds. Then they were on the bed, he lying betwixt her thighs, rearing up to grasp the neck of her shift, ripping it end to end until he saw her bared skin glow in the dimming firelight and her green eyes shine, but frae within, as his lips formed the words, “Guid even’, Lady Melinda. Yer the bonniest sight my eyes have rested on since the day of my birth. Will ye lie with me and be my wife?”

“Gladly, my Highland lover. I’ll be yer wife till the seas run dry and the mountains crumble away. Forever,” she vowed and reached up for him, certain that this time there would be naught to compromise their marriage, their future.

It had been so long, more than two years since they first came together, and she was nae longer a precocious lass, certain all she had to do was ask and it would be hers, as she had when Rob was brought to Wolfsdale. Then, she had been minded to make him hers without the least notion what lying with a man meant. Now she did, yet Rob’s touch on her breasts made her tremble more than had been her wont before. Now she had the nous to realise all she had to lose.

His love, aye and Mayhap her bairns.

She arched up to encourage him to kiss her breasts—glad her sons had been weaned—and moaned at the delight, the pleasure his mouth wrought in her as he suckled her deep inside his mouth curling his tongue around the tight peak. A sharp thrill leapt from her breast to her womb, forcing her hips, the juncture of her thighs, her mons, against his erect heated male flesh. She wanted him as she did not remember wanting before. Aye, this is what she needed, what she had been made for.

“Take me, Rob. Come inside and fill the empty space that has been waiting just for ye. Take me for yer own before I die of needing ye.”

He felt as if he had lost his mind, kenned well he would ne’er be able to lie in the same bed as Melinda without taking her, having for his own. He wondered now why he hadn’t found the nerve to steal her away frae La Mont long ago.

Rob lifted her hips in readiness for the moment he’d been waiting for. Waited eagerly, yet still had to wonder if he deserved her. Melinda called herself a coward, but he was the one who had lost the courage necessary to breach the gates of the Norman manor—newly built upon the auld—hesitated to steal his woman and remove her frae that cauld father of hers. What would have happened to his sons? La Mont couldn’t have denied his hatred of the Scot forever and they were half-Scots.

As he hesitated now, though, his heart raced and his prick nudged at her entrance. Her eyes were open and they pleaded with him, her breath quick and hips beckoning him to thrust into her sweet heat. “I want ye so much, my love, but before I take yer bonnie body, I have a promise to make, a vow. Trust me, I will never spill my seed inside yer womb again and endanger yer life.” That said, he could wait nae longer and plunged into her sweet, honeyed entrance. He was certain about the honey for he had tasted her there and intended to do so again.

This must be how it felt to be reborn, Melinda decided as she rose to meet his thrusts.

Dear God, this joining was more than she had imagined—dreamed—in the long nights while she shared his bed, untouched. Low down in her belly a sensation rode just out of reach, though she tried to catch it. “Harder, Rob, faster;, ye can’t break me. Dear heaven, I want, I need more—all. All of ye, Rob, all of ye.”

Every time he plunged, she saw that golden prize come closer until her whole body reached out and grasped its elusive delight, and felt it tremble and cry, sobbing through every nerve in her sated body.

Rob realised that if ever a promise was going to be hard to keep, it was the one he had just made, but he did manage to keep this one, withdrawing while the roar of release ripped up his throat, his seed spurting onto her navel as the after-surges coated her belly. He collapsed atop her, unable to move, even breathe, while Melinda’s final gasps of pleasure were like a song in his ear. One he had thought never to hear again.

At last he found the energy to roll to one side, and by pulling Melinda with him, kept her wrapped in his arms. “My memories dinnae compare to what ye have given me tonight, my love.”

“Nor mine,” she whispered, seemingly content to stay there with her head resting into the curve of his shoulder.

Then he remembered what Nhaimeth had told him about their sons; it was past the time for keeping such a tale to himself, nae matter if Melinda was more sceptical about such matters than he. “I’m reluctant to tell ye this,” he began, “but though it’s nae meant for everyone’s ears, ye are the lads’ mother.”

He felt her body start, tense in his hold as she cried, “Dear Jesus, what...?”

“Calm lass, be calm. Rowena made a prophecy on the night she and Nhaimeth became betrothed. She was watching my father playing with the bairns over dinner and suddenly Nhaimeth saw her eyes grow distant as if seeing another place far, far away frae Cragenlaw.”

“I did go to visit with her, wondering what lay in my future, but somehow I’ve forgotten aught she told me, which ye must admit is hardly surprising,” she finished, her voice dropping to a soft murmur.

“Ye have the rights of it there. I took advantage of the circumstances, but just listen to what she told Nhaimeth. She didnae put the responsibility in yer lap or mine; she said it was up to her and Nhaimeth to protect Harry and Ralf. She believes that frae one of their descendants a deed will be done that will be celebrated by Scots for aeons to come. But I say they are our sons and the responsibility to protect them is ours. Except at night when they are asleep with Becky in the same chamber with the door locked, one of us should always be close by.”

“That will be me, most like, since I’m with them most of the time except when they are ready for a sleep.” Rob could feel a smile shaping her words as she said, “Mind ye, if I could keep yer father’s old wolfhounds to hand it would make things easier. Ye won’t have seen them yerself, but there is naught they like better than stretching out atop those big dogs for a nap.”

“Mayhap I’ll try to spend more time inside the castle with ye, then. That’s something I’d like to see—our lads taking advantage of Euan’s wolfhounds. Mind ye they make a braw warm mattress.” He chuckled pulling her closer. “Spring will be here soon, then Nhaimeth and Rowena will be wed; and the lads are already running all over the place. As the weather warms I can have them with me.”

“Next thing I know ye will have them with little wooden swords in their hands like yer sister Maggie.” He could hear the laughter in her chest as he pulled her closer.

“Ach, I wouldn’t do that yet; however a wee pony each wouldn’t be out of the question.”

That was the last words spoken for a while since the night was long and the blood in their veins called out to one another.