Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

“ P lease.” Celia’s soft voice and the way she was looking at him were his undoing.

How can I refuse her anything after what we just did?

It had been unreal, the stuff of dreams. Never in his life had he felt such passion, so all-encompassing or amazing. Then again, this had been with Celia. He should have been prepared for the fact that everything with her was something so much more.

“It’s my secret,” he said sternly, stepping back from her.

He briefly considered running out of the room. It didn’t really matter that he was nearly naked, just so long as she didn’t see what he was hiding.

“This is not about secrets.” Celia moved closer to him on the bed.

She was intoxicating to him. There was nothing she was hiding from him now as she challenged him, her red hair falling out of its updo, wild around her shoulders. Her breasts were on show, her rear—everything, for she was willing to be completely open with him.

“Keith,” she whispered, “I just want to feel your skin on mine.”

He sighed. This was what he had promised himself. Even though he may not be able to be the husband she needed, he had vowed to himself before the wedding that he would be the lover she wanted. Was he to fail at the first hurdle and refuse to let her explore him?

“As ye wish.” He tugged his shirt over his head, careful to keep facing her. It kept his secret hidden for just a few minutes longer.

She stepped off the bed, a pleasant smile curving her lips as her eyes roamed over him. He kept himself trim, and the way she was drinking in the sight of him was already making his length twitch. If she could keep looking at him like that as he made love to her, that would be a thrill indeed.

She walked toward him, her hand outstretched, clearly worried he was going to run away from her again. This time, Keith held his ground.

Her palm reached for the center of his chest. That first touch made him inhale sharply. It was a reminder of that first night at the lake, where he had carried her out of the water shirtless. There in the dark, his secret had been kept safe, but this bedroom was too bright with the daylight for it to stay hidden for much longer.

She explored him, her fingers trailing down his chest and his abdomen. She even ran her fingers across his biceps and his shoulders. Slowly, she circled him.

Keith closed his eyes, knowing what was coming.

She halted for a second, and then one slow finger ran down the biggest scar that cut across the middle of his back.

“What happened to you?” she whispered.

“This is why I didn’t want to do this.” He wished he had his shirt back in his hands. Instead, he stepped forward, desperately increasing the distance between them so she couldn’t touch his scars again. He turned to face her, hiding them. “I don’t want yer pity.”

“Pity?” She looked as if she had been kicked in the gut by his words. “This is not pity.”

“What is it, then?” He waved a hand at her in disbelief.

“Oh, you fool. It’s caring… it’s curiosity!”

He took another small step back.

Caring…

He couldn’t bear her saying such things. If she declared she had feelings for him, he was likely to take her back to that bed and never let her go. To know that everything they shared wasn’t just about attraction but something so much more would be his undoing.

It would allow him to stop calling what he felt for her just an infatuation. He could give it a new name, something deeper, something much more meaningful.

Something frightening .

“Keith, listen to me.” She walked toward him. This time, he didn’t step back. She halted in front of him, the two of them still naked. “This isn’t pity. I just want to know what happened. Please? Tell me?”

He sighed deeply and rubbed a hand over his face. If he was going to have this conversation, then he couldn’t do it like this. He crossed the room and picked up a banyan, throwing it over his shoulders to hide his scars. She reached for his discarded shirt on the floor and put it on.

“Ah, lass.” He moaned at the sight of her. “Wearing my shirt just makes me want to ravage ye again.”

“Don’t tempt me.” She smiled and then moved to kneel on the bed again, her cleavage showing through the neckline of his shirt. “Please, Keith?”

He moved back toward her. He sat on the very edge of the bed, though he didn’t trust himself to come any closer.

“Those scars were put there by one man.” He stared off into the distance. He knew he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye when he said the next words. He feared glimpsing that pity. “My father.”

“Your father did this?” Celia practically shuddered on the bed.

“He was rather fond of brutal punishment for what he saw as wrongdoing.” He closed his eyes, still remembering what had caused that final and violent white scar across the middle of his back. “He was fond of using his belt for such things. Or a riding rod.”

His father had come back from a ride one day when he had come across Keith in the doorway of the castle.

Keith had refused to tell him where his mother was hiding in the castle. In return, his father had hit him with the riding crop when he had turned his back on him. It had sliced open his skin. The bleeding had not been easy to stop that day.

“He was a laird,” Keith said slowly.

“That doesn’t explain the brutality,” Celia whispered.

“No, it doesn’t. Neither myself nor my brother are so violent, but for my father, it was a way of life.” He breathed deeply and returned his gaze to Celia. “I don’t like being reminded of him or the past. It infuriates me that I have to carry with me the reminder of what sort of man he was. It’s why I keep my shirt on.”

“You didn’t that day at the lake, when you helped me,” she reminded him, a small smile playing on her lips. Keith found himself returning that smile. “You took it off and saved me.”

“It was dark. I wasn’t going to let ye drown, was I, sweetheart?” He leaned toward her, acting on instinct.

She leaned toward him too, and their lips met in the softest of kisses. Warmth spread through his chest before he saw her eyes flick to the banyan. That warmth abruptly vanished.

“He was more of a barbarian than I am,” Keith tried to joke, but it came out strained. He looked away, desperately wishing that they were not having this conversation.

To Celia, more than anyone else, he wanted to look unscarred, unhurt by the past, but that possibility was gone now. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she had recoiled and bolted from the bed, calling him the son of a monster and retreating as far as she possibly could.

But something odd happened instead. He felt her hand on his shoulder. He turned his head around to face her again, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion at what she was doing.

“Trust me?” she said softly. Her fingers slid from his shoulder to the hem of his banyan.

He didn’t answer, but neither did he pull back from her. There was something curious in her movements, something that strangely made him long to see what she was going to do next.

Boldly, she took hold of his banyan and slowly pulled it down one shoulder. Kneeling behind him, she moved her lips down, first kissing his bare shoulder and then moving to one of the scars on his back. Her lips brushed against the scar lightly.

Keith’s eyes closed as he held on to that feeling. He could not remember ever having been touched so softly in his life. In that darkness, he concentrated on her movements alone, feeling what she did next.

She pulled at the other shoulder of his banyan so that it fell onto the bed. She kissed this now bare shoulder, then down and across his back. Her fingers gently traced a path up the middle of his back, across the thickest scar.

It was a thrilling sensation. Her gentle and enticing touches made his length harden, but what was even more exciting was the fact that she wasn’t recoiling from him. She wasn’t disgusted by his scars. She explored every part of him, even his rear, which she playfully squeezed, and they both laughed a little.

He opened his eyes as he felt her sit beside him, the whole side of her body pressing against his own.

“Well, I still think you are the most handsome and well… manly man that I have ever seen walk this earth.” Her boldness made him laugh again.

“Ye need to get yer eyes checked.”

“Ha! Take the compliment, Keith.”

“Aye, sweetheart. I will.” He angled his head around to catch her lips.

This kiss was soft indeed, though they still explored, their lips parting and their tongues touching.

I don’t think I could ever get tired of her kisses.

As he pulled back, his eyes wandered. She really did look incredible. His shirt on her body was a reminder of the way he had just dominated her, taken control of her completely, and she had seemed to adore it, moaning his name and even climaxing in that most thrilling of ways.

“Ye will be sore,” he sighed.

“Would you have wanted to take me again otherwise?”

“Ye have no idea how much.”

She laughed softly and climbed back up the bed. The sight of her rear only enticed him again.

“Well, someone once told me that sleep is the best cure, and I didn’t sleep much last night.” She flung herself down on the cushions. “Maybe if I sleep now, we can explore again later.”

He chuckled and followed her up the bed, lowering himself over her so he could steal another kiss. Her arms came up around his neck, holding him close.

“Ye didn’t sleep?” he asked in concern. “Nervous about our wedding?”

“Yes, and… I couldn’t stop thinking about what this would be like.” She nodded at the way he pressed his body against hers. “I never thought it would be so…”

He waited with his eyebrows raised. When she took too long, he frowned. “I hope this is a good word I’m waiting for.”

“Amazing,” she whispered. “I never thought it would be this amazing.”

Smiling, he leaned down and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his back, pulling him down into the cushions again.

“I need to behave,” he growled in her ear. “Ye’re sore enough already.”

“You can nap with me, then.”

“Nap, eh? All right. If ye wish.” He lay on the bed as Celia curled up against his side.

He wrapped an arm around her as she nuzzled his shoulder. Keith couldn’t stop staring at her as she closed her eyes and started to drift off to sleep.

Would it be so wrong to give in to this life? To go to bed nearly every night with this passion and wake up in each other’s arms?

He was so lost in his thoughts that they kept him wide awake as Celia fell asleep. The only thing that distracted him from thoughts of which way to take his life now was the sound of something at the door.

He raised his head, doing his best not to disturb Celia as he looked at the door. The butler must have slipped the latest post under the door, not wishing to interrupt their afternoon together. Keith smiled and made a mental note to thank the butler later for his thoughtfulness.

Slowly, Keith slid his arm out from under Celia’s waist. Fortunately, she was asleep so soundly that she couldn’t be disturbed easily, allowing him to lift the banyan and throw it back over his shoulders as he made his way over to the letters on the floor.

More than once did he glance back at Celia, wondering what it would be like the next time they made love and she was not sore. He had found it maddeningly difficult to hold himself back when first entering her. She had been so warm, so wet for him, her body desperate for pleasure, and God, how he had wanted to give it to her.

When she had told him not to hold back, it was as if that panther lodged deep inside him had been released from its shackles. He had thrust into her repeatedly just to feel every inch of her, and for her to feel every inch of him too.

As he picked up the letters, he was plotting how he would make love to her the next time. Perhaps he would take her from behind so he could marvel at the curve of her back as he entered her and pulled playfully at her hair. Or maybe he would hold her up against the nearest wall.

One of the letters suddenly caught his eye. The handwriting was recognizable to him as was the Laird’s emblem embossed in the red wax seal.

‘Dear Keith,

You are to be married, Brother? Ha! I told our man-at-arms you would marry an English lass before long. I’m only sorry I could not make it to the wedding, so you’ll have to bring her to Scotland soon so I can meet her.

Our clan also looks forward to seeing you again. Matters of business have not been easy without you and need your attention, but we’ll leave such matters for another time, as this letter is for good news only.

I am thrilled to hear that you got married, though judging from the letters I have received from our mother and cousin, it was a very rushed affair. Somehow, I am not surprised that you could not behave, Brother. Perhaps English ladies are not as reserved as I thought if one was willing to transgress with you too!

The council is, of course, surprised, but mostly delighted. Well, at least… I’ll say they are delighted. You know old Fergus. He was rather shocked when I told him. He always thought you’d never marry. He said something about you being so like our father and that he worried for the future. An odd fellow, Fergus. I wonder why you kept him on the council. I’d be quite happy to be rid of him…’

The letter went on at great length, but Keith abruptly stopped reading and looked up.

Fergus… He knew the old councilman very well. He was a man who had witnessed the whole of Keith’s father’s lairdship. Like the rest of the councilmen, Fergus had shuddered with horror to see the way Elizabeth was treated in that castle. More than once, he offered a place for Elizabeth or Keith to escape to.

One night, many years ago, Keith had gotten drunk on whisky in such a room when Fergus had found him. Keith had confessed to him just how many times people told him how like his father he was.

“I fear becoming him someday. That I’ll be cruel to the clanspeople, that I’d be cruel to my wife as well. How can he hurt her? How can he?” Keith had slurred in anger. “What if I’ll do it someday? What if, despite the sort of man I think I am now, I become him? What if I marry, only to hurt the woman I never thought I would hurt?”

“Ye are not yer father.” Fergus had sat down beside him and clapped him on the shoulder. “But if ye fear it, laddie, then ye must take steps not to become him. Everything yer father would have done, do the opposite. Make a point of never being him. Then, ye’ll be safe from such a fate.”

It was that night that Keith had resolved never to marry a woman he could end up caring for. He didn’t want to risk becoming as obsessed with her as his father had been with his mother and ending up hurting her.

Slowly, Keith put the letter down on a small table as he turned back to the bed.

Celia was beautiful as she slept soundly. His shirt had risen up now, revealing a little of her rear. Her face was serene as she slept, holding none of the angry and fearful expressions that had been there on the day their scandal had broken.

Then Keith saw another face in his mind’s eye.

He saw his mother’s tearful face as she ran away from his father. He saw himself as a child, peering through an open door and watching his father as he raged, throwing tankards across a room, then a whole chair which broke into fragments. He heard his mother’s wails as she ran, trying to escape him.

“Ye are so like him.”

How many times had he heard those words? From his staff, from his friends, from his councilmen?

What if he caused Celia that pain? What if he became his father, after all, and caused her such grief and despair?

I cannot do that to her. Not to Celia.

I have just made a vow to protect her until my dying day. So I shall. We shall have tonight and then tomorrow… I shall take steps to ensure that I do not become my father. I’ll see to it that Celia will never be hurt by me.