His Stolen Bride BN (22 page)

Something disturbing.

He moved away and bent to his nets once more.

“Do you like the shore?” he asked.

“’Tis peaceful here, as if we are a thousand miles from the rest of the world.”

“Why do you think I chose this place?”

Averyl nodded, conceding the point. But a frown marred the ripe red of her mouth.

“If it pleases you, I shall bring you to the shore anytime you like,” he found himself
saying to ease her discomfort.

Surprise, then pleasure, cascaded over her features. “That would please me.” She laid
a soft hand on his shoulder that made him want to touch her in return. “That would
please me much.”

* * * * *

Back at the cottage, Drake wandered about as sunset fell over the ravine. Though he
tried to think of aught else except Averyl—Aric and Kieran, Guilford, even Murdoch—no
other subject held his mind captive as did his own wife.

As if his wishful thoughts had conjured her up, Averyl appeared as the pink-orange
sky dimmed around them. But naught dimmed his view of her.

Gone was Averyl’s unflattering headdress. In its stead, she wore a lone braid that
slid over her shoulder and caressed the valley between the sweet breasts he remembered
possessing with his hands, his mouth. His fingers itched to touch her. His mouth burned
to taste her. The rest of him… Want did not fully describe how much he ached to possess
her.

She blushed pinkly under his scrutiny and turned away. Drake fisted a hand to keep
from reaching out to touch her.

“The fish is ready when you are,” Averyl said, heading back to the cottage.

The rhythmic sway of her slender hips beneath the folds of her soft gray dress drew
his gaze. Remembrances of their wedding night assailed him, largely the moments when
he’d nearly possessed her, those trembling ticks of time while he had held her body
a quivering breath apart from his.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Drake tugged his tunic lower to cover his
erection and followed Averyl inside.

They ate in silence. He could scarce concentrate on food, so ate little. But his stare
remained on Averyl. The shy return of his glances indicated she had taken note of
his gaze.

Wiping her hands clean, Averyl turned to him as if hesitant. “Drake, I must ask…”
She sighed. “I am puzzled.”

Puzzled. The word was rife with many meanings in their context. Puzzled about their
marriage? Their unshared bed? His offer to walk the shore with her? His confession
last night?

“Are you?” he asked carefully.

She nodded her golden head, that twining braid rubbing the side of her breast in a
way that made him jealous. “Indeed. Why do you not confront Murdoch with the truth
of your innocence in his father’s murder?”

His innocence…?
Her words penetrated. Cold shock washed over Drake. He sat staring at her, open-mouthed.

“What say you?”

Even to his own ears, his whisper sounded raw and hesitant in the confined cottage’s
space. As he awaited her answer, body tense, he heard only the popping of a dying
fire and his own breathing. Was it possible she believed him innocent?

“Why can you not confront Murdoch and the MacDougalls? ’Tis clear to me that no one
who truly knows you would believe you capable of such a despicable deed.”

He frowned, even as hope leapt to life inside him that he truly had her good opinion.
“No one who knows me? And you believe you do?”

Averyl cast an uncomfortable glance at the table between them. He crushed another
urge to touch her.

“Enough,” she answered. “You clearly respect your father, even from his grave, and
sought affection from a mother not willing to give it. As your captive, you could
have hurt me. No one would have naysayed you.” She ducked her head. “Yet you have
not. At times, you have comforted me, been kind.”

Drake cast an amazed stare at her. He’d taken her from her family, dragged her to
a remote island, only to threaten her and bully her into a marriage she wanted not.
Instead of bitterness, she felt empathy. Averyl looked beyond his actions to the feelings
beneath.

How?

“I do not mean to imply you have any feelings for me, of course,” she rushed to assure
him.

But he did have feelings for her. An abiding lust he could not shake. An intense craving
that converged in the center of his gut, all but ready to explode.

“’Tis just that I think someone with your nature cannot be the kind of heartless monster
who would stab a man to death without a fair fight,” she clarified.

Still, Drake said nothing but continued to stare. Would this woman’s gentle temper
ever cease to astound him? She believed in him, his innocence. And he had only hurt
her at every turn, denying her the freedom he could not afford to grant, refusing
the gift of her body she offered so sweetly.

Seemingly unnerved by his silence, Averyl rose and made for the door. With the scrape
of his bench against the floor and the pounding of his heart in his ears, Drake rose
and whirled after her. He caught her with a firm grip on her elbow. She faced him,
soft surprise etching her ivory features.

Averyl was foolish. Too naïve by half. And Drake knew he had never wanted anything,
anyone, more than he wanted her.

“Nay,” he whispered hoarsely. “Do not go.”

With a nervous swallow, Averyl shot him a cautious glance. “Did you need something?”

Nodding slowly, Drake memorized the amber-green of her eyes, the soft rose of her
lips. “You.”

Before she could do more than gasp, he seized her delicate cheek in his palm and lowered
his head to capture her tender mouth. A hesitant response lay upon her lips. He wrapped
his arms about her, bringing her flush against the eager length of his body.

Within moments, she melted under his touch, as if she were made to mold around him.
Fingers tangling in the hair at his nape, she moaned into his mouth. Her tongue touched
his with a fervency that sent his clamoring passions into a tempest.

The compelling innocence of her kiss swept across his senses like a stormy summer
breeze on a windswept moor. Her tongue matched his ardent rhythm, dancing with his
in an intimate imitation of the act he hoped would follow.

Yet he wanted more, to feel every honeyed inch of her, to consume the alabaster pink
of her flesh. The past, the future, their enemies be damned.

Dragging his hands to her shoulders, one palm drifted lower, to the breast his fingers
ached to encompass. Soft and taut, her flesh filled his hand perfectly, its weight
infusing him with her heat. Brushing his thumb across the peak of her breast once,
twice, he felt arousal in its stiff response.

Averyl clung to him, his name a whispered caress in the air. And he knew he could
deny his desire no more. He anticipated her scent, her taste. He craved the feel of
her around him in ecstasy, purging himself of this strange need.

Drake set determined fingers to the decorative hip girdle that began at her small
waist. She shivered beneath his touch as he ripped the tasseled ornament apart and
it fell to the floor.

Then he knelt before her, grasping the hem of her flowing skirt in his hands and lifting.
Past strong calves, dimpled knees, firm thighs, he raised the dress.

When he stood with her skirt bunched in his hands at her hips, Drake brought her closer
and met her wide green gaze. He read acceptance, even pleasure. No fear. Only trust
and desire shone from her eyes. Aye, for this one moment, he would be with her, refusing
to give thought to what had been, or what would be if she learned the truth of his
link to Murdoch. Tonight, he would give in to his gnawing need and be a husband to
his wife.

He placed a light kiss on her responsive mouth before lifting the form-fitting bodice
past her waist. That indentation heated his hand an instant before the pouting curve
of her breast slid into his palm. Pausing only long enough to rub the pebbled peaks
with the pads of his thumbs, then take in the shallow gasp of her reaction, he hoisted
her dress past her shoulders, above her head, to the floor.

Then he stared. Gaped, actually, at Averyl’s pale glory. Her milky skin beckoned from
beneath her white chemise, cut low enough to expose the upper swells of her breasts.
The thin undergarment clung to every dip and curve of her body. The rosy, puckered
flesh of her nipples stood visible through the fabric, reminding him of delights he
yearned to taste again.

Fitting his hands beneath the transparent smock, Drake lifted it above her head until
she stood perfect, naked, minutes from his possession.

Hearing his own labored breathing, he swallowed and reached for her. His kiss was
wild, an expression of all his desire-muddled mind could not find the words to say.
Averyl responded without hesitation or artifice. He nipped at the scented skin of
her neck, and she rewarded him by arching that graceful throat for his pleasure. Into
her ear he whispered his need to touch her, consume her. She moaned and clung tighter,
leaving him to wonder why God had gifted him with such a beautiful bride in the midst
of the ugliness his life had become.

As the thought formed, it flitted away. Drake concentrated on the perfect circle of
her nipple as he drew his mouth closer, closer to the floral scent of her skin.

The peak filled his mouth, accompanied by her soft moans in his ears. Her small fingers
worked through his hair, down his shoulders, gripping, clutching, gasping.

Lifting her against his body, Drake carried her to the bed. He laid her across the
straw mattress on which he’d dreamed night after agonizing night of sharing with her.
The crush of their weight upon it filled his ears, its sound a heady seduction.

As he captured her breast in his lips again, wonder filled him. Averyl arched as his
tongue worked at her turgid crest. A moment later, he smoothed his palm down the flat
plain of her stomach, into the pale curls between her thighs.

He felt her momentary tensing and lifted his gaze to her. “I will not hurt you, my
wife.”

After no more than a moment’s hesitation, she nodded.

“Open for me, love,” he instructed. “Let me please you.”

Seconds later, accompanied by the sound of rustling sheets, she did as he bid.

Her flesh beneath his fingers was warm and slick. Ready and willing. Fighting down
a rising tide of primal joy, Drake fingered the nub of her desire in light circles.
Averyl rewarded him with closed eyes and soft mews of encouragement.

Her body was flushed, damp. Still, he wanted to give her this pleasure in case her
virginal body was too tense to feel it upon their first joining.

Patiently, he tightened the circle his thumb traced over her heated, hardening flesh.
She clutched the sheets in her fists, staring wide-eyed. “Drake…”

“Aye, love. That’s it,” he encouraged.

Her knees bent and parted, her hips arched. He caressed her once more, twice more,
before she quivered and cried out, a chant of pleasure in the dusk-darkened room.

Again, he pleasured her, twirling his finger about her sensitive nubbin. Seconds blurred
into minutes, one release into her next until Averyl trembled, pleaded, perspired,
her skin a flushed rose, her core cascading with the dew of her readiness.

Satisfaction and need swept over Drake as he lifted frenzied fingers from his bride
to the lacings of his hose. Her hands joined his there. Together, they tugged and
pulled until the garment lay at his feet in a discarded heap.

Clamoring need consuming him, Drake divested himself of his tunic and braies. Her
dilated hazel gaze wandered down his now-naked form. He stood a moment and let her
look, though it cost him dearly in restraint.

Her stare encompassed his shoulders, past the battle scars of his torso, then lower.
Her eyes widened.

“Will we fit?” she whispered.

A gentle smile curved his mouth, in spite of the gravity of the moment. “Aye. ’Tis
as nature intended, lass.”

She nodded again and lay back without another word. Clearly, she trusted him.
Him
, her abductor, her tormentor, her husband by force. What had he done to deserve this
moment?

“Will—will you stay this time?”

Her hesitant question reminded him of their last intimacies and the ultimate pleasures
he’d rejected. Regret pierced him, and he waited not a moment to assure her. “A whole
army of warriors could not drag me away.”

At her shy smile, he joined her on the mattress. He smoothed her grin away by nibbling
her bottom lip, slowly drawing it into his mouth. Briefly, he sucked it, then covered
the rest of her mouth, reaping the instant passion of her response.

His mouth and hands covered her flesh again, claiming her. Averyl lifted her arms
about him and returned each touch. With the tender kisses he pressed to the damp skin
of her neck and the caresses stirring the flesh of her thighs, he vowed he would make
their first coupling the best it could be.

With a touch, he parted her legs and slid his knee between Averyl’s. Again, he grazed
her most intimate flesh. Her slickness and her responsive gasp sent heat reeling through
him.

Urgency coiling throughout him, Drake took her mouth again, aware of her arching invitation
tempting him, the musky moistness of her center shouting his name. The ache gnawed
at him, chafed with impatience, stronger than he ever recalled.

As their mouths mated, he guided himself to her.

“I know naught of virgins,” he confessed, sweat beading his forehead. “You must tell
me if I hurt you.”

“But surely you’ve—”

“Nay,” he interrupted. “Not with an innocent.”

Surprise floated across her soft face. “If I feel pain, I will tell you.”

With a nod, he placed gentle hands on her hips and slowly drew himself inside. Tight
and moist, she began to close around him in an exquisite joining that brushed the
bounds of heaven. He fought to stifle a groan, knowing he must still break her barrier
gently while his entire body clamored to thrust himself to the hilt.