Part 15 (2/2)
Their arms entangled, touching each other's faces, she smiled back at him. ”Yes, I do.”
How could she not doubt him after the man she'd believed in for four years proved false? But this was who she was, a forgiving, guileless angel spun from the harp strings of heaven.
”Ye have the kind of courage men pray fer on the battlefield. Yer cousin Claire is goin' to love ye.”
”Tell me what kind of man is he who loves her?” she asked him, her tears finally ceasing.
”Graham Grant is a patient man,” he told her, washed in her warm breath, completely lost in the glimmering blue of her eyes. ”He's clever and convincin', and has nae trouble at all bendin' his wife's strong will to his.”
”And him?” Her smile softened while she traced her fingertips over his lips. ”Is he stubborn, as well?”
”No' with her. With her, he bends like the heather on the hills.”
”I think I'm going to like him.”
”Ye will no' be alone. Most of the la.s.ses here do. But he is loyal to his wife and loves her alone.”
”It is what I have always wanted,” she said on a wistful, hollow sigh. ”Claire's life... Maggie's... and, if your father is anything at all like you, your mother's.”
Rob wanted it too. He hadn't before, not with any of the la.s.ses at Camlochlin. ”'Tis a good life. A complete one.” he said, thinking of his father. ”But ye could be queen.”
”I think I would rather be a servant.”
Rob thought of the veil that had covered her glorious mantle at Courlochcraig. Rather than enter a battle he was doomed to lose, he'd let himself forget G.o.d's claim on her. But now, knowing who she really was, he questioned if there was any true claim at all.
”Would ye have defied yer faither fer G.o.d?”
”I would defy the world for G.o.d,” she told him. ”But I would not have had to defy my father. I've always known who I was and what was to become of me. My father left doc.u.ments with the Reverend Mother at the time of my delivery, decreeing that should he produce a son after me, I was to be given to G.o.d. What no one else in the world knows, save for myself, the Abbess who raised me, and now you, is that if he ever became king with no male heirs, he would openly appoint that t.i.tle to me. He would wait a full year after his coronation, and if after that time, he still had no sons, I was to be returned to him and prepared for marriage to a man of his choosing.” She looked up into Rob's solemn gaze and laid bare her heart for his eyes alone. ”I don't want to be surrounded by people who smile at me while they plan my demise. I don't even know my true sisters, Mary and Anne, but I know we will have nothing in common, save for loveless marriages.” Fresh tears spilled over her lashes and she swiped them away. ”Now that my father is king, my destiny looms before my eyes, Rob. If only I had known him... if, for even one day, I had felt his love for me I don't think my duty to him would feel so bleak.”
Rob's heart twisted in his chest. Her duty. How could he of all people blame her for doing what she was born to do? How would he ever let her go if she chose her duty over him?
”There is still time to pray that his young wife bears him a son.” She smiled, seeing the anguish in his eyes. He could not bring himself to smile back at her.
And what of her duty to G.o.d? 'Twas her faith that molded her, not some stately English court. 'Twas G.o.d she knew and trusted. He didn't want to ask her. He didn't want to hear her answer, but he had to know. ”And if the king does have a son, would ye defy G.o.d fer me, Davina?”
”I would not have to,” she answered softly, tilting her mouth to his. ”Remember, it was G.o.d who a.s.signed you to me.”
Chapter Twenty-four.
No man in the three kingdoms or beyond would ever compare to the one in Davina's arms. If she was married and widowed a hundred different times, and each of her husbands loved her, it would always remain that her heart belonged to Rob alone.
Ah, G.o.d, You sent him to me knowing that I would love him beyond reason.
Her heart beat at a frantic pace as she closed her eyes to kiss him, praying that G.o.d would not have sent him only to ask her to give him up.
Molding her lips to Rob's fine ones, she knew her heart never would. She knew what she meant to him-not because of land or her name, but simply because of her. He told her every time their eyes met. Rob was an intimidating man even when he wasn't brooding, but not with her. Never with her. She couldn't recall a single time when he didn't seem to melt at the sight of her. He made her feel cherished, adored, and alive. Oh yes, she knew what she meant to him. He proved it when he brought her to Camlochlin.
As she ran her palms down his sculpted arms, she marveled that a waif dressed in loose robes had won the affection of such a magnificent man. When she dragged her fingertips over the belt at his hips, his body went rigid, his kiss, more pa.s.sionate.
Only he could have picked the pieces of her heart off the floor and handed them back to her whole again. Only he could make her forget everything and everyone in her life, becoming the most vital thing in it. She was his, and she wanted to give him everything; her love, her trust, her body.
She lost her breath when his shaky fingers slipped beneath her earasaid and slid it off her shoulder. She did not think about what they were doing, or would be doing shortly. She reacted to his hungry mouth, to the silky demand of his tongue, and the raw need in his touch purely on instinct. She loved him and she wanted to share this deeper, sacred intimacy with him. Consumed in his heathery scent, she let him intoxicate her further when he rolled her on her back-her bottom lip captured between his teeth-and cupped his hand around her breast. Her nipple tightened between his thumb and forefinger and sent a fiery charge to the crux between her thighs.
”Rob, I-” She squirmed beneath him as strange, t.i.tillating heat coursed through her blood.
”I want ye to be mine, Davina.”
She wanted it too. She wanted to watch his restraint fall away, the discipline he'd practiced every day at her side come undone. She wasn't afraid of what lay beneath Rob's iron control. She wasn't afraid of anything with him.
With a groan that snapped his muscles taut, she pulled his belt free and dropped it to the floor. He broke their kiss only long enough to curl his mouth into a sinuous, sensual snarl that made her insides ache and her face grow warm.
But clearly, he liked her boldness.
The remainder of their clothes came off in a tangle of arms and legs that left them both panting, but when Rob took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, she realized she had gone beyond the point of returning. He was going to take her. His hot, heavy arousal pressed against her belly attested to it. A part of her that she did not understand quivered for it, even as her mind began to protest. She didn't care about laws-being with him felt too right, as if she was born to love him. She was frightened, though, of his size and suddenly ashamed of her inadequacies.
”I don't know what to do.”
His voice was a tight moan along her breast. ”I will teach ye.”
”What if I don't like it?” she queried with a bit more panic in her voice.
”Ye will,” he promised and he spread his tongue over her nipple, a slow, languid caress that made her spread her legs wider before she could stop them. He didn't mount her, though the sight of him, dark and wild for her, riddled her thoughts with stallions ready for mating.
His eyes gleamed on her like blue-gold flames, basking in what he saw. Rising over her, his shaft hard and long poised over her moist flesh, he lowered only his face to her mouth, her throat, kissing and licking down between the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s until he reached her belly.
Her body jerked at the intimacy of his kiss. She gasped at the forbidden touch of his fingers and then of his tongue as he spread her and stroked her until she writhed beneath him. Fleetingly, she wondered if what he was doing was sinful, or if winding her fingers through his hair and pulling his dark curls free was an acceptable part of nature's dance. But even Solomon from the Good Book delighted in his beloved. With each salacious lick of Rob's tongue, he drove all conscious thought from her head and left her trembling with a need that burned her to her very core. The gentle sc.r.a.pe of his teeth over her bud sent waves of scalding spasms through her muscles, and when he sucked her into his mouth, flicking his tongue over her engorged pa.s.sion, she cried out on the brink of pleasure's pinnacle.
They could both be killed for what they were doing, but Davina didn't let herself think about that now, just as she didn't think about falling off the s.h.i.+p or over the jagged cliffs of Elgol. She was done with being a coward. She loved Rob and she wanted more of him, all of him. Her heart would be forever bound to his and if she had but one night, this night only, to give herself to him freely, fully, she was going to take it.
”Come here to me,” she whispered, her voice ragged and unfamiliar to her ears.
He went, lowering himself onto her and enfolding her in his arms. ”I dinna' want to hurt ye, my love.”
”I would forgive you a thousand times if you did.”
”Och, la.s.s, but ye slay my soul with yer smile. I will become a pitiful blossom-wieldin' slave to yer happiness.”
”But you will be happy too.” She smiled and opened her mouth to his.
He made love to her slowly, taking his time to ready her untried body to receive him. When she flicked her tongue over her lips and arched her back, just slightly enough to rub herself over his swollen shaft, his patience left him. Snaking his arm beneath her waist, he hefted her hips upward with a grunt of pure male demand. Spreading her wide beneath him, he surged against her, from the tip of his glistening head to the thick, throbbing base, harder than steel.
She shuddered, afraid of what he was about to do, but she reached for him as antic.i.p.ation blended with trepidation and searing, shameless desire. She clung to him while he broke through her barrier with slow, tender persistence. Pain speared through her like a burst of flame and she cried out, certain that he'd torn her open.
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