At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3) (8 page)

I would be lying to say that the arousing nature of his words didn’t intrigue me. They did. Would I feel that internal mark seared upon my soul with as much pleasure as I had experienced the welts and bruises he left upon my backside?
 

I couldn’t imagine that I would.

But worse, I couldn’t imagine that
he
would.

I tried to tell myself that men could enjoy such a thing. After all, my sister had found two warriors willing to share her bed and her love. But that was
love
. She loved them both and they both loved her enough to keep her forever. It was an entirely different situation. I couldn’t imagine that my laird would truly want this…unless it was to discard me.
 

Which made my tears brim again.

“You’re frightened,” he said, tracing my trembling lower lip. “But I will not let you come to harm, lass. This is no different than when I took your arse. First you felt the pain and the shame of it, but then pleasure, too. A great deal of pleasure.”

“I don’t want pleasure!” I cried, though that was only partially true. “Don’t you know that my happiness rests on feeding
your
needs my laird?”

“This
will
feed my needs,” he vowed, softly stroking my hair from my eyes. “I promise you it will. There are dark hungers in me; I’ve never lied to you about that. This is one of them. What’s more, it is a desire that only you can satisfy. It is not merely that I wish to share a woman with another man. It is that I wish to share
you
. I wish to do this to
you
. I have been so unsettled these past days and this will give me some relief. The first true relief I will have from my worries in weeks. For this sake, I am asking you not to resist me. I am asking you to be true to your word when you pledged your obedience to me.”

That pledge, that promise, made as it was in fear, had become something else between us entirely. It had become my own personal pledge of fealty, my own shield of honor, and it was all tangled in the love I felt for him. I would never break it. Not even if it meant the loss of him. Because to break my vow to him would be to break whatever strength still was at the core of me.
 

Warriors fought and died to keep their honor.
 

I would keep mine, too, sullied though it was.

“I will be true,” I said, hoping that he knew I meant more by it than just this.
 

“
Complete
obedience,” the laird reminded me. “Because if the man I share you with senses the slightest resistance from you it will all go badly…”

And then I knew.

I knew who he would share me with.

He was going to share me with his kinsman, Ian Macrae.

Ian, who had once told me that the laird was the devil, and that the things he did to his women should make them lay abed all day in tears. Ian, who had believed me to have been
forced
to the laird’s bed, until he saw with his own eyes how truly willing I was. Ian would never touch me if he thought—for even a moment—that he did not have my consent.

That is why the laird wanted to be sure of me.

“Not Ian,” I groaned, miserably. “Of all the men…”

The laird seemed slightly affronted. “What is so very wrong with Ian?”

“Brenna loves him,” I blurted, though it wasn’t even the start of my long list of reasons I would have preferred to be shared with any other man.

The laird scratched a bit at his ear in frustration. “Brenna? The squeaky maid? You cannot be worrying about her.”

“She’s my friend,” I whispered.

“And I’m your laird!” His fist came crashing down on the chess table, toppling several pieces and ruining the game. “My castle, and my clan, and all my life’s work will not be lost for the sweet sentiments of a maid. Her feelings are not your concern. Mine are. And I am asking something of you. Asking and commanding.”

I startled at his temper, and his words. That he thought his castle, and his clan, and his life’s work were somehow all bound up in this promise he was asking of me did not make any sense. But it was so important to him that I quickly acquiesced. “I will do as you ask. Ian will not sense a drop of resistance in me,” I promised, though there was, within me, an
ocean
of bitter resistance to this.
 

I couldn’t let anyone see it. That’s what harlots were meant to do.
 

Hide their feelings, and pretend at pleasure, was it not?

He appraised me carefully, as if sensing the artifice. “I want you to find pleasure in his body as you do with mine.”

That I cannot do
, said the rebel within. But I would pretend, so I nodded.

I must have been convincing, because the laird then insisted, “And I want him to find pleasure in you, too, lass. Great pleasure.
Very
great pleasure.”

An arrow of doubt pierced me. I could pretend at my own pleasure to obey the laird, but Ian Macrae’s pleasure was outside of my control. I didn’t even think Ian
liked
me. And I wasn’t sure I liked him either.
 

Maybe that would make it easier. To think only of bodies and blushes and base needs. Animal pleasures. If it could be only that…

“Undress then,” the laird commanded. “Wear only your pearls.”

THE LAIRD

John watched Heather undress, slowly, with a stately dignity that a crofter’s girl should not be capable of. But she had found some way of mantling herself in her shame, proud as any queen. He loved her fiercely for that. That and the way she looked in his mother’s pearls, as they draped down between her upturned breasts, trailing a shimmering line to the fur of her mound.
 

She was a Venus.

“Let down your hair,” he said, his voice husky to his own ears.

He was aroused, but must not allow himself to become more so. Not yet.

Thankfully, a knock came at the chamber door.

“Answer it,” was the laird’s command.

Heather’s violet eyes met his, still a bit teary, and he held her gaze. Was it challenge he saw there? No. It was something else. She was steeling herself. She understood perfectly well what he wanted from her; it was something he had always wanted. Her shame. And so, on bare feet, without a stitch of clothes on her beautiful nude body, she went to the door and opened it wide.

On the other side of it, of course, was Ian Macrae.

Ian’s mouth fell slightly open at the sight of Heather’s nudity; there was a slight intake of breath. A perceptible widening of the eyes. A much more noticeable sweep of his gaze down to her breasts before he jerked his head up and got his bearings and looked past her shoulder to the man he’d come to see. Swallowing, he said, “You asked for me, laird.”

“Come,” the laird said, with a quick summoning motion. “Sit with me before the fire.”
 

It was a bitter cold night, with a howling wind, and a full moon that shone in through the windows. As Ian made his way to his seat, the laird hoped to warm them all and make them forget about the world outside. “Pour us some wine, lass.”

It would be watered wine, unfortunately. The laird didn’t indulge himself when his people were going without. But he doubted Ian would mind the quality of refreshment; he was too busy trying to keep his gaze anywhere but on the beautiful backside of the girl who went to fetch his drink.

“Davy’s gone missing,” Ian finally said, fist clenching at his side.

Damn
. The laird hadn’t intended for Davy’s absence to be noticed so soon, so he tried to keep his expression even, for his own sake, if not Heather’s. “What can you mean, missing?”

“I mean he didn’t report to his station on the wall,” Ian said. “Nor to the guardroom. Nor to anywhere he’s been expected. Malcolm doesn’t know where he is, and I’ve searched the castle. He’s
gone
, I tell you. Which can only mean one thing.”

The laird swallowed, avoiding meeting his kinsman’s eyes. “What’s that?”

“Davy was the traitor in our midsts. He’s gone over to the enemy.”

Knowing that wasn’t true—and not wanting it to be said in Heather’s presence—the laird hastened to disagree. “Not Davy. There is another explanation.”

“Well, I’d like to hear it!” Ian cried, nearly knocking the goblet from Heather’s hand as she tried to give it to him.

“He may have come to harm, Ian.” And that was no lie. What the laird had asked Davy to do was dangerous. Near suicidal, in fact. At this very moment, Davy could be floating dead in the loch. Drowned or worse. “He might have fallen, or been pulled down from the wall in a skirmish…”
 

Ian blanched at the suggestion. The laird was surprised to see Heather pale at the thought, too. John hadn’t thought she cared anything for his men…then remembered that Davy was betrothed to her sister. Remembered too that he had promised Davy to find a way to protect both women, even if he was dead.
 

Well, that’s what he aimed to do.
 

That’s why Ian was here.
 

Ian shook off the thought of Davy’s demise, taking a sip of the wine. “Surely no harm can come to Davy. He has more lives than a cat.”

The laird hoped so, for all their sakes. But he wasn’t counting on it. Which is why he was going to give over the body of the woman he loved to the man who would be his heir. “I asked you here tonight to make a point, Ian.”

“As is usually the case,” his kinsman muttered.

“Heather displeased you this afternoon.”

Ian’s grip tightened on the goblet. “It’s forgotten.”

“But she would like to make it up to you,” the laird insisted.
 

John met Heather’s eyes and she divined his purpose, going to her knees on the fleece throw upon the floor by Ian’s feet. Ian let his gaze settle upon the bonny lass, temptation written all over his face. He drank again, as if his mouth had run dry. Then he asked, “And you are of a mind to let her?”

“I am of a mind to command it.”

Ian’s spine stiffened. “Of her or me?”

The laird realized he had taken the wrong approach. Ian would not like to think a girl had been commanded to bed with him. It would injure his pride and afflict his sense of honor. Ian would never have an unwilling girl, which was to his credit. But more importantly, Ian would not accept being commanded to anyone’s bed himself.

So John tried again. “What I mean to say is that tonight, what she wishes to do with you, by my command, she may do. And don’t pretend to me that you don’t want her, Ian Macrae. I have seen the way you look at her—especially when she doesn’t know you’re looking.”

At that, Heather turned her head slightly, as if surprised by this revelation. Or perhaps she feared that Ian might see reluctance inside her; she had promised that he wouldn’t. The laird was counting on that.

Ian cleared his throat. “What a man wants, and what he can or should have aren’t the same…”

He trailed off, however, as Heather crept forward, her bare breasts swaying slightly as she pressed her cheek to Ian’s knee and whispered, “The night you watched us, I wished for you to join us…”

Did she speak truly? The laird had considered sharing her with Ian that night, of a certainty. But he’d been too overcome with emotion to do it. He had wanted her for himself. He still did. And he waited for a stab of jealous fury that never came.
 

For her words inspired aroused interest rather than resentment in him.

And in Ian…well…Ian looked down at her, wet his lips, set down the goblet. There was a flush of arousal on the man’s neck, and he was erect for her if the tent of his plaid was any indication. Even so, the laird calculated an even chance that his kinsman was going to simply stand up and walk out the door.
 

Instead, Ian asked, “Is that what you want now, lass?”

“What I want now is to give you great pleasure.
Very
great pleasure,” she said, repeating the laird’s words, giving them the ring of harlotry.
 

And before Ian could decide to rise and go, she slipped her hands beneath his plaid, pushing it up, bringing her lips to the tip of Ian’s swollen member. His kinsman jolted at what the laird knew to be the hot, wet mouth that Heather used so well. Then Ian let out a muffled groan as the lass deepened the kiss, taking him until her pretty pink lips were stretched around his manhood.

 
God’s blood
, she did this while holding the laird’s gaze.
 

All for you, my laird
, her silent stare said.
I can do anything for you
.

And it was like a bolt of lightning to John’s chest. A bolt that should have felt like thunderous, fury or pain but actually felt like pride. Something powerful arced and connected between them in that glance, almost as if Ian wasn’t even in the room. As if the laird’s kinsman were merely a belt or paddle or play-toy incidental to their love play. As if Heather wasn’t sucking another
man
into her mouth, but some extension of the laird himself…

Could that be possible?

Once, when John had despaired that it was Ian’s sword that defended Heather against the enemy, and not his own sword, she had said,
His sword is your sword. He’s yours and I’m yours. Everything and everyone in this castle is yours. If only you would accept it. I’d happily be whatever it is you need me to be.
 

The laird hadn’t believed her then. Those had seemed only words. But now she was proving them true. She did not desire his kinsman. She didn’t welcome the thought of Ian’s hands on her. But she’d wrestled these things down in order to be obedient to her laird.
 

And the reality sent arousal coursing through his veins.
 

Heat swept over him with outrageous desire.
 

Even when Ian carelessly threaded a scarred hand in Heather’s hair to better guide and enjoy her ministrations. Even handled this way by another man, she arched her back as if to tempt the laird.
 

And tempt him she did.

John could hear his own blood rush past his ears as his cock strained with a need for her. Watching her do this thing because he had commanded her to do it made him want her more than he had
ever
wanted her. He had held himself back from her so long because he feared to crush her, feared that she was as delicate as the flower that was her namesake. But as she whored herself for him, the laird saw not only her devotion, but her strength.