Christina Phillips - [Forbidden 02] (8 page)

Her eyelashes fluttered. Despite his tender touch she must never forget he had abducted her by force. That his compatriots had murdered her fellow Druids. That this Gaul deserved nothing more than to feel the thrust of her blade through his corrupt heart.

Yet the thoughts were distant in her mind, as physical sensation drenched her weary senses.

“Soft.” His fingers had reached her scalp. Jagged darts of pleasure tumbled through her brain and she tightened her grip on the edges of the tub before her bones melted and she slipped beneath the water in mindless delight. “Imagine strands of water sliding over your flesh without splintering into droplets.”

A disbelieving smile tugged at the corners of her lips. Who would have thought this tough Gallic bastard could evoke such a tangible notion? “Beware your men never hear you utter such poetic beauty.”

He gave a grunt that sounded like a suppressed laugh and raked her tangle-free hair back from her face, then twisted it into a single wet rope to snake over the edge of the tub. The tips of his fingers trailed from the nape of her neck across her naked shoulders, leaving chills of fire in his wake.

“What else do you want to know?”

She wanted to know when he was going to take her. When she could finally give in to the urge to hold him in her arms, explore his warrior-hard body, feel his cock thrust inside so she could come. So she could throw the final insult in the Morrigan’s face.

Recalling the Morrigan, recalling the
real
reason Morwyn was allowing herself to enjoy this captivity, caused an icy chill to permeate her heated thoughts. For a moment she held her breath as confused fragments of desire and need and revenge tumbled through her mind.

Fucking the Gaul made sense. But wanting to prolong this conversation, wanting to hear the husky note in his voice as he caressed her wet skin, didn’t make sense. They didn’t need to talk. Talking wouldn’t enrage her goddess.

And yet she couldn’t find the strength to twist around. To shatter this strange, ethereal sensation of intimacy.

It was an illusion. She knew that. But it was peaceful to enjoy this fleeting moment out of time, to push to the back of her mind the death and devastation she’d witnessed since the cursed Roman Legions had invaded her land.

“Have you served in the East?”

His fingers momentarily stilled, as if he hadn’t expected her to ask such a thing. She had no need to ask such a thing. Yet she wanted to know. Even if knowing made no difference to how this fragile alliance would end.

Besides, she needed to earn his trust. That way he’d allow her more freedom when they reached Camulodunon. And pretending an interest in his life, encouraging him to talk, was one way of ensuing he lowered his innate suspicion.

Without warning he began to massage her shoulders, thumbs and fingers kneading her knotted muscles, and waves of delicious pleasure radiated from wherever he touched. Again her eyelids flickered as bliss enveloped her battered body. If he continued so, she wouldn’t need his cock to finish. Gods, how good it felt to have a man’s hands on her once again, and her toes curled against the side of the tub as her neck dropped forward, allowing him the most vulnerable access.

“I served in the East for a short time.” His warm breath grazed her shoulder. Deep in her mind a warning stirred at how unguarded she was. He could snap her neck with one swift movement and she’d be unable to defend herself. But why would he murder her now, when it was clear she would offer no resistance to his demands? And if brutality was his specialty, he would have raped her back in the forest.

She was as safe here as she would be anywhere with him.

“How long have you served your Roman masters?”

His thumbs dug into a sore muscle and she groaned in response, unsure whether the unexpected pressure caused pleasure or pain. He wound her hair around one hand but didn’t jerk her head up as she expected. Instead he appeared satisfied to know she was utterly in his power.

For now. But later, when he writhed in ecstasy as she rode him into oblivion, the power would be all hers.

“A long time.” There was an edge to his voice, as if he no longer found her questions entertaining.

“Yet you speak of them with contempt.” Again her eyelids flickered. Gods, it was hard to keep awake as the scented heat of the water and magical ministrations of the Gaul’s fingers relaxed her to such a degree she could scarcely summon the energy to think, never mind converse.

This time he did pull her head up by her hair, but it wasn’t vicious. Just inexorable, letting her know he could. Letting her know she had no choice.

A groan escaped as he forced her neck over the rim of the tub. His face was close to hers and she blinked, disoriented by his upside-down visage, and his other hand slid around her vulnerable throat, strong fingers closing over her erratic pulse, applying pressure, a heartbeat away from severing her thread to this life.

Her lips parted, breath gasped. The flickering glow from the lamps cast enticing shadows across his roughened jaw and she had the overwhelming urge to reach up, drag her nails across his face, pull him to her, feel the abrasive texture of his day-old beard flay her tender flesh.

“And you, Celt, speak without first weighing your words.” His thumb trailed slowly along the line of her jaw, back and forth, a lazy, seductive motion that sent tremors skittering along her taut skin without relaxing his death grip on her throat. “Haven’t you yet learned to hold your tongue when in the presence of your enemy?”

“I’ve never before been captured by my enemy.” Her voice was breathless, her lungs depleted. Her throat ached and the tub dug into the back of her neck. But that all faded against the way his thumb continued to stroke her, almost as if he didn’t realize what he was doing, yet the careless caress stoked the dark eroticism bubbling deep in her blood.

She would put up with a great deal more discomfort for the pleasure his touch evoked.

And his thumb stilled. She sank her teeth into her bottom lip to stop herself from begging. She would never beg for his touch. But gods, how she wanted it, and how despicable that she craved him so.

His gaze roved over her face before locking with hers. Even upside down his eyes enchanted. How easy it would be, looking into those mystical green depths, to forget who and what he was.

“We could negotiate a truce.” His words sank into her, as dark and rich and forbidden as the most decadent of unknown Roman luxury imported from the exotic East. And then his meaning permeated her lust-dazed mind. Victory stabbed through the swirling flames of desire, melding and intensifying, and unbearable heat ignited low in her womb, fiery tendrils flickering around her sensitized core.

Already he had grown to trust her enough to offer a truce. If she didn’t wish to travel to Camulodunon for her own reasons, how easy it would be to incapacitate him after they’d fucked, and make good her escape.

“What do you have in mind?” It was a blatant invitation but she didn’t care. Every muscle, every nerve, every particle of her skin screamed for release. If he didn’t drag her from this water soon, if he didn’t toss her onto the bed, immobilize her with his hard body and take her with savage, frenzied thrusts, she’d have no choice but to crucify her pride and reverse the scenario.

Her skin was warm, wet and silky soft beneath his rough fingers. She didn’t trust him, and yet she offered the vulnerable column of her throat without resistance. For a fleeting moment he tightened his clasp on her, felt her pulse accelerate in anticipation or alarm, but there was no fear in her dark eyes as she gazed up at him. Only lust, desire and a clawing want that mirrored his own.

Still gripping her hair so she couldn’t move should such a thought occur to her, he slowly slid his other hand from her throat across the enticing swell of her breast. She drew in a ragged breath but didn’t push him away. Water lapped over his hand, over her nipples, and he had the sudden vision of joining her in the tub, pulling her onto his lap, plunging his shaft deep into her welcoming cleft.

Air hissed between his teeth. The tub was too small. He lowered his head so their breath mingled and slid his hand beneath her breast, cupping its slippery weight, pinching her erect nipple between thumb and forefinger, never taking his eyes from hers.

If only he could trust her not to slit his throat while he slept, or poison him as they ate. But too much pride glittered in her eyes for her to ever truly embrace her perceived enemy. He’d have to settle for a more superficial truce.

“When we stop for the night, we agree to forget our warring heritage.”

Her lips parted, breath shortened, and she subtly angled her body so her luscious breast pressed more securely into the palm of his hand.

“Can you make me forget?” Her arm emerged from the water and languid fingers trailed over his jaw. A featherlight touch yet edged with danger as her nails dug into his throat and dragged down to the neck of his tunic.

He could make her forget. And maybe, for a few fleeting moments, she could make him forget, too.

But it wasn’t his heritage he wanted or needed to suppress. Mindless oblivion beckoned, and as much as the promise of sexual satisfaction enticed, the tempting notion of deadening his memories, no matter how temporarily, mocked him with contemptuous impossibility.

“Yes.”

She didn’t answer, but the tip of her tongue teased her upper lip in a deliberately seductive gesture, as if daring him to take what she refused to verbally offer. He lowered his head. She wouldn’t resist. No matter how she despised him, she still craved their joining.

He slid his hand from her wet globe, trailed over her ribs, across her taut stomach. Her long eyelashes flickered, her breath gusted. Silken skin tantalized his palm, fired his blood, thundered through his heart.

Soon, his self-imposed celibacy would incinerate beneath the desire that scorched between them. A celibacy he’d never willingly embraced yet one that had become part of his existence, as integral as the nightmares that plagued his sleep, the visions that haunted his waking hours.

A discordant thud against the door jarred his brain, shuddered through his bones, disconnecting the intoxicating moment. Morwyn opened her lust-glazed eyes and stared up at him in unfocused bemusement.

His hand fisted in her hair and then slowly he relaxed his fingers and allowed her luxuriant tresses to slide free over the outside of the tub. With equal reluctance he dragged his hand from the water, over her slick body, the curve of her breast, the hard nub of her nipple. For a moment he gripped the edge of the tub, grasping at his fractured concentration, before sucking in a pained breath and snatching the length of cloth that lay on the floor.

“Cover yourself.” His voice was harsh. He had no intention of allowing any other to see her naked. “Stand up.” But gods, he had every intention of seeing her so himself.

Her eyes narrowed, as if she contemplated disobeying. “Why should I?”

Contemplation be cursed. She would never obey him voluntarily. Once again he leaned over her, offered her a mirthless smile as frustration seared his arteries and fried his reflexes.

“Because I doubt you want those louse-ridden boys to see you as a mortal Venus.”

Her frown intensified. “Heathen Roman goddess. You insult me.” But she curled her fingers around the edge of the tub and heaved herself up, as if the procedure pained, as if her muscles protested at such unwelcome exertion.

She wasn’t anything like the deity the Romans worshipped. With her delectable rounded arse, sculpted waist and finely toned arms, she was nothing less than the visage of the Maiden Morrigan, the great goddess he had worshipped in his youth.

Slowly she turned to face him and his mouth dried. Water slid from her shoulders, traced over her breasts, dripped from the dark tips of her nipples. But she made no move toward him, no sign she was vexed by this untimely interruption.

Perhaps she wasn’t.

The notion scraped across raw nerves and he thrust the cloth at her before he abandoned the last shredded remnants of control and fucked her regardless. And lost, forever, the remaining fragment of the man he truly was.

He marched to the door, legs as stiff as his cock and, with a glance to ensure Morwyn had covered herself, jerked it open.

The innkeeper’s wife, laden with platters, avoided his glare and he stepped aside so she could enter. The two boys followed her, their hot eyes fixed upon Morwyn with blatant relish. Bren clenched his fists. They scarcely reached his shoulder and yet the way they looked at her enraged him as if they were grown men leering at a helpless girl.

Standing in the center of the tub, Morwyn looked nothing like a helpless girl and every cursed Roman inch a confident Celtic woman, comfortable with the undoubted effect she had on impressionable young males.