Highland Obsession (28 page)

“You’re right. I did forget.” He sighed. “I’m sorry for it, man. Forgive me for betraying you.”

His behavior had far surpassed the limits of acceptability, but Alan and Sorcha showed him the true meaning of friendship. Of love. He’d never forget. Not this time.

Alan clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s over. It’s time to move forward.”

How?
Cam wanted to ask. It was a stupid question, because deep inside, he knew the answer. He had to take a scrubbing cloth to his mind and heart, and scour away all trace of Sorcha MacDonald.

But was he strong enough?

 

Alan struggled to keep his jealousy in check. It was clear Sorcha cared deeply for Cam, had always cared deeply for him.

Working and living beside her as the days went by, Alan’s affection for her grew, along with the painful realization that she loved another man. Alan now knew she would remain faithful to him, but at what cost? Would they both be miserable knowing the object of her desire lived mere miles away in Camdonn Castle?

Sorcha treated Alan with deference and respect. She slept with him in the big state bed at night. He held her close, but he didn’t touch her beyond that.

However, he did observe her touching Cam, and each time her skin made contact with the earl’s, Alan saw the spark snap between them. Their attraction for each other was palpable, and yet out of their loyalty to him, neither acted upon it. He trusted both of them not to act upon it now.

Alan knew Cam, knew how humbled he’d been by their show of solidarity during his illness. And he was beginning to understand Sorcha. Her beauty—which he’d originally thought of as mere surface—came from deep inside. She was fierce in her loyalties, resolute in her personal divisions between right and wrong. She was dedicated, honest, and fair.

Alan didn’t know what to do. His love for his wife was growing, but how could he live with a woman who loved someone else? More confusing, when he saw the arousal between her and Cam, Alan felt the spark resonate within himself. A humming heat that lit a fire in his groin. Against his will, he lusted after the idea of watching Sorcha make love to Cam, even while his mind rebelled wholeheartedly against it.

He leaned against the carved headboard of the elaborate state bed in the tower room where Cam had insisted they sleep. Alan would have been just as happy making a bed above the stables, but he’d hu mored Cam by agreeing to stay here.

Sorcha stood across the room washing in the basin. Her slender arms moved as she dried her face and then reached back, her shoulder blades squeezing together, to braid her silky black fall of hair.

Beautiful Sorcha. He couldn’t really blame Cam for being unable to resist her pull. Her body sang to him, the sweet song of a siren. She didn’t seem to notice how she affected him, which made her all the more alluring.

He and Cam had always shared a similar taste in women, Alan thought with a sigh.

It was time to discuss the inevitable. Cam was nearly well.

“We must return home soon,” he said in a low voice. “My men have been watching the valley for me, but there is much to do, and I can no longer avoid this rebellion.”

Her hands faltered, but then she started braiding again, one strand over the other. “Yes. Cam is on the mend. He’s no longer at risk.”

“Unless, of course, you’d prefer to stay with him.”

She was quiet as she finished, using a small ribbon to tie off the braid. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath, then slowly turned to face him.

“I don’t wish to stay with Cam. I wish to stay with my husband.”

“I won’t abide a wife who’s in love with another.”

Her lips parted. “Is that what you think?”

“What should I think, Sorcha?” he asked quietly. “I see how you’ve cared for him. How you touch him.”

“I’d care for and touch my brother in the same way if he were injured.”

Alan didn’t think so.

He pushed his fingers through his hair. Goddammit. He wished he could believe her, but how could he ignore the meaningful looks and touches and intimate conversation that passed between his wife and the earl?

“Which of us do you want, Sorcha?” he finally ground out.

“You.” The answer came instantly, almost overlapping his question. “Only you.”

“Because I happen to be the one the minister married you to.”

Her lips firmed. “No.”

“Why, then?”

“Because you are the man I’m
meant
to be with.”

He couldn’t see how that was any different.

With her chest rising unevenly, she pulled on the ties of her nightdress, revealing the creamy skin between her breasts. She pulled apart the edges of the gown. “When I’m with you, I’m overwhelmed. By desire. By pleasure. By the need to please you, to earn your love.”

She’d already earned it, but he kept his mouth shut, watching.

The thin garment slipped off her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She stood there, staring at him. Shivering. “I never felt this way with anyone else. You’ve settled into the deepest recesses of my soul, making me hungry for more. Being separated from you would be like being torn in two.”

She looked at her toes, crossing her arms over her chest. Alan stared at her curvy, feminine form, hardly containing the urge to jump out of the bed, lower her to the floor, and take her right there.

But it was more than that. He felt an aching need to have her beside him, to listen to her voice, to know her in every way.

Blast. Somewhere in the midst of this disastrous beginning of a marriage, he’d fallen in love with her.

“I need you. I miss your touch. I miss—” Her breath caught, and she tried again. “I miss the feel of you moving inside me.” She took a step toward him. “It has been so long, and I’m so afraid. Afraid you don’t want me. Afraid you’ll go to war and I’ll never see you again.”

She swallowed down a sob, and her heartbeat pulsed wildly in her neck.

How could she entertain the thought that he didn’t want her? He was nearly mad with need to bury himself in her sweet body.

But then he remembered his pride. Even now, a vestige of it remained. Seeing her with Cam had caused him to rebuild the barriers in his heart. His pride was what kept him from touching her.

He didn’t say a word, just studied her. The swell of her bosom, brimming over her thin arms. The flare of her hips. The dark triangle at the juncture of her pale legs.

Her lower lip trembled, and she spoke again, her voice a mere whisper. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about . . . last time. How you touched me. Everywhere.”

He raised a brow. So she’d liked his experimental play, had she? Not all women found such things erotic. But then again, this was Sorcha. Nothing should surprise him when it came to his wife’s wantonness.

“You want more,” he said. It was a statement rather than a question.

Pressing her lips together so tightly they turned white, she gave a jerk of a nod.

She dropped her arms so her breasts bobbed free, and she clenched her fists at her sides. “I want . . . I want you to possess me. I want you to show me that I’m yours.”

Anguish clawed at him. How could he when she’d belonged to another first? How could he claim her when she’d already been claimed?

“I want to be yours. Please make me yours.”

“Nobody else’s?”

“Aye,” she agreed breathlessly. “No one else’s.”

His face still, Alan stared at her as he climbed off the bed. Ignoring the discomfort of his cock as he rose, he stepped toward her.

“Very well.” He led her to one of the carved wooden posts at the foot of the bed and pressed her back to it. “Stand here.”

He turned to fetch one of her stockings, then carried it back to her. “Clasp your hands behind you.”

She obeyed instantly, her chest heaving, her eyes shining.

He couldn’t resist. Still holding the stocking, he cupped her breast in his palm, bent down, and brushed his lips across the rosy tip. She tasted so sweet, so good. He took the other breast in his other palm, weighing it, kneading it as he laved and suckled and nipped at her delicate skin until she released each of her breaths with a low sob.

Goddamn. He had to stop. He pressed his mouth against her soft flesh; then he moved around her, deftly looping the stocking over her wrists and tying it securely.

“Alan?” she murmured.

“Do you trust me, Sorcha?”

After a short pause, she whispered, “Aye. With my life.”

“Good. Stand here until I return.” He tore his gaze from her glistening nipples to her face. Sometimes he could read her like an open book. Now was one of those times. She was aching, arching into him, needy with lust. It was exactly how he wanted her.

And now she would wait.

 

She couldn’t believe he had left her. Sorcha pressed her thighs together and wiggled her hands. Alan hadn’t bound her too tightly, but the wool scratched at the delicate skin on the insides of her wrists.

How long had it been? She glanced at the clock on the mantel. Ten minutes, at least. Where had he gone? What if he didn’t come back? Would he leave her standing here, naked and cold, all night long?

She would do it. For as long as she could stand, if it would only prove her devotion to him.

She knew Alan still doubted her feelings toward him. How could he not, after all the attention and affection she’d showered upon Cam for the past several days? Cam was a broken man. He was hurting—mind, body, and soul. Her heart reached out to him, and she felt compelled to show him that despite all he’d done, she still cared for him. Yet she hadn’t meant for her devotion to Cam to be at Alan’s expense.

She’d sensed him watching her and Cam together. Sometimes she caught a thoughtful expression on his face, a look she couldn’t decipher. Was he hurting or angry? Did he fear she still possessed feelings for Cam? At times she thought it might be something else. Some sort of attraction, fascination at seeing her and Cam share a touch? Surely that couldn’t be right. Nevertheless, a low hum resonated between her legs whenever she sensed Alan staring at them in that way.

It didn’t matter. Even if seeing Cam and her together aroused Alan, it certainly also hurt him. And she wanted nothing more than to erase that hurt.

Alan was the most honorable, most caring and selfless person she’d known. He was masculine, handsome, wise, caring, honorable, strong. Everything she’d fantasized about in a man as she’d discovered her body in the cave below Camdonn Castle. Everything she needed to feel content. To feel whole.

Her teeth chattered in the lonesome coldness of the room, but Alan had stoked a simmering fire between her legs. She crossed her thighs. If her hands were free, she would have felt compelled to touch herself, to soothe the burn.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the hard wood of the post. She’d stand here and wait. As long as he wanted her to. Resting her weight against the bed, she tried to relax and clear her mind.

Perhaps he would come deep inside her tonight. He never had to this point, and yet she found herself craving it. His choice to spend outside her had become symbolic of the break in the bond they should share as husband and wife. One she wanted to mend.

And if he did get her with child . . . yes, she feared giving birth, feared the horror her mother had gone through, but the prospect of her stomach increasing with Alan’s child made her chest clench with some sweet new emotion she’d never experienced before.

“Sorcha.”

Her eyes flew open. Alan passed in front of her holding a small jar. He set the jar on the shiny wood surface of the table beside the bed. Coming to stand before her, he cupped warm hands over her shoulders.

He traced down her arms, then traveled the sides of her body, the roughness of his fingers gently scraping her sensitive skin. He stopped when his hands reached the inward dip of her waist. She glanced downward, marveling at how large, how masculine, his hands appeared against her body.

She looked into his blue, blue eyes. “I waited for you, as you asked.”

He smiled. “So you did.”

“I would have waited longer, if you’d wanted. All night.” It sounded silly, but she wanted to let him know.

“Would you?”

“Aye.”

He reached around and flicked at the knot binding her arms behind the bedpost. Immediately, the tightness against her wrists released, and he pulled the twisted stocking away.

As soon as her hands fell free, he took her into the warmth of his embrace, lifting her. She burrowed into the heat of his chest as he carried her to the side of the bed and sat her on its edge.

He pushed his plaid off his shoulder, and she reached up to untie the strings closing the neck of his shirt. He allowed her to work the ties free, and he lifted the shirt over his head.

Now his muscular torso was bare, as were his legs and feet. He wore only the green and black tartan plaid belted about his waist. A telltale bulge showed from between the pleats.

“Do I do that to you?” she asked with a long upward sweep of her fingers. His cock was hard beneath the wool, solid as stone.

“Aye, Sorcha. Just looking at you, I—”

She licked her lips and raised her hands, exploring the sides of his body just as he’d explored hers moments ago. “You’re so beautiful.”

Her fingers traveled the line of hair that led from his belly button down to the top edge of his belt. Lust flared in his eyes as they narrowed and took on a silvery gleam. He took a step back, out of reach.

“On your feet,” he growled.

Shaking with anticipation, she obeyed instantly.

He curved his palms over her shoulders and turned her so she faced the bed. Then he nudged her upper back. “Bend over.”

She bent at the waist, lowering her upper body on the bed. The blanket rasped against her sensitive nipples. Resting her weight on her forearms, she turned her head to look back at him.