Prisoner of Desire (6 page)

‘Really?’ she whispered in disbelief.

‘Really,’ Alasdair assured her with another kiss. ‘You are very precious to me, Isobel, and I will not risk your health, darling, with my selfish desire – after all, you will permit me to do all that I wish with you when you awaken, will you not?’

Isobel sighed, but she knew that she could no longer deny her desire for him, and she nodded tremulously.

Smiling broadly, Alasdair gently raised her up and stood up, setting Isobel on the floor next to him as she clutched nervously at the shirt, tugging it together over her full breasts, relieved that it was long enough to cover her buttocks. ‘What was your cousin’s name, darling – was it Catriona?’ Isobel nodded again, and Alasdair raised his voice. ‘Catriona?’ he called commandingly. ‘Come forward.’

With a pointed scowl, Catriona did as Alasdair had told her to. ‘Are you quite finished with Isobel now then?’ she demanded curtly, and Isobel’s flush deepened.

‘This strong spirit runs in your family then, my lovely?’ he asked Isobel in amusement, and she surprised herself by smiling up at him. The difference it made to her already beautiful face was astounding, and Alasdair felt his stomach clench as he entirely forgot what he had been saying.

‘Well?!’ Catriona asked again, and Alasdair quickly shook his head to clear it.

‘Aye, I have decided that my Isobel deserves a rest,’ he said irritably. ‘And Catriona? You are Isobel’s cousin, so I will consider extending some leniency towards you on her behalf, but remember that I am now laird of Glen Carrick and of your cousin. Beware of the manner in which you speak to me. Now,’ Alasdair continued, gesturing towards the solar, ‘Isobel needs a bath before she rests. Have one taken up to the solar and give her all the assistance she needs.’

With a sarcastic smile, Catriona curtseyed to him and darted away to fulfil his command. ‘Are you not coming to the solar, Alasdair?’ Isobel asked drowsily, disconcerted to find herself disappointed that he would not be at her side.

‘No, I think it best that I stay here and spend some time with the men – if I had to watch you bathe, my lovely, I would not be able to hold back from availing myself of you again despite all my best intentions,’ he confessed with a crooked smile, thrilling in the way that her blush deepened ever further with his words.

‘Very well, then. I will see you after I have slept, though?’ Isobel said, suddenly anxious.             

‘As if anything could keep me away from you for longer than necessary! Need I remind you again, Isobel, that you are mine now? I assure you, I am already counting down the minutes until I can come and awaken you from your slumber – and my Isobel, I promise that I will wake you just as pleasurably as you awoke me earlier.’

 With a shiver of desire inflaming her near bare body, Isobel could ignore her compulsion no longer. Stretching up onto the very tips of her toes, she shyly parted her lips invitingly, a soft moan escaping them that thrilled Alasdair anew. Needing no further encouragement, he claimed her lips for a bruising, passionate embrace, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his body until a loud cough startled them apart.

Glancing up, Alasdair saw Douglas staring directly at them, an odd, closed expression upon his face. He had no chance to dwell upon it, though, for Catriona had returned to lead Isobel back to the solar.  Reluctantly releasing her, he stared after her until she disappeared from sight, the growling of his stomach driving him back to the table to break his fast.

Picking at his food with a complete absence of attention, Alasdair tried to sort through his jumbled thoughts. He had never before felt any desire to take a wife, unwilling to submit to the constraint; but Isobel, he had decided even before meeting her, would do for him if only because marrying her would secure his claim on Glen Carrick.

Never had he imagined that he would take any more than the most fleeting of physical pleasures from a wife, intending that nothing would change and that he would still lie with any woman who caught his eye, but Isobel was consuming him entirely. Alasdair could not imagine ever taking such pleasure from another woman and had no wish to find out if he could, for Isobel was the only one he now desired. Equally, the thought of her giving herself to another man filled him with a fierce, terrible anger.

Paying no attention to anything but his thoughts of Isobel, Alasdair did not notice as Douglas silently slipped from the hall, his face dark with fury and lust.

Isobel sat awkwardly on the end of the bed, the deeply masculine scent of Alasdair that she could still smell upon the sheets filling her with desire for him again, despite her exhaustion. Catriona was directing the maids in filling the wooden bathtub, setting it in front of the empty fireplace as buckets of steaming water were being carried up the stairs.

Neither of them spoke until the bath was full and the last maid had silently left the room. ‘So, Isobel, what are we to do?’ Catriona asked quietly, moving to lean against the door and hold it closed.

‘Do? About what, cousin?’ Isobel asked with another yawn, briefly burying her face in Alasdair’s shirt and inhaling deeply as she pulled it away from her aching body.

‘About Alasdair Donachie!’ Catriona said incredulously. ‘Good Lord, Isobel, just twenty four hours ago you were having to be restrained from leaping off the battlements to thrust your dagger into his black heart! You cannot tell me that just one night in his bed was enough for you to swoon into his arms –’

‘It’s not like that!’ Isobel interrupted heatedly, slipping down the bed and removing Alasdair’s shirt as she hastened across the solar to climb into the tall tub.

Catriona’s eyes had widened, and there were sudden tears swimming in their depths. ‘Oh, Isobel!’ she whispered, her lower lip trembling. ‘What did that brute do to you? We heard your screams, of course, but I had no idea how badly he was abusing you!’

Isobel frowned, bemused by the sudden change in her cousin’s tone, but then she realised as she sunk down into the warm water with a grateful sigh how she must be appearing. Her hair was damp and tousled, the waves of fair hair standing out from her head, and her arms were covered in bruises. The insides of her thighs were streaked with both her maiden’s blood and Alasdair’s seed, and she knew from the persistent throbbing of her sore buttocks that they were still swollen and red, bearing the marks of the spankings she had received. ‘Don’t worry, Catriona,’ she began, her voice low, but Catriona shook her head insistently.

‘Don’t worry, Isobel? Don’t worry?! Look at you, lass – that spanking you took in the hall, it was not the first one he had given you, was it?’

‘No, it was not, but Alasdair...he will not do anything that I cannot cope with or do not find pleasurable, Catriona, and he will keep me protected from the rest of the men,’ Isobel said softly, unsettled to find herself convinced of the truth of the words, for despite all that had happened, she was growing to believe that Alasdair would keep her safe and in only his bed – something that Isobel was also coming to realise was a prospect that thrilled her. She desired him deeply, and strangely, his declaration that she would be his wife was a future that she sensed she could accept.

‘Isobel, allow me to ask you frankly,’ Catriona said slowly, coming to kneel next to the tub and staring intently into Isobel’s eyes. ‘Alasdair – does he please you? Are you actually now willing to take him as your husband?’

‘Catriona, it was only a matter of time after my father’s death before someone would come to Glen Carrick and either take it by force or take me by force. And I find...well, I think I am glad that it is Alasdair rather than another man who perhaps would not...who I did not...’ she trailed off awkwardly, ashamed to confess to her cousin that she desired the man who had done such things to her, but Catriona seemed to understand.

‘If you desire him as much as he so clearly lusts for you, Isobel, then maybe he will be able to make you happy – and that is all that I want, lass, to see you happy. The rest of the women, though...’

‘The men are obedient to Alasdair, Catriona – I think, perhaps, that if I beg him, he would command them to be respectful,’ Isobel suggested, a sharp twist of desire coursing through her as she imagined how exactly she could beg him for such a boon.

‘For you, Isobel, I think maybe he would – after all, it is far easier to catch flies with honey, and I saw how thrilled he was when you obeyed him, and then when you kissed him afterwards...’ Catriona sighed heavily as she handed Isobel the soap. ‘Perhaps you are right, cousin – we fought, and valiantly so, but they still overcame us. Undoubtedly they are here to stay, but if Alasdair pleases you and you are happy to submit to him, then it will be a better life for all of us, I suspect.’

Exhaling with giddy relief, Isobel nodded earnestly. ‘What choice do we have, Catriona? I never, ever imagined that I would accept a new lord and a husband that was forced upon me, but then I never expected that anyone like Alasdair would come and affect me the way he does. He is not a gentle man by nature, cousin, and I do not expect that will ever change, but I have never felt pleasure like that which he showed me! If I must have a husband, then I think I would far rather it be Alasdair than anyone else.’

‘Then in that case, I will inform the women of your decision,’ Catriona murmured, smiling sadly as she helped Isobel wash out her hair. ‘He is a handsome man, Isobel, even if he is a cruel one, and you seem to have entranced him. I only hope that he will make you happy and keep you safe.’

‘Aye,’ Isobel replied quietly, stretching out her slender legs and allowing her eyes to close as her cousin tenderly washed away all the dirt from her body and hair. She was barely awake by the time that Catriona helped her out of the tub and towelled all the moisture away.

‘Shall I go and see if I can find you a shift to wear?’ Catriona asked, glancing with a grimace to where the ruins of the clothing Isobel had worn yesterday still laid discarded and torn next to the bed.

‘No, don’t worry,’ Isobel assured her with a blush, for she felt sure that Alasdair would much prefer her to be bare and ready for him when he came to awaken her as he had promised. ‘Thank you for understanding, cousin.’

‘Understanding?’ Catriona echoed. ‘I am not sure that I do, entirely, but I can see how much you desire our new laird, Isobel, so there is nothing I can do but accept your decision. Do you need anything else, or shall I leave you to sleep now?’

‘All I need is to sleep now.’ Isobel leaned forwards and kissed her cousin’s cheek before slipping gratefully in between the rumpled sheets and breathing in deeply, the scent of Alasdair assaulting her senses and seeming to envelop her just as completely as the sheets that Catriona tucked around her. Her eyes closed tightly, and she was asleep before her cousin had even left the room.

It seemed, to Isobel, that barely any time had passed before she felt the sheets being drawn back from her body again. Shaking her head drowsily without opening her eyes, she buried her face into the pillows and moaned softly, but the hands that were now groping painfully at her breasts and twisting her nipples were insistent, and would not allow her to drift back to sleep.

Her body tensing up, Isobel slowly realised that something was wrong. It was not Alasdair’s scent that she could smell, and the low, cruel burst of laughter that she heard did not come from his lips. With a gasp of horror, her eyes flew open as she felt the man climb onto the bed to see Douglas next to her, his eyes burning with lust as he straddled her bare body and covered her mouth with his large hand.

‘Awake now then, pet?’ he drawled, licking his lips lewdly as he shifted his hips so that his swollen cock was pushing against her. ‘You will see, Lady Isobel, that we are alone – there is no-one here to stop me doing as I wish with you; and oh, how much pleasure you are going to give to me, against your will or not!’

Twisting her head desperately to the side, Isobel managed to free her mouth from his hand as she kicked out at him. ‘Get off me!’ she hissed furiously, trying to conceal the terrible fear she felt. ‘Where is Alasdair?’

‘Where is Alasdair?’ he repeated in a mocking, sing-song voice. ‘Your precious laird is downstairs, little Isobel, and I have his full permission to be here with you.’

Isobel froze, his words sending a fresh shock of horror through her body. Her lower lip trembling, she stared up at him, not wanting to believe that Alasdair would go against what he had earlier promised and allow any of the other men to use her in such a way. Douglas lowered his head to bite her breasts with a lascivious grin, and the jolt of pain brought her back to her senses. Trying to forget the irrational tormented emotions that had filled her mind, she tried futilely to roll out from underneath him.

‘Stop it, pet!’ he snarled, slowly grinding his hips against hers so that she could feel his cock as it twitched impatiently at her opening. ‘I have been craving your lovely body ever since I first saw you, Isobel. Now, I am going to tear my pleasure from you if I have to – and I am not like Alasdair, I won’t waste time on giving you any pleasure in return!’

Shuddering in growing horror, Isobel swallowed hard. ‘B-but Alasdair said –’

‘Alasdair’s orders for me were to ensure that any child you conceive could only be his,’ Douglas interrupted with a lop-sided sneer, pushing the tip of his cock into her with a low groan and slapping her face when she tried to desperately scramble backwards, seizing a handful of her hair to pull her back towards him. ‘And that’s fine; I won’t spill my seed inside you, lass, as delightful as I am sure that would be. But Isobel, there are plenty more ways in which I can force you to pleasure me.’