Released (5 page)

A familiar pang of guilt stabbed him low in the belly.  He kept looking at her perfect, lovely face and thinking that he still liked stormy green eyes over her gentle blue.  He’d been making comparisons like that all day.  While Kathryn’s body and features pleased him greatly, she didn’t stir him.  Not like—

“My laird is kind to me.”  She curtsied, her soft hand still encased in his.  “I find this match very agreeable.”

Albert stood and moved to her side, drawing Rory’s attention.  “I’ll see ye safely to yer chambers,” he bowed.  Though his name was French, his brogue was Scots.  And his eyes glowed at Rory with an intense dislike in his impassive Gallic face.

Kathryn’s face remained placid, seemingly oblivious to any masculine tension.

“Aye.”  Fraser stood and clapped him on the shoulder.  “We’ll talk about signing a contract in the morning, and after the wedding, I’ll be off to collect my thousand men.”

Single-minded, Fraser was. 

“Very well.”  Rory bowed and brushed his lips over Kathryn’s soft knuckles.  “Sweet dreams, lady.” 

A complicated slew of emotion tightened in his chest.  A bud of affection, perhaps, for his intended.  A turbulent mixture of excitement and dread for what, or who, the night may bring.  If Katriona appeared to him, he’d have to question her regarding the sheep.  Despite the legitimacy of her fury, he couldn’t have her threaten the livelihood of his clan.  

Something would have to be done.

“
When
did you die?”  Katriona demanded, pitching herself out of the grey nether and into Rory’s bedchamber at the precise stroke of midnight. 

Water sloshed above the rim of the bath and onto the stone floor as Rory flailed into a seated position in the tub without a modicum of grace.  He stared at her for a full minute, his mouth agape, swiping water out of his eyes as though to rid them of her.  “Wh—What?”

In spite of herself, Katriona felt the corners of her mouth twitch with mirth and she hastily flattened her lips into a thin line.  Since the tub was placed next to the glowing fire in the hearth and Katriona hovered in the farthest, coldest corner of the chamber, she couldn’t see into the water’s obscure depths. 

What she could see, though, rendered her as momentarily speechless as Rory.  Backlit by flames, his eyes seemed to glow just as she knew hers did.  Shadows darkened the valleys cut into his large, war-honed body by cords of muscle encased in bronzed flesh.  Rivulets of water caught the light as they sluiced in distracting pathways over his chest and torso. 

When he raised two thick arms to brush his wet, shoulder-length hair back, his body flexed and morphed in ways that boggled the mind. 

Something warm and slick clenched deep within her, contrasting with her constant chill.  “You… died.”  Katriona blinked.  Once.  Twice.  Trying to regain her purpose.

“Woman, as you can see,
I
am not the one who is dead.”  He raised his brows at her.

She threw up her hands.  “I didn’t say you
were
dead, I said you
have
died
.
  It’s why I can’t kill you.”  She dared a pace closer, reminding herself that fire could no longer hurt her.  “Yet,” she added for measure.  “You’re one of the
An
Dìoladh.
”

“I am?”  His baffled expression was infuriatingly endearing. 

“How can you not remember
dying
?” she exploded.  “It’s generally a marked occasion!”

Rory shrugged, the water rippling with the movement of his heavy shoulders, a sly sort of smile lifting the corners of his sensual mouth.  “I doona know if you ken much about a man, but it’s difficult to produce a memory whilst naked in front of a beautiful woman.”

“You can tell me now, or I’ll start keening and not stop until dawn,” she threatened.  Had he just called her beautiful?  She was still trying her best to ignore the fact that he was naked. 

He smirked.  “Ye mean, ye’ll stay with me all night?  I’ve often thought about ye here, in my chamber.” 

“Trust me,” she hissed.  “I will
not
be pleasant company.”

To her utter shock, something dark and dangerous flared in his eyes.  An excitement borne of wicked deviance.  “Ye’ll be punishing, then?”  His voice had changed, hailing from somewhere lower, controlled by something still hidden in the steaming water.  “Maybe, try to kill me again with yer touch?”

Katriona stared at him in astonished disbelief.  He sounded—eager.  Had he lost his bloody mind?  Curious wonderment drew her slowly closer to the bath.  Her glow intensified, but she didn’t feel the rush of anger that usually preceded such an event.  A rush of something else perhaps, but she couldn’t afford to examine what it was.  For some reason, she had a sudden and intense fear that Laird Rory MacKay wasn’t the one in danger.

“You do not realize what you’re saying.”  Had her voice been altered as well?  “I will not be kind.”

His tongue wet his lower lip as though preparing for a much longed for confection.  “Ye may be as cruel as ye wish.”  

“If I touch you, it’ll be painful,” she warned. 

“Aye.”  The word sounded like an entreaty.  “I remember the pain to be exquisite.”  One large, rough hand disappeared below the water.  His recently moistened lower lip caught his teeth after a loud exhale.

Katriona became transfixed by the ripples in the spot where his hand had vanished. 

“What if I really kill you this time?”  Why on earth would that be a problem?  Wasn’t that the entire meaning of her current existence?  Why was her heart hammering and her breath sawing in an out of her lungs as though she still depended upon it for survival?

“Ye won’t.”  He motioned for her to come closer and she complied, stopping at the edge of the tub, hovering near his shoulders

“How do you know?”  Her voice lowered to a whisper.

“Because last night, when ye put yer hands on my flesh, I’d never felt so alive.”  He surged forward, his strong arms closing around her, and pulled her down into the water.

Chapter Five

Katriona jolted him right away, more out of alarm than menace, her hands against his chest releasing currents of her deadly Banshee magic.  His body bowed beneath her, every sinewy muscle going taut, his arms clenching her so tight that they would have crushed her had she still been alive. 

His animalistic cry echoed off the stone walls in ragged, masculine tones, vibrating through her as powerfully as she knew the pain poured through him.  One part, in particular, ground against her as he arced.  She could feel the thick throbbing heat of it against her belly, even through her thin robes. 

Her clothing and hair remained dry, nor was she bound by the solid barrier of the tub.  But she did feel the sensation of the water’s warmth enveloping her.  The only tangible, corporeal matter in her entire world thus far remained the heated flesh of Rory MacKay.

She reigned in her magic and Rory folded back down to settle at the bottom of the tub.  He didn’t release her though, but held her firmly against him, his eyes burning down into hers. 

Katriona gasped.  This was as close to a fire as she’d allowed herself to come in almost a year.  But at the moment, she couldn’t decide which threw off more heat, the flames in the hearth or the man beneath her.  Her body molded against his, fitting into the hollows and crevices created by his sleek muscle.  Her thighs tucked against his, her breasts crushed to his chest.  He was so solid.  So hard and smooth.

So… alive.

“Release me,” she commanded, though her voice didn’t carry the authority it should have.

“Nay,” he rasped through labored breaths.

“Release me
now
or I’ll—”

“Yer threats do nothing but tempt me, Katriona.”  His gaze roved her face, her hair that swayed in an invisible, ethereal breeze, as though he could devour her with his eyes.

“Tempt you, to what?” she breathed. 

“To do this.”  He opened his mouth over hers in a bruising kiss, his arms tightening around her once more. 

Katriona froze against him, more a prisoner of sensation than of his arms. 

Fierce.  The only word that truly described his lips.  Fiercely passionate.  Fiercely possessive.  His growl vibrated against her stunned mouth as it built from deep inside of him.  Clawing its way out from an abyss long forgotten.

For what seemed like an eternity, but may have been a blink, Katriona didn’t dare move.  Urges long ignored and pleasure long denied thrummed through her, eclipsing the pain and rage that had been her driving force the past year.    

For the first time since she could remember, she felt warm, wanted—vital.  

Her thighs split over his hips and he surged between them.  Her hands moved from his chest, up his neck and plunged into his sleek hair.  When his rough, wet tongue sought entrance, she granted it without hesitation, meeting it with her own, returning stroke for stroke.

His hands, however, angled down, relaxing their hold on her ribs and following the curve of her back in a sensual, insistent caress before gripping the flesh of her bottom and pressing her harder against his length. 

She gasped into his mouth at the unexpected pleasure of their contact.   Though he was not inside her, his body found the sensitive place that ached for him.  Sang for him.  And he ground himself against it with a slow, demanding rhythm. 

Pressure built.  Her loins clenched and Katriona caught herself wondering if the thick length of his manhood would feel just as searing inside of her.

Rory’s lips strayed from hers, exploring the curve of her chin, the column of her neck. 

Her hands gripped the hard, straining muscles of his shoulders as though preparing for that searing pleasure that could only be seen on the far horizon, but barreled toward her with all the awesome power and inevitability of stampeding wild horses. 

“Christ.” Rory’s moaned expletive ended with a nip on the sensitive skin at the hollow of her throat.  “I canna believe ye’re here with me.” 

Katriona couldn’t believe it herself.  Grinding beneath her, feasting on her skin was Rory MacKay.  The man she’d sworn to kill.  The twin of the brute who murdered her sisters.  The same blood as the monster who’d violated Kylah…

Reality permeated the haze of warm passion.

The Laird who would be married in a few days’ time.

Nay.  This was
wrong
.  Even now, her sisters lurked among ruins with her mother in the perpetual cold.  Trusting her to find a way to carry out her duty.

“Wait.”  Her command came out as a groan.  “I shouldn’t.”

“You will.”  He thrust against her, harder this time, the echoes of pleasure growing stronger.

“
No.
”  She forced a surge of magic into his shoulders and he instantly bowed beneath her. 

“Katriona,” he panted.  “Stop…  Not yet…  Ye haven’t…” 

She was relentless.  If she stopped now, she’d give into the violent instincts of her traitorous body to follow every moist thrum of thrilling sensation he elicited in her.  She just couldn’t allow it.

“Kat…” his plea gasped from between clenched teeth, his amber eyes glowing with desperation.  “I can’t…”

Waves of water sloshed over the rim of the tub as his powerful body heaved and bucked.  Raw, torturous sounds ripped from deep in his throat and his eyes clenched shut as every muscle bulged and strained. 

Between her legs, he pulsed hotter, larger, in the exact same rhythm his entire body did.  This was different than the other times she’d jolted him.  Perhaps this time, she’d succeeded in truly hurting him.

He was beautiful like this, Katriona noted almost dispassionately.  He was like an animal.  Stripped away of all artifice.  No code of honor.  No past or future.  Just pure, desperate sensation coursing through a large, potent mass of sinew and flesh.

In this moment he belonged to her. 

Katriona closed her eyes, a wave of pain and loss suddenly squelching her other senses. All moments were fleeting, and disappeared before their time.

With a final jerk, Rory collapsed as though released from a bond, though her power still flowed into him.  Spontaneous twitches of muscle belied that he still felt pain, but his face relaxed and his head lolled against the rim of the tub.

Katriona realized she’d been jolting him long enough to kill a hundred men, at least.  Releasing him, she drew back, looking down into his achingly handsome, strong features.