Teresa Medeiros (26 page)

Sabrina thought that surely he would lose control now, mating her with the stark animalistic greed she had expected from him. But his hands softly stroked her breasts, then her inner thighs, coaxing them apart. She felt the heavy press of his flesh against hers. When she would have turned her face into her hair to hide her sudden panic, Morgan cupped her cheeks in his hands, his smoky gaze no less piercing than the blunt weight of his manhood.

The harsh tenor of his voice betrayed the cost of his restraint. “I want to see your eyes when I take you, Sabrina Cameron. I want to know you’re mine.”

Sabrina had been his for as long as she could remember. He was her first and only love. Her eyes glazed with both pain and pleasure as he filled her, inch by maddening inch, breaching the barrier of her innocence with relentless patience. She writhed beneath him, wanting to pull away, wanting to draw him deeper. Her fingernails scored his back, but he never flinched, never wavered in his determination to make her his woman. His wife.

His teeth clenched. “Take me. All of me. That’s it, angel. More. Ah …” His guttural groan was both prayer and demand. “Just a wee … bit … more.”

Sabrina moaned, believing the more of him would never end. But finally she lay fully impaled beneath him. She had witnessed examples of Morgan’s iron control before, but never had she imagined a restraint so exquisite, a patience so consuming.

His jaw was locked, his eyes hazed with raw hunger. His muscles strained toward every primitive instinct, yet he remained utterly still, waiting until the wild nether pulses of their bodies began to beat in one accord. Each mad beat shuddered Sabrina, leapt in her throat, her heart, and between her legs, where the blunt weight of his flesh throbbed.

Only when Morgan felt Sabrina’s taut sheath adjust to accommodate the full measure of him, only
when he saw her eyes roll back in a half-swoon of naked delight did Morgan close his eyes and began to move.

He had never felt more like a man. He’d lost his innocence at the age of fourteen to an eager young Cameron maid, but all his previous dalliances now seemed nothing more than the clumsy fumblings of a rutting beast. His father had entreated him to “Be a man!” before he even knew what the word meant, but it had taken this beautiful, innocent woman to make him one.

Bracing his weight on his palms, he angled his hips, deepening his thrusts to let his ravenous body taste every delectable inch of her. It was becoming more difficult to temper his ferocious need with restraint, but still he hung back, knowing how easily he could bruise her with his size, his brute strength.

Sabrina’s slight body absorbed each of Morgan’s slow, heated thrusts like blows to her heart. They shattered the shell she had erected around it, leaving her totally vulnerable to this man whose magnificent body held her in thrall. His name spilled from her lips in a broken litany, only to be caught by the passion-roughened heat of his own mouth descending on hers. The pleasure was devastating. The wild, pounding tempo of his possession increased, driving her back until she reached behind her and braced her palms against the stones of the hearth, arching to take him deep into the very core of her.

A Gaelic oath escaped Morgan’s lips, its reverent violence belied by the roar of pure masculine ecstasy that rumbled from his throat in the next breath as he suffered the sweetest death a MacDonnell had ever known at the hands of a Cameron.

Sabrina awoke to the provocative sensation of being tenderly bathed between her legs. Her eyes fluttered open to find Morgan silhouetted against the dwindling firelight. Unaware that she was watching him, he dipped a rag into a basin of water, then dabbed inward
from her thighs, his hands unspeakably gentle as they soothed her fragile, swollen tissues.

Sabrina had witnessed more than once the tenderness his hands were capable of while he had nursed some small, wounded creature back to health. But she had never dreamed to experience it herself. The jarring intimacy of the act laid her heart bare. A haze of pleasure spread from his touch. A soft, helpless sound escaped her lips.

Morgan lifted his head. Their eyes met across her naked length. Her breasts swelled and tingled beneath his perusal. Heat crept up her body, half shyness, half arousal.

The tapers had melted to fragrant pools of wax, but Sabrina didn’t need much light to see the unguarded vulnerability in Morgan’s eyes. He lowered them quickly, staring at the rag in his hand. She realized it was a scrap of wool cut from his plaid, stained now with her blood.

He dipped the cloth into the water, water he’d warmed for her comfort. “I never meant to hurt you, lass. You’re so damned delicate. I was half afraid I’d gone and killed you.”

Morgan stroked the wool across her, but the innocent benevolence of the gesture was lost as their gazes met again. Sabrina’s lips were parted, her cheeks flushed. Morgan felt his traitorous body responding against his will. Raw hunger flooded him. He knew it was too soon for her; her battered body couldn’t possibly be ready to accept him again. He could only hurt her more.

“You should sleep, lass,” he said gruffly, rinsing out the rag. “ ’Twill be dawn soon enough.”

Dawn, Sabrina thought, with its harsh winter light cast across their doubts and differences. She didn’t care if dawn never came. She wanted to remain there forever, cloaked in nothing but the waning firelight and the heated regard of her husband’s eyes. She wanted to stir the banked embers she saw in their depths to roaring flame. To break his rigid control and prove to him
that she wasn’t some fragile figurine that could be shattered by his touch.

When Morgan reached to draw the plaid over her, she sat up on her knees, caught his fist, and brought it to her lips. Her tongue played lightly over his knuckles.

She mocked his burr deliberately. “So ye think a puir wee Cameron lass too puny for a MacDonnell’s legendary stamina? Perhaps ye’ve been takin’ those songs about yer clan a mite too seriously, sir.”

Morgan was stunned by the mischievous sparkle of Sabrina’s eyes. He had expected more tears, perhaps bitter accusations. His gaze dropped to the pert tips of her breasts. They tightened to rosy nubs beneath his perusal. His breath caught in a near groan.

He jerked his gaze back to her face and cleared his throat. “Now, lass, I cannot blame you for bein’ wary of me. ’Tis only natural. I was a wee bit rough on you.”

“Och, is the big, bad MacDonnell worried about scarin’ the Cameron lass?” She nipped his knuckles. “If you must know, I found you rather … civilized for my tastes.”

“Civilized?” The word fell from his lips like the vilest of curses. She might as well have called him a eunuch.

She gave him a provocative glance from beneath her lashes. Morgan didn’t know why she was playing such a dangerous game. But he could no more resist her teasing challenge than he could resist a generosity brave enough to unleash his most selfish lusts on her tender body.

He hid his grin behind a leer. “So you’d like a taste of what all the songs and legends are about, eh, lass?”

Sabrina braced her palms against Morgan’s chest, her courage nearly deserting her at the open voraciousness of his gaze. “Only if it pleases you,” she whispered timidly.

The devilish sparkle in his eyes deepened. “Nothin’ would please me more.”

Morgan pounced on her like a tawny beast. With
deft hands he turned her away from him and bent her over the tick in a position that gave her no choice but to obey every dark command of his majestic body. As he filled her, she arched against him by primitive female instinct, determined to prove she could take whatever he could give her. Her fingernails dug into the tick, freeing the heady scent of the heather. He wrapped his powerful fists in her hair, murmuring sweet, rough words against her ear.

Just when Sabrina believed the pleasure could grow no more intolerable, Morgan decided he could not bear to go to that place of wild release alone. So he reached around and stroked her, his artful fingertips an exquisite contrast to his crude ravishing of her body.

Spasms of ecstasy racked them both until they could do nothing but collapse as one into the welcoming folds of Morgan’s plaid.

The cheery crackling of a freshly stoked fire lured Sabrina from sleep. A woolen fuzz tickled her cheek. She pried open her eyes to find Morgan straddling a chair backward and watching her sleep, his green eyes bright with an intensity that jarred her to total wakefulness. He was still naked. She didn’t know if she would ever grow accustomed to his absence of shame regarding his body. But as he’d taught her twice in the night and again by the misty light of dawn, there was nothing about his body of which to be ashamed.

A cascade of erotic memories came flooding back. She averted her face shyly, hardly daring to believe he had tapped such a wild vein of passion in her civilized heart.

“I’m out of firewood, Sabrina, and it’s gettin’ a wee bit chilly in here.”

She toyed with the soft folds of wool beneath her hands. “Then why don’t you get dressed?”

He dragged a hand through his hair, his sigh fraught with patience. It was then she realized he was naked because his plaid had been lovingly tucked around her, enveloping her in a warm cocoon. Still
painfully aware of his scrutiny, she unrolled herself and handed him the plaid, jerking her damp pelisse up to cover her.

Morgan arranged and belted the plaid with casual grace, then sank back down in the chair, crossing his arms on its ladder back.

Sabrina could bear it no more. “Why are you staring at me?”

His avid gaze dropped from her face to her belly. “I was wonderin’ if you might be carryin’ my child.”

Tendrils of heat crept up her throat and Sabrina resisted the urge to pull the pelisse over her head. But the calculating light in Morgan’s eyes froze her embarrassment to hurt and then to anger.

She snatched up her gown, only to discover it was beyond repair. “I certainly hope your efforts were successful.” Holding the pelisse closed in the back, she crawled to retrieve her slippers. “I’d hate to think you made that terrible sacrifice for nothing.” She shivered beneath the brief, cool caress of the air as she dared to drop the pelisse over her head. The hood covered her face and she realized it was on backward. She punched at the thin velvet, trying to right it, her words muffled. “We should know quite soon if you’ll have to suffer through it again.”

Strong, warm arms encircled her from behind. Morgan’s husky lilt stilled her struggles. “A MacDonnell never quits workin’ until he knows his task is done.”

Her head emerged. She furiously raked her hair out of her eyes. “Forgive me. I’ve never known a MacDonnell who worked.”

“You do now, lass.” His lips grazed her throat.

Sabrina felt herself melting against him along with her anger. She closed her eyes, fearful of the power he wielded. If she had thought the night might weaken it or temper it with power of her own, she was wrong. It had only made it more potent.

“I intend to devote myself with great enthusiasm to the task of gettin’ my brat on you.”

“Your devotion to duty is inspiring.” And irresistible,
Sabrina thought, moaning as his hands glided up her sides, easing the damp velvet up with them. “You can’t mean …?” Her voice cracked. “Again?”

Each of his words was punctuated with a gentle kiss along her hairline. “And again. I wouldn’t be much of a man if I gave up tryin’ now, would I?”

Without bothering to remove either pelisse or plaid, her husband eased her to the tick and proceeded to show her just how much of a man he was.

Sabrina was the first Cameron to conquer Castle MacDonnell without firing a single cannon.

Embued with the confidence inspired by her husband’s touching devotion to duty, and championed by the fierce Fergus, she watched with secret delight as Morgan’s clansmen fairly flung themselves at her slippered feet in surrender. Those who still dared to mock or insult her were more like than not to find themselves scrambling across the hall in a vain search for their scattered teeth.

Only Eve remained immune to Sabrina’s charms, but her mood was so despondent that neither Fergus nor Morgan had the heart to correct her.

Even Fergus required an occasional reminder that civilization had come to MacDonnell. Sabrina entered the hall one morning to discover his beefy fist raised to backhand a cowering boy who had spilled goat milk on Fergus’s tartan. Morgan was reaching to box both their
ears, but the wry arch of Sabrina’s eyebrow was all it took to correct Fergus’s lapse of manners.

“Aye, there’s a bonny lad!” Fergus roared, fondly ruffling the boy’s hair as if it had been his intention to do so all along. “Hell, he might even be me own son. He’s got me bonny fair hair, don’t ye think?”

“A touch of your dimples too,” Sabrina agreed, pinching Fergus’s grizzled cheek and making him beam.

Morgan hid his own smile behind a hunk of the steaming gingerbread Sabrina had baked for him, declining to point out that half the children in the clan had hair of that same sunny sheen. And half of them were probably Fergus’s.

Morgan approached Sabrina’s chamber one chill evening, anticipating a rousing game of chess and an even more rousing tumble with his wife. Girlish giggles drifted into the corridor.

He eased open the door, expecting to find Enid and Sabrina engaged in one of the charming female rituals he could never hope to understand. Instead, he found Sabrina holding up a hand mirror so Alwyn could admire her reflection. Alwyn caught his flabbergasted expression in the mirror and spun around, her eyes wide with guilt.

Although Alwyn’s leggy, big-bosomed fairness no longer appealed to him, Morgan had to admit there was much to admire. She wore a clean gown of cool blue satin, marked as a castoff of Sabrina’s by its brimming bodice and ankle-length hem. Her face was fresh scrubbed and a tidy braid hung over one shoulder.

Sabrina linked an arm in Alwyn’s. Morgan felt his stomach sink as would any man faced with two women whose favors he had only too recently shared. Especially when one of them was his wife.

“Good evening, dear. I was just helping Alwyn with her hair. Doesn’t she look lovely?”