The Firebrand (30 page)

Wyntoun continued to watch her careful and practiced approach. The angle at which Adrianne held the weapon would easily thwart any attack.

He would
not
have allowed Canny get any further in her attempt at seduction. But he could understand Adrianne’s anger—she had to be respected while she was still seen as his wife. Still though, she was the only person who had ever raised a weapon to him twice without fear of the consequences, and this irked him to no end.

“I see you have already forgotten our arrangement regarding this marriage.”

His tone was as cold as Wyntoun could make it, and he saw the immediate effect his words had on her. A shadow of disappointment flickered across her fair features. She didn’t lower the weapon, though. Not a whit.

Her eyes narrowed. “Very well. Then you are free to do as you wish…and if I am free, as well.”

“As you wish, wife.”

She nodded. “So, for every wench you bed…including this sorry creature…I am free to
summon
any man of my choosing.”

Wyntoun’s back stiffened, a cold feeling washing through him. And
that
man, he found himself vowing inwardly, would be searching till the Judgment Day to find all of his body parts.

“You didn’t answer me, husband.” The weapon cut through the air again.

“Of course. But I tell you now, the Blade of Barra’s men value their lives much more dearly than to answer a summons from his wife.”

Her eyes flashed with temper. “You don’t believe I am a worthy enough prize. You don’t truly think any of them would even be tempted.”

Despite the raised weapon, Wyntoun took a threatening step toward her. His voice was low and menacing. “Adrianne, I am not issuing a challenge.”

“I believe you are. And I will prove you wrong.”

She threw the weapon aside and turned abruptly toward the stable doors, but he was beside her in an instant, her arm in a death grip.

“Let me go, Wyntoun!” She tossed her head. “Don’t you see? I have places to go. Lovers to woo.”

“Adrianne!” he growled, turning her in his arms until she faced him.

By the saints, she was a walking firebrand. Wyntoun stared at her a long moment, forcing himself to keep his wits about him. It was so tempting just to smother her in his arms and devour her frowning lips.

“By God, you are the most stubborn woman—the most infuriating creature—I have ever met.”

“Don’t start lecturing again. I am hardly the one who deserves a setting down, this time.”

“Adrianne, if you would listen a moment and…”

“Don’t start on me, Wyntoun MacLean.” She pushed his hands away but held her ground, a finger pointed at his bare chest. “I don’t care what agreement we made before we took our vows. I don’t give a tinker’s damn what your needs might be as a man. So long as you are my husband, you will remain virtuous, courteous, agreeable, and attentive. You will behave as is befitting a Percy husband.”

“Is that so? Well I will, Adrianne Percy, only if you start behaving as is befitting a MacLean wife.”

She raised herself on her tiptoes and yelled in his face. “I
have
been behaving as such, you lecherous clackdish.”

“Only in your dreams, you ill-tempered banshee.” He pushed her hand away and glowered down at her. “Locked away as you’ve kept yourself, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing, but your failures as a wife are a favorite topic of gossip in this keep.”

A deep blush crept up on her flawless face and she stood in silence for a very long moment, gnawing at her bonny red lip.

“This is all about the marriage bed, is it not?” she asked finally, breaking the silence.

His mistake was allowing himself to be distracted by her beauty. The spark of light in those magical blue eyes seemed to throw him off every time.

“Is that it?” she repeated more sharply.

“Not completely,” he said halfheartedly, realizing that he should not have let their argument reach this point. After all, he was the one who had tried to keep his distance, and here he was blaming her because he himself had been struggling to avoid spending any time alone with her.

And ‘struggling’ was the correct word, he thought. Two nights ago had been pure hell. Holding her in his arms, watching her sleep so trustingly, while his mind had conjured so many images of how he wanted to have her. Hour after hour, his brain had fought a losing battle with his desire. He
needed
to take her, to make her his own.

He’d felt like a man possessed, and yet he’d forced himself to walk away from her and seek a safe distance once again.

“You hesitate to answer, so it must be true.” Adrianne appeared calmer in temper, but her face showed flashes of emotions that he could not name. She took a step back. “I am tired of worrying about how many women are planning to lure you to their beds. I am ill from all the gossip. Married to an ice-maiden…I can almost hear them say it. The poor Blade, deprived of marriage bed, rejected by his own foolish bride.”

Her face was now an open window to her suffering, and Wyntoun could not abandon her in such obvious distress.

“Adrianne, what you saw here was not what you…”

“Very well. Enough,” she said flatly, ignoring his words. “A married woman must give up her maidenhead sooner or later. And as for me, I shall simply have to live without it when this entire ordeal is over. I’m certain I won’t miss it.” Without meeting his gaze, she turned down the row of stalls. “Come on, Wyn! With any luck, the last stall on the left might be empty.”

A good long moment passed as Wyntoun stared after her, gathering his wits about him.

“Adrianne!” he called, striding after her. He was unsure if he understood what she had set her mind to do. And yet, the prospect of having her now aroused him greatly. “Adrianne, I swear, you will be the death of me.”

By the time he caught up to her, she was already inside the empty stall at the end. Facing him, she was reaching back to loosen the laces of her dress.

Standing in the stall door, he stared, tongue-tied and fighting to control the tightening in his loins. It was no use—he could feel himself hardening beneath his kilt.

“As you already know, I have never done this,” she said falteringly, avoiding his gaze. “But seeing that you already are half-naked, I suppose that is expected of me, as well. Though I don’t recall them ever shedding their clothes when I was young and watched those scullery maids summoning the men.”

He watched as the dress loosened, the top of the white undershift peeking through. He forced himself to swallow.

“I simply need to remind myself that this is only a body. You expose yours to me without shame, so it must be acceptable for you to see mine.” She pushed the dress off her shoulders and worked it past her hips, letting it pool at her feet. As she straightened, Wyntoun couldn’t tear his eyes away from the dark tips of her full breasts budding under the thin fabric of the shift in response to the cold.

Her arms were long and smooth and strong, her legs like carved ivory below the thin stretch of linen. His gaze lingered on the play of the fabric across her breasts and stomach and the juncture of her legs as she raised her arms to shake loose the coil of dark hair on top of her head.

“When we leave these stables, we will hear no more complaints about my reluctance in giving my body to my husband. Just tell me when I should cry out...I should cry out, should I not?” Her ebony hair cascaded downward like a blanket of silk around her shoulders. “And after today, I shall continue to play the part of the seductress in the presence of all of your people, so there shall be no question about whose bed you crawl into every night.”

He was aroused and beyond hope of any return to sanity. Still though, the truth of their future tugged at his conscience. A single tie held the garment together just above her breasts and she quickly pulled the knot loose. Crossing her arms, she grasped the garment at the shoulders and started to push it down her arms.

“Stop, Adrianne!” Wyntoun rasped out, his voice graveled and low. “Think for a moment, woman. We cannot go through with this and then simply walk away.”

“Don’t you want me?”

“Aye, but that is not the point. Any man would.”

“Then you do want me.”

“Of course! But my pleasure would mean your ruin. I cannot do this to you, Adrianne.”

She was trying to hide it, but he saw the tears that immediately pooled in her blue eyes. “I don’t believe you. You hate me so much that you cannot even bear a moment of intimacy. Am I so undesirable? So less worthy than all the legions of women that you have bedded in your life?”

A part of him wanted to laugh, but another part of him had the stronger hold. Wyntoun could control his actions no better than he could control the aching warmth in his chest. How did it happen that he could come to care for this woman so much?

Wyntoun closed the distance between them and in the next instant had her wrapped tightly in his arms. His lips were ravenous as they tasted her tears, caressed her face, and settled on her lips. This was just a sample of the flaming passion that burned inside of him.

“Tell me again that you want me.” She tore her mouth away for a moment as her hand caressed the crisp curls of hair on his chest. “Tell me that you find me desirable.”

“This should expel all of your doubts.” He took her hand from his chest and guided it to his kilt, where their bodies cried so achingly to be connected. She hesitated for an instant before finding her courage and reaching beneath the wool. A low groan sounded deep in his throat as the Highlander drew her mouth to his own.

“Tell me again, Wyntoun,” she said shyly, her hand gliding along his manhood in a journey of discovery for her and torment for him.

“I want to bury myself inside of you, Adrianne. I want you more than any woman I have ever known in my life.”

“That sounds very promising,” she whispered against his chest. “Well, I am yours to take. I am your wife.”

This was a mistake, Wyntoun silently reminded himself. A mistake. A grave mistake. But it mattered naught what he told himself. He lifted her in his arms and closed the distance to the closest wall of the stable.

“Is standing against a wall the position that one uses in Scotland to begin such things?”

“One of many,” he said hoarsely, taking hold of the front of her shift. The fabric tore easily, dangling at her waist. His eyes feasted for a moment on the fullness of her breasts, raising and falling with the uneven pace of her breathing. She was truly the most breathtaking woman he’d ever laid eyes upon.

“And is tearing the clothing off your wife’s body another commendable start?”

Surprised, he couldn’t help but look up into her flushed face and smile. With her wondering eyes watching everything that he did, she was obviously quite serious about her questions.

“Commendable? This is a desire that you yourself planted in my mind, Adrianne…the night of our wedding.”

“I did that?”

“Aye. By tearing the sheer nightgown that you were supposed to be wearing for me.”

He saw her blue eyes close slightly, a low moan escaping her lips as his thumbs played lightly over the rosy hardness of her nipples. He pressed his rock hard thigh against her, one hand moving slowly downward over the smooth skin of her bare stomach.

“Are you cold?” he whispered, feeling her small shiver.

She shook her head. “I am burning with heat. But the way I feel...I don’t know how to put what I am feeling into words.”

He kissed her lips, his tongue sliding into her soft mouth. He moved again to her neck, to the top of the creamy flesh of her breasts. As her fingers moved up and sank in his hair, he took one nipple into his mouth and devoured her sweetness.

“Wait! There is…there is something I must do,” she whispered breathlessly as he reached for the torn chemise and started pushing it over her hips. “There must be some way that I can bring this…this kind of…of madness to you...”

He didn’t wait, instead sliding a finger into her wet folds and watching her eyes open wide with the wonder.

“Truly…you’d better hurry and tell me what ‘tis I can…or…or I…or so much like the night on the bluffs…I shall soar to the heavens and leave you…”

“Adrianne, when will you stop this incessant talking?” he asked softly, sealing her mouth with his lips. Her body was visibly quivering, her breaths becoming shorter and shorter, her little gasps becoming whimpers. Suddenly, with a cry she arched against his hand.

Sweeping her into his arms, Wyntoun lifted her up, and she clutched him about the neck tightly. He could feel her body continue to shudder as the waves of pleasure washed over her. He laid her down in the straw.

“I didn’t want your first time be as rough as this.” He knelt on one knee beside her, his hands fisted tightly as he tried to control the urgency of his desire to bury himself in her at that instant. She was perfection that he’d never known existed. Softness as in a dream. And more willing than he’d ever conceived in his most carnal imaginings.

“As I recall, Wyn,” she replied softly, “the arrangements on our wedding night were more luxurious. But I quite foolishly forfeited that chance.”

Her eyes clouded with passion, looked up at him. She made no attempt to hide her body from his hungry gaze. Instead, she raised her arms to him in invitation. He removed his kilt, throwing it to the ground beside them.

“Adrianne, this will change everything,” he warned, watching her eyes focus on his fully erect manhood. She raised herself on an elbow and hesitantly reached out to touch him. “Adrianne…”

The words were caught in his throat as a silky hand stroked his hard and straining shaft. His engorged member throbbed against her touch. She moved her hand to the soft sack at the base of the shaft, and back up.

“This is most amazing. You are magnificent!”

“And you are setting me on fire. Do you know when you touch me, you destroy my control and good intentions?”

He lifted himself onto her body. Instinctively, her legs opened to accept him. He knew he had to go slow, he tried to be gentle, but she wouldn’t let him. Instead, Adrianne squirmed beneath him. He could see the desire beneath the hooded lids of her blue eyes, in the way she parted her lips, only to gnaw on one as she arched up to receive him. His throbbing manhood teased her moist opening.