Laoghaire cocked her head to one side, her eyes briefly moving across the expanse of his torso. “Ye have brawn, I’ll give ye that.”
“How you flatter me,” he deadpanned.
“Don’t let it swell yer head. I was merely stating a fact. A man who lives by the sword wouldn’t last long if he was weak or puny.”
“True enough. But I no longer ‘live by the sword,’” he told her, his days of fighting on another man’s behalf behind him. “I am now the earl of this demesne.”
“And the fact that ye are did not come as welcome news to me.”
Galen favored Laoghaire with a humorless smile. “But you will very soon welcome me between your legs. Then, you will feel the thrust of my blade, hot and hard within you.”
In the wake of that brazen assertion, Laoghaire’s hand began to visibly shake, causing wine to slosh against the sides of the goblet. Galen wordlessly took the vessel from her and set it on the table. Though she knew it not, the lady aroused a fire within him, inciting his desire to mate, to fill her womb with his seed, to put all that made him civilized asunder.
“I grow weary of this conversation. The time has come to consummate our vows,” he announced, his loins heavy from the want of her.
Upon hearing that, Laoghaire’s eyes opened wide, her beauty marred with a panic-stricken expression. “I will submit to ye, as ye are now my husband. But I will not—” Appearing the very embodiment of virginal fear, she nervously licked her lips. “I will not let ye kiss me,” she informed him.
Infuriated with her gall, Galen stepped to within a hand’s-breadth of her. “You dare to put conditions upon my husbandly rights?”
“Do ye want me to come willingly to yer bed?” Her defiance having returned, Laoghaire shoved a palm against his chest to push him away from her.
At the touch of her hand upon his naked flesh, Galen bit back a groan of pleasure.
“Yea, I want that most fervently,” he told her, refusing to be dislodged. “But I would know why you will not kiss me?”
“Because I like ye not!”
“And I don’t particularly care for you, sweetings. Although I lust after you mightily,” he added. Since he could not hide the fact that he desired her—his engorged sex blatantly outlined against the linen braies—he saw no reason to deny it.
Laoghaire’s brow furrowed. “Ye can actually lust for a woman whom ye hold in disdain?”
Slipping a hand under the mantle, Galen cupped the underside of her breast through the chemise, taking a moment to savor the heft and shape of her. As he did so, Laoghaire gasped softly.
“Curiously enough, the antipathy sharpens my appetite. And I cannot deny that you possess an uncommon beauty. Your breasts—” Galen stroked his thumb over a burgeoning nipple—“are magnificent and I cannot wait to see my son suckle at them. But until then . . .” his words trailed into silence as Galen lowered his head. Pressing his lips to Laoghaire’s breast, he drew the hardened stub of flesh into his mouth.
In the next instant he heard a mewling whimper, just before Laoghaire began to pound on his shoulders with her fists.
“What ye’re doing is unnatural!” she exclaimed.
When he finally pulled away from her, Galen unabashedly stared at the moist spot he’d made on the thin silk, the sheer fabric wetly clinging to her protruding nipple. Highly aroused, his manhood now strained to be released from the loincloth.I want nothing more than to bury myself within her.To lose himself in a pleasure so fierce, so intense, it would make him forget that this woman of the Highlands had not been his choice for a bride.
His self-control severely tested, Galen took a deep, steadying breath while he slid a hand over Laoghaire’s flat stomach. As he did so, he felt the muscles of her abdomen tighten.
If I have to plow her three times a day, I will make certain there is a babe growing in her belly by Christmastide.
“Is this how a gallant knight treats his ladylove?” Laoghaire snickered, even as she shivered in the wake of his caress.
Galen took the quiver of Laoghaire’s body for what he knew it to be—the first stirrings of passion. “Yield to me,” he urged in a lowered voice. “Give yourself over to me and you will be rewarded with great pleasure.”
“I will not fight ye . . . but neither will I yield to ye,” Laoghaire spat at him, her chest heaving with the force of her emotions. “Know this, lord husband: Ye willnevertruly possess me.”
Maddened by her defiance, Galen grabbed hold of Laoghaire by the upper arms and swung her toward the table. With a quick yank of the wrist, he whipped the cloak from her shoulders and flung it to the floor. He then backed her against the table, forcing her to sit on the edge of it. Recoiling, Laoghaire leaned as far from him as she possibly could, forced to support her upper body on the flat of her hands—which is precisely how Galen wanted her positioned.
Bunching the hem of the chemise in his hands, he shoved the garment to Laoghaire’s waist, exposing her lower body. In the next heartbeat, hit with a powerful burst of lust, Galen was literally felled as he sank to his knees before her.
Enraptured, he stared at his bride’s naked limbs and rounded hips, all the while imagining those shapely legs wrapped around his haunches while he seated himself to the hilt. The vivid image made him want to take her,there, on the sandalwood table.
“Part your legs for me,” he commanded, his voice hoarse with the effort it took to control his unruly passion.
