“Ye are mad! Get back here and listen to some sense.”
He sounded so arrogant, so condescending and commanding that Ailis briefly considered marching back over to his bed—to punch him right in that perfectly shaped nose. “Nay. I believe I have played the fool enough for now. In truth, I am so glutted by it that I could be ill.” She started back toward the door to her chambers.
Alexander cursed and leapt from the bed. He bounded after Ailis. She saw what he was doing, but too late to escape him. He grabbed her from behind and, ignoring her curses and flailing limbs, strode back to the bed. He tossed her down, wrestled her onto her back, and then pinned her down with his body. When he finally looked at her, face to face, he had to grin. Her hair was in such a tangle over her face that there was little more to see than two glaring eyes peering through. He pushed her arms up over her head so that he needed only one hand to grasp both of her wrists and then began to gently clear the hair from her face with his free hand.
“I have never had such difficulty with a female,” he murmured, dropping a kiss on her nose when he uncovered it.
“Now I am a ‘difficulty,’ am I?” The way he felt pressing his body against hers and the way he was touching soft kisses to her face as he idly brushed aside her hair was making it difficult for her to keep a firm grip on her anger. “Get off of me, ye great blond oaf.” The last thing she needed was to have her righteous anger quelled by his beauty and her own passion, yet she could see just how easily that could happen.
“Ye couldna possibly guess just how much of a ‘difficulty’ ye are, lass,” he muttered. “I didna think that ye would betray me or the people of Rathmor to your kinsmen, loving. In truth, ye betraying me never entered my head in all of the battle planning I did, and that was when I realized how much I trust ye.”
She fought against allowing his soft words to stir her hopes to life again. “Yet ye have done your best to keep me completely ignorant of the battle to come. I had heard some of the rumors, but I thought my over solicitous nursemaids sought to protect me from it all and that was why I heard or was told so little.”
“To protect ye was exactly what I was trying to do. Dearling, we are about to fight your uncle, the last of your kin. This battle we face on the morrow is between your blood kin and your wedded kin. ‘Tis your uncle on the attack against the kinsmen of your child and Mairi’s children. ‘Twas a quandary I but wished to protect ye from.”
“For ye feared which side I would choose to stand on.”
“Nay, I kenned very well which ye would choose—me and mine. ‘Tis another thing that told me that I was no longer seeing ye as a MacFarlane whom I happened to be cursed with a desire for, but as the lass I desired who just happened to be a MacFarlane. It has been a very long time since ye were all part of my vengeance, lass—a very long time. Didna ye ken that?” He felt that the tension, the resistance in her had ceased and loosed his grip upon her wrists. He had far better things in mind to do with his hands.
Ailis did not wish to be distracted, but the way Alexander ran his hand slowly down her side from shoulder to hip was accomplishing just that. She tried to fight the seductive allure of his skilled touch, to resist the way it pushed all thought from her mind. What he said, the way he explained his actions, made sense, yet she was not sure she ought to completely trust him. He idly smoothed kisses over her throat and breasts and she decided she had better decide on his truthfulness before she completely forgot her grievances against the man.
“Why should I believe ye?” she asked, her voice little more than a breathless gasp as he slowly lathed the tips of her breasts with his tongue. “Ye have made your mistrust of women clear.”
“I have, but—answer me this—have I e’er lied to ye?” He gently rubbed his body against hers and watched her face, loving the way her cheeks grew flushed and her eyes became heavy-lidded.
“That doesna mean that ye wouldna. If we are to have a reasonable talk, then ye must halt your play. I canna think straight when ye are doing that.” She trembled when he slowly drew her swollen nipple deep into his mouth.
“What else is there to be said; what else can be said? I have told ye why I tried so hard to keep ye ignorant of this battle. I canna prove that what I have said is true. I can only swear to it. On my oath, I but sought to save ye the ordeal of having to turn against your kinsmen. Do ye believe me or nay?”
“Oh, aye, I think I do.” She twined her arms around his neck and held him as close as she could while he suckled her breasts.
“Yethinkye do?”
“In truth, I can think little at the moment.” When his stroking reached the upper inside of her thighs, she opened herself to him and sighed with unrestrained pleasure over his intimate caresses. “I fear that the way ye touch me steals all of my wits.”
“Good, I much prefer a witless lass.”
Ailis laughed, knowing that he was jesting, then gave an audible sigh of delight as he teased her midriff with soft kisses and teasing licks. “For a man who was working so hard to be a monk, ye have become most greedy.”
“Ye have recalled me to the pleasures I was so foolishly denying myself. I mean to drink my fill ere I face the battlefield on the morrow.”
The reminder of the impending battle briefly checked Ailis’s soaring passions. Although she wanted to wholeheartedly believe in a MacDubh victory, she could not ignore the chance that she could find herself back in the grasp of her kinsmen. Her child she might be able to protect—even if she had to proclaim him dead and allow some other woman to take him away—but there would be no sure way to save Alexander. This could be her last night with him. This particular night of pleasure could be the one that formed her last memories of him.
At that moment he touched his soft warm lips to the inside of each of her thighs. She fought her usual modesty when he then replaced his tenderly stroking fingers with his mouth. There was nothing she would deny him tonight. There was nothing she would deny herself. She gave herself over freely, with complete abandon, to his intimate kisses and savored his words of approval as much as she did the pleasure he gave her. It was a pleasure she intended to return to him tenfold. When he strode out to do battle in the morning, he might not have all the rest he should have, but she intended to have loved him so well that he would kill anyone who tried to prevent him from returning to her.
“Alexander?” she asked when she finally recovered from a fourth round of heated lovemaking.
Sprawled on his stomach at her side, Alexander found the strength to slip his arm about her waist and tug her closer. He knew he ought to get some rest, but he was starved for her. Each touch made him want more, each kiss made him crave another one. Each time they made love, he was eager to recover his full strength so that they could make love again. He discovered that he also liked just lying there with her or talking to her—depending on what she wished to discuss, he mused with a wry smile.
“What is it, sweeting?” He lazily nuzzled her ear.
“Just how is this battle to be fought?”
“ ‘Tis an acre fight.”
“An acre fight.”
It was to be as horrid as she had feared. She shivered a little, edging a bit closer to his warmth. “Why canna ye hold at Rathmor and let them try and take ye? Ye could win then. My uncle and Donald MacCordy wouldna be able to breach these walls.”
“Mayhaps not, but we wouldna truly win, either. Aye, ‘twould appear as if we were victorious, for we would still hold Rathmor and our enemy would retreat, probably with some large losses. And then what?”
“We could have some peace and respite from the turmoil?” she asked, but there was no hope or conviction in her voice, for she knew what he was going to say and she knew she would have to acknowledge the truth of it.
Alexander lifted his head enough to kiss her cheek. “I wish I could give ye that. And, mayhaps, I can, but it willna be by staying up on my walls. Nay, such a battle will only allow us to poke at the body of the adder that is coiled against us. We must cut off the adder’s head. That can only be done by meeting our enemies on an even ground and sword to sword. Those who lead must be cut down. I am sorry, lass, for they are your kinsmen, but that is how I feel it must be if there is ever to be an end to all of this.”
“No need to beg my forgiveness. I have the sense to see the truth of all ye say.”
“Then come, kiss me, smother me in your sweet passion, so that I will march to meet my enemies with a sure step and victory as my fate.”
Ailis kissed him and heartily prayed that she could do just as he had asked.
