That seemed to excite him, for he turned to steel inside her. ‘Tell me, you will have me. Say you will be mine, Cecily.’
‘I will. I am yours.’
He snarled into her neck, ‘You will have no other man. Say it.’
‘I will have no other man. Oh, don’t stop. You cannot stop.’
She was on the edge of an abyss of feeling, about to fall over, all her senses screaming for a release she did not understand.
Voices sounded outside, carried across the yard in the wind, and Peyton paused just as she was on the brink of something wonderful. Cecily wriggled against his manhood, and a terrible pulsing shudder ripped through her, and she cried out. His hand covered her mouth. The pleasure was almost pain. It was too much. All she could do was squeal into his palm as he stiffened and groaned into her hair, little spurts of his own pleasure bursting inside her and then fading away to nothing.
They hung together, breathing heavily, as the voices faded away, leaving only the howl of the wind rattling the door. Peyton slid out of her body in a warm rush, still holding her tight. Her feet found the floor, but she was still floating.
Peyton looked into her eyes with a burning intensity and panted, ‘I think we should go inside. There is a storm coming.’
‘There was a storm in here, too,’ she said, and he gave her such a happy grin that her heart pounded at how handsome Peyton looked. Why had she not thought him so before? And he had the power to make her feel such sublime happiness that Cecily was suddenly overcome with slavish gratitude. She would do anything Peyton Strachan told her to because she was his fool.
So, when he said, ‘No more objections to becoming Lady Strachan and wedding me,’ she could only reply, ‘No.’
He pulled down her skirts and rearranged his braies. Then Peyton took her hand, and they walked across the yard, the cold wind tearing away the heat of what she had just done. But his palm was warm where it pressed to hers. When they got to Peyton’s chamber, he gently took hold of Cecily and laid her on the bed. He pulled her close, throwing his leg over hers so her face was nestled against his neck.
‘This is what I should have done the first time I took you,’ he sighed. ‘I should have held you in my arms afterwards.’
‘Peyton I…’
‘What?’ He kissed the top of her head.
‘I liked what we did.’
‘I know you did, and so did I.’
‘I feel strange – happy inside, but I think I might cry. What is wrong with me?’
‘Absolutely nothing, lass. You are perfect.’
‘Then you don’t think I am a liar?’
‘Even if you are, it doesn’t matter any more. I still want you.’
She looked up and turned his face down to hers. ‘That is no kind of answer. Will God punish us for what we just did?’
‘No. Fornicating is encouraged within marriage. Hush now. Sleep, or I might have to do it again. You are safe, Cecily.’
Was she safe? She wanted to talk to him, to understand the beauty and brutality of what they had just shared, but she could not find the words, and she was not sure enough of Peyton to say them. She was full of sin, and yet exhilarated, a deep joy in her belly undercut with a yearning so great that she had to bite her lip to quell the urge to reach up and drag his mouth onto hers again. Her thoughts and her heart were a muddle.
She wanted to ask Peyton all kinds of questions, but her eyelids were like lead, and her limbs were languid. The bed was warm, quiet, and cosy. His gruff voice was strangely soothing as it washed over her. The last thing she heard him say was, ‘Sleep now. Rest. No harm will come to you when you are with me.’
But that wasn’t true. She had just torn off a piece of her heart and given it to Peyton Ruari Strachan, and she would never get it back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Peyton’s head ached like the blazes, yet there was no respite from his tenants laying their troubles at his door. And they were right to be angry and afraid.
Magnus Strachan droned on. ‘They come day and night. We can never close our eyes for fear of their raiding, like a pack of foxes after the new lambs, they are.’
‘Vermin,’ said his companion, Fergus, a weather-beaten man, stooped under the weight of poverty and worn out with clinging onto what little he had left. ‘They want to wipe us out, Laird.’
‘And who is ‘they’ exactly? Tell me,’ said Peyton.
