‘You should never have stolen from us, lass.’
‘I am sorry for it.’
‘Not the stealing. I’d wager it was more the getting caught.’
Impulsively, Cullen reached out and stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. Lowri flinched, but did not move away. Her skin was warm and velvety under his fingers.
‘Can you hold a lie, Lowri Strachan?’
‘As good as anyone. Aye.’
‘Then we will say we lay together when we have not, and that is an end to it.’
‘Every word out of a Macaulay mouth is a lie. I don’t believe you. Why would you do that?’
‘Because I didn’t save your life just to crush your spirit, nor will I let you whore yourself for the sake of those lads. And I don’t want you any more than you want me.’
Cullen had always been good at holding a lie, and a lie it was, for he had begun to want the lass. A slow burn heated his belly, and his loins pulsed with desire. Lowri’s skin was like velvet, her eyes black-lashed, clear and bright as sunlight on a burn, and she smelled good. He was only human and as weak to temptation as the next man.
Cullen took a deep breath and turned his back to her. ‘Give me a boon, lass, and promise not to smother me in my sleep.’ He closed his eyes, the whisky a burning river of oblivion flooding his veins. There, for once in his life, he had taken the honourable course.
‘You have to do it,’ she hissed into the darkness.
‘I do not.’
‘You are trying to trick me. You Macaulays say one thing and do another. You will tell your father that we have not consummated the marriage, and he will hang my friends. I do not trust you not to betray me.’
‘Leave it,’ he growled, but she would not be quiet.
‘Please. I have to save my friends. Just do it quickly and get it over with. I deserve this punishment, and I can bear it.’
She talked of lovemaking as if it were some furtive, filthy act. Lying with him was something to be suffered, a penance for hersins. To Lowri Strachan, he was repulsive, and she would spread her legs because she hated herself. Silence fell.
Then she said, ‘I knew a low, belly-crawling Macaulay would not be able to do the right thing.’
The last thread of Cullen’s forbearance snapped. All kinds of frustration boiled up in his gut – at her insults, at his impotence in the face of his father’s scheming. Well, he need not be impotent this night.
Lowri would not be quiet. ‘You are a pitiful excuse for a man, just like Allard, just like…’
Cullen turned and lay over her. ‘If this is what you want, then you shall have it.’
‘Go on then!’ she shouted into his face.
‘I will,’ he snarled, gathering a handful of her skirts and hoisting them up. The oblivion of the whisky had gone, and there was only anger. Cullen jerked her legs apart with his knee. She flinched, and so he tried to slow himself and be kind, but when he tried to kiss Lowri, she clamped her lips shut and turned her face away. He could not bear to see her revulsion, so he buried his face in her neck. Cullen spat on his hand and eased inside her. If she’d been around Black Eaden, she’d know what was coming.
But his anger abated as her body resisted his invasion. He pulled back. ‘I should not do this. You are…’
‘Just do it quickly. I cannot bear it otherwise.’
Lowri did not touch him. She turned her face away and lay silently, like a corpse, but her body was warm and snug, and the sweet smell in her nape sent lust creeping into his anger. Shewas right about him. He was a bastard. Had he not always been a mongrel without honour?
Through a haze of whisky, he pressed on. But her body resisted, so he stopped, swollen with lust. ‘I…you are a virgin. I can’t.’
‘You’ve done it now. I’m not a virgin anymore. So finish it,’ she hissed through gritted teeth.
‘I will,’ he snarled, surging inside her.
The rhythmic groaning of the bed was the only sound as Cullen took Lowri as quickly as he could, in a bitter, joyless coupling which filled him with shame.
