“I am not afraid of you—Norman!” Mary gasped. But she was already in his embrace, and his chest was slick and damp against her rigid palms, an indication that he felt the heat, too, and his groin felt like the blunted tip of a sword thrusting against her abdomen. She tried vainly to push away from him.
“Do you think to insult me?” He was amused.
“Bastard,” she hissed, momentarily ceasing her struggle. She was panting. He was too strong. As she had thought, she was doomed.
“True enough,” he murmured. “I fear I cannot change the circumstance of my untimely birth. Do you really think to wound me with such words?”
“No, but you will wound me, will you not? A man such as you!”
One of his large hands swept down her back. She shivered. “Ahh, you are afraid. I know ’tis too much to ask you to trust me. I will not hurt you, mademoiselle, not after the first time; all women, even one as small as you, are made to accommodate a man, even one like me.”
Mary’s small breasts rose and fell harshly. His statement summoned up a recollection of his heated touch the day before—and an anticipation she was determined to deny. She would fight him, for martyr or not, that was her clear-cut duty. Her will must be stronger than her body. Itmust.Mary ground her teeth together. “I—will—fight—you.”
“I don’t think so.” His suggestive—and amused—smile flashed again. “Of course, we can end your dilemma easily enough. You need but speak two words—the name of your father.”
“No!” Mary wriggled against him. He forced her to become still instantly, gripping the firm mound of one of her buttocks. Mary was frozen. “Shall we test your resolve?” he murmured in her ear.
Mary could barely speak, due to the strategic placement of his fingers. “Be—done—with—it.”
For a moment he was unmoving. “An invitation I cannot refuse. Does such acquiescence signal your intention to remain tight-lipped, does it mean that you will forfeit your virginity instead of your identity?”
Mary stared. She had discerned a subtle change in his tone, which was no longer quite so casual; tension rippled beneath the surface of his words. His eyes had grown brighter, his nostrils flared, and his grip upon her had tightened. And still his manhood throbbed urgently against her. He was trying to hide it, but there was no mistaking the heightened pitch of his excitement now. Mary nodded once. She was incapable of speech.
Slowly he smiled. “At this point I should warn you, mademoiselle, my interest in the truth wans. If you will speak, speak now, before it is too late.”
Mary thought, dazed, that it was probably already too late. She realized her hand had found his hip. It was hard and free of fat, his skin warm even through the thin linen of his braies. His words sank in. She had to use great effort to remove her hand from his body. “I have nothing to say,” she said hoarsely.
“Indeed?” There was a catch to his voice. Abruptly he lifted Mary in his arms. Mary knew she must make some effort at resistance.
Their gazes locked. Her will died then and there. She had never known her body could be so hungry. She realized she was holding on to him instead of pushing him away. The blaze in his eyes made her grip tighten.
They were a step away from the bed. Unsmiling, he slid her onto the center of the mattress. Mary found herself on her back, her gaze, like the rest of her, dominated by him.
“’Tis your last chance,” he said harshly, and she saw that his fists were clenched. “Tell me no lies.”
She was having trouble remembering the issues at stake. She whispered, “I-I am Mairi Sinclair.”
His lips curled. He leaned over her. His gaze slid over her flushed face, then lower, to her heaving breasts, and lower still, to the outline of her slender legs. “The time for words is over, demoiselle.”
She gripped the covers of the bed. She was oblivious to all existence. She had forgotten the stifling warmth in the room, did not hear the crackling tire, the sound of which mingled with the sound of the rain, blurring together into nothingness. Lightning brightened the night sky behind Stephen’s head, but she was unaware of that, too. All of her senses were focused on the man standing before her, and on the painful pulsing of her own body.
He slid onto the bed beside her and pulled her into a sitting position, his touch strong but gentle. He did not hurry; how well he masked any urgency he might be feeling. Mary made a sound low in her throat, one that sounded suspiciously like a moan. Their gazes locked. Without looking at what he was doing, he slowly slipped off the veil she had borrowed from Isobel, freeing her waist-length gold hair. His hands shook as his fingers navigated their way through the length of her hair, beginning at her scalp and ending in the curls at her hips. Deliberately he fanned the tresses out. Mary wondered if he was going to kiss her. Stephen smiled at her.
She could not move.
And then he ripped her clothing apart and tore her tunics and shift off of her body.
Mary screamed.
“I will take you naked,” he said as she tried to leap off of the bed. Mary screamed again, in fury. Stephen caught her, this time throwing her down upon the mattress. He flung the shreds of her clothing aside. Before Mary could scramble away from him, he was on top of her, pressing her down.
Only a thin layer of linen separated his engorged phallus from the tender flesh between her thighs. He throbbed strongly against her, a hairsbreadth from being within her. “Who in God’s blood are you? You will reveal the truth, demoiselle, and you will do so now!”
Mary looked up at him, consumed with an answering rage. “So it will be rape after all!”
He laughed. When her hands came up, her fingers curled into claws, he caught her wrists, wrestling them down above her head, pinning her to the bed. He stroked his shaft against her. He stroked her until her anger died, but her pulse did not dim. To the contrary, it accelerated madly. Mary moaned helplessly.
His mouth came closer to hers, his breath feathering her face. His eyes were glittering dangerously now. “Your story has substance,” he said, low. “But that only proves what an adept liar you are. Know you this. I have been surrounded by intrigue and deceit my entire life. I have had much practice at ferreting out the good from the rotten. I do not believe you to be some barnyard bastard of the laird Sinclair. Every instinct I possess tells me you are far more than you claim.Give your name to me now.”
