Please more,she realized. But it was too late.
She stumbled backward. Her legs were as weak as a newborn foal’s. She brought her hand to her mouth, sure that it must be dark red and bruised from the pressure of his lips. She felt a vicious yearning for something that she didn’t understand and wanted nothing more than to be swept up once again in the sweetness of his powerful embrace.
“That should never have happened.” His breathing was ragged and his voice rough.
He was not unaffected. She took a cautious step toward him, placing her hands on his chest, offering herself to him once again. “But it did.”
“An unfortunate occurrence that will not be repeated.” This time, she heard the iron determination in his voice as he deliberately removed her hands.
He doesn’t want me.Rejection throbbed like an open wound. “Did I do something wrong? Do I not please you?”
He took a long look at her disheveled nightclothes. Self-conscious, she quickly tied the strings of her sark. And when his steely eyes turned to her again, she felt something else. Shame. Shame for her response and the shocking intimacies she’d allowed him, for how quickly and thoroughly she’d succumbed to his touch, for the eager sounds of pleasure that had escaped her lips. What must he think of her? She’d moaned and clutched at him like a harlot. Even knowing that he intended to send her back.
Her eyes fell to the floor. She was humiliated by the betrayal of her body. She didn’t think she could ever look at his face again and not be thinking of what he’d done to her. The way his mouth had pleasured her breast, how his finger had swept her very core.
He studied her face. “You please me well enough. As you would any man. You’re a beautiful woman with a body made for pleasure.” The whiplash of pain knocked her back. His words flayed her, reopening wounds that had never healed. He saw only her face. She thought what they’d just shared was special. “Every man has his breaking point. If you want to be a maid when you leave here, you’ll stop your dangerous game.”
Isabel swallowed, tentatively lifting her eyes in question.
He pinned her with a look that seemed to see right through her. Her heart skipped a beat. “I’m not a man to toy with, Isabel. You’d do best to remember it.” He paused, flicking one last glance over her nightclothes. “For your sake, I hope you were only looking for a book.”
He spun on his heel and left her alone with the crackle of the fire. She shivered, with need or fear she did not know.
Chapter 10
Rory did not return to their room that night, and for once his absence did not bother her. Isabel didn’t know if she could face him. Her emotions were still too raw.
She’d wept silently in the darkness for hours, as she had too often as a child, until exhaustion finally overwhelmed the hurt. She must have slept, but for how long she knew not. When she woke, the sting of his rejection had not lessened. She lay in bed, reluctant to get up. For if she did, she must face the mess of her own making.
Isabel had confused lust with something more. A deeper connection. In the shelter of his embrace, she’d felt a sense of security and belonging she’d never experienced before. Like a fool, she’d allowed herself to believe, if only for a heated moment, that someone like Rory MacLeod might care for her. She’d spent a lifetime trying recklessly to prove herself to her family. If the people closest to her did not care about her, why would he?
The MacLeod desired her, nothing more.
She’d felt his desire. Felt it wedged hard against her body. He’d wanted her.
But clearly, he didn’t trust her. And not without reason, she admitted. Guilt needled her conscience. Though she had not necessarily set out to seduce him last night, seduction was part of her plan. She’d wanted to press him and had known he might come upon her wandering around scantily dressed. She’d flirted with danger and had been burned. He had every right to question her and to hurl his accusations. She deserved all that he thought of her, and worse.
The true horror of the situation had only begun to dawn on her. She’d known what she would have to do, but never had she imagined how cold and calculating it would feel to use her body to prey upon his attraction. To use their passion to manipulate. A wave of self-revulsion washed over her.
His words came back to her. He’d only taken what was offered. She cringed. Had her desire been so obvious? If she had responded to him inappropriately, it was only because she’d acted instinctively. Innocently. Fresh shame burned her cheeks. She wanted to bury her head under her pillow and hide from the vivid memories.
But he was wrong in his suspicion. Last night had not been an act. Her response had been freely given. Never had she thought herself capable of such feelings. And their intensity terrified her, for it indicated just how susceptible she was to him. And just how easy it would be for her to lose her head.
Isabel felt a pang of regret. If circumstances were different…She shook her head. But they weren’t. She had a job to do, though she now realized it would not be done without a price. When the year was over, she would not walk away unscathed.
Something else gnawed at her. Isabel knew it was not only suspicion, or her unconscious plea, that had made him push her away. It was his honor. He would not take her virginity knowing he intended to send her back.
Isabel threw back the covers and pulled herself together. It would do no good to hide from her problems. She needed to clear the air between them. And suddenly it had become important that he not think the worst of her. She wanted him to know that she’d set out to find the library last night and nothing more. It was time for a little honesty on her part. She still had a job to do, but she was no longer certain she could use her body to accomplish it.
There had to be another way.
By the time Rory returned to their chamber to wash the remnants of a sleepless night from his face, Isabel had already left to break her fast. He hadn’t trusted himself to return to their solar last night, not when his body still raged with lust. Instead, he’d spent an uncomfortable night before the fire in the library with a bottle for company. But not even strong drink could dull the honey taste of her that seemed branded on his lips.
He’d allowed his anger at finding her sneaking around the tower to cloud his judgment, and then seeing her in that flimsynight railhad pushed him too far. But he should never have kissed her. Isabel had him so twisted up in knots, he didn’t know what in Hades had come over him. Her response had made him half-crazed. The sweet dart of her tongue. The tentative movement of her hips. The arch of her back as he’d kissed her lush breasts. The dampness between her legs that nearly drove him over the edge.
He had a duty to his clan to repudiate the handfast and forge an alliance that would help in his quest to destroy Sleat. His vow of revenge against Sleat did not include despoiling an innocent lass. Or getting her with child. Although he knew there were other pleasures they could share, last night had proved that one taste of her was not enough. He could not trust himself to show restraint. What would he have done had she not uttered her innocent plea, knocking him back to his senses? He couldn’t be sure.
Standing at the window in his chambers, watching the morning sun climb over the distant horizon, Rory hardly recognized himself. Never had he felt unsure of his ability to control his baser instincts. Of his ability to do his duty for the clan. Never had he questioned his role as chief.
