Camron had come storming out of the Keep, and, if she had seen him angry before, he was furious now.
“I’m helping yer bride learn how to ride,” Archie replied, and the obvious innuendo in his tone made Isla frown.
She was all for banter and fun—there was no doubt about that—but the way Archie was speaking about her, it seemed as though he was hinting at something else entirely.
“See, I’ll help her down if it’s such a problem,” he replied, and he lifted her from the seat and planted her back on the ground.
Camron stormed over to them, and Archie swiftly withdrew his hands as he sensed the oncoming storm from his cousin’s rage.
“Ye get yer hands off what’s mine!” he snarled, pressing his face close to Archie.
Isla widened her eyes, irritation flashing through her.
“What’s yers?” she protested, as Archie slipped away, lowering his gaze to the ground as though to avoid any more trouble.
“Ye’re my wife, are ye not?” he growled as he took the reins and led the horse back into the stable.
She followed close behind, not willing to let such a thing slide so easily.
“Aye, but I’m no’ yer property,” she protested. “And I’m no’ going to let ye lock me away in some… ivory tower just because ye happen to be my husband!”
He rounded on her as he closed the door to the stable. He did not look at her, could not, it seemed. Some part of her wanted to see what he would do now that they were alone together, with all that anger coursing through his system. Before, when he had led her from the feast after she had danced with Archie, it had been the closest she had come to feeling as though she was the one in control, and she could not stand to let it slip away again so easily.
“Tell me what this is really about,” she pleaded with him.
She knew that his fury was not just about her learning to ride, nor about a man helping her do so. There was something more to it, something deeper than he was willing to admit.
“I’ve told ye,” he shot back, not looking at her. “I’m no’ the kind to let another man lay hands on?—”
“No, Camron, I ken that it’s no’ about that,” she protested, practically demanding an answer from him. “That’s yer cousin.Do ye really think he would want to… do anything to cause trouble in yer marriage? Ye dinnae trust yer own kin?”
He didn’t reply. The silence hung there between them, weighty, larger than she could bear to make sense of. She could feel it between them again, the tension that had hung in the air when he had pinned her to that wall outside the chambers, when she could have sworn that he was on the brink of kissing her.
“It’s no’ about whom I trust,” he muttered. “It’s about ye, Isla.”
“And what about me?” she demanded, tossing her hands in the air. “I’ve married ye, haven’t I? Isn’t that enough to?—”
But, before she could say another word, he had spun around to face her, pinning her to the hard wall of his body. Her head spun, the corners of her vision blurring at the sudden passion of his touch.
“Ye’re mine, Isla,” he implored, one hand coming to her chin to tilt her face up to look at him. “And I’ll never let ye forget it.”
He kissed her then, but, this time, it was not like the embrace they had shared at the altar. No, she could see now that whatever kiss he had planted on her there was downright restrained, at least in comparison.
His tongue invaded her mouth like a starved man, one hand moving to her back to pull her even closer, the other brushing across her cheek as though he was testing velvet for purity. He let out a groan against her mouth, sating himself on her at last, and she lifted her hands to his arms without thinking, feeling the muscle beneath his shirt, the strength that was barely contained beneath the fabric.
For one dizzying heartbeat, she felt anger and desire blur until there was nothing at all left between them; until she could believe that he would take her, then and there, against the wall of the stable, where anyone could have walked in and caught them.
His power was almost all-consuming, the knowledge that he could do something so brazen with no fear thrilling in ways she could not explain. Her hands laced through his hair, pulling him closer, parting her lips further, and deepening the kiss. Distantly, through the fabric of her dress, she could feel the firmness of his manhood rising against her, a shockingly new sensation that lit a wick of excitement within her.
A wick that he was keen to test. His hand traveled down, snaking beneath her skirts with ease, and brushing along the inside of her thigh. She could tell at once what he was searching for, the proof of how much she wanted him and how impossible it was for her to deny her need.
“There’s my girl,” he murmured, as his fingers slicked along the outside of her folds.
She let out something between a whine and a moan, a begging, desperate noise that just made him chuckle.
“Still trying tae pretend that you dinnae want me?” he asked, as his fingers found her entrance, grazing there for a moment.
Her hips bucked towards him, desperate to feel him inside of her, some relief, something. For a moment, his finger pressed against her, dipping inside her soaked honeypot, and then?—
