He laughed. “Am I now?”
Ruark had never held illusions about his character. But even at his worst, he’d always known there were consequences to his actions. Despite the wealth and privilege in which he’d been born, he had made his own way and survived. Not because he knewwhento fight and when to retreat but because he knew how to fight.
Until now.
After Mary left the sitting room, Ruark walked tohis bedchamber. The firelight revealed Rose in his bed. Her even breathing told him she was asleep and not unconscious.
He unknotted the belt on his loose-fitting black robe, removed the garment, then crawled beneath the blankets and pulled the soft down over his shoulders. He felt her shiver as the cold air touched her. He adjusted her head to rest on his shoulder, gently smoothing silken strands of hair from her cheeks. Her tranquility in sleep contrasted with the turmoil inside him as he lay in the warmer darkness of the damask-canopied bed listening to her even breathing. And for the first time since he’d left his old life in Scotland, he felt something stir deep inside him he’d thought gone forever. Passion that did not rise from the darkness inside him.
He didn’t understand his need to possess her; he only knew that when she was near him, he could think of little else.
She clouded his brain, and as he turned her in his arms, he knew he wanted her even now, when he should be too exhausted to want anything but sleep. Even now, when his brother weighed heavily in his heart.
Her hand slowly splayed his chest and she murmured sleepily. “Tomorrow will you show me the herbal?”
“I will take you myself, love.”
“Thank you,” she breathed and kissed his cheek, then settled her cheek against his shoulder before he could touch her, before his arms could respond and wrap her to him.
Before he could take her mouth and turn the kiss into something more than an affectionate act of gratitude.
“I thought aristocrats slept in separate beds from their wives, my lord.”
His hair was not tied back and when he rose on hiselbow above her it fell over his shoulders. “Ye must be thinking of the English,m’eudail. In Scotland, we are not afraid of our women.”
In the darkness, he could feel her eyes searching his face. He made a gentle pass over her collarbone with his thumb and around the curve of one breast. “Are you afraid of me, Sassenach?”
Her breath grazed his cheek. Hesitation? “Nay, Ruark.”
He’d not shaven, and he was careful not to scratch her pale skin as he kissed her throat. “Then you were not running away from me tonight.”
“I am your wife.”
“Aye,” he said against her neck.
His hand slid to her waist, turned her slowly and spread the front of her nightdress. “You are mine.”
But she had not told him she was not running away from him when she had tried to escape him in the garden. He dipped his head lower and suckled each nipple, willing her to stir. The darkness hindered all but a soft inviting mew as he curled his fingers in her nightdress, pushing the hem to her hips. Her breath quickened as his hand went between her legs and spread her for his exploration. He wanted her in a way he’d not wanted anything before. He wanted more than her acquiescence or gratitude or obedience.
He wanted to be inside her body and her mind, he needed to taste her passion, to see himself in her eyes when he made love to her. In the darkness, he would settle for her desire as he dragged her hand to his erection. “You can touch me, Rose,” he said huskily. “I am not delicate.”
Her fingers closed around him. His skin was warm and taut, the shape of him well defined by her palm. Her touch whet his pleasure beyond the quickening of hisblood. Her breathing slightly ragged, she found the base of his shaft and, with her responding inhalation, he felt as if he had won a victory, slight as it was.
Her life was his and she was here because he willed it of her. He should feel guilty that he wanted this from her as well. But this time the sound he heard was his own.
“How do you say in Gaelic ...? ‘That pleases me, Ruark.’ ”
“Tha sin a’ cordadh rium,” he said on a breath and braced himself on his elbow as he moved between her thighs and let her guide him. A hot shiver shot through him as he buried himself inside her hot sweet passage until he no longer cared where she ended and he began.
“Tha sin a’ cordadh rium,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around his hips.
“This pleases me, too,” he said.
Then he unerringly found her mouth in the darkness and set about showing her just how much.
Chapter 18
Thumbing through a packet of correspondence on his desk, Ruark finished the last of his tea. He disliked tea immensely, but today he didn’t notice. The glass doors behind him were open to the mid-morning breeze that billowed the curtains. Birdsong filled the air on one of those rare hot days when the sun had already burned away the garden mists before he’d returned from his ride.
