If You Dare - Cole Kresley. Страница 53

She took a shaky breath and said, "Y-You said you wanted your harem, that you didn't want only one woman. I-I know this isn't the way of the world and it was ingrained in me never to expect it, but I…I want you to be mine too." How embarrassing. She felt unsophisticated, ignoring what she'd been instructed was normal and anticipated from the first day she'd ever heard of marriage.

She'd been told that a woman's misconception on this matter was what ruined marriages and made women bitter. But on the opposite side of the coin, she'd seen the devastation her mother's adultery had caused—why would Annalia think she would hold up better than her father had?

She could sense emotion roiling in him. "What do you mean?" At least his voice was no longer an angry rasp.

It occurred to her that she hadn't done any of this as she'd been taught, not making love, definitely not choosing a "suitable" mate. If she started now, the pattern would be interrupted and she rather liked where it'd taken her so far. She put her chin up. "I won't share you. If I'm to be loyal and faithful, I-I want the same!"

His jaw was slack. It was unreasonable, she knew, but the thought of him with another woman…She hadn't been able to tolerate it before she'd made him hers. "You distinctly warned me—"

"When?"

"The night on the coast."

He flashed a look of realization.

"Why have one when you can have many, you said, but the thought of you with another…" She trailed off.

"Finish what you were telling me."

She looked away again, her eyes watering. "I just couldn't bear it."

He put his fingers under her chin and turned her face. He wore some new expression, just as powerful, but unseen before. He kissed her fiercely.

But he was avoiding her question. She broke away and gazed up at him with all the hurt she felt.

"Anna, last night I made you mine because I want you above all others." He brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek, then put his forehead to hers. "It will always be so. I dinna hope you would feel as strongly."

Over the next two weeks, when she was in the library or reading in the salon during the day, MacCarrick would come to her with his brows drawn and his body tense and hold out his hand to her.

No words and no need for them. The look in his dark eyes told her all. When she took his hand—she never failed to take his hand and would as long as it was offered to her—he would always mask a flash of surprise a second too late. Then as he led her to their bed, she sensed this masculine pride in him even as her heart sped up in anticipation.

Her Scot was attentive to her and thoughtful, sending out for her favorite foods and finding her books—though she was mortified at first when he'd secured several of the gothic novels she loved.

Each night, after or between the times they made love, they would share a book together in bed, sometimes with her reading the novels to him, her head in his lap as he caressed her hair. Though whenever she gripped the book, nervous as the heroine investigated a dark cellar, he never failed to startle and tickle her.

At other times, MacCarrick would read her bawdy poems, making his brogue thick and rolling, until her eyes watered and her stomach hurt, she laughed so hard. Of course, she'd had to learn a new set of vocabulary to be truly appreciative.

One day, he'd sensed something was weighing on her, and she'd finally confessed how much she missed riding. He'd given her a wicked grin and taught her a completely different meaning of bareback. That wasn't all he taught her. If she'd thought her fingers could work his flesh, she'd never imagined what her lips could do once she convinced him how badly she wanted to kiss him.

Then this morning in bed, she'd stretched, and as usual he'd said, "Mind the arm, lass."

But she'd replied, "I swear you care about it more than I do."

"I like to watch you stretch. Woman, I love to watch you stretch, but you have to be careful till it's completely healed."

"Will the scar make me less attractive in your eyes?"

"An impossibility, Anna," he'd said, nipping her neck. Then he'd turned serious. "Every time I look at it I'll remember how close I came to…" He'd coughed into his fist. "How close it was. Mo cridhe, we are fortunate."

They were fortunate to be together. Yet during this time he never mentioned marriage, and she followed his lead. There was no talk about the future. And each day that passed brought her closer to the day her brother would arrive. She'd had the brief hope that MacCarrick was waiting so he could ask Aleix for her hand. But that was an absurd idea.

He'd never ask for her. A man wouldn't ask for something that he'd already claimed.

So they went on in this state without a promise from him. She thought that once she had it, she might have the nerve to tell him she'd fallen in love with him so fiercely she felt like she'd fallen from a height.

Chapter Thirty

When Hugh returned, Court had his arm around Annalia at the dining table, stroking the back of her neck and murmuring in her ear. His brother had barely been able to grate out an "invitation" for Court to join him for a drink after dinner. Court had wanted to go with Anna when she retired, but she said she was sleepy and wanted him to visit with his brother.

"Why, Court?" Hugh asked as he sank into the leather chair in the study. He pinched the bridge of his nose, appearing exhausted.

"I got to a point where I could no' resist any longer."

"That's no' why you took her virtue. Because you 'could no' resist.' You're one of the most disciplined men I've ever known. Which means you made a conscious decision." He exhaled a long breath. "You did it so you would be forced to marry her. And more important, so a woman like that would be forced to marry you."

His eyes narrowed. "No, she wants me, too."

"Do you think that someone like her is going to enjoy living in a drafty four-hundred-year-old keep? No' to mention that your propitious land grab just officially put your home in the middle of nowhere. A seamstress is no' going to ride through thousands of acres to get to your bonny wife out there."

"Where she lived before was no' exactly a metropolis."

"Does she even know who you are? Be realistic, Court."

"You mean a cursed, sterile mercenary living in a stone heap?"

Hugh raised his eyebrows and said simply, "Aye."

Strange how one word could feel like a punch he hadn't tensed for. Court didn't bother to hide his resentment before he strode from the room.

Afterward he walked the house, scowling at everything he saw. This was not how he lived. What she saw was gilded. Anna saw the wealth and the servants, and if she was comfortable here, she would not be at his home in the wilds of northern Scotland.

And what did she know about him? She had an idea of him as a gentle lover, but lately he'd been losing control, little by little.

Sometimes he wanted to take her much harder than he did….

He entered her room, found her sleeping on her front, with the sheet kicked off and her hair spilling across the pillow just as it had when he'd gone to her room in Andorra. He'd stared at her that night, envisioning himself palming her thighs and sex until she rose to her knees. Court remembered how furiously he'd wanted her, remembered how he'd hated the fact that a fine lady like her would never have him.

Yet she would. She would right now.

He stripped down, then knelt between her legs, running his hand up her thighs to her nightgown. She murmured but slept on as he rolled it higher to her waist.

He put his palm to her sex, his fingers higher, massaging. She woke with a gasp.

"Spread your legs." She did without hesitation. "More." She did, trusting him.