Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

Their tempo hastened.  Laird lifted himself over her, changing the angle of his thrusts.  With a gasp, Scarlett wrapped her free leg around his hips, dragging her nails up them until she could grasp his hard buttocks as he flexed with every thrust.

Faster.  He slammed into her.  Deeper and deeper still until she was caught in rapacious agony, caught in the tempest once more.

Words of passion, words she couldn’t understand were on his lips.  “Tog den.  Bhful don.”  She could hear no more as she reached the eye of the storm.  Her blood was raging in her ears, the torment too much to bear.  A sob was torn from deep within.

Scarlett.”  His voice was commanding and she looked up at him. So beautiful, so intense. “Let me see ye, mo cridhe.  Guilleadh don.”

“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely, taken by the torment in his eyes. It didn’t matter what he said.  “Oh, Laird… yes!”

“Comhlanaigh dom, mo ghrá.”

With one last blinding thrust, he pushed her over the edge once more.  Scarlett cried out as it ripped her apart body and soul.  Laird joined her rapture with a harsh groan, stiffening before he slumped over her.  Continuing to pump languidly within her as she pulsed around him.  Drawing out her climax until tears were rolling down her cheeks.

He cleared them away with the back of his knuckles, brushing tender kisses down her cheek and along her jaw.

She had never imagined there might exist such a lover as he.  The sensations he had evoked in her were really almost too much to bear.

No, she really hadn’t thought this through, had she?  The road he had taken her down was becoming treacherous indeed.

29

 

“More rabbit?” Rhys asked, holding out a piece of juicy meat as he rejoined her at the table.

“Thank you.”

“More wine?” he asked, sprawling back in his chair.  He had shed his doublet, his shirt open at the collar and hanging over his kilt.

“Yes, please.”  Scarlett was almost as informally dressed, having shed her parlett and untied the sleeves of her finely woven flax gown, which were normally laced tightly from elbow to wrist, and pushing them up her arms.  Her jaunty Italian bonnet – favored by Laird over the ear-covering French hood – was hanging on the back of her chair.

“Another bottle, Willem.”  Rhys nodded to his squire, a young man of about twenty who brought a bottle of wine to the table and poured for them both.

“Did we finish one already?” Scarlett asked, staring down into her cup in surprise.

“Two, my lady,” Willem said with a smile.

“Oh, that’s a lot.”  She tipped up her goblet again.

“Yer no’ verra talkative this night, dear Scarlett,” Rhys said softly.  “Hae ye no’ forgiven me my hasty words?  I beg ye, dinnae bear me a grudge.  I apologize truly.”

Scarlett sighed.  Whatever Rhys’ misconceptions, he was only trying to be a friend.  “I’m not angry with you.”

“Then what vexes ye so?”

Not what.  Who.

Hence the alcohol.

“There is something troubling ye.”  It wasn’t a question this time.   “What is it?”

Scarlett looked around warily.  The night was dark, moonless.  There was little to see beyond the glow of their small fire except similar spots of flickering light in the darkness.

“Laird won’t be back for hours,” Rhys told her, reclaiming her attention.  “Fear no’, he has returned from Wark unharmed.  The castle taken smoothly and now under Scottish garrison.  ‘Tis the King who demands his attendance again this night.”

Or perhaps it was their father who demanded it, determined to keep Laird from her side.   Either way, it didn’t matter.  His absence wasn’t the problem.  In fact, for the first time, Scarlett was glad Laird was nowhere in sight, however Rhys didn’t need to know that.

“Yes, he told me.  Why aren’t you there?” she asked evasively.

“I, thankfully, am not my father’s favorite son,” he said with a smirk, tipping up his goblet.  “Therefore I get to spend the night as I please.  With you.  Now, come.  Talk to me.  I assume the problem is wi’ Laird?”

“Yes,” she admitted.  Damn, Rhys and his insight!  “And that is why I cannot talk to you.  Besides, I’ve drunk too much.  If I open up now, I might not be able to get the flood gates shut again.”

“That might be most amusing.”

“Or humiliating,” she countered.  “Depending on which side of the conversation you’re on.”

“True.  True,” Rhys nodded, swirling his wine around his goblet before lifting it and downing the contents in one swallow.  He held his cup up once again for his squire to refill.

Thankfully, Rhys seemed content to let the matter lie.  Something Scarlett was grateful for.  She couldn’t talk about what was troubling her.

She thought she’d known what she was getting herself into by giving into her desire for Laird.  She thought that once they’d slept together, the edge would come off the intensity that had so shaken her that first time. That she could just lust after him like a normal person.

She had been a fool to think she would feel so deeply just the one time, not every time.  The road Laird had taken her down was too intense to be taken casually.  It rocked her to the core and terrified her more than a little.

For the first time since arriving in this time, Scarlett truly felt the urge to run.

To do something before she became too attached to him.

“Did the King command him to go?” she asked but rushed to add, “Not that I care about whether he was forced to go, I’m just wondering if they are close.  King James is Laird’s uncle, right?”

Rhys shook his head but took the bait.  “To my knowledge, the King has never acknowledged the connection.  I dinnae think he means to shun Laird in so much as he knows verra well that he wisnae his father’s favorite child any more than I am my father’s.  It has never bothered me much but the King wisnae so forgiving.”

“That seems odd.  I would think any monarch’s heir would automatically be his favorite child – if