“I’m going to enjoy tonguing yer pearl, lass.”

“My what?” Her voice was a croak because she’d never imagined that husbands and wives talked so much about bed sport.

His hand moved to her spread sex, gliding up the center of her folds to the top where her clitoris was unprotected now. He pressed his thumb down on top of it, gently moving the finger in a tiny circle.

“This little pearl, sweet wife. The only one that I truly care to see on ye. I’m going to enjoy giving it a great deal of attention.”

The man was not boasting idle promises. He leaned forward and captured her clitoris between his lips. She cried out because it was even more sensitive than she had thought. Arousal had seeped into her while she pleasured him, and now it was like dry tinder and his mouth the spark.

Her hands became claws, pulling at the bedding. His lips sucked, and the tip of his tongue flicked back and forth across her clitoris. She couldn’t seem to pull enough breath into her lungs, her chest heaving to try to keep pace with her accelerating heart. Her hips lifted to his mouth, seeking out enough pressure to fling her into that same pleasure pool as before. This time she knew her destination, and her body was even more eager for the culmination.

“That’s it, lass, raise yer hips and demand yer pleasure.”

He trailed one fingertip down the center of her spread fold to gently circle the opening to her passage.

“Take yer pleasure from me, Jemma.”

His voice was strained, as though his control was being tested. She lifted her eyelids to look at him and discovered hunger glittering in his eyes. She watched his fingers take over working her clitoris, pressing and rubbing it. She lost the ability to keep her eyes open, the pleasure becoming too much to ignore in favor of anything else. She closed her eyes and felt her body tighten, each rub from his fingers intensifying the pleasure. He leaned forward and replaced his fingers with his mouth, muttering something against her clitoris that vibrated against the sensitive point.

Pleasure ripped through her, pulling her into a moment filled with nothing but blinding delight. It raced out to the farthest points of her body and then back to her belly where it bathed the hunger gnawing at her in satisfaction. Her cries echoed off the arched ceiling and the canopy stretched over the bed. He trailed his fingers back down to the opening of her passage to gently tease it. She felt empty and as though she wasn’t yet truly satisfied. He allowed one finger to penetrate her, just a small amount, but the walls of her passage instantly registered it and how good it felt. The motion recalled her to the task in front of her. That thing that had been so much talked about.

Taking his member inside me.

For certain she had heard more coarse words for it, but she could see the hunger in his eyes and feel it still glowing in the deepest part of her. She was still needy, still yearning for something more.

“Are ye ready, Jemma? Ready to become me wife?”

His voice was rough and coated with need as great as her own. She lifted her arms in invitation.

“Come to me, Gordon. Be my husband.”

He growled and pulled his fingers from her passage. Rising up, she caught a glimpse of his rigid cock and shivered. But he crawled up to cover her, and his warm skin connected with hers to send a flood of contentment through her, as though it was something she had always yearned for but never realized she needed. Her hands rose to clasp his shoulders, and she felt the first touch of his cock against the opening of her body. It slipped easily against the wet skin, nudging its way . . .

Gordon suddenly froze, his head tilting sideways. The windows all vibrated with the ringing of bells. They increased in volume as more of them joined. He let out a vicious curse, and a second later she lay alone on the bed.

“What is it?”

“Trouble.”

He cast one look back at her and snarled something else that would have gotten him locked in the stocks for cursing. He grabbed the heavy coverlet and tossed it up the bed to cover her. Someone pounded on the chamber doors a moment later.

“Enter!”

Two of his captains burst into the room. “Fire in the village.”

“Assemble the men.”

His captains didn’t waste any time delivering their laird’s orders. They quit the room in a flash while Gordon stalked toward the far side of the chamber. She hadn’t realized the maid had set out his clothing in case he might have to dress quickly in the middle of the night.

It was his duty to protect his people. Such was a dangerous task that was so often bathed in blood. He pulled a shirt on and stepped into a pair of boots. Bending one knee, he laced one quickly and then the other. A kilt was already pleated along a table built at an angle. The length of tartan evenly placed and a belt running beneath it. He placed his back in the center and tugged the ends of the belt around his middle.

“Stay right there, exactly as ye are.” He leaned into the bed and pressed a hard kiss against her mouth before turning and grabbing his sword on the way out of the chamber.

Jemma heard the doors close, and her eyes filled with tears. She failed to keep them from falling, the salt drops falling down her cheeks to wet the sheets. She wept for the chill that crept over the chamber and for the moment that they had been denied, but most of all she cried because of the fear that dug its claws into her.

The fear that she might become a widow before she sampled the joys of being a wife.

Gordon smelled the smoke the moment he set foot outside the tower. He took the stairs two at a time and gained the top quickly. Kerry was looking through a spy glass at the bright orange glare below them. It wasn’t in the village but one of the farmers on the outskirts.

“I suspect that would be the work of those bloody English.”

“The ones I granted mercy to.” Gordon took a quick look through the glass before passing it back to one of the men standing nearby. “I warned them that there would be no second chance of that happening again. Mount up!”

Every lad over the age of five was already helping to saddle horses. They came running in their night shirts to lend assistance to their clan. Gordon’s foot touched the ground, and his stallion was tugged toward him. He offered the animal a firm pat along its neck before swinging up onto its powerful back.

“Open the gate!”

There was a groan as the chains were wound up and the iron gate began to rise. The Barras retainers didn’t wait for it to finish; they ducked their heads across the necks of their horses the moment the iron gate was high enough for them to ride beneath. The sound of the horses’ hooves combined with the night. They streamed out of the castle, uncaring of the darkness. Nothing was more fearsome than they.

Chapter Eight

Jemma rubbed her eyes at dawn. Sleep had proven elusive, and she was already out of bed when Ula arrived. The housekeeper was without her customary smile this morning, her lips slightly pinched instead. But she was also not alone, for several women followed her.

“Don’t bother, Ula, there is no stain on the sheet. We hadn’t . . . um . . . the bells interrupted . . . us . . .”

Jemma stumbled over her words, never having imagined that she would have to explain the lack of blood on her wedding sheets. She would have laughed indeed at anyone who told her such a tale, but there was naught amusing about knowing that her bed was as clean as it had been the night before. Being English in a Scottish castle was not the place for any bride to try to explain pristine sheets on her first morning as a wife. At the very least, her marriage was unconsummated. Anne of Cleaves had found herself divorced for the same circumstance.

“I see. ’Tis nothing to fret over, Mistress. The laird will return.”

“I shall pray that he does.”

Jemma shivered, feeling the icy dread that had been her constant companion since her father died. Ula was worried; she read it off the housekeeper’s face. Gordon should have returned before sunrise. Other maids came into the chamber and set to work dressing her. Jemma stood still out of shock and the dread that felt like it might stop her heart with its grasp. He would return, she had to believe that.

Why?

Was she so foolish as to have allowed affection for him into her heart?

Jemma scoffed at herself. There had been nothing allowed. That was the difficulty with tender emotions; they slipped past every defense like poison in a goblet. You never knew that an assassin had gotten close enough to snatch your life away until you felt the evil concoction eating away at your insides.

But evil was a harsh word. Jemma hugged herself and crossed the chamber to look out the windows. The maids had opened some of the glass panes just like shutters, allowing fresh air to sweep through the room. It carried the scent of fall and blew out all the traces of smoke left from the candles that had burned last night. She had never imagined sleeping in such a grand room; it was something from a tale of a palace somewhere far away. Not something she might actually step into. It was easy to see far into the distance.

The view did not ease her mind because there was no sign of the Barras retainers nor their laird.

Her heart longed to see them, and that only made her more unhappy. Dread unleashed its tension on her. Like any storm there was no way to block out the chill completely, because even standing in front of a fire you felt its icy touch on the back of your neck.

She followed the other women to church where the priest sent out prayers for the retainers and laird. But her thoughts were centered on the man she worried so much about.