“Then love me as I have wanted you to,” she said against his mouth.
His body ached for her, and he groaned deep in his throat. “I cannot. For the sake of your future.”
“You are my future,” she said, reaching down to take hold of him, and his resolve wobbled.
His raised his face and closed his eyes. “Glenna, you don’t know what will happen.”
“I know what will happen tonight,” she said, releasing him and stepping back. She raised her hand to her opposite shoulder and slid her gown down. Her thin underdress glowed in the light of the fire, the prominences of her breasts showing in dark relief. She came back to him and pushed his robe away, kissing his chest. “Obey your lady, Cameron.” She reached down and cupped him, squeezed him.
* * * *
He seized her, pulled her to his naked body, running his hands over her back to grip her buttocks and lift her to him. Glenna clutched Tavish’s shoulders as he picked her up against him and turned her toward the bed. He sat her down on the edge, and she scrambled backward as he raised one knee to the mattress, his manhood pointing heavily toward her. Her underdress had bunched beneath her and she let her legs fall open, brazenly revealing her nakedness.
Tavish pursued her, his gaze hungrily taking in what she was showing him. He leaned over her on one arm, his other hand going immediately to her cleft, testing her, teasing her. She hummed with desire.
“Take off the gown,” he said.
Glenna fell onto her back and shimmied out of the fine linen underdress, leaving her arms over her head on the mattress as Tavish brought his mouth to her breast and his fingers primed her. She could feel her time coming already, and she lifted her hips in a silent demand for him.
She felt it then, the hot tip of him, and then she reached down to grasp his firm buttocks, urging him closer, pulling him into her body slowly, relishing the slick discomfort as he displaced her flesh with his own. She expected pain, but the sensation was not unpleasant. In fact, the deeper he pressed, the fuller she became, the higher her climax wound deep in her abdomen. It seemed to go on for a wonderful eternity, this initial claiming. And when he was finally seated fully inside her and began to withdraw, she began to pulse with this new level of eroticism between them.
“Do it,” she commanded in a whisper. “Tavish, do it.” She slowly pumped her hips until he matched her rhythm with a groan.
And then he was thrusting into her with urgency, deep and slow and firm, his breaths rushing over her as she panted. Glenna cried out as her world narrowed to the explosion of their point of connection. She clung to him as her body pulsed, and in a moment, his guttural cry was near her ear and he stilled, throbbing against her own fading vibration, and she knew his seed filled her. She cried out again.
Tavish rolled to his side, pulling her with him, and she offered her mouth to him as tears slid from her eyes.
“I love you,” she whispered against his skin. “I love you, Tavish.”
“I swear to you,” he said, cupping her breast in a caress, moving against her body again, “I will keep you safe. And I will love you for all eternity. That is my vow.”
And as he began proving that to her once again, Glenna believed him.
Chapter 20
Tavish watched the sun rise alone. Glenna had left him in the night, with his blessing, to sit with her father. Tavish had attempted to accompany her, hoping to speak to his mother as well as Iain Douglas, but the king’s soldiers thwarted him, adhering strictly to the boundaries James had committed him to.
And so he found himself alone at the window, dressed in his sturdy merchant’s clothing, watching the hazy sky lighten behind its thick blanket of smothering clouds. There would be no sun today, and that was just as well. The beach below, the courtyard, was empty. The soldiers were finished searching. Only a lone mast on the Forth, so far in the distance as to perhaps be an illusion of waves to the untrained eye, betrayed any sign of human movement.
A tray was delivered to the room, along with a message that the king required his presence in the hall in one hour. Tavish felt little hunger, but he sat at the small table with the smell of Glenna’s violets around him and consumed the meal, reading and re-reading the document detailing his inheritance delivered to him by Lucan Montague what seemed years ago now.
When the soldier opened the door and stood there without word, Tavish rose from his chair, folded the proclamation neatly, and tucked it inside his vest. He walked to the bed where his belt and sword lay and carefully donned them. He paused to look at the soldier, whose expression was openly hostile.
“Was any sign of Miss Keane found in the night?”
“Shut up,” the soldier sneered. “For a ha’cup o’ drink, I’d sliver yer gullet an’ spare the overs th’ trooble o’ ye. Get on,” he commanded, gesturing with his head.
Tavish walked from the room and descended the steps flanked by soldiers. He could hear the murmurs in the hall before the doorway came in sight. Apparently everyone else had already been gathered.
Tavish would be walked into their midst as if he were already convicted.
The hall had been transformed in the night. His finely turned trestle was horizontal before the hearth now, and James sat in the center, the portrait of the Annesley family over his head. Several of the dining chairs and benches were arranged before it with a space in the center serving as an aisle of sorts, and the seats were filled by the highest ranking nobles in attendance. Niall Keane had also been granted a seat on the right, next to the smug presence of Vaughn Hargrave. His mistress spy stood behind him, gripping the back of his chair, her face ashen within her full, close snood, her eyes dark hollows.
Seeing her in the full light of day solidified Tavish’s belief—it was her Tavish had seen coming from Audrey’s room that morning. And he was prepared to swear to it.
Mam and Glenna sat on the left. His ever-composed princess, her back straight, her hair finely coiffed, her black-and-saffron-plaid kirtle simple and elegant amidst the heavy brocades and gaudy silks. She stared toward the window with her chin lifted. She was the most beautiful woman in the room, by far, and pride filled Tavish; that woman—thatlady—loved him. She had loved him last night, at his lowest, just as he was.
Tavish was determined to make her proud.
