He didn’t want to force his wife — God save him, he was already marked as a beast and he’d vowed never to be one with Tosia, but here he was, demanding that she tame that side of him. What if she didn’t agree? What if —?
His thoughts were cut off when her gaze, steady and unafraid, bore into him and she dropped her knees, giving him full access to the one part of her that could give him succor.
James didn’t hesitate. He drove forward, sinking himself into her warm welcoming sheath, grounding himself, pouring out the vitriol and regaining his humanity.
“Were ye satisfied,lass?” James asked as he huffed his breath, standing above her with his braies yet unlaced and manhood exposed. “I fear I took ye far too quickly. Hurt ye when I could no’ think clearly.”
Tosia shifted over to look up at him, letting her skirts fall where they may. The sheer force of his need, his desire driving him like an animal, should have frightened her, shocked her. Instead, his ferocious, beastly lust thrilled her, the burst of pleasure she’d experienced arising from his rough hands and pounding hips as much as from any joining they’d had.
Until this moment, James had been the pinnacle of gentle lover, guiding her to find her moments of pleasure with him.
This, today, had been all James, a raging hunger that thundered from him. Her skin was branded from his calloused hands and the rough scrub of his beard. He was blind with his need, possessed and driven to claim her, even if he hurt her doing so.
He hadn’t. The sight of his rippling arms, his clenched jaw and his eyes,oh, tormented and predatory as he stared her down. She was his prey. His only prey.
And she was the lone person who might calm that beast and bring James back from the brink.
That knowledge set her entire body ablaze with her own passion. Such power in the control of that animalistic need.
“Ye did no’ hurt me,” she assured him in a languorous voice, one of a satisfied woman.
James’s chin clipped to the side, and his gaze dropped to the length of pale thigh that extended beyond her hiked-up skirt. His eyes blazed wolfishly again.
“Nay?” Ignoring his own state of undress, he trailed a finger along her thigh.
“Ye have been a gentle, cautious man until today. Whilst ye have shown me my own pleasure, I had no’ known that coupling between a man and woman could be so —”
“Rough? Carnal?”
“Urgent. Torrid,” she answered.
James tucked himself in his braies and sat next to her on the bed. Blood yet stained his hands and tunic, and he dropped his head into his hands as if he were trying to hold his skull together lest it break apart.
“I’ve wanted ye like that since our first night. But ‘tis no way to take a lass, a wife. Yet, seeing ye, knowing ye were yet safe, knowing I found vengeance for ye, set my head on fire. Knowing that ye are mine and no one else’s, and that I can have ye when and where I may, can make a man ragged. And I was burning with blood lust. Those three can change any man into an animal.”
Tosia had rested her hand on his back and now pressed against it to sit upright.
“I am yours? I belong to ye? As your wife, aye?”
Her curious tone was not lost on James, who shifted to face her, dropping his hands to his lap. With one finger, he traced the line of her jaw. Now that the beast inside him was tamed, he was again the gentle husband.
“We belong to each other, but aye. With men, we have a sense of ownership with our wives, with the women we love, or our children and kin. Ye are mine. And if someone were to take ye from me, I would fight every demon from hell to get ye back or find vengeance if ye were harmed. Men are no’ as rational as we like to believe in that way.”
Tosia was silent for a moment, studying the lines of his face. Whenever he opened his heart this way, she was awe-struck. It didn’t fit the image of the Black Douglas. Yet more, it helped her understand the king and his motives, and the men of Scotland as a whole.
“’Tis why the king has ye as his second in command. Someone took his wife and child, who belonged to him. And his country, too. So he’s fevered with getting them back.”
James nodded. “Men might find solace for a night, but ye’d be surprised how they pine for the woman they love.”
Tosia’s lips quivered to suppress a smile. Oh, but she was learning much about the ways of men from one of the most hardened men of them all! Then her smile dropped, and her face grew serious.
“Would ye pine for me?”
He had said he owned her, but much of his words spoke of love. Did he love her enough to pine for her if she were no longer here? Or just seek vengeance for the loss of something that was no longer his? A girlish fancy, but she’d come to care for this man, more deeply than she let on or was ready to show to those outside their chambers. Was that emotion one sided?
James moved his hand to clasp hers, threading her slender fingers through his much thicker ones.
“I would no’ say it outside this chamber for fear ‘twould be used against me. Please always keep that in mind. Look what happened to the Bruce when his wife and child were imprisoned. They are using the lasses against him, and it eats away at him body and soul, like a disease. I would no’ survive if I were the cause of your abduction, or worse.” He kissed her forehead before returning his gaze to her eyes. “I had no’ thought it possible, Tosia Douglas, but ye are the one single good thing I have in my life. And I adore ye for having the strength to be wed to the Black Douglas. Ye have trusted me in a way no other has, and your willingness to be so open to me, the monstrous, broken man that I am, has scarred my heart as much as my battles have scarred my body. I want ye and no other, my dear Tosia.”
