AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I told ye, there will be nay love between us,” he whispered.
His voice was strained, yet the conviction seeped through every syllable. After all, he’d repeated it so often that it had grown over his heart like a ball of thorned vines, protecting him. Though, there wasonethorn that turned inward, digging into his heart. The thorn that had broken his heart in the first place.
“I’m nae askin’ for love,” Saoirse mumbled, dropping her chin to her chest. “I’m nae foolish enough to think it’s an immediate thing. I ken that love has to grow, but it cannae even bud if ye keep… makin’ me feel like a mistake.”
Her quiet, wounded voice struck him like a punch to the gut. In that moment, he would have said anything to make her feel better and to see her smile again. She was utterly ethereal when she smiled.
“But I dinnae say we wouldnae have any passion,” he murmured, offering a compromise to try and cheer her. “Make nay mistake—and ye certainly are nae one—there’s a part of me that wants to make ye mine, right here and now. A part that wants yer legs wrapped around my waist, holding me captive to yer every mercy and whim. There’s… a hunger drivin’ me, even now, to rip that gown off yer body, to feel yer bare skin pressed to mine, to hear yer cries of pleasure until dawn rises.”
Noah hung his head, panting from the mere imagination of what they could do together. Considering the way that she made him feel, he knew he couldn’t deny himself his needs and desires forever, but, for tonight, he would.
“Then… stay,” Saoirse breathed.
She leaned forward and looped her arms around his neck like the very best kind of noose: her fingertips running lightly through his hair. Gooseflesh prickled across his shoulders and up his spine, and it took every ounce of his strength just to stay still. His mind flashed between two choices—seizing her in his embrace again or snatching her by the arms and pulling her away from him.
“I cannae,” he said softly. “Nae tonight.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the difference between this night or any other? If there’s a part of ye that…doeswant me, then I should like to meet that side of ye. He’s been noticeably absent.”
Noah stared directly into her eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to ravish her with kisses, or give in to the throb of his manhood, satisfying them both within the heat of her silken depths. But he knew that if he followed his body instead of his mind at this moment, his resolve not to love her would vanish. It would slip through his fingers like sand.
“He’s in hidin’,” he told her, with a half smile.
She tapped on his temple, startling him. “Are ye in there? I should like ye to come out of yer hideaway, M’Laird.”
“I think he must be sleepin’, which is precisely what ye should do.” Noah took hold of her hands and peeled them away from him.
Getting to his feet, he bowed his head and, before she could protest again, he was across the room and out of the door.
The air in the hallway was clearer somehow, crisper. It was as if Saoirse’s room was filled with some sort of smoke that dulled his senses and clouded his mind. Perhaps, it was that blasted perfume.
I must ask Mary to find it and “lose” it, before I lose my willpower,he told himself, as he moved quickly through the familiar labyrinth of his castle and headed for the sanctuary of his study. The further he got from his wife, the better his mind seemed to work, though he couldn’t yet do anything about the swift pounding of his heart.
Pushing through the doors of his study, he went straight to the chair by the fireplace and sat down. There, he leaned back and exhaled, feeling like he could breathe for the first time since arriving back at his castle. A lot had changed since he left for his wedding, but this room hadn’t. The sight of all his things, precisely where he’d left them, eased his anxiety.
“What did I say all of that for?” he groaned, somewhat embarrassed by the explicit detail. “I’d have done better to say nothin’ at all.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and dropped his shoulders. Noah never expected to be ensnared by his wife. She was supposed to just be a sheltered woman, obedient and meek, that would produce an heir for him. Nothing more.
Yet, as he thought of Saoirse, the more her image embedded itself into his soul: the subtle shift of color in her hair, the way her blue, almond-shaped eyes pulled him every time, the shape of her in his arms, so fragile yet so fierce. It made his heart skip. But it was her lips that he couldn’t stop thinking about. Although he had barely done more than graze them, her taste lingered on his mouth, sweeter than honey.
I shouldnae have run back, makin’ up such daft excuses. What was I thinkin’, kissin’ her? Now, she’ll think that I’m infatuated wit’ her. She’ll expect more.
“I’m nae askin’ for love,”she’d said, but there’d been a pause that seemed to add,“Nae yet, anyway.”And all of her talk of love growing and budding afterward.That was what worried him.
Noah ground his teeth as he shot up from the chair and moved to the small table in the corner of the room. The table was lined with crystal decanters, filled with various drinks. There was only one thing he could think to drink that would ease his troubles.
Reaching for the decanter of whiskey, Noah poured a hearty measure into a matching crystal glass. Quickly, he drew the liquid to his mouth and gulped down the contents. It burned his mouth and throat as it raced down into his belly, but a warm, content feeling seeped up a moment later and raced through his body, right down to his fingers and toes. Only when every muscle felt eased did he pour another glass.
“Perfect, I could use one too.” The squeak of hinges turned Noah’s head sharply, where he found Scott striding in unannounced.
“Daenae ye ever knock?” Noah grumbled.
Scott flashed a grin. “Aye, I could, but then I wouldnae get to see the shock on yer face when I surprise ye.”
Reluctantly, Noah poured his friend a drink and handed it to him. “And what if I was daein’ somethin’ inappropriate in here?” he asked as he went to a small chaise lounge. “What if I had my wife with me, right here on this chaise?”
“Judgin’ by yer measures tonight, that wasnae likely to happen,” Scott replied with a snort. “Besides, ‘tis nae in yer nature. Ye were never the darin’ kind.”
