style="font-size:15px;"> That wasn’t true. It was far from true. She’d thought of him so often, trying to remember how, exactly, it had all gone wrong. But Margot couldn’t pretend with him now—she knew him well enough to know he was teetering on the edge of fury, and beyond that, who knew? She looked him directly in the eye and said, “Actually, Arran, I’ve thought of you often.”
One dark brow arched above the other, as if that amused him. He began moving toward her, around her, behind her. “You’ve a peculiar way of showing it. Have you thought, then, of what I did to make you so unhappy? I have. But do you know what I wonder even more?”
Margot tried not to show any emotion and tried to stand perfectly still. She shook her head.
“I wonder,” he said softly as his palm glided across her shoulder, to the back of her neck and to the other shoulder, “what has made you so miraculously eager to return to me that you’d no’ send a messenger.” His hands closed around her shoulders, and he leaned down and kissed her neck.
A sudden heat rushed through her.
“No’ a bloody word of warning. The only party who might arrive here at Balhaire without sending word is the English army. Tell me, Margot—is there an English army lying in wait in the hills?” he asked, and licked the spot on her neck behind her earlobe.
The sensation of his tongue against her skin glittered in every nerve. She grabbed a fistful of her gown in an attempt to steady herself. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, her voice unsteady. “Perhaps I misjudged you.” She closed her eyes as his lips moved on her skin. “I thought you’d want to reconcile.”
“With you?” He laughed coldly. “With a woman who has betrayed me? You’re no’ a stupid lass, Margot. You’ve no misjudged a bloody thing,” he said against her neck, and deftly removed the goblet from her hand and put it aside on a table as he continued his mouth’s exploration of her nape. “As much as it amuses me to hear it, I donna believe you’ve thought of me at all, except perhaps to wonder when your next purse would arrive from Scotland.” He slid his hand around to her breast and roughly squeezed it. “Is that no’ so?”
Margot’s lips parted with the sharp intake of her breath. His rough handling of her was causing the heat in her to rise and bloom in her skin. “That is not so,” she said, trying futilely not to sound as breathless as she felt in his arms.
Arran grabbed her waist and twirled her around to face him. “Donna lie to me,” he said, and clasped her head in his enormous hands and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, one full of frustration. He kissed her in a way he had never kissed her before, his tongue tangling hotly with hers, his teeth grazing her lips.
Margot tumbled off some interior ledge. She wasn’t prepared for this, would have said it impossible—but his rough wooing was invoking a fiery response in her. She panicked and pushed hard against his chest. She had to control this between them. She had to keep her wits about her. “Unhand me,” she said roughly.
That did nothing to stop him; in fact, his eyes fired with the challenge. “You’re still my wife. That you canna change. Thank your stars I’ve no’ locked you away just yet.”
Her heart leaped painfully. That would be the utter end of her, to be sent back here, only to be locked away. Margot tried to walk out of his arms, but Arran pushed her up against the wall. When she freed herself, he grabbed both her hands and lifted them over her head, pinning them to the wall with one hand. He held her there, his gaze greedily scraping over her, studying her, as if reacquainting himself with every inch of her body.
She hated how quickly his stark gaze aroused her. It was so virile, so full of lust. This man was a far cry from the one who had so tenderly initiated her into lovemaking. “You’re a beast,” she breathed.
“You donna know the half of it,” he bit out, and dipped his head to kiss her. Margot stubbornly turned her head, but Arran was not deterred—he lightly bit the swell of her breast above the bodice of her gown, and she gasped with pleasure. “Is this no’ what you want, then?” His breath was hot on her skin. “To show me just how much you missed your poor, dear husband, the damn fool you left behind?”
Her pulse soared with fear, with want. “I would prefer a gentler reunion,” she lied.
“Then you might have taken a gentler leave of me,” he snapped, and pressed his body against hers.
She could feel all of him—the hard plane of his abdomen and muscular legs, his enormous erection. Margot was losing herself in the sensation of his hands and mouth on her. She closed her eyes and tried to drag air into her lungs, alarmed by how badly she wanted him, however he would have her—in his bed, or on her knees. “Are you such an animal that you would force yourself on me?” she demanded, desperate to stop herself from giving in completely.
“Are you such a witch that you would have me stop?” he breathed into her neck before biting her ear as he pressed his erection against her.
His sensual assault was intoxicating and exhilarating, an explosion of light and color and scents that were dangerously arousing. “Yes. I want you to stop,” she hissed.
Arran abruptly hiked her skirt and slipped his hand between her legs. Margot was wet. He pressed his mouth against her cheek and whispered, “Liar.”
“You’re insufferable,” she breathed, turning her head to him now, her mouth only a breath from his. “A wild beast of a man, rutting on his wife because his pride has been wounded.”
“Aye, I am wild with anger, that I willna deny. But I know that no matter what else has gone between us, you’ve always wanted me. At times rather desperately, aye? Just as you do now.” He slipped his fingers into her body.
She couldn’t suppress a gasp of pure desire. “You have mistaken boredom for want,” she said breathlessly, and tried to kiss him, but Arran, still holding her hands above her head, jerked back, just out of her reach, removing his hand from between her legs.
He grinned at her expression of fury. “You’re a moment from seeing the back of my hand, so donna sweet-talk me, leannan.”
Oh, that word, that word! It had always dripped down her spine like warm honey, and he knew it, too, the bloody bounder. She couldn’t even say what it meant, precisely, but it was the endearment he had used with her in this very room. “Take your hands from me,” she said. “You’re filthy and you’re half-drunk.”
He pressed against her again, roughly cupped her face with his free hand. “My clothes are soiled, but they’ll come off soon enough. I’m only pleasantly drunk, no’ enough to interfere with my husbandly duty.” He silenced her attempt to argue with a kiss. This time, a sweetly tender kiss.
And Margot disintegrated.
Everything in her surrendered. He tasted like ale and spice, smelled musky and powerful. Her blood stirred violently in her as he yanked the pins from her hair, let one long tress fall after the other. He claimed her breast with his hand once more, kneading it through the fabric of her gown, his thumb flicking over her hardened nipple.
Arran let go of her hands and slipped one arm around her waist. Lost in the moment between them, Margot let her hands fall to his shoulders as he kissed her and, lifting her off her feet, twirled her away from the wall and stalked across the room to his bed with her. He tossed her down, rolled her over and yanked at the laces of her gown at her back.
She
