he reached beyond him for the plate of meat, cheese, and bread. She set it on the floor next to them and picked up a piece of the meat.

She offered it to him from her hand. His mouth brushed over her fingers as he ate the offering.

“ ’Tis the sweetest meal I’ve ever eaten,” he said in a husky voice. “Offered from the hand of a na**d goddess while she sits astride me. ’Tis heaven I’ve gone to.”

It was tempting to lean forward and kiss him long and hard, but she’d kept him from his meal long enough. Alternating between the meat, cheese, and bread, she broke off smaller pieces and fed him with her fingers.

He made it difficult because all the while she tended his meal, he stroked his hands over her skin. He caressed her shoulders, her back, and then he moved around to cup her ample breasts, thumbing each nipple in turn until she was fidgeting all over his lap.

“I should warn you that when this seduction of yours is at its end, I’ll not last long. I mean to have you lass, but I’m so eager, I’ll spill my seed at the first thrust.”

She laughed. “Tonight is about your pleasure, husband. I am yours to do with as you like.”

“Then free me of my trews right here so I can rest deep inside you. I’m thinking of making it a rule that when you sit on my lap, you must rest atop my cock.”

She pulled impatiently at his trews, for his words licked like fire over her body and she was as eager as he was to have him inside her.

She arched up as soon as he sprang free. He gripped her h*ps and guided her into place and then sank deep. They both made inarticulate sounds of pleasure. When she would have moved, he anchored her tight against him so that no space separated them.

“Right there, lass. Don’t move. Now feed me the rest of my meal.”

Each time she moved to pick up a piece of bread or cheese from the plate, she clenched tighter around him and he swelled even larger until she was impossibly stretched.

“You clutch me like a velvet fist,” he breathed.

He ran his hands up her arms and gripped her just below the shoulders. She dropped the last piece of bread when he fused his mouth to hers as if he hadn’t just eaten his fill and was starving. For her.

The flats of his palms glided down her arms and then over her hips, where they came to rest. His fingers dug into her buttocks and he lifted her as he arched upward.

“ ’Tis too good,” he gritted out. “I can’t make it last.”

He thrust hard and she was filled by his warmth. He held her tightly to his groin as he pulsed inside her sheath. Then his hands left her h*ps and he pulled her against his chest, his hands stroking up and down her spine.

For several long moments he continued his gentle caresses as he softened inside her. Impossibly, he wrapped one arm around her and put his other hand to the floor to push himself upward.

He slipped from her body as he stood, but he continued to hold her as he turned toward the bed, the tub and the food forgotten.

He laid her down and crawled into bed beside her, pulling her against his body. They sprawled there on the mattress, limbs tangled, arms thrown possessively over each other. He kissed her forehead and sighed in contentment. She savored the sound of a well-pleasured man and smiled her satisfaction.

“I am unsure what warranted such affection from my wife, but do tell me so that I may do it again in the future,” he said lightly.

She squeezed him and kissed the hollow of his neck. Then she toyed idly with his hair, suddenly possessed to want to know more of her husband.

“What is it you write in your scrolls?”

He drew away, seemingly surprised by the question. He looked faintly … embarrassed, and she wondered if she hadn’t been better served to not spoil the intimate moment between them.

“My thoughts,” he finally said. “It helps me make better sense of them when I write them down.”

“So it’s like an accounting of your day?”

“In a manner of speaking. I find I express myself better with written words. I haven’t an eloquent tongue and I don’t like to speak overmuch.”

“Nay. Surely you jest,” she teased.

He smacked her playfully on the arse. “ ’Tis something I’ve done since I learned to read and write when I was a young lad. My father was a learned man and he taught his sons. He thought it an important skill. He oft said that intelligence served a warrior better than a sword.”

“He sounded like a wise man.”

“He was,” Caelen said quietly. “He was a great laird, beloved by his clan.”

Rionna looked into her husband’s eyes and knew that demons from his past gnawed at him this night. She sorely regretted making him think of his father, for ’twas impossible to separate his death and Elsepeth’s betrayal. But at the same time, she wanted to know more and perhaps ease her husband’s burden.

“Tell me of Elsepeth,” she urged.

Caelen stiffened and his expression darkened. “ ’Tis nothing to speak of.”

“I would disagree. She’s made you hard. She’s taken something that should be rightfully mine.”

Caelen looked at her in confusion. “What is it you speak of?”

She touched his cheek. “Your heart. You cannot ever give it fully to me because she still occupies it.”

“Nay,” he swiftly denied.

“Aye,” she argued. “You hardened the part of your heart that you offered to her. When she betrayed you, you locked that part away, never to open it again. She’s trapped there. She has what is rightfully mine and I want it, husband. I’m no longer content to wait.”

He looked incredulously at her. “You make unreasonable demands, wife.”

Rionna huffed impatiently. “ ’Tis unreasonable to want the whole of my husband’s heart? Would you accept that part of my heart belonged to another man and you could never touch it?”

He scowled at that. “You’re making too much of it, Rionna. Elsepeth is part of my past. You are my future. The two have nothing to do with each other.”

“Then tell me of her,” Rionna challenged. “If she poses no threat, then ’tis nothing to speak of her.”

Caelen sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. Rionna remained still, waiting as he grappled with his irritation.

“I was a fool.”

Rionna didn’t respond as she watched the emotion play out over her husband’s face. She didn’t believe for a minute he still harbored tender feelings for Elsepeth, but his past was still very much alive in his heart and mind. ’Twas like a poison he’d yet to purge from his system.

She could still see the na**d pain in his eyes and his regret at all that had transpired so many years ago.

“She was a few years older than I and she had more experience. I was but a young lad and she was my first … She was my first lover. I fancied myself in love with her. I had our future all mapped out. I intended to marry her, though I had nothing in the way to offer a wife. I was the third son of a laird. We weren’t a poor clan then but we were never rich either. ’Twas my intention to go to her cousin, Duncan Cameron, and ask for her hand in marriage.”

Rionna grimaced, for even though she knew the tale, or the crux of it, the inevitable path still made her cringe.

“My father sent me, Ewan, and Alaric to barter with a neighboring clan. While we were gone, Elsepeth drugged the men and opened the gates so Cameron’s soldiers could sneak into the keep in the dead of night. ’Twas a bloodbath. Our clan was sorely outnumbered and ’twas the truth we were not as well trained then as we are now. We didn’t stand a chance.

“When my brothers and I returned, we found our father dead. Ewan’s young wife had been raped and her throat cut. Only his son survived because he was hidden by women in the keep.

“The remaining members of our clan told me of Elsepeth’s involvement, but my shame doesn’t end there.”

Rionna’s brows drew together. “What happened then?”

“I didn’t believe them,” he said in disgust. “I was presented solid evidence that my head knew had to be true but my heart told me she couldn’t have possibly betrayed me. I searched her out, determined to hear her explanation from her own lips. I was sure there had been some mistake.”

Rionna winced and blew out her breath. This part of the story she hadn’t heard before.

“When I confronted her, she laughed. She didn’t try to make up a lie. She laughed to my face and when I turned away, she drew a knife and plunged it into my back.”

“The scar above your side,” Rionna whispered.

“Aye. ’Tis not a mark I wear with pride. ’Tis a reminder of how I allowed a woman I cared for to destroy my clan.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. I care not. One day she’ll pay for her sins, just as I’ll pay for mine.”

“You don’t think you’ve made good on your mistakes?” Rionna asked. “Your clan is rebuilt, your people thrive, you’ve made an alliance that will save many from Cameron’s ruthless ambition.”

“Nothing I do will ever give me and my brothers back our father,” he said simply. “I learned a valuable lesson that day. One I’ll never turn my back on. I allowed my heart to discount evidence that my mind knew was sound. I’ll never second-guess what stares me in the face again.”

Rionna frowned and slid her hand over his chest as she snuggled into his side. He sounded so … cold. Not at all the warm, gruff warrior that she’d grown to love with all her heart.

For the first time she wondered if Elsepeth had damaged a part of him that Rionna had no hope of repairing.

Caelen closed his hand over hers and squeezed as they lay in silence. She thought on all he’d said and the more she thought on it, the more one thing didn’t make sense.

“Caelen?”

“Aye.”

“Why did Cameron attack? What was his purpose? He didn’t take over your land. He left it in ruins and returned to his own lands.”

Caelen’s chest heaved as he breathed deep. “I don’t know that. I’ve never known. ’Twas as if he was sending a message, but ’tis one I’ve never understood the meaning of. We were a clan at peace. We warred with no one. My father was not a man who condoned raiding or fighting for the sake of fighting. It sickens me that he met the end he met when he never brought harm to anyone.”

Rionna rose up on one elbow so that she could stare down at her husband. It suddenly seemed all important that she say what it was that burned on her tongue.

“I’m not Elsepeth, Caelen. I need you to know that. I’ll not ever betray you.”

He stared at her a long moment before pulling her down for a kiss. “Aye, I know it, Rionna.”

CHAPTER 28

May saw no break in the weather. Indeed, it was as if winter was making up for the mildness of January by stubbornly clinging on to spring.

Their food stores were depleted and the men hadn’t been able to hunt in an entire fortnight because of the heavy, blowing snow.

Everyone was forced indoors, hovering near the fires to keep warm. Caelen stewed with impatience, waiting a break in the weather and waiting for word from Ewan.

At the end of the third week of the month, the break finally came. A messenger arrived bearing news from Ewan that all was well at Neamh Álainn and that plans were underway to go into battle. Ewan was even now sending word to all the other lairds. The king had delivered to Ewan a contingent of soldiers, all loyal to the crown.

Much time had been lost due to the prolonged snows and bitter cold. Now Ewan was impatient to go to war, and he directed Caelen to make ready and await Ewan’s summons.

Despite the fact that she knew this day was coming, Rionna was disturbed by the news. She had no desire to send her husband or her clan to war, but she bit her lip and kept her misgivings to herself. She wouldn’t burden her husband when his mind was already looking ahead to the coming battle.

He was restless, and as the days wore on he became tense and silent. Finally, when they were distributing the last of the venison, Caelen rounded up his hunting party and declared that they’d hunt as much meat as possible in the short time before they rode off to war.

Caelen’s restlessness had carried over to the men, and a hunt was just the thing to quiet their minds before battle.

Caelen stood in the hall, Rionna on his right side and Gannon to his left. Rionna had twined her fingers with his and held on, drawing comfort from his touch.

“You’ll stay behind and watch over the keep,” Caelen said to Gannon. “I don’t expect word from Ewan for some days yet, but if you receive a message, send someone for me immediately. We won’t venture far on our hunt. Watch over Rionna well for me.”

Gannon nodded. “Of course I will, Laird. May your hunt be successful and you return with a full bounty.”

Gannon strode away, leaving Caelen alone with Rionna. She turned into his embrace before he could say anything else and she hugged him fiercely, uncaring of who looked on. ’Twas one time her husband would have to suffer displays of affection outside of their chamber.

To her surprise, he kissed her lingeringly and stroked his fingers over her cheeks as he pulled away.

“I can see the worry in your eyes, wife. ’Tis not good for you or our babe. All will be well. This day has been coming for many years. ’Tis the truth I am fair itching to get on with it.”

“Aye, I know it,” she said quietly. “Go on your hunt and clear your mind before you ride off to do battle with Cameron. I have every faith that you and your brothers will prove victorious.”