Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (11 page)

Her head jerked back in shock and then she, wanton she, bent to the side to allow him in.
 

He took what she offered, went up the length of her neck, with no hesitation, his mouth a weapon of sin and desire, marking her cool skin with hot, lingering, open-mouthed kisses, feasting on her neck and shoulders. His body took the final step in, so that he was pressed up full against the back of her. She felt the hard curve of his maleness.

The thread binding her to sense quite snapped, and she arched her spine, pressing her breasts into the hard cupping heat of their intertwined hands, which pushed her hips back into his.      

“Aye, like that,” he said hoarsely against her neck. He bent them forward, and guided their cupped hands down to the seam of her legs, until the silk was bunched high between her thighs, then he had them push in, hard and slow.

She flung her head with a gasp.
 

“Do you see how we shall do it?” he asked in a dark murmur, and moved their hands again.

She was that close to lost, that close to taking everything Aodh was offering, when a shout from outside the room broke through the miasma of their passion like shattering glass.

Her body gave a single, sinful shudder, then she wrenched free. For a half second, his arm tightened, then he released her, and she backed up a step, then another, and another, until she bumped into the table.

He watched like some otherworldly being, cast in shadow and flickering light, his head lowered slightly, the dark painted lines inked across the hand fisted at his side, breathing as hard as she.

Another tentative call came from the antechamber. “Sir? You’re wanted belowstairs.”

“Leave,” she whispered.

His gaze darkened. “Katarina.” It almost sounded like…a question.

Oh, that would never do.

She pointed at the door. “Get out.”

Something shifted in the eyes holding hers, a hardening, like black ice forming, and he laughed, once.

“If you wish to order me from my bedchamber, Katarina, you must first share it with me.”

The breath strangled in her throat. He was right. This was not her room anymore. Nothing was hers anymore. He’d taken it all.

He turned for the door without another word.

“You think I have no choice,” she said to his back.

He turned, his painted hand curled around the edge of the door. “If I wanted what came from a woman with no choice, Katarina, we would not be having this conversation.”
 

Whoosh.

“Come to me willing, or do not come at all.”
 

Chapter Eleven

AODH BARRELED out of the bedchamber, gripped in a vortex of lust.

It had consumed him, turned him into a churning, roaring thing of want he’d never known before. His body, his mind, his intentions, everything that beat or pulsed in him had been consumed, overtaken, wrested from his control, under the all-consuming power of wanting her.

If someone hadn’t called, if he hadn’t reached for self-control like a drowning man and let her go by an act of sheer will, he’d have had her up against the wall like some rutting beast, the very thing he’d spent his life proving he was not, all intentions of wooing and bending her will scorched away by the conflagration of his desire.

The conflagration of Katarina.

From the moment he’d touched her, he’d
known
.

He charged out the door and was halfway across the antechamber before he slammed to a halt to avoid tumbling over a youth, perhaps nine or ten years old, milling nervously about.

The boy froze like a hare at the sight of him. Aodh’s seventeen-year-old squire, Bran, snapped to attention too, then, as he looked at Aodh, Bran’s hand moved slowly to the hilt of his sword.

“What?” Aodh demanded.

“You…your…” Bran’s hand made a circling move to indicate Aodh’s face.

Aodh was breathing as hard as if he’d run a footrace—and lost. No doubt his face was flushed too, and was that sweat on his brow?

“Stay your sword, Bran, there is no danger.” He glanced at the boy. Bran shrugged as his hand fell away.

The boy, small but seemingly determined, circled the landing like a wild creature about to bolt, then, face pale, he cleared his throat and stepped forward.

“I had a question, sir. My lord,” he revised abruptly, then immediately retreated from it. “Sir. Milordsir,” he settled on the mongrel word, and Aodh couldn’t fault him for it.

“A question?” Aodh repeated in the same solemn tones.
 

“Is my lady…in need of anything?”

That
was a loaded question.

The boy plunged on. “I’m to bring her things, you see, milordsir. ’Tis my duty, and I don’t know if she”—he met Aodh’s eye with a sudden spurt of reckless bravery—“if she needs anything.”

A list of things Katarina needed entered his mind.

“’Tis my duty, sir,” the boy repeated stoutly.

“If that is your duty, lad, then you should get to it.”

The page’s body slumped with relief.

“Never let someone stop you from doing what you know must be done, not even a big ugly Irishman.”

The boy drew himself up straight, reinvigorated by this camaraderie and renewed sense of purpose. “Aye, sir! My lord! Sir! And you are not ugly, sir!”

At a gesture from Aodh, Bran searched the boy then allowed him inside. When the door was shut, Aodh called him over.

“Allow the boy out when he is done, but search him first. If the lady wishes to speak with any other members of her household, allow it, but search them fore and aft. Her ladyship is to remain inside, under lock and key, unless and until she wishes to see me. Then she is to be brought directly, and only, to me.”

His squire drew up straight as an arrow. “Aye, sir. Do you want her…bound?”

Yes, bind her, bring her to me like a feast.
He forced in another deep breath. “She is a lady, Bran. We do not bind ladies. But we do escort them, everywhere.” He paused. “Even the privy.”

Bran gave a clipped nod, absorbing the new rule. “Do I search her as well?”

Aodh paused to imagine his squire trying to search Katarina. “No, but clear the room of weapons. And, in the event we did not find them all, should you hear anything that sounds like a wheel-lock being loaded,” he added grimly, “investigate.”

Bran’s face paled. “As you say, sir. Should I locate her maidservant?”

He shook his head slowly. “Not yet you don’t.”

Bran looked unhappy about this. “What if she…needs anything?”

“Bring it to her. Or bring her to me. Those are her only options now.”

Aodh clapped him on the shoulder, feeling oddly…buoyant. It was there, under everything else, deep inside him, a sense of being lifted. As if he were back at sea. Despite the fact that he had not succeeded.

Mayhap
because
of it.

“We wanted Ireland, Bran,” he said. “This is it.”

He took the stairs to the hall two at a time, hurtling down them.

“Good Christ, Aodh, where have you been?” called Cormac, crossing the hall, his broad, bearded face split by a huge grin.

“Busy.”

“Are you mad? When the celebration is down here?”

People roamed everywhere. As Aodh had instructed, fires roared in every trough and hearth, tapestries were being hung, servants bustled to and fro, and the scent of duck and mutton wafted in from the stone kitchens. There was an air of jubilation, even from the conquered. And why not? No one had been killed, food had been brought in plenty, and the isolation of early spring had been lessened by the influx of new people, new stories, new blood. And notwithstanding the fact that the Rardove garrison was at present being held at blade point, what could have been a night of bandages and mourning had turned into almost riotous celebration.

Rardove’s legacy—legend—was the mollusks that populated the beaches at the base of its sea cliffs, rumored to have made the finest dyes far back into antiquity. But dyes were not necessary here. Rardove had a sheepfold that produced a wool that could be found nowhere else on earth. It also had thousands of acres of land, a seafront, and a stony castle fortress that could hold off an army for years.

Years.

Rardove was a gem in the Irish mists. Cold, diamond-hard opportunity. And it moved him not at all.

“Build the fires higher,” he ordered a passing servant, and the man scurried off.

Cormac stood at his side and surveyed the bustle of the great hall. “Well, we did it.” He flung out a beefy arm, indicating the hall, then turned and yanked Aodh into a heartfelt bear hug.

Aodh grunted as he was pulled into the Scot’s chest. Eight years of service, eight years of battles and near escapes, and it still surprised the hell out of him when Cormac did these sorts of things. “Christ’s mercy,” the gravelly, emotional, muffled voice came up. “We took accursed
Rardove Keep.”

Aodh submitted to the embrace—it was easier than trying to wrestle free—and Cormac’s burly arms sprang open and he stepped away, beaming. “I’m no’ ashamed to admit it, Aodh, I was skeptical about your god-awful plan at first, aye, but…” He swung his hand toward the hall, a silent, compelling conclusion.

“You’re always skeptical of my plans,” Aodh reminded him.

Cormac nodded happily. “That’s because they’re always so god-awful. Reckless and foolish with ne’er a chance of succeeding.”

“Recall to me why you join me?” Aodh moved toward on of the tables.

Cormac grinned. “Because you’re effective as hell.”

“That would be the reason.” He yanked out the bench and sat.

Cormac dropped down beside him, elbow sprawled across the table, then tipped forward and stopped a maidservant in her trembling tracks with a menacing, friendly roar. “Ale, comely lass, and in great measure!”

She stared, wide-eyed, then turned and hurried off.

Aodh sighed. “We’re to
coax
the people of Rardove, not terrify them.”

Cormac’s bearded face compressed in indignation. “What did I do? I coaxed. Called her comely, I did. You heard me. An’ she is.”

“You frightened her.”

Cormac swiveled to watch the girl, then shook his head. “No’ a chance. She’s been lurking around the edges for hours now.”

“The edges of what?”

He grinned. “Me.”

Aodh smiled faintly but said only, “Leave her be.”

Cormac threw up his hands. “When do I ever do a thing I’m no’ explicitly invited to?” he demanded. “Ex
plicit
ly.” He settled back with an indignant shuffle of his shoulders. “And frequently.”

“I do not think she is a common serving wench. She looks finer than that.”

“Aye, that she does,” Cormac agreed, and folded his arms across the bulk of him, which was significant, and not an inch of it fat. He was hard, burly, Scottish muscle from chin to shin, and he was one of Aodh’s most trusted councilors and captains. He also had what some might call rustic manners. Others might call them loutish.

Aodh resigned himself to not receiving any ale until a less comely lass passed by.

Cormac yanked forward one of the low benches and threw his boots up on it. “Word came in not an hour past, while you were ‘busy’.”

Aodh’s clerk came up, pen in hand, with questions about the trunks in the office chamber. After he hurried off, Cormac went on.

“Lucius arrived.”

Aodh felt a little quickening. “How did he get here so swiftly?”

“Chartered a boat, a cricky old thing, almost sunk him. We’ll be hearing his complaints on that score until Michaelmas.”

“And? Did he find Bertrand?”

Cormac’s grin grew. “That he did. Found the fool sitting on the coast,” he said, then added in a tone of gleeful derision
,
“waiting for the storm to pass.”

They grinned at each other.

“Anyhow, Bertrand took the bait. Got your message, hightailed it out of there almost before he finished reading it, as if the hounds of hell were on his tail.” He angled Aodh a sideways glance. “What did your message say, anyhow?”