Saving Grace (36 page)

“Why am I on the table?”

“It was closer than your bed, m’lady,” Calum answered.

“You swooned,” Keith added in case she’d forgotten.

“Why didn’t you tell us your mother was coming for a visitation?” Niall asked.

Johanna tried to sit up before answering the question. Father MacKechnie put his hand on her shoulder to hold her down. “You’d best stay right where you are, lass. Your husband will be happy to carry you up to bed. Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, thank you,” she answered. “I really fainted? I’ve never, ever fainted before. I can’t imagine why . . .”

Lindsay decided to give her his explanation before she asked for it. “It was our manners that set you off, m’lady.”

“It was?”

The soldier nodded. “She should stay in bed a week at least,” Keith recommended.

“I can’t go to bed,” Johanna argued.

No one paid any attention to her protest. “I’m saying she should stay in bed two weeks,” Calum announced. “It’s the only way to be certain she’ll regain her strength. She’s puny if you’ll remember,” he advised.

The men nodded. Johanna was outraged. “I’m not puny,” she announced in a near shout. “Father, do let me up. I can’t go to bed. I have to take my turn sitting with Clare MacKay.”

“I’ll be happy to sit with her,” Megan offered. “It doesn’t seem fair letting only MacBain women tend to her. You don’t want the Maclaurin women bickering over the slight, do you now, m’lady?”

“Megan, now isn’t the time to bring up that concern,” Keith muttered.

“The MacBain women were the only ones who offered to help with Clare,” Johanna explained.

“But I’m offering now,” Megan insisted.

“Then I thank you and will certainly appreciate your help.”

Megan smiled. She was obviously satisfied with her mistress’s gratitude.

Johanna put the matter aside and turned her attention to her husband. She’d been deliberately avoiding looking at him, for she knew he’d be frowning and surely getting ready to pounce on her with his I-told-you-you-were-weak reminder. She mentally braced herself and turned her gaze. Gabriel was easy to find in the crowd as he towered over his soldiers. He stood to the left of the table, behind Calum.

Her husband was smiling, which fairly stunned Johanna. She was certain he’d be furious or worried at the very least. She should have been relieved over his obviously cheerful mood, but she wasn’t. She had fainted after all, and Gabriel had proven to be quite a worrier about her well-being in the past. Yet he looked . . . happy now. Did he find her faint amusing?

She gave Gabriel a disgruntled look, and he winked back, which confused her.

“When is your mother coming here?” Keith asked her then.

She didn’t take her gaze off her husband when she gave the Maclaurin soldier her answer. “In two or three months,” she guessed. She smiled up at Father MacKechnie then and gently removed his hand from her shoulder so she could sit up.

Calum tried to lift her into his arms. Keith tried to assist her from the other side of the table. Johanna was suddenly being pulled every which way.

Gabriel finally intervened. He pushed Calum out of his way and took his wife into his arms.

“Rest your head on my shoulder,” he commanded.

She wasn’t quick enough, so he shoved her head there.

He carried her out of the hall and up the stairs. She protested most of the way. “I’m feeling fine now,” she argued. “I can walk, husband. Do put me down.”

“I want to carry you,” he explained. “It’s the least I can do after all the trouble you went to convincing my men.”

“The least you can do?”

“Aye,” he answered.

She didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. His smile was even more confusing to her. “You act as though my faint amused you,” she blurted out.

Gabriel opened the door to their bedchamber and carried her inside. “ ’Tis the truth you did amuse me,” he admitted.

Her eyes widened. “But you’re usually overly concerned about me, nagging me to rest all day long. Why this sudden change in your attitude, I’m wondering.”

“I don’t nag. Old women nag, not warriors.”

“You used to nag,” she countered. She couldn’t help but become a little irritated. Her husband’s callous attitude bothered her. A husband should be a little concerned when his wife fainted, shouldn’t he?

“Your ploy worked,” he said. “My men forgot their argument. That was the reason you pretended to faint, wasn’t it?”

He all but tossed her on the bed. She bounced twice before settling.

She felt like laughing now. She was certainly filled with relief. Gabriel wasn’t such an unfeeling clout after all. He really believed she’d pretended to swoon.

Johanna didn’t want to lie to her husband, but she didn’t particularly want to set him straight either. If he realized she hadn’t been pretending, he’d probably force her to stay in bed until next spring.

She didn’t agree or disagree with her husband. If he decided to take her silence as agreement over his own conclusion, so be it.

He’d turned her attention anyway. He was taking his boots off.

“Aren’t you going to boast over your cleverness?” he asked.

He tossed his boots to the floor and began to untie the knot in his belt. He kept his gaze on her all the while.

“Old men boast, m’lord,” she answered. Her gaze was on his waist. “Not warriors’ wives.”

Lord, how she pleased him. He liked the way she turned his own words back on him. Johanna was becoming downright sassy. Such behavior was proof enough she’d conquered her fear of him.

She still blushed quite easily. She was blushing now. She obviously guessed what he intended to do. He decided to tell her anyway just to further her embarrassment. She’d get all flustered then, and Lord, how he liked that feminine trait.

He stood by the side of the bed and told her in explicit detail exactly what he planned to do to her. The pictures he painted with his erotic words made her face burn, and the way he wanted to make love to her made her think she was going to faint again.

The dark and incredibly arousing look on his face made her think he wasn’t jesting with her. Still, she needed to be sure.

“Do men and women really make love in such a way?”

She sounded breathless, but she couldn’t help it. Her heart was slamming a wild beat, and she was fighting her own arousal while she tried to decide if such a thing was possible. The thoughts Gabriel had deliberately planted in her mind both appalled and excited her.

He pulled her to her feet and began to take her clothes off her.

“You’re jesting with me, aren’t you, husband?”

He laughed. “No.”

“Then husbands and wives really . . .”

“We’re going to,” he answered, his voice a rough whisper.

She shivered. “ ’Tis the truth I’ve never heard of such a . . .”

“I’ll make you like it,” he promised.

“Will you like . . .”

“Oh, yes.”

“What will I ...”

His wife was having difficulty finishing her sentences. She was obviously shaken. So was he, he realized. He was certainly aroused. His movements were damned awkward as he fought the tiny ribbons holding her undergarments together.

He let out a sigh of satisfaction when he finally got rid of the last of her clothes and then roughly pulled her up against him. He lifted her up so his hard arousal could press against the junction of her thighs.

She instinctively moved until she was cuddling him. He grunted with pleasure.

They fell into bed together. Gabriel rolled on top of her. He braced his weight with his elbows on either side of her and leaned down to capture her mouth for a long, drugging kiss. Their tongues dueled and stroked each other; and when he finally moved to kiss a path down the side of her silky neck, he could feel her trembling with pleasure.

She wasn’t quite finished plying him with questions. She was a worrier, he supposed, and that was surely the reason she wanted a full explanation.

“Gabriel, you really think to use your mouth to kiss me .. there?”

“Oh, yes,” he whispered against her ear. His breath, so sweet and warm against her sensitive skin, made her tremble with desire.

“Then I’m going to . . . you know . . . kiss you . . . there.”

He went completely still. She began to worry. A scant second later he slowly lifted his head to look at her.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he told her.

“Do you want me to?”

“Aye.”

He’d drawled out the word, and God, he was such a sexy man. She felt as though she’d already pleased him. She reached up to stroke the side of his face. He leaned into her hand.

He liked her to touch him. He needed her to, she realized . . . almost as much as she needed him now to stroke her.

She let out a sigh and put her arms around her husband’s neck. She tried to pull him down for a long kiss, but he resisted.

“Johanna, you don’t have to ...”

She smiled up at him. “I’ll make you like it,” she whispered.

His head dropped to the crook in her shoulder. He leaned up, bit her earlobe, and then said, “I know I’ll like it, but I don’t know if you’ll . . .”

Now he was having trouble finishing his sentences. It was all his wife’s fault. She reached down and gently stroked his arousal. He was too busy shuddering to think coherent thoughts.

He’d been worried she wouldn’t like tasting him. She started out timid, but she got over being shy soon enough and became damned enthusiastic.

She made him crazy. His heart felt as though it had stopped when she took his arousal into her mouth. She was wild now, completely uninhibited as she stroked him with her mouth, her tongue, and dear God, she made him just as wild to please her.

He couldn’t stand the ecstasy for very long. He came before she did, but once he’d recovered from the spasms that racked his body, and he could think again, he turned his full attention to pleasuring his wife.

Her whimpers soon turned to shouts. The intensity of her own orgasm made her forget to breathe. She demanded he stop his wonderful agony even as she clung to him and pressed herself against him in a contradictory plea for more.

The taste of her made him hard and throbbing in scant minutes. He was suddenly desperate to be inside her. He moved, pinned her to the bed, and knelt between her thighs. His hands cupped her backside and he lifted her up at the same instant he thrust deep inside.

He felt as though he’d died and gone to heaven. She was so damned tight, so incredibly sweet and giving, and he knew he would never be able to get enough of her.

The bed squeaked from their forceful movements. Their breathing was harsh and choppy, and when she found fulfillment again, her scream made his ears ring.

He was thoroughly satisfied. He collapsed on top of his wife and let out a loud groan.

He could hear her heart hammering inside her chest. He was arrogantly pleased and satisfied. He’d made her completely forget herself.

She’d done the same to him. He frowned over the acknowledgment. It had become impossible to distance himself from his wife, he realized. He couldn’t simply make love to her and then go back to his duties and put her out of his thoughts. She had become more than simply a woman to mate with during the dark hours of the night. She was his wife, and damn it all, she was even more than that.

She was the love of his life.

“Hell.”

He muttered the expletive, then lifted his head to look at her. She was sound asleep. He was relieved, for he wouldn’t have to explain the appalled look he was certain he had on his face or the blasphemy he’d just uttered.

He couldn’t seem to make himself leave her. He stared down at her for long minutes. She was so beautiful to him. Yet her appearance wasn’t the reason he’d lost his mind and fallen in love with her, God help him. Nay, it was her character that wooed him into forgetting his shields. Looks faded with age, but the beauty in Johanna’s heart and in her soul seemed to grow more wonderful with each new day.

She’d snared him all right, blindsided him she had, and now it was too late to do anything about protecting himself from her.

There was only one course of action left to him. Johanna was going to have to love him. By God, he wasn’t about to let himself become this vulnerable without gaining equal measure.

Gabriel felt better. The plan made sound sense to him. He wasn’t certain how he’d get her to fall in love with him, but he was an intelligent man. He’d think of something.

He leaned down, kissed her brow, and then got out of bed. Their lovemaking had worn her out, he supposed, as he reached for his plaid. That possibility made him smile until he yawned. He realized then she’d worn him out, too.

He stared down at her all the while he dressed; and when he was finished, he took time to cover her up. Then, damned if he didn’t have to kiss her one last time before he left the chamber. He was becoming appalled again by his own shameful behavior. Loving was a tricky affair, he decided. Perhaps, in time, he’d get the hang of it. He started to forcefully pull the door closed, caught himself in time, and shut it as quietly as possible.

Hell, he was becoming considerate. He had to shake his head over that disgusting trait. He wondered what other surprises were going to come his way now that he’d acknowledged to himself the fact that he did indeed love his wife. The future worried him. If he turned into a doting husband, he swore he’d have to kill someone.

Aye, loving was a tricky affair.