She arched upward, uncontrollable sounds of pleasure spilling from her.
His kisses grew voracious, his movements hard and demanding. Ecstasy spiraled tighter and tighter until it exploded with starbursts inside her.
He climaxed, too, his shout muffled against her lips, his seed marking her stomach with his primordial scent.
She did not know how, but she sensed that his wolf was very happy with that achievement.
The contented growl that sounded in his chest as he reached down to lazily rub the creamy substance into her skin indicated that the beast was indeed pleased.
“I cannot believe I let you do that,” she said with more honesty than anger.
“It was inevitable.”
Perhaps, if all his claims were true, it had been. Shona didn’t feel particularly comforted by that fact, but neither did she feel as if she had betrayed herself completely.
It was a sign of her constant inner conflict with this man that it seemed as if for every thought or feeling she had, an opposite one rose up to meet it.
Chapter 7
The proof of a warrior’s strength is in the contentment of his mate and children.
—ÉAN ORAL TRADITIONS
Caelis gave her a look, his brown gaze filled to overflowing with satisfaction. “You smell like me.”
His gratification was more than a little annoying. He wasn’t beset by conflict like she was. It was apparent that to him, all was quite simple.
But it wasn’t just typical warrior arrogance.
“Your wolf likes that.” Again, she did not understand how she knew, but she had not doubts on the matter.
“Aye, but do not be mistaken…the man is just as content to have every wolf in this clan know you have been marked as mine.”
“They’ll be able to tell?” she asked, heat at the thought filling her cheeks and spreading over her chest. “They’ll smell you on me?”
It was a most disconcerting, not to mention embarrassing, thought. How many wolves were there? If the laird was a shape-changer like Caelis, how many others were as well?
“Aye.”
“Do not sound so pleased about it.”
“I cannot help it. You are mine, Shona, and should always have been with me. I have lived without you for too long. For a time, I even believed you were dead.”
“What? Why?” She could not imagine how much worse the last years would have been had she believed Caelis dead.
“Why do you think? Our laird told me you had been killed by a wild boar. I carried great guilt along with my grief until I began to realize perhaps that had been a lie along with so many other things Uven told me.”
“He is not my laird.”
“No, he is not.”
She was glad of the easy agreement, but it was not enough. “I am English now.”
“No, you are not.”
“I am.” No matter how he would stubbornly refuse to admit it.
“Are you not here seeking a life in Scotland for you and your children?”
“Yes.”
“Because at heart, you are a fine Scottish lass.” His smile was irresistible.
But still she said, so there could be no confusion, “I’ll not wear the MacLeod colors again.”
“Not now. But later.”
“Never.”
“Never is—”
“A long time. So you’ve said.”
“Best you remember that.” He was smiling again.
She responded with some bite, “Best you remember that I am not so easily gotten around.”
He looked between their naked bodies with significance.
“Your wolf can take credit for this, I think.”
“My wolf is me.”
“The one part of you I just might trust.”
He jerked a little and then stared down at her. “You trust my beast?”
“Yes. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“You do not trust me—the man—though?” he asked carefully.
“No.” She made no effort to soften the effect of her denial. He had betrayed her most thoroughly.
“Yet you allowed me to touch you.”
“I told you, blame your wolf. There is some kind of magic in this mating thing and my body is not my own.”
The glow of satisfaction around him dimmed. “You truly believe this?”
“Absolutely.” And he’d best not try to deny it. “Give me another explanation for a craving I cannot stand against for the touch of the very man who has betrayed me so cruelly.”
Caelis looked down at her with shock, as if her words were beyond his ken. But surely he knew the truth of it more certainly than she. He had lived with knowledge of his wolf his whole life. She’d just found out about it.
Finally, his mouth opened and a very ugly word came, but nothing else.
She frowned up at him. “What is the matter?”
“You must ask when you have just told me you still hold my actions against me in such a grievous way? That you allowed me to touch you only because you could not help yourself?”
What did he expect? Protestations of love as she used to give him? “Did you think pleasure could erase the past?”
The expression on his warrior’s features said he’d believed exactly that. Men! They uprooted a woman’s life, made changes over which she had no control and then expected a thank-you at the end of it. Her father had been the same.
“Have you forgotten your anger at Uven for lying to you now that we have once again shared passion?” she asked, wondering if Caelis would let himself understand.
“Nay! I am more furious with that liar than I was before. What you and I have just shared only shows what he took from us both with his lies. He robbed me of my sacred mate, of my son.”
As Caelis had allowed the man to rob her. She did not say it, having earlier made her point on that issue.
Instead, she reiterated, “So, the pleasure did not negate the pain?”
Sighing, Caelis shook his head. “You are saying you do not forgive me, either.”
“No.” Though maybe she was beginning to.
He frowned, his overt satisfaction all but gone. “I see.”
Perhaps he did. Mayhap he even realized that only time would prove him more worthy of her trust than she now held him.
“You have grown into a hard woman, Shona.”
“Circumstances have forced me to draw on strengths I did not know I had.” Though the strength to resist him clearly was not among them.
He nodded. “When you realized you were indeed pregnant, why did you not send word?”
“You assume I had some way of doing so. I did not, but even if I had, I would not have. You had already told me you would consider my child someone else’s by-blow.”
“I did not mean it. You had to know that. You were untouched the first time we shared our bodies.”
“I did not know it. You said it after rejecting me; why would I believe you would want me even if you knew of the babe?”
“I am not a man who would abandon my child.”
“Tell yourself whatever you like, but you already had.”
He stared at her, his expression clearly showing how foreign he found the concept of her words, but then great sadness came over his features. “You are right.”
She knew she was. So, why did seeing his grief hurt her as it did?
He turned and moved as if to leave the bed.
Her hand moved out to touch him before she could snatch it back. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the hall.” His massive shoulders hunched. “I have no place in your bed.”