The Arrow by Monica McCarty
He rather suspected it was the latter when after the stunned pause, she made no secret of her interest—her great interest—in every facet of his body. Good God, the lass shouldn’t look at him like that unless she was prepared to act on all that lust she was casting in his direction. He was liable to forget that he needed to leave, and that she was probably in no condition to be ravished after the ravishing of the night before.
Her face fell as he drew on his braies. “You’re leaving? You can’t go yet.”
The vehemence of her protest took an edge off some of the sting of waking up to find her gone. “It will be morning soon. Where were you?”
She frowned, catching something in his tone. Closing the door behind her, she walked toward him. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I tried to be quiet.” She bit her lip, heat rising up her cheeks. “I needed to use the garderobe.”
“You were gone a long time.”
That probably wasn’t the most delicate thing he’d ever said in his life, but damn it, this was a new experience for him, and he was feeling …
Uncertain. As if he were sailing in unchartered waters. He’d never been in a situation like this before. A situation where he needed to know that everything was all right. Nay, better than all right. He needed to know that she was all right, that he hadn’t hurt her, that it had been just as incredible for her as it had been for him.
The heat in her cheeks deepened. “There was some blood. I used a cloth and the pitcher of water in your room, so as to not disturb you. Did I do something wrong? Are you angry with me about something?” Her mouth trembled as she looked up at him.
“Ah, Christ,” he said, drawing her into his arms. The feeling of warmth and contentment that he’d missed upon waking returned instantly. He was acting like a scorned lass. “I’m sorry. Nothing is wrong, and of course I’m not angry with you.” He tipped her chin, bringing her luminous eyes to his. “What would I have to be angry with you about?”
She gnawed on that wickedly crimson bottom lip a few more times before responding. “I thought you might be regretting what … what we did.”
His gaze held hers intently. “I don’t regret anything that happened last night.” His thumb caressed the part of her lip that had just been bitten. “How could I?”
The smile started out slow, but it didn’t take long to light her whole face. The warmth radiated inside him as well.
“I’m glad. It was … wonderful,” she finished with a sigh. Her grin turned cheeky. “I guess I’d forgotten how cranky you can be in the morning.”
He drew back. “Cranky? I’m not cranky.”
She arched one delicate, dark brow.
All right, well, maybe he was occasionally—though very rarely—a little out of sorts in the morning. But not today. “I just wasn’t expecting to wake up alone.”
The second brow shot up to join the other, this time in surprise. “What did you think, that I’d skulked away in shame and left you?”
He frowned—darkly. “Of course not.”
“You did!” Amusement danced in her eyes. “You did think that.” She put the back of her hand up against her forehead in mock horror. “The most handsome man in Scotland abandoned in bed, what has the world come to?”
His eyes narrowed with warning at her teasing. “Christ, not you, too! I wish I knew who’d come up with that ridiculous moniker, so I could devise some kind of horrible torture to return the favor.”
She laughed, lifted up on her toes, and pressed a soft kiss on his mouth. The easy display of affection surprised him. But he suspected he might be able to get used to it.
“Poor Gregor. I’m sure it’s been horrible having women falling at your feet all the time.”
He grinned wryly. “Aye, well, maybe it wasn’t so bad all the time, but you haven’t met Hawk.”
“Who?”
Hell, he’d spoken without thinking. He’d relaxed his guard, he realized. It probably should bother him more than it did, but he trusted her. Cate was entirely without artifice and didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body—it was what made her so different, and what drew him to her. She was real. He didn’t need to worry about games or ploys or manipulations.
“A friend,” he said, waving off the subject.
Instinctively, his hand had slid around her waist when she’d kissed him, but having that warm, taut body pressed against him was beginning to take its toll. He let her go and stepped back. “I should go.”
“No, not yet.” She had that crushed, disappointed look on her face that hit him squarely between the ribs. “It isn’t morning. Can’t you stay a little longer?”
Not if he didn’t want to make her more sore than she already must be. His gaze flickered to the bed, an unconscious indication of the direction of his thoughts. The smile that crept up her features this time was decidedly more sensual and scheming. Her hands came up slowly over his naked chest to loop around his neck. Her body slid up against him like a wildcat, sleek and dangerous—and every bit as deadly. Especially the pointy nipples stabbing him in the chest. They killed him.
She circled her hips against him. “Please, don’t go.”
Perhaps she had more artifice than he realized. Who the hell would have guessed she could play the seductive siren? But play it well, she did. He was good and seduced.
She peeked up at him naughtily from under her lashes. “Didn’t you say something about my chemise next time?”
He really had to stop swearing around her so much, but the lass really knew how to push him in all the right places.
He could push a few of his own. Pushing her back on the bed, he ripped the offending garment away to reveal a body that had every right to be worshipped.
He’d never seen another woman so perfectly formed. She was all long, lean muscle, slender and strong, with little extra flesh to mar the graceful, feminine lines. For despite the obvious strength in her limbs, she was undeniably feminine with gently curved hips, delicately rounded breasts, and a lush little bottom with an expertly placed dimple or two.
He told her exactly how beautiful she was in words, and then with his mouth and tongue. The feel of her coming apart against his mouth drove him wild. He hadn’t intended to take her again, but she had other ideas and didn’t seem to mind too much—especially when he was deep inside her, and she was crying his name and begging him to go harder, as he pounded and shuddered inside her.
It would have been perfect if a moment after rolling off her, his brother hadn’t come bursting through the door, “Cate, you—”
Seeing them on the bed, John stopped dead in his tracks. Shock was followed by a look of condemnation that made Gregor feel all the guilt that he probably should have felt much earlier.
Fifteen
“You bastard!”
Instinctively Gregor blocked Cate behind him, as if he could somehow shield her from the unpleasantness of the situation.
It would have been bad enough with just John as witness, but his brother hadn’t come barging in alone. Ete and Lizzie were standing behind him. Unlike his brother, however, they were considerate enough to back away quickly and not stand there radiating condemnation.
Not that it wasn’t deserved, damn it. But Gregor didn’t want Cate to accidentally get in the way of anger that should be directed toward him, and him alone.
“I will see you in the solar,” Gregor said pointedly.
John ignored him, taking another step into the room, every muscle in his body flaring with outrage. “How could you do this?” He must not have expected Gregor to answer because he immediately added, “You’ll damn well marry her. Even if I have to drag you to the church door myself.”
Cate made her first sound since her initial gasp on the door opening. “No, John—”
Gregor cut her off with a squeeze of her hand that rested on the bed between them. “Your escort won’t be necessary, brother. I have every intention of marrying her.”
“You do?” Cate said at the same time as John—with equal su
Gregor ignored his brother and looked at the wide-eyed woman nestled beside him, clutching the bed linens to her neck with her dark hair tumbling wildly around her bare shoulders, looking wonderfully—thoroughly—debauched. Her eyes were pinned on his, searchingly. A wave of tenderness rose inside him.
Tucking a lock of hair that always seemed to be in her face behind her ear, he nodded. “Aye, if my clod of a brother here hadn’t interrupted, you would have had a proper proposal.” This time John took the hint. But he didn’t go without a look that promised this wasn’t over. Gregor turned back to Cate when the door had closed behind him. “Surely you could not have thought otherwise?”
His honor demanded it. He’d known that before he’d made love to her and realized what he would have to do.
But he knew it wasn’t just honor at stake. He cared about her—more than he’d thought possible. Enough to try to be the kind of man she thought him to be.
She blushed, casting her gaze down in a way that suggested that was exactly what she’d thought. He tilted her chin, forcing her gaze back to his.
“I didn’t know what to think,” she admitted. “You’ve made your feelings about marriage quite clear.”
A wry smile pulled one corner of his mouth up. “Aye, well, it seems I’ve been good and trapped this time.”
The color drained from her face in a sheet of white. “T-trapped? I didn’t mean … Oh God, do you think I meant …?”
He grinned. Damn, she was cute. Of course he hadn’t thought that. Cate was far too straightforward and honest to do something so underhanded. If he thought she’d had an ulterior motive when she’d touched him last night, he would have walked away. It was ironic that he’d finally found himself in the exact situation he’d always wanted to avoid—being “caught” in bed with an innocent—and he didn’t mind at all. The public discovery of what he’d done had only hastened the inevitable.
“You don’t need to look so horrified—I was just jesting. Although if I’d known how enjoyable it could be to be trapped into marriage, I might not have resisted for so long.”
His levity didn’t seem to help. Her smile seemed forced, and her color had turned from pallid white to ill-looking gray.
Suddenly he sobered, realizing why. Christ, he was an unfeeling arse! What had just happened had no doubt been traumatic for her. Of course she wouldn’t be ready to jest when his brother had just walked in on them in flagrante delicto.
The lass was an innocent maid—or at least had been a few hours ago. She was probably properly mortified. As he should be, and would be, if he weren’t so damned happy. Aye, he was happy. He hadn’t thought she existed, but he’d found a woman who cared about him, and not all the superficial shite that other women couldn’t seem to look beyond.
He leaned over, cupped the side of her face, and kissed the worry gently from her mouth. By the time he was done, she was lying back on the bed and he was on his side with her tucked against him again—exactly where she belonged.
He lifted his head. Her eyes fluttered open, meeting his.
“You haven’t given me your answer,” he pointed out. “Although I supposed I never asked you a question. I will get down on my knee, if you like, but it feels a little silly in my current state of dress.” And his current state of arousal.
Her cheeks warmed with a soft pink blush, and she consciously or unconsciously—he didn’t care which—rubbed against him. “Where you are is just fine.”
Where he was was about a hair’s breadth from rolling on top of her, spreading her thighs with his, and sinking into her for the third time. That would be a proposal to remember.
His hunger for her hadn’t diminished any; if anything, it had only grown more ravenous and insatiable. What had she done to him? Not only had she turned him into a debaucher of virgins, but also a brutish ill-user of one.
His throat was surprisingly tight when he took her chin in his hand and caressed the velvety-soft skin that bore a faint burn from the scratch of his jaw. “Cate, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Cate blinked back tears. This couldn’t be happening. Gregor MacGregor, the man she’d been in love with for five long years, was leaning over her in bed, his tawny hair slumped rakishly across the face that had launched a thousand hearts if not ships, looking at her with a gentleness in his eyes she could never have imagined, and asking her to marry him.
Someone wake me up. For surely, I must be dreaming.
But she wasn’t. This was really happening. Everything she’d ever wanted was waiting for her to reach out and take it. To say yes.
But she couldn’t—not without being sure of his motivation.
His jest earlier had sent a chill through her veins, reminding her of the conversation she’d had with Seonaid and the thoughtless boast she’d made. She’d been certain that Gregor would marry her because he loved her, not because she’d intended to force him into anything. But she recalled with vivid detail the way she’d boldly—brazenly—touched him. She’d wanted to stop him from leaving, aye, but she hadn’t been trying to trap him. Nor could she have known John would come bursting into her room so early like that.
A small furrow of concern gathered between his brows. “I’d rather hoped my question wouldn’t require that much thinking.”
She took a deep breath. She had to know. “Why do you wish to marry me, Gregor?”
The furrow deepened. “I would have thought after last night that was obvious.”
It wasn’t; that was the problem. Was it simply the fact that he’d taken her innocence or was it because he cared about her? The word she most dreaded hearing right now was “honor.”
“I’m not a lady, Gregor. You know the manner of my birth. You do not need to marry me if you do not wish to do so.” She drew a pained breath through hot lungs. “My father will not come storming your gate with his sword drawn, demanding satisfaction.”
His face darkened. “He should. He should be drawn and quartered for leaving you like that. What kind of man—”
“Please, Gregor, I don’t want to speak of him—ever.”
She glanced away, unable to meet his gaze. His outrage on her behalf raised a question she didn’t want to ask herself. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. But what if it did? For the first time, the secret that she was keeping from him felt like a secret and not an irrelevant fact to be pushed under the bed and forgotten like her gown.
He took her chin and forced her gaze back to his. His expression wasn’t just dark now, it was also angry. “Do you think the manner of your birth makes any difference to me?”
“Maybe it should. It will to your family. What will your uncle say? No doubt the chief has expectations for you. You have a duty to marry—”
“You know I don’t give a shite about any of that. I’ll do my duty to my uncle without being bartered to the highest bidder. My position in the king’s army will be enough. What’s this really about, Cate? I thought you wanted to marry me. I thought you loved me.”
“I do … I do.” That was the problem. “But I don’t want you to feel honor-bound or compelled into anything.”
“Look at me, sweetheart.” She did as he asked. “Hear me well. I knew exactly what I was doing last night, and what it meant. I am honor-bound to marry you, aye, but I wanted to marry you before I made love to you.”
Her heart seemed to be coming out her throat. “You did?”
“Aye, I care about you, and I’m going to do my damnedest to be the kind of man you deserve.” He stroked her chin with his thumb again, then moved it up to play over her lip. “Now will you answer me?”
She smiled, tears of happiness brimming in her eyes. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
His growl of something like “it’s about damned time” was lost, as he rolled on top of her and covered her mouth with his.
He spent the next hour telling her without words exactly how much he wanted to marry her. He did protest at a key moment about not wanting to hurt
Cate had never been happier in her life. The news of their betrothal was announced at the midday meal and was greeted with a resounding roar of approval. The litany of toasts and cheering that followed turned into a spontaneous celebration with copious amounts of wine, cuirm, dancing, and later a few bawdy tunes that made even her ears blush.
Given that it was Christmas Eve tomorrow and they were still in Advent, she was sure the church wouldn’t approve of the merrymaking, but Father Roland did appear to be having a good time.
Gregor took all the ribbing and congratulations with a satisfied, almost smug grin that, when coupled with his unusual attentiveness, put her last doubts to rest. He truly seemed to want to marry her. For all intents and purposes he was acting like a man in love, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether those feelings that she’d always known were there might finally be ready to reveal themselves.
About the only person who didn’t seem happy was Pip. He’d disappeared not long after the announcement, and it wasn’t until later that evening that she found him waiting outside the door to her chamber.
“You can’t marry him!” he burst out, his dark, overlarge features twisted with a bevy of emotions that ranged from a very manly rage to childish frustration, an accurate reflection of his on-the-cusp-but-not-quite-a-man state.
The swelling in his nose had receded considerably, but there were still black marks under his eyes from the beating he’d suffered at the hands of Dougal MacNab.
A heavy flop of dark hair hung in his eyes. She’d told him after their last practice session to cut it, but it seemed he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He would—when it hampered his vision one too many times.
So far she’d introduced him to sword fighting, archery, and some of the hand-to-hand combat moves she’d learned from John. He hadn’t shown great promise in any one discipline, but he was enthusiastic, a quick learner, and a hard worker. All of which spoke well for future accomplishment. He was also stubborn like her, which prevented him from giving up.