But he was avoiding her question. She broke away and gazed up at him with all the hurt she felt.
"Anna, last night I made you mine because I want you above all others." He brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheek, then put his forehead to hers. "It will always be so. I dinna hope you would feel as strongly."
Over the next two weeks, when she was in the library or reading in the salon during the day, MacCarrick would come to her with his brows drawn and his body tense and hold out his hand to her.
No words and no need for them. The look in his dark eyes told her all. When she took his hand - she never failed to take his hand and would as long as it was offered to her - he would always mask a flash of surprise a second too late. Then as he led her to their bed, she sensed this masculine pride in him even as her heart sped up in anticipation.
Her Scot was attentive to her and thoughtful, sending out for her favorite foods and finding her books - though she was mortified at first when he'd secured several of the gothic novels she loved.
Each night, after or between the times they made love, they would share a book together in bed, sometimes with her reading the novels to him, her head in his lap as he caressed her hair. Though whenever she gripped the book, nervous as the heroine investigated a dark cellar, he never failed to startle and tickle her.
At other times, MacCarrick would read her bawdy poems, making his brogue thick and rolling, until her eyes watered and her stomach hurt, she laughed so hard. Of course, she'd had to learn a new set of vocabulary to be truly appreciative.
One day, he'd sensed something was weighing on her, and she'd finally confessed how much she missed riding. He'd given her a wicked grin and taught her a completely different meaning of bareback. That wasn't all he taught her. If she'd thought her fingers could work his flesh, she'd never imagined what her lips could do once she convinced him how badly she wanted to kiss him.
Then this morning in bed, she'd stretched, and as usual he'd said, "Mind the arm, lass."
But she'd replied, "I swear you care about it more than I do."
"I like to watch you stretch. Woman, I love to watch you stretch, but you have to be careful till it's completely healed."
"Will the scar make me less attractive in your eyes?"
"An impossibility, Anna," he'd said, nipping her neck. Then he'd turned serious. "Every time I look at it I'll remember how close I came to..." He'd coughed into his fist. "How close it was. Mo cridhe, we are fortunate."
They were fortunate to be together. Yet during this time he never mentioned marriage, and she followed his lead. There was no talk about the future. And each day that passed brought her closer to the day her brother would arrive. She'd had the brief hope that MacCarrick was waiting so he could ask Aleix for her hand. But that was an absurd idea.
He'd never ask for her. A man wouldn't ask for something that he'd already claimed.
So they went on in this state without a promise from him. She thought that once she had it, she might have the nerve to tell him she'd fallen in love with him so fiercely she felt like she'd fallen from a height.
Chapter Thirty
When Hugh returned, Court had his arm around Annalía at the dining table, stroking the back of her neck and murmuring in her ear. His brother had barely been able to grate out an "invitation" for Court to join him for a drink after dinner. Court had wanted to go with Anna when she retired, but she said she was sleepy and wanted him to visit with his brother.
"Why, Court?" Hugh asked as he sank into the leather chair in the study. He pinched the bridge of his nose, appearing exhausted.
"I got to a point where I could no' resist any longer."
"That's no' why you took her virtue. Because you 'could no' resist.' You're one of the most disciplined men I've ever known. Which means you made a conscious decision." He exhaled a long breath. "You did it so you would be forced to marry her. And more important, so a woman like that would be forced to marry you."
His eyes narrowed. "No, she wants me, too."
"Do you think that someone like her is going to enjoy living in a drafty four-hundred-year-old keep? No' to mention that your propitious land grab just officially put your home in the middle of nowhere. A seamstress is no' going to ride through thousands of acres to get to your bonny wife out there."
"Where she lived before was no' exactly a metropolis."
"Does she even know who you are? Be realistic, Court."
"You mean a cursed, sterile mercenary living in a stone heap?"
Hugh raised his eyebrows and said simply, "Aye."
Strange how one word could feel like a punch he hadn't tensed for. Court didn't bother to hide his resentment before he strode from the room.
Afterward he walked the house, scowling at everything he saw. This was not how he lived. What she saw was gilded. Anna saw the wealth and the servants, and if she was comfortable here, she would not be at his home in the wilds of northern Scotland.
And what did she know about him? She had an idea of him as a gentle lover, but lately he'd been losing control, little by little.
Sometimes he wanted to take her much harder than he did....
He entered her room, found her sleeping on her front, with the sheet kicked off and her hair spilling across the pillow just as it had when he'd gone to her room in Andorra. He'd stared at her that night, envisioning himself palming her thighs and sex until she rose to her knees. Court remembered how furiously he'd wanted her, remembered how he'd hated the fact that a fine lady like her would never have him.
Yet she would. She would right now.
He stripped down, then knelt between her legs, running his hand up her thighs to her nightgown. She murmured but slept on as he rolled it higher to her waist.
He put his palm to her sex, his fingers higher, massaging. She woke with a gasp.
"Spread your legs." She did without hesitation. "More." She did, trusting him.
He pressed his finger into her, closing his eyes at the lush feeling, the growing wetness that would soon be gloving him. When her breaths came faster he placed another finger in. She moaned, but he wouldn't push far within her - just enough to make her want more. He groaned when she tried to twist down to get him to take her deeper. Using small touches, he teased her to her knees.
"Yes," he said, his voice hoarse. "On your knees. On your hands." When she was as he wanted her, he rolled her nightdress up her back and over her head, pulling her up against his chest so he could untangle the silk from her arms. He threw it to the side, then inhaled the addictive scent of her hair as it brushed his face. "I canna get enough of you, mo cridhe," he rasped as he eased her back down.
Without his touch she must have grown embarrassed, because she started to lie down once more. He grabbed her hips before she could and steadied her. "No, I want you like this."
"Like what?" she whispered.
In answer, he spread her flesh and ran his thumb up and down. Her head fell forward and her back arched down. "But...it's how...it's how animals mate," she whispered wildly.
"Aye." He reached under her and cupped her breast, plucking her nipple, and she gasped.
"I can't...I don't know."
He pulled her up to his chest again, and brushed her thick hair over her shoulder so he could kiss her neck, then trailed his fingers down her belly all the way to her sex, plunging his fingers into her. She moaned and went limp. He captured her against his chest, with a tight arm wrapped over her br**sts. Beneath them, he thrust his fingers into her again and again until she was close. Then he removed them, devoting both hands to her br**sts, palming them wholly and lightly pinching her ni**les.
She cried out, "Please, Court."
"What do you want?"
"You know."
"You need something filling you?"
She gasped but nodded.
He prodded her thigh with his now aching erection. "Put it inside you."
"What?" she whispered.
"Put me inside you. Now."
"How?"
"You know how."
When she hesitated, he circled her nipple with the tip of his finger as he ran his tongue against her earlobe. Her head fell back to rest on his shoulder and he grazed his teeth along her neck, saying against her damp skin, "Take my shaft in your hand."
He felt her hand closing over him, distinctly felt one soft finger at a time curling around him. He groaned with need, wanting inside her so badly. He wanted that fine woman from the bed, the one that he'd despaired of ever having, to desire him so strongly that she'd guide him into her own body.