The Pledge (16 page)

“I would have you and give you joy,” Hugh whispered.

“I would have you and give you joy,” Morrigan said in Welsh, knowing it would take him longer to factor her words.

He smiled. “And do you know that’s been accomplished?”

“What?” Not that she cared. Words dribbled from her lips. Little had meaning except his wonderful eyes.

“We’ve come together with words, good wife.”

She nodded.

As though their bodies were starved for each other they pressed closer even as they dried.

As though another force propelled them they moved toward the bed.

Hugh lifted her into it and followed, his body tenting hers. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered, his head between her breasts.

“I know,” she murmured, her smile slipping when he lifted his head, studying her.

“You say strange things, Morrigan.”

“Perhaps because strange things occur when we are together.” When his mouth opened in query she moved her body against his,
feeling breathless at the immediate fire in his eyes. “I like this,” she murmured, quite sure she’d never been so unfettered.
Her life since her father died had been uncertain, sometimes frightening. Now she felt more unafraid, more secure than she
ever had. He would think it was because she was a woman who’d known a man, that she had experience in wonderful lovemaking.
One day she had to tell him that the joy she’d found learning about body touching had come from him.

“So do I.” He kissed the cleft between her breasts, letting his mouth slide back and forth between the soft, creamy globes.

When he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, she called out, her body rising against his.

Cupping her buttocks, he held her while he ministered to both breasts, his mouth wet and warm, his body hardening.

Feeling dizzy, unhinged from any other person but Hugh, she could only hang on with hands, mouth, and eyes as he built the
beautiful mountain they’d climbed once before, though he had no knowledge of it.

“Don’t fear me, beloved.”

“I don’t fear you, MacKay,” she muttered back, inching closer though they were already touching shoulder to toe.

He lifted his head, eyes ablaze. “I want your love, Morrigan.”

She threw caution to the winds in the building fire. Limbs tingled with a want only he could assuage. “I want yours,” she
told him in short breaths, wondering at her audacity but not willing to call back the covenant.

Hugh stared at her. “What if I’d refused the king’s request to wed you, my beauty?”

“You would’ve had a hole in your life, as I would’ve had in mine.” Passion had given her power. The restraint she’d put on
herself since Rhys’s birth seemed cut loose, severed from the anchor that had kept her tongue in check. She smiled when he
shouted with laughter. When he shook his head, she posed the question. “Such is not the way of it? This loving? To talk to
each other as we are, to laugh?”

He shook his head. “None I’ve known.” He smoothed the line in her forehead. “I’ve had other women, wife, as you’ve had men,
but no one has titillated me so, no one has made me so hot, or made me want to know more about them. What say you? Think us
to be a match?”

She nodded, tracing his mouth with her finger. “Having come from a country of upheaval, I’m not fool enough to think that
all could go smoothly in any alliance, milord.”

“Hugh,” he murmured, brushing his mouth over hers.

She repeated his name. When her voice came out hoarse and squeaky she glared at his mirth, though she wanted to laugh. “ ’Tis
your fault I sound like a mouse among the rushes.”

“Nay! You have a sweetness to your words.” He grinned. “Not too many rodents have that.”

She tapped his lips with her fingers. “You’re not amusing, sirrah.”

“Hugh,” he whispered again, taking her mouth in a strong kiss that went on and on, fire licking through him. From the moment
of seeing her, he’d wanted to make love to her. From somewhere deep inside him came his vision, his dream, of the two of them.

“Hugh?”

He ground his teeth. “ ’Tis nothing, sweet one. You just take my breath away.”

Morrigan hesitated. When she would’ve pulled back from him, he groaned and hugged her close.

“Don’t leave me, wife.”

“I don’t wish to, but—”

“Then don’t.”

Her body began to undulate, her hips grinding against his aroused body. His hand began to massage her back, her belly, her
legs and arms. She rubbed against him, letting
her body slide up and down his, feeling a dizzying potency that rode her like a wild thing.

“Stop,” Hugh said through his teeth.

Morrigan opened her eyes. “I displease you, milord?” He’d loved her actions on the night of their first joining. Had she done
something wrong?

“Hugh,” he muttered. “No, wife, you please me too much. I cannot love you in a slow seductive way when you move so. ’Twould
go too fast.” He swept his large hand over her hair. “All about you excites me, wife.”

“I’m pleased.”

His eyes narrowed, flaming over her. “And you shall be even more pleasured, my sweet one.”

He laved her breasts with his tongue, moving down her middle. His tongue then moved in her navel as though he’d already begun
the magic cadence that’d driven her mad on their spousal night.

When he moved lower, she remembered the wild beauty of the first time and she began to tremble.

He lifted his head. “Don’t fear me, beloved, I would make you hot.”

She reached down, pulling his head down to her again. “I would have it, too.”

Then his tongue entered her and she would’ve screamed if she could’ve found the breath. Instead only a gasp escaped her as
he began the wonderful dance that sent sheaves of fire through her body.

Moans mixed with endearments as each urged the
other to higher peaks of joy. Morrigan heard cries, not knowing if they were hers or Hugh’s.

Her body began to shake as though with ague. She felt the same taut trembling in him. Clinging to him, she grew hotter as
she whispered love words to him. Higher and higher he took her until she thought she couldn’t stand any more.

In a burst of delight, colors flashing around them they rose together, clinging, joining, never wanting to part, hammered
together by the very love that seemed to tear them apart in passion.

They held each other in the quaking aftermath, trying to gulp air, their bodies slick with love dew, their limbs flaccid.

When Morrigan felt his stillness she thought at first he was asleep, but when she looked up at him there was such an arrested
air about him, it flashed through her he’d been disappointed. “What? Hugh?”

He embraced her, kissing her hair. “Look not so worried, wife. ’Tisn’t you, my love, that makes me ponder. Our first time
was all that Heaven could want.” He squinted down at her.

“What?”

“I had the strange sensation that we’d loved before, that we’d joined our bodies at another time.” He grimaced. “ ’Twould
sound unreasonable to you.”

“No. It… it sounds most intriguing.”

“Does it, wife?” With a crooked smile he leaned down and kissed her long and hard. When he lifted his
head, his smile broadened. “You are as out of breath as I.”

“I am.”

“And my dreams of you do not distress?”

“No. I’m happy you dream of me.” She buried her face in his chest, not wanting to face him. “And… and how did that make you
feel?”

“Strange.”

“No doubt.”

He lifted her chin. “None has ever touched me as you did, my love. I tell you true.”

Tears filled her throat. She couldn’t speak.

“ ’Tis not a time for sadness, my beauty.”

“No. ’Tis joy I feel.”

“As I do.”

Curled in his arms, she let sleep overtake her. Loving this man, feeling so safe, she swore to God and all the gods and goddesses
that she would protect her beloved Hugh.

Daybreak came with a kiss.

“Good morning, my love.”

Morrigan smiled, lifting her hands to his face. When she went to move, her mouth dropped. “I… I fear we are connected.”

Hugh grinned. “I know we are. I find joy in it.”

“Then we must be content.” Even as she said it, she could feel his hardening body within her.

He smiled. “You have a power, wife.”

“Nay! ’Twould seem you do.”

He laughed, his mouth running over her. “I could eat you at my trencher, wife, in very small bites.”

Meaning trickled through her like fire. “Then there’d be no more of me.”

“Ah! But that’s why I content myself with nibbling only.”

How could such mundane words have such heat? She was flushed with wanting once more. She pressed her breasts against him.

“Nay, wife. I canna’ allow it. ’Tis too torturous for me.”

“You like it not?” She was being coquettish. Foolishly so, since she was more than sure that he liked it very much. So certain
was she that she twisted her body against his, so that he turned within her. It elicited a long, whispered curse from those
lips so close to her own.

“No! Not yet.” He held her tight.

“Yes,” she whispered back, feeling the sensations erupt in her, gripping him hard, wanting the wild cascade that could shake
her to her soul.

“Christ!” Hugh muttered, scooping her even closer, plunging into her as she rose to meet every thrust of his with her own.

In blinding light they came together, spinning out of the chamber, beyond any constellation, holding each other in the wonderful
world only they could create.

“I will never let you go, wife,” he mumbled into her hair.

Morrigan lifted her head with an effort, he held her so closely. “What if I say the same?”

“Say it.”

The slumbrous look to his eyes had her trembling. “I will never let you go.”

He laughed, catching her lips, his tongue tangling with hers. “Good,” he told her when they were both breathless. “I will
gladly give you the chains to bind me.”

She laughed with him, then sobered. She reached up and traced his cheek with one finger.

“Why so solemn, wife? Did you not find joy in our coupling?”

“You know I did.” She inclined her head, swallowing. “I have something to discuss with you.”

“ ’Twould seem it has great import to you.”

“It does. It’s about our marriage day. You see—” The sudden banging on the heavy wooden door to their chamber interrupted
her.

“Maman? Don’t, Eamon. It’s all right. I can go in. Maman! Open the door. Someone has shut it too tight.”

Hugh laughed when Morrigan stared at the chamber door, aghast. “I shall tell Eamon to let him in.”

Morrigan yelped, skittering across the bed and off it, grasping at a coverlet when her husband stared at her. “Tell him to
go away,” she said through her teeth. “Stop looking at me.”

“I can’t. You’re too beautiful, wife. I want you again.”

Stunned, Morrigan glared at him. “Stop this, you’ll kill yourself.”

He grinned. “I’ll chance it, milady.”

“Not now.”

“Maman!” Rhys bellowed. “Stop pulling me, Eamon. I can go in.”

Morrigan had to clear her throat three times before she could speak. “I’m coming, Rhys. I… I was napping.”

Hugh guffawed, earning a wifely scowl. “Eamon,” he shouted. “Take him to the great room.”

“I’m trying, Hugh. By God I am.”

“I can go in, Eamon.” Rhys was still shouting that as his voice faded. Eamon must have persevered.

In short order the chief of the clan and his bride met with the vociferous Rhys. Hugh looked content, lazy. His spouse looked
distraught, shooting warning glances at him every few seconds. Those of the clan in attendance, and as usual there was a goodly
number, looked at one another, struggling not to smirk.

Rhys came running toward them, flinging himself at Morrigan, then looking up at her, his brow wrinkled. “I told Eamon it was
all right if I went into your room. It is, isn’t it, maman?”

“Well—”

“Most of the time it is,” Hugh interjected. “Some of the time it isn’t.”

“Oh.” He seemed to struggle with the ramifications of that. As he was opening his mouth for another sally, Hugh continued.

“And of course those times you’re not admitted you will go out on your horse with Eamon.”

Rhys straightened in his mother’s hold, a slow smile dawning. “O’ co’se.” He inhaled, then beamed at Morrigan. “I like him.”

Used to his blunt pronouncements, Morrigan had to admit that Rhys still rocked her at times. Now was one of those. “I’m glad.”

Rhys nodded. “Just as well, since we must keep him.”

Morrigan bit her lip, not looking at Hugh and ignoring the smothered mirth sailing around the great room. “There is that.”

Rhys nodded, grinning. “Now, I’ll play kickball.”

“What did you want, Rhys? You haven’t told me.”

He looked pained. “You told me I was to tell you when I left the castle. I told Eamon that, but he said it was all right not
to tell you. I told him you’d wallop the two of us.” He nodded sharply at the titters he heard, then grinned. “I like it here.”

“I’m glad,” Hugh said, his tone solemn.

“I thought so,” Rhys said, equally solemn.

The coughed chuckles, barely masked giggles rose again, making the boy smile at those around them. “I’ll play kickball now.”

“You must be careful,” Morrigan admonished.

“I’ll keep my eye fixed to him, milady,” Eamon reassured her.

Rhys nodded and ran from the room, Eamon at his heels.

The others in the great room seemed to disappear just as fast.

“I think you should’ve said that to Eamon,” Hugh whispered. “My warrior looked harried.”

“What is that?”

“You should’ve warned him to be careful. The boy will wear him out.”

Morrigan shook her head. “Rhys is a handful.”

“He’s a lad. I wouldn’t want our son to be any other way.”

Morrigan looked up, smiling, catching his mouth with hers when he leaned down and kissed her. “Hugh…”

“I know you want to talk with me,” he said against her mouth. “This is more pleasurable.”

Someone coughed at the top of the steps leading down into the great room.