Tara circled her fingers in the soft hair on his chest. The intensity of his gaze made her swallow hard as she gathered her courage. ‘What if I don’t want to sleep?’ She smiled at Callum, and he just stared at her. Oh, it was hopeless, for she was no seductress. This was not going to work.
She bit her lip again. ‘Your aunt said that if I did not do my duty as a wife, you would….’
His jaw worked. ‘Stop it, Tara. Do not throw me a scrap of affection because you are afraid. Don’t you understand? That is the last thing I want from you, and you stamp on my pride when you do it.’
Chastened, Tara rolled out of bed and walked over to the window. It was a moonlit night, and a cold light bounced off the waters of the loch in the distance. How could she sleep this night with her worries pressing on her? She glanced back at the bed. Callum was sitting up, his shirt hanging open and a fuzz of dark hair just visible in the candlelight. Something else was keeping her from sleep – a vague hunger for his touch, a longing to taste his mouth and have him inside her again. Tara needed an answer to the question her body asked every time Callum took her. What was just beyond her reach when they lay together? It was as if a door was barred and would not open.
‘It is a cold night. Come back to bed,’ he commanded.
Tara walked up to him and stood helplessly at the side of the bed.
‘Why do you stare, Tara? What do you want from me, lass?’
‘I don’t rightly know,’ she whispered, taken by an urge to sink her hands into his thick hair. As her fingers slid through its softness, Callum reached out and put his hands on her hips and bent his head to her belly.
‘Do not tease me, lass,’ he murmured. ‘Do not play with me, and get my blood up.’
‘I am not playing,’ she said, her heart hammering. Callum’s grip tightened. There would be no going back now.
He pressed his head into her belly. ‘Are you trying to shame me with your pity?’
‘This is not pity. I miss you, Callum, and I am lonely.’
‘I thought you preferred me not to put my hands on you.’ he growled. ‘I thought you preferred to lie in your chamber alone.’
‘I think I was mistaken,’ said Tara, stroking her hands through his hair over and over. His forehead slid down her belly, and he kissed her between her legs through her shift, making Tara gasp and dig her nails into his hair.
It was now or never. She raised Callum’s head, leant in and kissed him, letting her mouth linger on his. At first, he was hesitant, and then he kissed her back, and Tara was taken back to the day in the barn when she had welcomed his embrace, enjoyed it, and wanted it to continue.
Callum made a sound between a growl and a moan deep in his throat and slid her shift up to her waist. After that, everything became a blur of pure sensation – first, his fingers found her, then his tongue - probing, licking, teasing her to an unbearable peak of desire. It was shameful and delightful, a pleasure so great it was almost savage. It became a hungry beat between her legs that could not be controlled. Tara could only press his face into her body and try to stop her legs from buckling as a wave of pleasure took her that almost made her faint away. It felt so good to surrender her will to Callum’s. For the first time in her life, Tara felt free and sublimely happy.
She gasped her release into the cold night, and, just as she finished, Callum leapt up and swept her underneath him onto the bed, with his mouth pressed to hers, his manhood hot and hard against her belly. Emboldened, Tara wanted it inside her more than she could bear, so she reached for it. What a hard, hot thing it was, and as she curled her fingers around his throbbing shaft, Callum groaned and spread her legs wide. He was inside her with one smooth thrust, and Tara let her fingers roam boldly along his heaving ribcage, across his buttocks, firm and clenching and covered in downy hair. She delighted in the shift and swell of muscles on his back and in his strong arms gripping her. For the first time, she realised how beautiful Callum’s body was, so different to hers, all power and grace. It was no longer a violent, invading thing but a warm, enveloping safety.
Tara wrapped her legs about Callum and held him close as he moaned into her hair, ‘I love you. I love you, Tara, and it will ever be so.’
***
The next morning, Callum stood clutching his aunt’s wizened hands in his as he took his leave of Sedgemoor. Still reeling from Tara’s ardent surrender, he yawned into the icy dawn air. He was exhausted but happy, having taken Tara over and over through the night, slowly, savouring each kiss, each caress, as if for the first time. He glanced over at her, and she smiled back and reddened. It seemed their many couplings had affected her too.
‘It would appear that you have done your duty at last as a husband,’ barked his aunt in his ear, snapping him out of his fog of love and lust. Her sharp voice irked him, and he was suddenly eager to be gone.
‘Do not meddle and probe, Aunt. You will sweep away my good mood.’
‘Good mood, is it? That lass has been ploughed, and well. ‘Tis written large all over your smug face. I would wager you passed an enjoyable night in the east wing and the lass, maybe not so much. A man takes what he wants. I told you so, didn’t I?’
‘Must you always be right, aunt?’ sighed Callum.
‘Aye. In fact, I insist upon it.’
‘Well, as you are so obsessed with marriage, perhaps it is time you got yourself another husband. God save him.’
‘A husband to clutter up the place. I’d rather be buried alive! Now go home, put a bairn in that one’s belly and deal with those reivers. I want them swinging from a gibbet with their tongues bulging out of their mouths by month’s end for what they did to me. You hear me, lad.’
Callum sighed. His aunt would not be pacified until violence was done in her name, and his wife would forever enslave him with her soft smiles and gentle curves.
God save him from bloody women. But at least his visit had achieved something. He could make his wife desire him. Tara’s pleasure had been there in every gasp, moan, and touch of her hands roaming over his skin. She had clung to him and held him inside her body in the darkness.
Callum frowned as he mounted his horse. There was but one thing bothering him - small, stinging like a flea’s bite, and just as hard to ignore. Tara had not said that she loved him.