For Love Of Rory

Surely once she became accustomed to Corvus Croft she would learn to love it. It was a beautiful place with lush green fields and sparkling blue streams. He doubted not that the children the Celts had spirited away had already fallen in love with their new home. It took very little time to change one’s allegiance, for in all honesty, Rory was more than a little in love with Serine. He watched her closely. Her movements were graceful but positive. There was no room for doubt within her. And he wondered, once again, what she felt when she thought of him.

He knew that there were times her heart quickened when she caught him watching her. He could see the color that tinted her cheeks and the pulse pounding in her throat. How he longed to press his lips to that pulsing point. To feel it pound beneath his lips as he drank in her scent, her warmth, her sweetness.

As if in answer to his silent supplication, she passed his cot, reaching out to touch his forehead in her journey. When she hesitated, as though reluctant to release the gentle contact with his face, Rory reached up and removed her hand. He inhaled the scent of marigolds that was uniquely her own and brushed her hand across his cheek. Without conscious volition, he pressed his lips against her palm and buried his mouth in the softness. Then, with a groan, he swept the salty moistness with his tongue.

His fingers held her wrist and he felt her pulse jump and quicken. She did care! She responded to him just as he did to her.

He felt her other hand move into his hair, and tensed himself should he have misread her and she decided to pull him away. Her hand clenched, then lost itself in his thick locks. He pulled her to him as he gave in to his desires and sought out the pulse beat hammering in her throat. With a deep moan he closed his mouth over it and felt it drum against his tongue. He knew his time was limited. Serine had given in to the madness of the moment and he had taken her completely off guard. It was only a matter of seconds before she would realize what was taking place and put up her defenses. But one moment of heaven was worth a lifetime of darkness.

Without giving propriety another thought, Rory cradled her in his arms and gently, gently covered her lips with his as he drew out her sweetness, inhaling her, tasting her, luxuriating in the touch of her body, warm and soft against his naked chest.

Then Serine’s hands drew him closer, demanding that he give all that his kisses promised. He felt her open to him and was lost in the depths of her mouth. He barely restrained himself from crying out at the overwhelming passion, so long denied, that surged forth and blossomed in all its frightening glory in the arms of this beautiful, determined woman, who could never belong to the likes of a Celt.

The world swam as Rory’s kiss demanded all that Serine could give and promised even more. It mattered not that this man was her avowed enemy. That he had stolen her child and would not tell where he had been taken. All that mattered was the touch of his lips, the caress of his hands and the burning heat of his body against hers. All that mattered was that she had waited for this moment, for this kiss throughout all the watchful days and sleepless nights. Longed for this moment throughout her life without knowing for what she longed. And now that it had come, she had not the strength, nor the will, to push either the man or the moment from her embrace. His kiss was all she had dreamed it would be and though she burned through eternity for this moment of weakness it was beyond her ability to care.

A soft cry escaped her lips as he buried his face in the soft fragrance of her breasts. A surge of desire shot through her body as swift and true as one of Old Ethyl’s arrows, and most likely as deadly. For Serine felt that she could not live without experiencing the wonder of Rory’s love, of his beautiful, masculine body, his sensual lips and his unquenchable passion.

Incapable of denying him or herself the love they so greatly desired, Serine was swept to the boundaries of surrender. Unknowing, uncaring of anything other than the man in whose arms she lay. She seemed to be spiraling upward toward the bright light of fulfillment when Rory withdrew his lips, holding her close for several minutes until their breathing assumed some semblance of normalcy before he let her go.

She moved from the haven of his arms and stood before him, slightly disheveled and very disappointed.

“Forgive me,” he said, unable to keep his eyes from the pleasures he had so briefly known. “I did not mean to force myself on you.”

Serine opened her mouth several times before she found her voice. “Then why did you do so?” And why did you not continue? she wanted to ask.

“I lost my head, and in the heat of the moment forgot that there are two situations that stand sentry between us.”

“Those are?” She knew, but she must hear him say the words. The words that would both damn and free her.

“You have a husband, and I have your son. As long as it remains so, there can be nothing but lust between us. And I want more than a fleeting moment of passion from you, Serine. I want your love, just as, I believe, you want mine. But love should give happiness, and between us we can offer each other naught but pain. For this ill-favored love we have found for each other is indeed a bitter brew.”

She turned away, unable to hold back a trite comment of her own. “Sometimes the more bitter the brew, the greater the benefit.”

Chapter Five

The kisses they had shared could not be forgotten. Each time their eyes met they both reacted as though struck a blow. No matter how hard either of them tried, it was impossible to pretend nothing had happened, any more than it was possible to allow another such encounter to happen again.

Serine was a woman wed. She had never so much as thought of betraying her husband’s trust by giving herself to another man. Nor had she ever met a man she would have considered interesting enough to be worth the anguish that would result in such a betrayal. Now her mind slipped a hundred times a day into thoughts of Rory’s strong young arms encircling her body. His lips searching out the sensitive places in her hands and neck. The heat that had filled her whole being when he had buried his face in her breasts. There were ever so many other places of interest throughout her body that had heretofore gone unexplored. He would know where to seek them out. He would find each one and with each discovery she would find deeper pleasure and more euphoric enjoyment.

And, oh, to be allowed to do the same to him. To touch him with her lips and hands as he had touched her. To run her tongue over his hand or taste the quickened pulse in his throat. How wonderful it would be to know that she could make his body respond to her, as she did to him. To give and take in the deepest passion of love until they were both too sated to move.

Tears filled her eyes and she stumbled, sloshing water over the side of the basin she carried. To her surprise, Rory was suddenly beside her, catching her before she could do more damage. He took the basin from her hands and placed it on the table.

“There now, it’s overworked you are,” he told her. “The crone is right. You should go into the village and get some fresh air. You’ve scarce left this room since I came here. It’s myself that is supposed to be the prisoner, not you!” He had fallen into the pattern of speech used in his homeland and laughed at his own words, but his face held true concern.

She was alternately flushed and pale and he had no way of knowing it was her thoughts, not her physical condition, that caused her such distress.

Rory wanted her to leave. He could not bear the close proximity any longer. He needed a respite from her presence. He needed a few minutes’ peace in which to be alone with thoughts that had nothing to do with this woman; with the scent of her, the touch of her hands, the sound of her voice. If she did not leave him to himself for a few hours he would die of desire, of wanting what he dared not take.

For he had already come to the realization that taking Serine once in the heat of passion would never be enough for him. It was not just sex he wanted from this woman. It was her love he hungered for above all else. And though there were moments when he believed to the very depths of his soul that her longings were the same as his, he dared not put them into words. For if she knew the same yearnings as did he, his heart would break to realize it could never come to pass.

There was but one way he could prove his love and give his soul some surcease, and that was by taking Serine to her child.

“In a few weeks I will be well enough to travel,” he said as he walked to the window and looked out over the countryside. “Are you prepared to go with me?”

Serine finished mopping up the last traces of water. “I am,” she told him without hesitation. “I will make the arrangements, and we will leave as soon as you are strong enough.”

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