The Striker Read online

  Eoin frowned. “I’m sure you misunderstood. Fin told me what happened. He was only doing what I asked him to do. You shouldn’t be going back and forth to Oban by yourself.”

  Margaret tried to rein in her temper, but it was quickly slipping through her fingers. “I did not misunderstand. I’m sorry, but I cannot like him, Eoin. I’ve tried, but there is something about your foster brother . . . he makes me nervous.”

  His eyes flared with the first real sign of anger. “If Fin has said something or done anything to hurt you, I’ll kill him. Damn it, I thought that business with the race was forgotten. But if he’s holding a grudge . . .”

  “It’s not like that. He hasn’t done or said anything. I just don’t trust him.”

  “He’s my best friend, Maggie. I’ve known him since I was seven. I’d trust him with my life.”

  “And yet you told him nothing about where you were going either.”

  His mouth fell in a hard, grim line; he clearly wasn’t happy to have that pointed out.

  He was hiding something. She’d known it, and now she had proof.

  “I will talk to him. But you do not need to worry about Fin.”

  “Why?”

  “He will be leaving with my father and brothers as soon as war breaks out.”

  The look of relief on her face told him that maybe there was more than a young girl’s loneliness and penchant for hyperbole at work.

  Damn Fin to hell. Eoin suspected his foster brother had just as little regard for his wife as she did him. Maybe it had been a bad idea to have Fin watch over her, but he’d hoped they could become friends.

  What a mess. Eoin had never felt so helpless in his life. Exaggerated or not—people didn’t hate her, they just didn’t know her—he could not deny that Margaret was miserable and believed it to be true.

  He hated that he hadn’t been here for her to help ease the transition. Hated that she’d had to go through her first few months at Gylen alone. But what the hell was he supposed to do? It was an impossible situation. He shouldn’t even be here right now.

  He took a chance and got up off his knees to sit beside her on the bed. When she didn’t shirk away from him, he put his arm around her and drew her against him. She melted into his chest, wrapping her arm around his waist, and he felt the first flicker of hope.

  “I wish I could make it easier for you,” he said. “Tell me what I can do to make it better.”

  She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes glassy. “Don’t go.”

  He was surprised how much the soft plea ate at him, and how much he wished he could stay with her. “If I didn’t absolutely have to go, I wouldn’t. But I’m needed.”

  “It’s more than that though, isn’t it,” she accused. “You want to go.”

  The lass was too perceptive. “I would stay here with you right now if I could, but if you are asking whether this is something I want to do the answer is yes. You knew who I was when you married me. I’m a warrior, Maggie. Warriors fight. And this opportunity—” He stopped, realizing he was treading too close to the truth. “This is something I’ve been preparing for my whole life. There will be challenges and the chance to do something different—the chance to make a difference.”

  “So you are choosing war over me?”

  Damn it, that wasn’t what he was doing at all. It didn’t have to be an either-or—not unless she made it that way. “I’m not choosing anything. What would you have me do? Ignore my duty? Would you ask your father or brothers to do the same? Would your mother have demanded your father stay with her rather than fight for King John?”

  He could see the answer shimmering angrily in her eyes.

  He took her chin, tilting it toward his. “Do you love me, Maggie?”

  He didn’t expect her to hesitate. When she did, he realized how close he was to losing her, his gut checked hard. Hell, it scared the shite out of him.

  “Aye,” she said finally.

  “Then don’t give up on me. I know it’s been difficult for you, but if you could just try a little longer, I know you’ll win them over.” He smiled wryly. “Don’t tell me all these new gowns and veils have made you soft.”

  A furrow appeared between her finely etched brows. “Soft?”

  He shrugged. “I thought you didn’t care what people said and would not be defeated so easily. What happened to the girl who donned lads clothing and bested one of the best horsemen I know in a race? Was all that MacDowell pride a bunch of bluster?”

  He felt like he’d hung the damned moon when one corner of her mouth lifted. “Are you suggesting I wear breeches to break my fast tomorrow morning?”

  He laughed. “Good God, no. I wouldn’t want my mother to expire of shock.” He sobered a little. “I know she can be difficult at times, but once you get to know her, you’ll see that she just wants the best for my brothers and sisters and me.”

  “Which is exactly the problem.”

  “You are the best for me. She just hasn’t realized it yet.”

  She smiled, and it wasn’t like he’d hung the moon—it was like he’d hung the sun. Warmth spread over him like a bright summer day. This was why he loved her. She was fun and lighthearted, outrageous, knew how to make him laugh, and reminded him that not everything was the life-or-death stakes of war. This was why he needed her in his life. She was the light in a world that sometimes became too dark. The past months of doing—thinking—nothing but battle fell away.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  And he set about proving it to her. Slowly. With a kiss that told her exactly how much she meant to him. They had all night, and he was going to make damn sure she knew how much he loved her. He didn’t want to think about how long this might have to last.

  Following his lead, she responded to the long, slow strokes of his tongue with a deft tenderness of her own that made his chest ache. He’d never imagined a kiss could be filled with so much emotion—or express so much feeling. But he felt the longing, her desire, and love that matched his own, with every sigh, every stroke, and every soft caress.

  When he’d finished worshipping her mouth with his lips and tongue, he went on to worship the rest of her. He kissed her jaw, her throat, the tender place below her ear, and finally, once he’d paused long enough to remove her clothes, the berry-pink tips of her nipples. Aye, he took plenty of time with those, circling his tongue around the puckered edges, flicking the rigid points, and sucking them deep into his mouth until she squirmed and moaned.

  She tried to undo his surcoat, but he stopped her. “Not yet, sweetheart. If you touch me, it will be over too soon. I want to give you pleasure. Let me do this.”

  She nodded, and he went on exploring. Her body was a fantasy, and he took his time savoring every cock-hardening inch of it. He couldn’t get enough. She was so soft and sweet, her skin dissolving against his mouth like honey. She tasted so damned good he wanted to taste all of her. He wanted to give her the kind of pleasure he’d never given another woman before. He wanted to put his mouth between her legs, slide his tongue inside her, and feel her come apart against his lips. And if the way she was pressing her hips against him was any indication, she was close.

  He skimmed his hand over the slender curve of her waist to her hip. “Tell me what you want, Maggie.”

  Her half-lidded eyes met his in a sensual haze of passion so dark and deep it threatened to drag him under. God, she was beautiful. He’d taken the time to remove not just her veil this time, but the pins from her plaits, and her hair spread over the pillow behind her head like a fiery blaze.

  “You. I want you, Eoin. Inside me.”

  A fierce swell of satisfaction surged through him; he loved the boldness with which she told him what she wanted. There was no false maidenly modesty with Margaret.

  He brushed his fingers between her legs, feeling the silky dampness sliding between his fingers like warm honey. “Do you want my hands, my cock, or maybe my mouth?”

  She gasped, the ha