The Viper Read online

  He was going faster now, any pretense at control long gone. His body was on fire. He heard the quickening of her breath and knew she felt it, too. The urgency, the need, that had descended over them both. There was nothing to come between them. No husband to stop her. She was free. She was his.

  His lips trailed over the tender, sensitive skin of her throat. He nuzzled her with his nose, licked her with his tongue, devoured her with his mouth.

  His hands slid up her tiny waist to cup her breasts. A bolt of pure lust shot through him, as the soft mounds of flesh spilled over his palms. He felt her nipples pressing against him like two hard pebbles. He couldn’t stop himself. They were too incredible. Too lush. Too ripe to the touch. He needed to squeeze, to caress, to lift the perfect round globes of flesh in his hands and rub the taut bead of her nipples between his thumbs.

  The soft sigh of pleasure that slipped from between her parted lips drove him wild. He had to taste her. To put his mouth on bare skin. Nothing could have denied him from putting his lips around those firm, succulent nipples and sucking. From circling them with his tongue and nibbling them with his teeth.

  He was going to have her. Knowledge pounded through him. Finally, after two years of wanting her, she would be his.

  He slid his mouth lower, moving toward the open neck of her shirt. Easing the fabric aside with his chin, he feasted his eyes on the pale, creamy white skin—

  He stilled. Everything inside came to an abrupt stop—his breath, his racing heart, his surging passion.

  His half-slitted gaze slowly came into focus.

  Straightening, he pushed aside the fabric, tearing the neck opening of her shirt a little to get a better look. But there was no mistaking it. Dark, mottled bruises marred the creamy perfection of ivory skin around the inner curve of her right breast.

  Fingerprints.

  His heart started to beat again. Louder. Harder. Passion had been replaced by another primal urge—this one to kill.

  She must have realized what had gotten his attention, because she pulled away with a gasp and gripped the open ends of her shirt back together to try to cover herself.

  But he was having none of it. He grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at him. “Who did this to you?” His voice held the cold edge of one of the most feared and dangerous men in the Highlands. “Who hurt you?”

  Bella was in another world. Transported to a place of feeling and sensation that she’d never been to before. The heat of his kiss. The pressure of his hands. The feel of his body against her. It was too much.

  It felt too good.

  She’d been alone for so long, and her body responded. She wasn’t strong enough to fight. Imprisonment had taken more from her than she wanted to admit. She was weak. Needy. And he was strength.

  But she knew it wasn’t just the imprisonment that caused her to react with such need and hunger. It was Lachlan. He alone had the power to turn her into a mindless wanton.

  She’d never responded to a man the way she did him. She hadn’t understood it then, and she didn’t understand it now.

  The difference was she no longer cared.

  So she gave over to the sensations. Let them consume her. Let him take her where he would. She hadn’t felt anything for so long, and he made her feel alive again.

  He’d flamed the passion, kissed her and touched her until she thought she had glimpsed a piece of paradise, only to bring her harshly back to earth. Who hurt you?

  She gathered up the torn edges of her shirt, wishing her tattered pride was as easily managed.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, trying to turn away. “It’s none of your concern.”

  But he wouldn’t let her. He grabbed her by the arm and turned her back to him. “I’m making it my concern.”

  The flatness of his tone didn’t fool her. He was furious. Peeking up from under her lashes, she glimpsed the terrifying, slitted, green-eyed gaze of a mercenary. He looked every bit as mean and merciless as she remembered. The latent dangerousness that surrounded him was still there.

  She hadn’t realized Simon had left marks. He’d come to her chamber well before dawn this morning. Her imminent departure had forced all subtlety from his exhausted repertoire of attempts to coerce her into his bed. He’d promised to keep them from forcing her to take the veil if she would let him have her. When she refused, his “request” had become physical. He’d squeezed and twisted her breasts with his brutish hands, put his foul mouth on hers until she couldn’t breathe, and attempted to wedge himself between her legs.

  For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t stop. That the threat of rape that had hung over her head like an axe would finally fall. But she’d stood there cold, letting him push her into the stone wall until she thought she would be crushed, and eventually, he’d let her go.

  In the end it was only incrementally more horrible than the many previous instances she’d had to endure over the years. So why did it feel so much more so now with Lachlan to witness her shame?

  She brushed the errant dampness from her eyes. She was a fool. What difference did it make?

  “My jailor,” she said. “Sir Simon Fitzhugh.”

  He stared at her intently, his cold, eerie gaze as hard as granite. “Did he force you?”

  The emptiness of his voice sent a shiver down her spine. She shook her head, eyes glued to her feet. “Nay, my rank had some benefits.” Her attempt at a wry smile wobbled. But it didn’t matter. Lachlan would see through her bravado; she hated how easily he could read her. “There are some things even the English will not tolerate.”

  “But he wanted you?”

  Bella didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Didn’t like the probing intensity of his questions, or, when she forced herself to look up at him, his gaze. “He was a brute who at times got a little rough. It’s over, Lachlan. There is nothing you can do to fix it; it’s in the past. I just want to forget about it.”

  It was the truth. Simon held no power over her any longer. Soon he would be one more bad memory.

  If only Lachlan were as easy to forget. She could still feel the heat of his kiss on her swollen lips. Still feel his hands on her breasts, the frantic quivering between her legs, and the burn of his beard on his skin.

  How did he manage to devastate her so quickly and completely? To make her feel weak and vulnerable?

  “I’m sorry, Bella. So damned sorry for what you had to go through.”

  “Then take me to my daughter.” She knew she was playing on his guilt, but didn’t care.

  He was quiet. Too quiet. His expression gave no hint of his thoughts.

  She drew herself up, trying to push aside the memory of that devastating kiss and remember what was truly important. Putting aside her pride, she did what her captors had wanted her to do: she begged. “Please, Lachlan. Please, take me to Joan. I need to see my daughter.”

  His stony expression didn’t move. Not one little flicker. Not one hint that her pleas might have some effect on him. That she might have some effect on him. He’d kissed her as though he couldn’t live without her, but it made no difference.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous.”

  Sorry? Tears started to fall from her eyes. How could he stand there like that—after everything they’d been through—and deny her the one thing that mattered to her? The one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world.

  At that moment she hated him. Hated him for his strength and her weakness. Hated him for kissing her and making her think …

  What had she thought? That those foolish thoughts she’d harbored two years ago were true? That she actually meant something to him? That there was a reason other than a mission that he’d come for her?

  She blinked up at him through the hot haze of tears. Stared at the handsome battle-scarred face, wanting something from him with all her soul, with every fiber of her being, but not knowing what—except that he could never give it. It seemed she always wanted something from a man who could not