Born In Sin Page 18

  "It's not pity I feel for you." She moved to touch his arm. To her amazement, he didn't move away. She ran her hand gently over the biceps of his uninjured side and up to his face, until she forced him to look at her and see the sincerity of her eyes. "You are my husband, Sin, sworn before God. I will always be here for you."

  Sin swallowed at her words, unable to fathom them, unable to believe she really meant them. It was a game she was playing with him, and he could only guess why she would want to do this to him.

  He stared at the floor as he remembered the times in his life he had deceived himself. The times he had lain beaten by Harold, thinking that his father had only been angry at him when he had sent him away. That if he was a good enough lad and did as the English asked and spoke no angry words to Harold, that he would be allowed to go home as King Stephen had promised. That his father would welcome him back with open arms.

  In the end, his father had continued to shun him. His father's letter to Henry hadn't even borne Sin's name upon it. It bore no reference to him as a son at all. It had been cold. Harsh. A final rejection that still resonated in his heart.

  He remembered the sting of the Saracen whips, the beatings he'd endured during his training. The only thing that kept him sane was the belief that if he could escape them and get back to England, all would be right. His mother's people would surely welcome him back into their fold.

  And yet, after Henry returned him to London, he had been sneered at, hated and feared. They had treated him worse than a leper, worse than a heretic.

  Not even God Himself could love something like you. The pope's condemnation rang in his ears.

  Nay, he was still that little boy who had stood before his mother on Christmas Eve with his heart full of hopeful longing. What had he ever gotten for such foolish dreams?

  Nothing but more ridicule. Nothing but more hurt.

  His heart had withered and died years ago from lack of use. If he opened himself up to Callie now, he was sure she would betray him.

  It was the only thing in life he counted on. The only thing that was a certainty.

  Reluctantly, he removed her hand from his face. " 'Tis late. You need to go to bed."

  "Where will you sleep?"

  "On the floor before the hearth."

  Callie's lip quivered as she fought against the tears inside her. Her frustration mounted. How she wished she knew a way to reach him. To make him believe in her. In them.

  But he had shut himself off from her again.

  She watched as he removed his surcoat and armor. His tawny shoulders gleaming in the firelight, he took a pelt from the bed and lay down to cuddle with his sword. She clenched her fists at her sides, wanting to choke him for his stubbornness.

  What was it going to take to reach this man?

  Whenever you fail to win them over, lass, then mayhap you should partake of their leisure. Her father's words rang in her head, giving her the inspiration she needed.

  She undressed until she wore nothing but her thin underkirtle, then she grabbed a pillow from the bed.

  Sin listened to his wife moving about as he stared into the fire in the grate. He wanted nothing more than to join her in her bed. To go over there and pull her into his arms and finally experience the only piece of heaven a man like him could ever hope for.

  But then, he was used to disappointment.

  Suddenly a pillow was placed against the back of his head. Frowning, he leaned back to see Callie making a pallet behind him.

  "What are you doing?"

  She shrugged as she sat on the floor and pulled his blanket over her. "I am being Ruth. I am making my bed where my husband is. If you won't join me in my bed, then I will join you in yours."

  "You're being ridiculous."

  "I am?" She leaned up on one elbow to stare at him. "It seems to me ridiculous is lying on a cold, cobbled floor when you have a comfortable bed waiting for you just a few feet away."

  He closed his eyes, unable to deal with her and the raw emotions that were still churning inside him. He'd told her things tonight that he had never spoken of before. No one, not even his brothers, had ever known what his mother had said or done to him that night.

  He was weak and he was tired and all he wanted was respite from his past.

  "Go to bed, Callie."

  She didn't. She merely snuggled down beside him and continued talking. "Why? Did I do something wrong on our wedding night? Did I displease you somehow?"

  Sin choked as he remembered just how warm and welcoming she had been then, too. She'd never done anything to displease him. Not until this moment when she refused to do as he asked. "Nay. I was not displeased."

  "Then why won't you make love to me?"

  An image of her naked and hot in his arms scorched him. His body roared to life over her handful of words. She was the first woman to beg him for his favor. It was erotic and sensual, and it made him burn. "I can't believe I'm having this discussion with you."

  "Fine, then, no discussion. You lie there with your wounded shoulder and just pretend I don't exist. Which you're very good at, by the way."

  The hurt in her voice stung him. He didn't want to hurt her. All he wanted was for her to leave him alone. Just leave him to the little bit of tranquillity his beleaguered soul could find.

  "Callie, it's not you. Why can't you just accept the fact that I am a faithless, worthless bastard and leave me in peace?"

  "Like everyone else does?"

  "Aye."

  She sat up and leaned over him. Her breasts rubbed against his arm, making his shaft jerk in response to her innocent touch. Her unadorned beauty held him transfixed as her coppery curls tumbled around her face and the firelight gleamed in her green eyes. Her cheeks were pink from her anger and she narrowed a hard glare at him.

  "Because I don't believe you're faithless and I know you're not worthless. As for being a bastard, that was hardly your fault." She rested her chin on his biceps and stared at him with a hunger in her eyes he found unbelievable. How could this woman want anything to do with him?

  "I would love you, husband, if you would let me."

  Those words…

  They tore him apart and left him so vulnerable to her. He didn't dare trust in them. He knew better.

  "And if I did? What of your family? Are you willing to leave them behind forever? Do you honestly believe for one minute they would accept an Englishman into their hearts?"

  "You're not English, you're a Scot."

  "Nay. I was born in England, and for the most part raised there. I was cast out of Scotland and told never to return. I hate being in this place more than you can ever understand, and the first chance I get to go back to London, I will take it. Will you be willing to stay with me then?"

  Her eyes snapped angrily as she thought about that horrible place. "I despise London. The filth and stench. And they hate me there." ,

  "Then you do understand how I feel here."

  Callie's breath caught at his words. Dear saints, she did know. That horrendous agony that had clenched her heart day after day as she feared she would never see her beloved Highlands again. It had been unbearable.

  "Why did you marry me?" she asked quietly, half afraid of the answer he would give.

  "Because I knew no other way to get you home. I saw what the others did to Jamie, how they treated and scorned him. He's a good lad with a good heart. I didn't want him to become like me. So, I brought you back here before it was too late for the two of you."

  Callie froze at the wealth of emotion that overwhelmed her. In that moment, she knew she loved him. There was no doubt. The fierceness of the emotion ripped through her, filled her and made her want to take him into her arms and hold him for eternity.

  This man, so strong, so full of pain, who could look beyond himself and still help others even though no one had ever helped him. It amazed her. It scared her, but most of all it touched her profoundly.

  She ran her hand along the edge of his jaw. "I am going to
make you want to stay here with me."

  His eyes turned dull. "I assure you, you can't."

  "Is that a challenge?"

  "Nay, dove. Merely a statement of fact."

  Maybe in his mind, but in her heart it was a challenge, and Callie loved a good challenge. Somehow, some way, she was going to break through his defenses and find the heart inside him. She would make him want to stay. She would be what he needed and how he needed it.

  No matter what.

  Sin rolled over and gave her his back. He expected her to get up. She didn't.

  Instead, she settled down behind him and traced the scars along his back. It was such a strange sensation, to have her hand giving him pleasure over the things that had brought him such tremendous pain.

  When she leaned forward and placed her lips over the arrow wound, he trembled. His body burned with desire for her. It would be so easy at this moment to roll over, take her into his arms and plant himself deep inside her. To ease the ache between his legs with her body.

  He swore he could already feel her breasts in his hands again. Taste the sweetness of her skin.

  But it was a fool's dream.

  There was no safety in this world. No happiness for someone like him. Love was for other men. Men who were lucky and blessed. Men who knew how to love someone.

  Tonight, though, he felt his loneliness on a level he'd never experienced before. He was cold. Empty and aching.

  And all he wanted was respite from the pain inside him.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he rolled over to look at her. Her eyes were so gentle that they warmed the cold place inside him. When she reached up to place her fingers against his lips, he felt his resistance to her shatter.

  How could she be so open and giving?

  He would never understand this woman.

  She opened her lips in invitation to him. And without thought, he took it.

  Callie moaned at the taste of him as he pulled her forcefully into his arms. His kiss was one of pure passion and of longing, and it stole her breath. She felt him fist his hand in the back of her kirtle as he pressed her closer to his body. He plundered her mouth as if it held all the treasure of the earth and he was desperate for it.

  His arms clutched at her as his tongue danced with hers in a heated, intense rhythm that made her breathless and weak.

  Heaven help her, but she wanted this man. It didn't matter to her what crimes he had committed. What he had done to survive the horrors of his past. All that mattered was the way he touched her heart.

  He made her laugh, made her feel needed and desirable. Most of all, he made her feel like a woman. He awoke something deep inside her. A part of her she'd never known existed.

  When she looked into his eyes, she could see the future. See the children she wanted to birth and the home she wanted to make for all of them.

  Sin couldn't fathom why he didn't shove her away from him. He should. It would be the noble thing to do. But then, he and nobility were strangers. He was a beast who knew nothing save basic survival skills.

  He only knew how to protect himself from harm.

  And yet, when he looked at her, he could only think of being the man she needed. Of holding her close for the rest of eternity.

  How he wished there were some way he could erase his past and be the kind of man a woman like this deserved.

  "I want you, Sin," she breathed against his lips.

  God help him, he couldn't resist that plea.

  But he wouldn't take her here on the floor with no regard for her comfort. Animal he might be, but she was a gentle-born lady.

  Against her protests, he picked her up in his arms and carried her to her bed.

  "You're hurting your shoulder," she said, holding him tight so as to present as little weight in his arms as she could.

  "You don't weigh enough to hurt me."

  She looked doubtful as he laid her back against the feather mattress, her hands resting gently on his shoulders. The softness of her touch singed him, and Sin took a moment to savor the sight of her, warm and waiting for him. She lay there with her green eyes staring up at him as if he were all the things he'd ever wanted to be.

  In her eyes, he was noble. Decent. Heroic. He was the man he'd always wanted to be.

  He should leave. He knew it. He had no business doing this with her.

  Yet he couldn't leave. He doubted if anything on this earth or beyond could get him out of this room tonight.

  Callie saw the look in his tormented eyes and for a moment she thought he would pull away from her.

  Instead, he untied his laces, removed his chausses and joined her in the bed. She shivered at the sight of his naked body lying beside hers.

  His power and lithe grace was overwhelming. Her body ached and burned for his. She throbbed with a need she barely understood. All she knew was that she wanted him. She wanted to feel him inside her and share herself with him, to let him take whatever comfort or solace he could.

  He lifted his hand to the laces of her kirtle and slowly opened the neck of it until she was bared to his hungry gaze. Callie shivered at the dark, intense look on his face as he stared at her naked breasts.

  She moaned as he trailed his hand over her tight, swollen nipples as if savoring the sight and feel of them before he took one in to his palm and gently squeezed. She hissed at the pleasurable sensation and her body melted. She was so hot and wet for him, aching with her need and with her heart.

  Callie wanted to claim his body, too, to touch him in ways she hoped no other woman had ever touched him. Tonight he would be hers and she intended to do whatever it took to make him understand just what a hero he was to her.

  He buried his lips against her throat, his breath branding her with heat. She'd been so drunk the last time that she could barely recall him. But this… this was vivid. Vivid and hot, and she was filled with fear and curiosity.

  She explored his body with her hands and delighted in the lean, masculine planes and dips. He was so hard and firm compared to her. His cheeks were scratchy from his whiskers. And the manly scent of him sent her reeling.

  Sin shook from the force of his raw emotions. She touched him on levels he'd never known existed. As he looked into her eyes, he saw heaven itself. No woman had ever touched him like this. He'd never allowed himself such a comfort.

  Never dared hope to possess it.

  She was so giving to him. He drank the tenderness from her lips and tasted the goodness that was innate to her and so missing from him. She was an angel, and when he looked at her, he could almost believe in such things as heaven.

  Rolling over, he pulled her on top of him so that he could cup her face in his hands and just stare into those precious green eyes and the promises they held.

  Dare he believe them?

  She moved her head and kissed his open palm. The gesture shook him. His heart pounding, he watched as she kissed her way up his arm to his lips.

  Closing his eyes, he pulled her kirtle over her head, and relished the feel of her naked body against his. Tonight, he would do what he had never done before. He would open himself up to her and pray that on the morrow she wouldn't despise him for it.

  Callie moaned at the heat of his body under hers. Desire swept through her. She hated that she had no memory of him from their wedding night. No memory of holding him in her arms.

  He gently rolled her over and placed himself between her legs. She felt the hairs of his legs rubbing against her inner thighs as he kissed her, his hard shaft resting against her thigh.

  It was such a strange feeling, to be so exposed to him. And yet it was so natural that they would share themselves. She reached up and ran her hands along his cheeks to bury them in his hair as she saw the needful hunger in his eyes.

  "I am so glad you are my husband," she breathed.

  Pain and ecstasy mixed in his dark eyes as he stared at her as if unable to believe he'd heard her.

  He looked as if he were dreaming and terrified of
waking.

  His muscles rippling beneath her hands, he pressed the tip of his shaft against her core.

  Callie held her breath. After tonight, there would be no forgetting the feel of her husband.

  He brushed his hand against her cheek. His eyes held hers as mutual understanding and care passed between them. It was a priceless moment of sharing and it went a long way in giving her hope for them.

  Then he dipped his head and claimed her lips in a passionate, fiery kiss. He drove himself deep inside her body.

  She tensed as pain overrode her pleasure.

  He froze.

  "I'm sorry," Sin whispered. "Does it hurt much?"

  Callie swallowed and shook her head. The pain was already subsiding into a dull ache as her body stretched to accommodate the large size of him. It had just startled her. Since she had already lost her maidenhead, she'd expected tonight to be free of pain. At least that was what she'd been told.

  He braced himself on his arms to look down at her. Callie stared up at his face and the concern in his eyes as she felt him deep and hard inside her body. He was so incredibly handsome.

  "I am fine, Sin," she said, offering him a timid smile. It was so very intimate, to look at him while they were joined this way.

  With every breath he took, she could feel him throbbing inside her. Feel him rigid and hard all over and in her.

  Instinctively, she moved her hips, drawing him in deeper as her muscles tightened around his shaft. He growled in response, and a look of such pleasure crossed his face that it spurred her to bolder actions as she writhed beneath him.

  Sin held his breath at the sight of her lying beneath him while she milked his body with hers. He held himself rigidly still, even though it was killing him. He wanted her to want him, not to fear the desires of her own body.

  She should take as much pleasure from this night as he did. More so, in fact. And he loved watching her discover her sexual power and bliss as he did the same.

  Growling at how good she felt, he thrusted himself deeper into her. They hissed in unison.

  Never once had he dreamed making love could be like this. Never had he dared to hope of a night where he could be with a woman so unreservedly and know that she was with him by her own free will.