Christmas At The Castle: Tarnished Rose of the Court / The Laird's Captive Wife

And all he wanted to do now was make things right for Celia, as he should have done so long ago. If only he knew how.

Celia sighed in her sleep and curled into him, trusting him in her dreams as she could not when awake. He smoothed tendrils of her dark hair back from her brow and thought of the first time he’d seen her. It was a moment he had never been expecting—a moment like something in a sonnet or a madrigal—something he would have scoffed at before he knew Celia.

His youth had been a mostly wasted one, his years at Cambridge a tangle of drink and women and brawls, until one particularly vivid fight had caught his uncle’s attention and he’d been forced to find a new direction in his life. Forced to take the chance to redeem himself by serving the Queen. He’d been sent to the country to ferret out the participants in a rumuored Catholic plot to unseat Elizabeth and put Queen Mary on the throne—the sort of plot that came up like weeds every year and had to be chopped down. It had seemed a simple enough task. An easy way to get back in his family’s good graces and make a name for himself with Elizabeth.

But then he’d seen Celia standing across the room at a banquet, dressed in a simple white gown and with her hair loose over her shoulders in midnight-coloured waves. It had seemed as if all the light in the chamber gathered only on her, on her shy smile, the pale, serene cast of her face. Everything had gone so still in that moment.

Everything had changed, and he had never forgotten it. He had always liked women—their voices, their laughter, their soft, perfumed bodies. He’d liked them too much to think of settling with only one, but Celia was different. She’d made him imagine a new life, new ways of thinking and being. Until it all had exploded—as he’d known it would from that first moment.

Yet he still couldn’t stay away from her. It seemed he never could.

Celia sighed again, and a frown drifted over her brow as if she saw something in her dreams that disturbed her.

“Shh,” John whispered, and she settled in his arms. In her sleep she trusted him.

And in that moment, in the silent, cold darkness of the night, enveloped in their own small world of firelight and snow, they were together. He held her safe. He only wanted to make that moment last.

Chapter Nine

When Celia woke again, she could tell it was day by the pale grey light beyond her closed eyes. Yet she didn’t quite want to relinquish her dreams. Not yet. She wanted to hold onto that fantasy world, and to those fleeting moments when she and John were not enemies.

She slowly stretched against the rumpled sheets and realised most of the ache was gone. She only felt a new, fresh energy flowing through her, the brush of warm air over her bare arms.

She turned her head on the pillow and opened her eyes to find herself alone on the bed. No snow fell outside the window; there was just that hard grey light.

She pushed herself up against the pillows and saw that John sat by the fire, frowning down at some papers in his hand. A basin and a length of towelling lay on the table beside him, and he looked as if he had just washed. He wore no shirt, and the damp ends of his hair slowly trailed crystal drops of water over his naked shoulders and chest. That light golden skin glowed with the water and the firelight, as if he was an idol in some pagan temple.

She watched avidly as one drop traced a path through the light scattering of brown hair on his chest, arrowing down to the fastening of his leather breeches. For a moment she indulged in the fantasy that it was her hand touching him there, teasing him until that ridged abdomen tightened and …

He glanced up and caught her staring. A roguish grin curved his lips, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. She felt her cheeks turn hot, and she sank back down to the bed so he couldn’t see that she blushed like a silly, innocent girl. She remembered so well that old feeling with him.

“So you’re awake at last,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Aye, thank you,” Celia managed to answer. “I feel much recovered.”

She heard the papers he held flutter to the table, and the tread of his bare feet on the wood floor as he walked purposefully towards the bed.

She felt his knee press into the mattress and tried to draw the sheet over her head. His fingers curled over the edge of the fabric and pulled it away as he knelt over her. She found herself staring up into his glowing blue eyes as he smiled down at her. He seemed in a strangely good mood.

“I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better, Celia,” he said, still smiling. “Perhaps you’re wanting your breakfast now? You looked hungry enough just then.”

“I …”

Before she could say anything else, his mouth swooped down over hers. Open, hot, hungry, as if he wanted to devour her. It awakened something deep inside of her, that seed of longing and need that only John had ever created. He had caused such pain and anger in her life, but such wondrous things too. Emotions and sensations she had never dreamed could exist.

He still did. And when he kissed her he swept her away on a river of fire.

She opened her lips and drew his tongue in over hers. His taste filled her mouth and she moaned. Oh, yes—she did remember this, so very well. And it made her feel just as it once had.

John’s arms came hard around her and dragged her closer to his naked chest. As they kissed, deeper, hungrier, their tongues entwining, thrusting, she laid her hands flat on his shoulders and felt the damp heat of him against her palms. John groaned deep in his throat, his hands fisting in the cloth of her chemise as if he would rip it from her.

Emboldened, Celia slid her caress lower, slowly, savouring the way he felt against her. He was just as she remembered—just as he was in her fevered dreams of the past—only even better. Stronger, harder, hotter. This was what she needed. This was what would close her past with him, let her put it all aside. To have him as he was now, as she was now, and know that was all there was. Free of the past, with only the feelings of this one moment to think of.

She traced her fingertips over his flat nipples and felt them pebble under her touch. She scraped the edge of her thumbnail over one and he growled. She pressed slightly harder, hard enough to give just the slightest edge of pain, but he didn’t shove her away or slap her as her husband would have. His skin rippled, but he went on kissing her.

She slid her touch lower, feeling every inch of his torso, every bit of his skin. He felt like hot satin stretched taut over hard muscle, and the light whorls of hair tickled her palms. She dipped the tip of her smallest finger into his navel before she moved even lower to the band of his breeches.

Suddenly her boldness fled. She could feel his erection, rock-hard against her wrist.

“Curse it, Celia, don’t stop now,” he whispered as his mouth left hers. He pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses to her jaw, the soft curve of her throat. He nibbled at her there, drawing the skin between his teeth to nip lightly at her.

Celia gasped and let her head fall back as her hand convulsed against his waist. Her heart was pounding as if it would burst, and she could feel that his was too as his body pressed closer to hers.

His mouth opened on the pulse that beat at the base of her neck, that vulnerable hollow so sensitive to sensation. He licked at it, swirling the tip of his tongue there before he closed his teeth on it.

“John!” she cried, her head arching back even more until the braid of her hair lashed at his arm. She felt him tug the binding free and her hair fell loose over her shoulders. He didn’t raise his head. His open mouth swept over her collarbone, the little hollows just at her shoulders, until he could nip at the soft upper swell of her breast. The edge of his teeth scraped over that skin too, and Celia’s fist closed on the band of his breeches until he gave a rough laugh.

“You still like that, then?” he whispered.

“And do you still like this?” She moved her hand lower, until she covered the hard bulge behind the leather fabric. She slid her fingers down its length, not as hard as when she’d touched him at the Queen’s banquet, but slower, caressing softly until he groaned.

She pressed her thumb to that spot on the underside she knew he liked, that had once driven him to such fierce need. He seemed to grow even harder.

Suddenly he pulled her chemise over her head, tearing her hand from him. She knelt in front of him, her body naked for him as it had not been in so long. For an instant the heat of passion faded and she remembered she was not as she’d been then. She was thinner, her breasts smaller. And there was her shoulder. She wanted him to remember her as she once had been, not as she was now.

She tried to turn away, to draw her hair over that shoulder, but his hands were already on her again. He turned her back into his arms, his head lowering to her breast.

“So beautiful,” he muttered. “You are so damnably beautiful, Celia.”

And when he looked at her, touched her, she could almost feel beautiful again, as she once had with him. As his mouth closed over her nipple her head fell back and her eyes closed. She felt the soft brush of her hair on her back, and the heat of his lips on her aching breast.

He suckled hard, drawing her deep into his mouth. She bit her lip to keep from crying out at the way it made her feel. Her body, which had felt so frozen and numb for so long, roared back to burning life again.

He covered her other breast with his palm, his fingers spread wide to cradle her, caress her. One fingertip brushed over that engorged nipple and a cry burst free from her lips. She felt him smile against her, just before his teeth bit down lightly and he pinched her other nipple.

She reached desperately between their bodies to unfasten his breeches and push them down over his lean hips. His penis sprang free against her abdomen, rock-hard and hot. As she touched it, naked in her hand at last, it jerked and he groaned. His teeth tightened on her nipple before he arched his head back.

Celia looked into his eyes and they were burning and dark, the blue almost swallowed in black lust. She bent to kiss the side of his neck, to bite at him as he had with her. He tasted salty and sweet under her lips, of that night essence that was only John. It was intoxicating, dizzying.

As she kissed him she ran her palm down his manhood to its swollen tip. There was a drop of moisture there, and she caught it on her finger to spread it upward again, slow, steady. Aye—she remembered this so very well.

John’s hands suddenly closed on her backside, his fingers digging into the soft skin as he dragged her even closer. Her hand dropped away from him and he slowly pressed the tip of his penis against the soft nest of damp curls between her thighs. He moved up and down, lightly teasing at her swollen cleft.

“John …” she whispered against his neck. “So wet—so hot,” he growled. He pulled her flush against his hips, and then suddenly pushed her back to the bed. He came down on top of her, his hips between her spread legs, his lips claiming hers in a wild, desperate kiss.

Celia wrapped her legs around his waist and instinctively arched up into him. He was so large, so strong and—and overwhelming. She was completely surrounded by him, by his heat and power. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

She tore her lips from his kiss and tilted her head back to try and gulp in a breath. Her hands dug into his shoulders as if she would push him away.

But he seemed to sense something was wrong, that the icy hand of fear was creeping over her, reminding her of the horror that was her marriage bed. His hands slid around her waist, and in one deft twist he lay on his back on the bed and she was on top of him. Her legs lay to either side of his hips as she straddled him.

She stared down at him in dizzy astonishment. The air suddenly seemed clearer around her, the fear dissipating like clouds after a storm. She wasn’t held down, overpowered. She was free, yet still tethered to John by the light touch of his hands at her waist, the look in his eyes. He watched her with an almost feral gleam in those eyes, as if he was so hungry he could devour her now in one bite, yet there was tenderness there too, so deep and reassuring. His face was set in taut lines of fierce control.

Yet he made no move. It was as if he knew what she needed now: to be in control of what was happening. Celia swallowed hard. She had never been in this position before, never looked at a man in this way. It was—quite nice.

Very nice indeed, she thought as she braced her palms flat on John’s chest. She slid them down, down, a slow, hard glide on his skin. He felt so tense under her touch, as if he waited for her, held himself tightly leashed to let her touch him as she would.

It made her want him even more.

She shook her hair back and smiled down at him. A muscle flexed in his jaw and his eyes never wavered from her. She gently moved his hands from her waist and held them to the bed as she leaned down and laid her open mouth on his chest. His hands jerked but he didn’t push her away.

She tasted him with the tip of her tongue, and moved to swirl it lightly over his flat, brown nipple. It hardened under her kiss, and she could hear the harsh hiss of his breath.

She nipped her teeth over the arc of his ribs.

“I always remember this, John,” she whispered. “Even when I hated you, when I cursed your name, I would remember this late at night. Your taste. Your smell. The way your skin felt on mine. It was as if I could still taste you on my tongue. You must be a sorcerer, to hold my dreams so enchanted by what you would do to me.”

She licked at the indentation along his hip, that enticing masculine line of muscle that dipped towards his manhood. She exhaled a sigh over the base of his penis, and sat up again.

“You’re the witch,” he ground out as he stared deep into her eyes, not letting her go. “No one has ever made me feel like you did, Celia, from the first moment I saw you.”

Celia shook her head. She didn’t want to know he had thought of her. Not now. She wanted to remember how it had once been. She only wanted this, them together, now.

“Sometimes when I dreamed of you at night, John, I ached so much. I had to do this.” She closed her eyes and laid her hand lightly between her breasts. Slowly, slowly, she traced her touch down her body, over her abdomen, until her hand lay over the place that was so wet for him she ached with it all over again. He had taught her to do this, and she remembered how the sight of her hand there affected him. How it made him explode.

She slid one fingertip between her folds, and that was all it took.

“Hell, Celia!” he shouted, and his control snapped.

Her eyes flew open as his hands seized her hips. But he did not drag her under him to drive into her. He drew her body up along his until his mouth closed over her womanhood. She knelt over his face as his tongue plunged deep into her.

Celia screamed, and grabbed onto the carved wood of the bed as his mouth claimed every intimate part of her. His fingers dug hard into her buttocks as he kissed her, licked her, tasted her so deeply. She was no longer in control, but she didn’t care. She only wanted his mouth, his hands on her. Claiming her. Making her remember—and forget.

His tongue flicked on that tiny knot high inside her, and she moaned. One of his hands let go of her and slid around her hip, until he could drive one long finger inside of her, just below that talented tongue. He moved it in and out, pressing, sliding, until she cried out wordlessly. “John,” she moaned.

“Let go, my fairy queen,” he whispered against her. “I have you with me. You’re safe.”

And strangely she did feel safe, as she never had before. Another finger slid into her, and she felt pressure building low in her belly. Oh, sweet saints, but she had not felt like this in such a long time! Sex had come to mean only pain and humiliation, but now she remembered what it could be, what it had been—with John. Only John. That heat built and built, expanding inside of her until she couldn’t breathe. Her whole body was suffused with golden light.

“Let go!” he said, and his tongue pressed hard to that knot as his fingers curled inside her.

And she did let go. She shattered, that pressure exploding like a bonfire within her. She screamed again, her hands clutching at the bed to keep her from falling into the abyss below.

But John wasn’t finished with her. He lifted her trembling body off his mouth and pushed himself up to half-sit against the headboard. He drew her down until she straddled his hips again, her open, wet womanhood spread over the tip of his penis.

“Ride me, Celia,” he said hoarsely. “I am yours.”

She braced her hands on his slick, sweaty shoulders and tried to focus her pleasure-dazed mind. She stared down at him, at the way his lips glistened with her own essence, the way his eyes were so dark and wild with lust. She could smell herself on him, the scent of the two of them blended, and it made her want him all over again. Need him.

And she wanted him to need her just as much. To remember how they had once been together.

She raised herself slightly, until she felt his swollen tip at her opening, and then she held tightly to his shoulders and slid down. Lower, lower, until he was all the way inside of her, their hips pressed together.

His eyes suddenly went blurry, and his head fell back as his hands closed on her waist.

“Ah, curse it, Celia,” he groaned. “You’re so tight—so perfect. I can’t …”

She raised up again and sank back down, over and over, until she found her rhythm. His hips arched up to meet her. They moved together, harder, faster. Until she felt her climax building up all over again.

Her body fell back and she braced her hands on his thighs as he thrust up into her. She closed her eyes and saw whirling stars in the darkness, blue and green and white, exploding around her until she cried out his name.

“Celia!” he shouted, amid a flood of incoherent curses as his whole body went rigid. She felt him go still inside her, the hot rush of him against her as he too let go and soared free.

She let herself fall to the bed, her legs unable to hold her up any longer. She trembled as she felt a heavy, hot languor steal over her, a boneless exhaustion as she had never known before. The beamed ceiling spun above her as she tried to catch her breath.

John crawled up to collapse beside her. They didn’t touch, but she could feel the heat of his sweat-damp body close to hers, could hear the rough rush of his breath.

She rolled her head to look at him. His eyes were closed as he kicked his breeches away, his hair falling damply over his brow. She gently brushed it back, and he caught her hand in his to kiss her palm.

She sighed and closed her eyes, feeling the way he pressed her hand flat to his chest and held her there. She felt the brush of cold air over her heated skin. The fire had died away in the grate, but she didn’t care. She was too tired and replete to care about anything but John’s hand on hers.

“You still talk filthy in bed, John Brandon,” she whispered teasingly. “Where did you learn those words? In Paris?”

He gave a drowsy chuckle. “And you still remember everything that drives me insane. Did you really touch yourself when you thought of me?”

Celia smiled. “A lady must keep her secrets, John,” she said. And then she let herself tumble down into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Chapter Ten

A lady must keep her secrets.

John heard Celia’s words in his mind as he watched her sleeping in the bed they had shared. Cool grey light moved over her bare skin as she lay on her stomach, her arms around her pillow and her black hair spilling over the rumpled sheets. The coverings were low on her hips, leaving her slender, supple back bare to tempt him.

And, God’s teeth, but he was tempted. His muscles were coiled to send him striding across the chamber, to grab the sheets and tear them away until she was naked for him again.

Until she opened for him again, let him in, let him see every part of her, body and soul. Until she cried his name and needed him, as he needed her in that moment.

He braced his fists on the table and let his head drop between his shoulders, shutting out the sight of her. Shutting out the temptation. It had always been that way with Celia, even when they’d first met. She had been innocent then, more vulnerable, but there had always been that sharp intelligence behind her cool grey eyes. That edge to her words, that unwillingness to suffer fools.

That desire as she looked at him, that passion that matched his own and drove him higher and hotter.

The memory of her had haunted him for years, until he’d become sure he made her into something she had never really been. An elusive fairy queen who’d never existed except in his mind, his dreams.

But earlier she had shown him she was every bit all he’d once thought her, and so much more. He had never wanted anything or anyone as he wanted her. When she’d taken him inside her, her body over his, her eyes burning with raw need, he had gone mad with it. With her. He’d dared to begin to think he could make it different at long last.

She had been his again, only his. No rational thought, only feeling—primitive, ferocious feeling.

But now he wished with all his might that she would run from him. Push him away and flee so far they could never see each other again. When they came together it was as elemental as that storm outside, and as lethal. They would destroy each other even as they couldn’t stay apart.

Secrets. Aye, she had been so very right about that. So many secrets lay between them. How could he ever make it right?

He opened his eyes and reached out for the papers scattered across the table. Marcus had sent them via messenger while Celia slept yesterday, and they were updates on their travels. It seemed all was not well there, and Marcus needed John to rejoin them soon. Something was amiss among Darnley’s cohorts. Something besides drink and fights.

More secrets.

John heard a soft sound from the bed, and looked up to see that Celia was stirring awake. She slowly stretched against the sheets, the fabric easing lower until he could see the vulnerable hollow of her back. Just one of the soft, sweet spots he had so recently kissed. He snapped his too-eager stare up from her bare skin to her face, turned in profile on the pillow.

A smile touched her lips, and she looked so young then. So happy and innocent that he almost went to her. Almost climbed beside her on the bed and kissed her, damning the consequences.

Then she seemed to come fully awake and remember. The smile faded into a small frown and her eyes opened.

Celia rolled onto her back—and caught him staring at her. She gasped and sat up straight on the bed, yanking the sheet up to cover her nakedness. John pushed down the sharp sense of disappointment and gave her a humourless smile.

“Good day to you, Celia,” he said.

The tip of her tongue touched her lips—a tiny, nervous gesture that sent a bolt of pure fire straight to his groin. She shook her tangled fall of hair back from her shoulders and lifted her chin in a gesture he had become too familiar with by now. Her armour was closing around her again. He had to decipher how to tear it away.

“So it is true,” she said softly.

“You can pretend it was all a dream if you like,” he answered, keeping his voice cool and calm even as his heart ached. He did not want her to think it was a dream! He wanted her to remember every second, every touch and kiss, as vividly as he did. To want him as he had always wanted her.