At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3) (2 page)

HEATHER

I clearly
have
displeased my laird
, I thought, as he went quiet.

I didn’t know exactly how or why things had changed between us in the weeks since the siege had begun. It was natural, in a time of fear and doubt, for him to withdraw. He was the chieftain of my clan. And as the constable of a castle, he had larger concerns than the burning need for him that I felt between my legs each day and night. But the more gentle and infrequent our bedding together became, the darker a fear grew inside my heart that he was already tiring of me.
 

Of course, once, I would have welcomed such a thing…

I had only offered my body to John Macrae in exchange for my father’s life, when he was caught stealing from the laird. And the laird had only accepted my offer to teach my father a lesson. I was to serve as an example that any man who defied the laird might have his daughter turned into the laird’s harlot.
 

But instead of being taken into the laird’s bed, I’d had to
fight
my way there.

Because Laird John Macrae was nothing like he seemed.

He was a kind man. A good man. A thoughtful one. And instead of using my body, he’d let me roam the castle baking pies and wearing new dresses and learning my letters like a lady of leisure. He wouldn’t take my maidenhead until I
pleaded
with him to do it. And on the glorious night he’d finally made me his own—he unleashed inside me a depthless hunger for him.
 

I could not stop wanting him. I could not stop craving the way it felt to be possessed by his rough hands. To be held down, to feel the welts his belt left upon my backside. To feel the sweet release of giving myself over to him body and soul. I wanted him so badly, this handsome, rugged, stern man.
 

I was too disgraced now to be his wife or even his mistress, but I could be his whore and I felt there was some honor in that. But I also loved him. That was the tragedy of it. Because now, when he tired of me, I knew it would break my heart.
 

Reaching quietly for the paddle I’d so foolishly gifted him, I wanted to fling it into the fire. To burn away the humiliation of having so boldly offered my laird such a thing. What a selfish wanton he must think me to initiate carnal games when his mind was occupied with weighty—

His hot mouth closed over mine, in a sudden, startling way. And gone was the gentleness there before.
Oh
, how I had missed the bruising kisses that stole my breath away!

When he grasped me hard against him like this, it felt as if he had let loose some ravaging creature inside him. As if
I
was so desirable that he couldn’t keep himself caged. That he was mad for me.
Mad
. And though I should’ve been frightened by the ferocity of his bruising kiss and the way he yanked my nightclothes up round my waist, some part of me wanted to laugh in delight.
 

I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, marveling in the size and power of him even as his rough hand found its way between my legs. “So hot, lass. Do you always burn here for me, my little slut?”

“Always,” I confessed, not minding the vulgar names he called me when his passions were high. I had come to hear them as endearments. The more vulgarly he spoke, the higher his ardor rose, so I tried to encourage him. “I’m wet for you, too. My whole body ready to be used by you as you desire.”

“Then get this off before I tear it off,” he said of my flimsy sleeping garment. “In fact, you’re never to wear it to my bed again. You’re to sleep naked beside me so there is never any barrier to my taking you when I want you.”

He was working himself up into an irritation over the shift that separated his body from mine, and I knew, from experience how deliciously things would go if he could made to be angry about it. He was angry about the war and so many truly horrible things in the world that were beyond his control; if he could made to be enraged about my nightdress, well,
that
he could conquer.

“I shouldn’t have worn it in the first place,” I whispered.

“No.”

“You’ve said many times that I must be available to you when you wish.”

“Yes,” he agreed, his gaze darkening.

“But still, I wore it to bed, all to behave as a modest maiden—”

“Which you have no business doing!” he snapped.

I liked doing this to him. And I liked what he did to me because of it. So I dared to take the game a step further. “You’ve taught me to please you. To anticipate your needs. A girl so well-trained should have known better.”

“A mistake you willna make again,” he growled, his brogue more prominent as he gave me a little shake. Then, all at once, he began tearing the gown from me. Tugging it open with a rip so that my breasts spilled forth. I gasped when he did it, then gasped again as he continued to tear it. Shredded it, really, so there would never be any mending it. “I’ll make of it nothing more than a rag. That and anything that ever comes between us, until you learn your lesson.”

My blood was running so hot that the cold air was almost a welcome respite as it swept over my naked body. And the laird feasted on the sight of the body he’d exposed, his eyes lingering a bit on my soft, pale belly as if searching for swelling, and wondering if he’d yet left a bastard there. I think it would please him if there were…

I wanted to reach for his hands and guide them to my breasts, but I knew better. He was not a man to be led. He would touch me when and as he wished to. He would be touched by me at his command and never otherwise. Finally tearing his heated eyes away from the expanse of my trembling belly and flared hips, he hoisted himself up in the bed. “Bend over my knee and get that rump in the air for me. Now!”

A whimper escaped me. I knew what he meant to do. His grip tightened around the handle of the paddle and I heard a trill of fear echo inside me right alongside the arousal. My skin tingled in anticipation as I hastened to crawl over his lap, my hardening nipples skimming over his bare thighs—a delicious sensation that made me quiver.

As the laird’s broad forearm came down over the small of my back to pin me in place, I thought I knew what to expect from the paddle. I’d suffered my father’s lash as a girl, whenever he was in an ill mood. I’d taken strokes from the laird’s belt as well. But let me just say that I was in no way prepared for…

CRACK!

My laird was a man who swung swords with such strength they could cleave men in two. Thus, his new paddle landed with an ungodly force against my backside, enough to push the air from my lungs and leave me in total shock. Tears sprang immediately to my eyes as the pain was so sobering, I thought better of this game. Regretted it instantly.
 

Regretted it even more when the second blow came.

CRACK!

This one forced a scream from me. Not a shriek, but a true scream as the sting of it seared its way over my bottom and I scrambled to get away. I was no match for the laird; I couldn’t escape him, and it humiliated me that I should try. I had no right to struggle against this discipline—discipline I’d goaded him into giving me—and yet, my whole body rebelled against me. And as I kicked and writhed to no avail, I begged, suddenly blubbering in tears that flew from my lashes.“Please, no more, please, laird, please!”

“I like it very much when you beg, lass,” he said, with low menace. “But I like more how red your arse is right now. I can see it even in the dim firelight. Such a pretty color. One I’d like you to wear for me on your bottom at all times…and I cannot tell you how very much I want you to take more for me.”

Oh, the torment of it! The pain of the paddle was such that it now struck fear in my heart, but to hear him say how much he wanted to paddle me some more…that was a faerie enchantment to me. Not only did I know he could paddle me again, no matter how hard I fought him, but I wanted him to do exactly as he pleased. Even if it made me sob.
 

And it
did
make me sob. Even as I went limp over his legs, offering with my body what I couldn’t find the words to submit to. “Beg me again not to paddle you, lass,” he said. “But beg knowing that it’s not going to do any good. Let me hear it.”

That broke something in me. Some well of desire that made my sex flood with wetness even as I sniffled and shrieked my pleas, “Please, no more, laird. Please, no. It hurts, it hurts terribly!”

CRACK!

There is, I s’pose, within every person a breaking point. A point of fighting or fleeing. As this strike sent a shock of pain reverberating through my bottom to my jiggling breasts, I lashed out at him against all reason, trying to snatch the paddle from him. Like a mindless animal in panic. He captured my wrists easily in one hand, chuckling all the while. “There’s my little hellcat,” he said, pinning me face first to his bed. “Go on. Fight me if you wish. It won’t matter. You’ll have exactly as many strokes as I wish to give you, no more, no less.”

But in pinning me down, his body slid over mine, and the sensation of his body hair and hot skin against the tender flesh he’d just beaten made me groan. Oh, how I wanted him. How desperately I wanted him!
 

“I shouldn’t fight you,” I sobbed into the mattress.

“If you fought me and I didn’t wish it, what would you deserve?”

“Another paddling,” I cried, even though I didn’t think I could take it.

I truly didn’t!

“Aye, but you have my permission to struggle, and yet you’ve gone strangely still…”

That’s because I was paralyzed with the turmoil of lust and fear and shame that swirled inside me. “Because I want to please you more than I want anything…”

“Then please me,” the laird said, releasing my arms and rising up again to a seated position. “Please me like I’ve taught you to do.” Turning to look, I saw that he’d discarded the paddle and was now fisting his thick cock, stroking it slowly, his expression turning from forbidding to amused at the unthinking way I licked my lower lip. “You’ve finally come to like suckling my cock, haven’t you?”

“I loved it from the very first time,” I said, defiantly, tears still streaming down my face. “Before I even knew what to do.”

“Oh, you did well enough not knowing, you saucy wench. But show me what you’ve learned.”

I tried to rise up to my knees but in so doing, groaned, for the paddle had left in me a bone deep agony. It would bruise, I knew, and I felt nearly an invalid crawling to him. But some surge of arousal, anticipation of tasting him, made me ignore the pain. Grasping him at the base of his shaft, delighting in the heat and width of him in my palm, I wet my lips and slid them down over the bulbous head, careful to cover my teeth.
 

“Nicely done.” His hand went to my hair, gripped it tight.

God
, how I loved that. How I loved when he tugged my long hair, how he showed such control over me and made me feel like a wee doll in his grasp. I’d learned to take him deep into the back of my mouth without gagging, learned precisely how he liked it. I was keen to prove it to him.
 

Bent forward with my bottom in the air, I bobbed over his lap until his free hand strayed to my burning backside. Just the merest touch was such an agony that I jolted up with a cry. “Got more than you bargained for with that paddle, didn’t you?” he asked with another chuckle, and the devil in his eyes. “Well, we cannot let such a red and burning bottom go to waste, can we? Go to the chest at the foot of my bed and you’ll find within it a little vial of oil. Fetch it, and bring it here.”

I did as he bade me to, hissing a bit with every step, but more curious than ever when I returned to the bed and pressed the vial into his big hardened palm. He patted the warm bed beside him. “Lay down, on your belly.”

I sprawled on the bed, stretching all the way to my toes, watching over my shoulder as the laird poured some oil between his hands, replaced the stopper in the vial, then rubbed his palms together. Then, something glorious happened…

He turned onto his knees and put his palms flat to my shoulder blades, slowly kneading the flesh there in a way that made me go boneless.
 

A long, slow breath escaped me. “
Ooooooooooh
.”

“Feels good?” the laird asked, slowly rubbing my shoulders and neck.

“
So
good,” I groaned again, melting into the mattress.

Short of sexual climax, I’d never felt something so wonderful in my life.

“Has no one ever massaged you before?” the laird asked, his hands moving lower, kneading gently along my spine.

“Never,” I said, wondering why I should be granted such an indulgence.

It felt positively foreign and forbidden.

I moaned again when the laird’s slippery hands reached the small of my back, tension easing under his thumbs, my whole body going lax in surrender to him, and to his touch. “Well, then, lass. That explains why you’re going to mush in my hands. But that’s how I want you now. Soft and pliant. Because I’m going to take you as you’ve never been taken before.”

Little spears of excitement shot through me at that promise, but then his oiled hands circled lower to my poor, abused backside, and the moans of pleasure turned into a throaty groan. I wasn’t sure I could bear to be touched on my bottom, swollen and likely bruised as it was. But the flat expanse of his palms warmed my flesh and actually soothed the pain.

With still-slick hands he slowly worked my legs apart, and stroked the insides of my thighs. My tears dried up, my breathing deepened, and a sweet, languorous feeling spread through me.
 

Then his hand slipped between my legs, fingers pushing through the wetness there and I fisted the bed-linens in my hands. He was readying me, I knew. But for what? The answer began to make itself clear when he pulled my own slickness back between the cheeks he’d spanked so hard with the paddle. And when I felt his thumb rest upon the forbidden place, I startled and stiffened.
 

“
No
,” he said, harshly. “How did I
just
say I wanted you?”