"The first time you took me into your mouth," he said, pulling me forward to kiss the tip of my nose with amus.e.m.e.nt. "I feared I would finish upon your tongue. And I told you to stop but-"

"Oh, no!" I cried, burning with sudden embarra.s.sment and arousal at the memory of how eagerly I'd sucked him, marveling at the taste, the weight, and the feel of his member in my mouth.

I had disobeyed. Worse, I might do it again in the same situation...

He chuckled at my mortification. "You say oh, no! I say, oh, aye. And you swallowed my seed down, because you told me that to do otherwise would have seemed contemptuous..."

"I won't disobey you again," I promised, fervently believing it. "If I do, you must punish me as you should have punished me then."

"T'was a minor matter, my sweet. I was so charmed-and so sated-that I would never count such delicious defiance against you. But the things I will ask of you henceforth, well, they matter a great deal more. It's very important to me that you obey me, Heather. So I must know, before the the matter comes to a head, if you will resist my commands."

It was important for me to be seen obeying him. He was the laird; he did not like to be disobeyed by anyone, but he it would cause him mortification if anyone should ever see me do it. At a time he needed sorely not to be challenged by anyone in the castle, I certainly would not challenge him. "I will never resist you," I said, heartened to think that it was not merely his pride that made it so important-but also my own. It had become a matter of trust between us. It was our bond. Our promise to one another. The more I gave myself over to him in surrender, the better he seemed to care for me.

As if to prove it, the laird set the paddle aside, then drew me to him, so that I was kneeling upon the woven rug, my body wedged between his knees. "Do you remember, Heather, that I told you once I might share you with my men?"

It was good that I was kneeling because the world felt suddenly swept out beneath me. My chest tightened because I did remember it, though it seemed a lifetime ago. He had said this before taking my maidenhead. But afterward, he had also said that he might love me, and that he was not apt to share. Had this changed? "I remember..."

"You told me that you were mine to take or to give away."

I nodded, numbly, remembering that too.

"Do you still feel this way?" the laird asked.

This question unleashed inside me a vicious war between the naive girl who foolishly wanted to be the laird's lady love and the wanton woman who desired for him to do with me as he pleased. Still, I did not want him to share me. I didn't want to have any man's hands on me but his. I loved him with every part of my being. I loved him and only him. I had taken my pride and my solace in pretending to be less a harlot than his beloved mistress. But now he wanted to give me away?

Tears sprang to my eyes as I fought with my answer.

But there was only one answer. "I am yours, my laird. I have pledged it."

He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing every line of my face. "Even if it should please me to share you with another man?"

He should have accepted my answer and not pressed me. I was too fragile. Too swiftly becoming unravelled. And still blinking back tears, I whispered, harshly, "Aye, but why should it please you?"

His stern gaze softened. "Because it is an act of largesse from me to my men and because I enjoy the way a la.s.s writhes when she feels entirely overpowered. I like listening to her try to stifle l.u.s.tful cries that eventually overwhelm her as she tries to pleasure more than one man. When I have done it before...well, I told you that I like to leave my mark on a woman. Sharing her leaves a mark on the inside. Like a brand. Nothing can make her understand better that she belongs to me."

I would be lying to say that the arousing nature of his words didn't intrigue me. They did. Would I feel that internal mark seared upon my soul with as much pleasure as I had experienced the welts and bruises he left upon my backside?

I couldn't imagine that I would.

But worse, I couldn't imagine that he would.

I tried to tell myself that men could enjoy such a thing. After all, my sister had found two warriors willing to share her bed and her love. But that was love. She loved them both and they both loved her enough to keep her forever. It was an entirely different situation. I couldn't imagine that my laird would truly want this...unless it was to discard me.

Which made my tears brim again.

"You're frightened," he said, tracing my trembling lower lip. "But I will not let you come to harm, la.s.s. This is no different than when I took your a.r.s.e. First you felt the pain and the shame of it, but then pleasure, too. A great deal of pleasure."

"I don't want pleasure!" I cried, though that was only partially true. "Don't you know that my happiness rests on feeding your needs my laird?"

"This will feed my needs," he vowed, softly stroking my hair from my eyes. "I promise you it will. There are dark hungers in me; I've never lied to you about that. This is one of them. What's more, it is a desire that only you can satisfy. It is not merely that I wish to share a woman with another man. It is that I wish to share you. I wish to do this to you. I have been so unsettled these past days and this will give me some relief. The first true relief I will have from my worries in weeks. For this sake, I am asking you not to resist me. I am asking you to be true to your word when you pledged your obedience to me."

That pledge, that promise, made as it was in fear, had become something else between us entirely. It had become my own personal pledge of fealty, my own shield of honor, and it was all tangled in the love I felt for him. I would never break it. Not even if it meant the loss of him. Because to break my vow to him would be to break whatever strength still was at the core of me.

Warriors fought and died to keep their honor.

I would keep mine, too, sullied though it was.

"I will be true," I said, hoping that he knew I meant more by it than just this.

"Complete obedience," the laird reminded me. "Because if the man I share you with senses the slightest resistance from you it will all go badly..."

And then I knew.

I knew who he would share me with.

He was going to share me with his kinsman, Ian Macrae.

Ian, who had once told me that the laird was the devil, and that the things he did to his women should make them lay abed all day in tears. Ian, who had believed me to have been forced to the laird's bed, until he saw with his own eyes how truly willing I was. Ian would never touch me if he thought-for even a moment-that he did not have my consent.

That is why the laird wanted to be sure of me.

"Not Ian," I groaned, miserably. "Of all the men..."

The laird seemed slightly affronted. "What is so very wrong with Ian?"

"Brenna loves him," I blurted, though it wasn't even the start of my long list of reasons I would have preferred to be shared with any other man.

The laird scratched a bit at his ear in frustration. "Brenna? The squeaky maid? You cannot be worrying about her."

"She's my friend," I whispered.

"And I'm your laird!" His fist came crashing down on the chess table, toppling several pieces and ruining the game. "My castle, and my clan, and all my life's work will not be lost for the sweet sentiments of a maid. Her feelings are not your concern. Mine are. And I am asking something of you. Asking and commanding."

I startled at his temper, and his words. That he thought his castle, and his clan, and his life's work were somehow all bound up in this promise he was asking of me did not make any sense. But it was so important to him that I quickly acquiesced. "I will do as you ask. Ian will not sense a drop of resistance in me," I promised, though there was, within me, an ocean of bitter resistance to this.

I couldn't let anyone see it. That's what harlots were meant to do.

Hide their feelings, and pretend at pleasure, was it not?

He appraised me carefully, as if sensing the artifice. "I want you to find pleasure in his body as you do with mine."

That I cannot do, said the rebel within. But I would pretend, so I nodded.

I must have been convincing, because the laird then insisted, "And I want him to find pleasure in you, too, la.s.s. Great pleasure. Very great pleasure."

An arrow of doubt pierced me. I could pretend at my own pleasure to obey the laird, but Ian Macrae's pleasure was outside of my control. I didn't even think Ian liked me. And I wasn't sure I liked him either.

Maybe that would make it easier. To think only of bodies and blushes and base needs. Animal pleasures. If it could be only that...

"Undress then," the laird commanded. "Wear only your pearls."

Chapter Six.

THE LAIRD.

John watched Heather undress, slowly, with a stately dignity that a crofter's girl should not be capable of. But she had found some way of mantling herself in her shame, proud as any queen. He loved her fiercely for that. That and the way she looked in his mother's pearls, as they draped down between her upturned b.r.e.a.s.t.s, trailing a shimmering line to the fur of her mound.

She was a Venus.

"Let down your hair," he said, his voice husky to his own ears.

He was aroused, but must not allow himself to become more so. Not yet.

Thankfully, a knock came at the chamber door.

"Answer it," was the laird's command.

Heather's violet eyes met his, still a bit teary, and he held her gaze. Was it challenge he saw there? No. It was something else. She was steeling herself. She understood perfectly well what he wanted from her; it was something he had always wanted. Her shame. And so, on bare feet, without a st.i.tch of clothes on her beautiful nude body, she went to the door and opened it wide.

On the other side of it, of course, was Ian Macrae.

Ian's mouth fell slightly open at the sight of Heather's nudity; there was a slight intake of breath. A perceptible widening of the eyes. A much more noticeable sweep of his gaze down to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s before he jerked his head up and got his bearings and looked past her shoulder to the man he'd come to see. Swallowing, he said, "You asked for me, laird."

"Come," the laird said, with a quick summoning motion. "Sit with me before the fire."

It was a bitter cold night, with a howling wind, and a full moon that shone in through the windows. As Ian made his way to his seat, the laird hoped to warm them all and make them forget about the world outside. "Pour us some wine, la.s.s."

It would be watered wine, unfortunately. The laird didn't indulge himself when his people were going without. But he doubted Ian would mind the quality of refreshment; he was too busy trying to keep his gaze anywhere but on the beautiful backside of the girl who went to fetch his drink.

"Davy's gone missing," Ian finally said, fist clenching at his side.

d.a.m.n. The laird hadn't intended for Davy's absence to be noticed so soon, so he tried to keep his expression even, for his own sake, if not Heather's. "What can you mean, missing?"

"I mean he didn't report to his station on the wall," Ian said. "Nor to the guardroom. Nor to anywhere he's been expected. Malcolm doesn't know where he is, and I've searched the castle. He's gone, I tell you. Which can only mean one thing."

The laird swallowed, avoiding meeting his kinsman's eyes. "What's that?"

"Davy was the traitor in our midsts. He's gone over to the enemy."

Knowing that wasn't true-and not wanting it to be said in Heather's presence-the laird hastened to disagree. "Not Davy. There is another explanation."

"Well, I'd like to hear it!" Ian cried, nearly knocking the goblet from Heather's hand as she tried to give it to him.

"He may have come to harm, Ian." And that was no lie. What the laird had asked Davy to do was dangerous. Near suicidal, in fact. At this very moment, Davy could be floating dead in the loch. Drowned or worse. "He might have fallen, or been pulled down from the wall in a skirmish..."

Ian blanched at the suggestion. The laird was surprised to see Heather pale at the thought, too. John hadn't thought she cared anything for his men...then remembered that Davy was betrothed to her sister. Remembered too that he had promised Davy to find a way to protect both women, even if he was dead.

Well, that's what he aimed to do.

That's why Ian was here.

Ian shook off the thought of Davy's demise, taking a sip of the wine. "Surely no harm can come to Davy. He has more lives than a cat."

The laird hoped so, for all their sakes. But he wasn't counting on it. Which is why he was going to give over the body of the woman he loved to the man who would be his heir. "I asked you here tonight to make a point, Ian."

"As is usually the case," his kinsman muttered.

"Heather displeased you this afternoon."

Ian's grip tightened on the goblet. "It's forgotten."

"But she would like to make it up to you," the laird insisted.

John met Heather's eyes and she divined his purpose, going to her knees on the fleece throw upon the floor by Ian's feet. Ian let his gaze settle upon the bonny la.s.s, temptation written all over his face. He drank again, as if his mouth had run dry. Then he asked, "And you are of a mind to let her?"

"I am of a mind to command it."

Ian's spine stiffened. "Of her or me?"

The laird realized he had taken the wrong approach. Ian would not like to think a girl had been commanded to bed with him. It would injure his pride and afflict his sense of honor. Ian would never have an unwilling girl, which was to his credit. But more importantly, Ian would not accept being commanded to anyone's bed himself.

So John tried again. "What I mean to say is that tonight, what she wishes to do with you, by my command, she may do. And don't pretend to me that you don't want her, Ian Macrae. I have seen the way you look at her-especially when she doesn't know you're looking."

At that, Heather turned her head slightly, as if surprised by this revelation. Or perhaps she feared that Ian might see reluctance inside her; she had promised that he wouldn't. The laird was counting on that.

Ian cleared his throat. "What a man wants, and what he can or should have aren't the same..."

He trailed off, however, as Heather crept forward, her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s swaying slightly as she pressed her cheek to Ian's knee and whispered, "The night you watched us, I wished for you to join us..."

Did she speak truly? The laird had considered sharing her with Ian that night, of a certainty. But he'd been too overcome with emotion to do it. He had wanted her for himself. He still did. And he waited for a stab of jealous fury that never came.

For her words inspired aroused interest rather than resentment in him.

And in Ian...well...Ian looked down at her, wet his lips, set down the goblet. There was a flush of arousal on the man's neck, and he was erect for her if the tent of his plaid was any indication. Even so, the laird calculated an even chance that his kinsman was going to simply stand up and walk out the door.

Instead, Ian asked, "Is that what you want now, la.s.s?"

"What I want now is to give you great pleasure. Very great pleasure," she said, repeating the laird's words, giving them the ring of harlotry.

And before Ian could decide to rise and go, she slipped her hands beneath his plaid, pushing it up, bringing her lips to the tip of Ian's swollen member. His kinsman jolted at what the laird knew to be the hot, wet mouth that Heather used so well. Then Ian let out a m.u.f.fled groan as the la.s.s deepened the kiss, taking him until her pretty pink lips were stretched around his manhood.