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Tosia dozed next to him, her hair entwined in his arm as she slept the sleep of the innocent. James’s cheek twitched at that thought. No longer so innocent.
Rolling to his side, he disentangled her hair from his skin, and he moved with stealth off the bed to his discarded clothing from the day before. He folded the rich black tunic into a neat pile, ready to return it to their proper owner, and opened his trunk. The aged wood squeaked in the silent gray light, and he froze, his gaze darting to the woman in his bed. She didn’t move.
James placed his kilt inside and withdrew his own worn tunic and braies from the trunk, then closed it with clenched shoulders. When it didn’t squeak again, he exhaled and placed his borrowed wedding finery atop the trunk where Brigid or another maid might find it.
Once dressed, James lifted his tartan cloak where he’d hung it on its peg the day before and held his breath when he opened the door, waiting for another irritating squeak. Thank Christ it was silent, and he stepped into the hall and closed it quietly.
James hated himself for sneaking out, but his mind was in turmoil from his wedding night. He hadn’t wanted to wed the lass yet did as commanded by his king. Upon meeting the nervous creature, his heart went out to the shy-eyed young woman who’d recently lost her mother, her home, and was forced into the union with a man of his terrible, deserved reputation. If anything, he marveled at her restraint. Unlike him, she didn’t have the resources or skill to lay waste to those who put her in that situation. Despite his better judgment, James worked earnestly to calm her fears. He protected her as they rode to Auchinleck, answered her questions with full honesty, and spoke to her in the sweetest of tones he could muster.
Then, he’d expected to send her off to Threave and refocus his energies on the king and Scotland’s independence.
But yesterday, last night . . .
He had no understanding of what had transpired. But he had a better grasp of what Robert the Bruce endured every day that his own wife was imprisoned by the English. If anyone tried to remove Tosia from his side, he’d make the reputed Douglas Larder look like a springtime walk in the moors.
What ached his head was he had no reason for those emotions. Firstly, King Robert had been correct in his belief that a fine wife could calm the beast that was Black Douglas. That knowledge vexed him to no end. And other than the undeniable fact that Tosia Fraser Douglas was now his, in the eyes of both God and the law, he couldn’t wait to find himself between her legs again. Only next time, he’d make sure she experienced the same consuming heights as he had.
Since he wasn’t prepared to speak to his new wife, the notion of exposing his conflicting emotions to her a knife in his chest, ‘twas better to sneak out before she woke.
The torches in the hall had burned to blackened stumps and fell into shadows where the bleak sunrise didn’t reach. So Shabib’s sudden appearance at the top of the stair made him clutch one fist to his chest and lash out with the other. He stopped his flying fist just before it made contact with Shabib’s full lips.
“How do ye do that? Ye materialize from the shadows like a specter! I could have stuck ye senseless!”
Shabib didn’t recoil — instead, the white gleam of his teeth crested into a half moon, mocking James.
“Oh, sirrah. Was your attention focused elsewhere? Perchance on the fair lass you snuck away from?”
James pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his broad chest. For so lean a man, Shabib had no fear or mocking those who might land a punch. Or at least mocking James. And James had no doubt Shabib wouldn’t even flinch from the strike and would hit back just as hard. He’d seen Shabib do it more than once.
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
“Oh. Well, I know you have an abundance of practice at it with other women. I had assumed that, since this lass was now your wife, you’d be more inclined to tarry by her side for a bit longer.”
James stiffened and narrowed his eyes but said nothing. The white gleam of Shabib’s teeth widened in the dim hall.
“So, you wanted to stay. Could it be the iron-hard beast of Scotland has found his heart softened and now doesn’t know what to do with it?”
How did Shabib read him so well? James prided himself on his stoic face and tried to maintain that under the Moor’s taunts.
“Ye know no’ of what ye speak.”
Shabib’s smile faltered. “Don’t I though? A man might burn his land to ash for king and country, but he’d scorch the entire world for a woman.”
Aye, Shabib well knew. He had done the same for those who’d had a hand in his wife and daughter’s death in northern Spain, Moors and Christians alike. Their violent deaths crushed Shabib’s heart so fully that he had indeed laid waste, fire and sword, against everyone who had executed his family so indiscriminately, as if they were nothing more than garbage to throw out with offal. Shabib’s sword and torch had killed and burned as indiscriminately, and he hated all those who lived south of the Holy Roman Empire. He especially despised his own people whom he’d expected to help protect his wife and daughter and instead left them to die.
It was one of the reasons he’d stood beside James when he’d destroyed his own keep.
Aye, Shabib truly understood what a man would do for the woman who held his heart.
“It is not without irony that love makes us better men at the same time.”
“I dinna love her.”
He said the words without thinking, but he didn’t believe them himself. Why was he so conflicted otherwise?
“Oh, but you are well on your way. I’ve seen the change in you when she is near. You won’t realize it until it hits you hard, like a stone striking your head. And then you will do anything and everything for that person. You’d move the world for a look, a smile, a kiss.”
James rolled his eyes skyward. Shabib meant well, but the man was shockingly emotional for a hardened warrior.
“Don’t dismiss it. Don’t you think that if I could destroy the world to have my heart back, I’d do it without thought?”
James did know, that much was certain. Shabib’s religion forbade drink, and for the most part, the man was devout. Except for one night in France when Shabib’s depression was palatable, a sickly sad taste that he could only drown with sour red wine, James found him deep in his cups. The typically stoic Shabib, his tongue loosened by drink, confessed every grisly detail of his wife and daughter’s murder by the Spaniards after being accused of improper behavior and shut out of their village. Trampled by Spanish horses, unaided by any of his people, and left for dead in the hot sun. For nothing more than an untrue rumor of illicit behavior that Shabib couldn’t return in time to rectify.
Shabib had seen red. He had grabbed a torch off the wall and set fire to the houses in his town before taking his sword to any Spaniard he met on the road. After a particularly violent fight that left the skin of his cheek ragged and dripping and the rest of him barely alive in a ditch, Shabib had found a surgeon to stitch up his face and left his cursed home, and those he now despised, in his past.
His hood often covered the scar, but it couldn’t cover the scars of his heart. Only rarely did he bring up his wife, as he did now, and James allowed his brain to absorb Shabib’s counsel.
The lanky Moor smacked James’s back and gestured toward the stairs.
“Since you are not yet ready to declare your love for the lass, let us break your fast. You can show your adoration for her later. Though you will have to come up with a better fabrication for the king, who might think you are rejecting the bountiful gift he’s granted to you.”
James gave Shabib a knowing, side-long look as they descended the stairs and elbowed him in the ribs.
His companion spoke an undeniable truth. Tosia was a bountiful gift indeed.
Tosia had just finished lacing up her worn, everyday kirtle when the door to James’s chambers (nay, our chambers, nay mine) creaked open.
“Good day, dear sister,” Tavish greeted as he stepped inside. His brows were high on his forehead, his eyes bright. “How do ye fare this day?”
Tosia’s cheeks inflamed, and she averted her eyes. She knew the real question he was asking.
Had James adhered to his vow to not hurt her?
Had he been gentle?
Tosia swallowed her embarrassment and gave her brother a tight smile. What point did it serve to be coy? Everyone in the keep knew what had transpired between her and James the night before. And if he hadn’t been gentle? What recourse did they have if her new husband was as violent with his wife as he was with his enemies? None.
But James hadn’t been violent. Her mind still whirled in confusion over her wedding night. Other than the brief pain of taking her maidenhood, James was the most gentle man she could imagine. He had made sure her body was quaking and as ready for him as it could be, and when he did enter her, he was slow, easing into her gently, and his words of love and passion were a steady chant in her ears. She had been his religion, his church, and he had worshiped her body and praised her, lavished adoration upon her as though she were more holy than the Madonna herself.
How could a man burdened with a reputation as a violent beast, one with no care for agency, treat her like fine glass, almost as if she could command the man himself — if she were so bold to do so.
“He was verra gentle,” she said noncommittally as she averted her gaze and gripped her skirts. This was a most unpleasant conversation with her brother.
Tavish cleared his throat. “Weel, that is an auspicious beginning then. Are ye growing to know him as ye wanted to? Ye believe the king as done well by ye?”
He sounded like a hopefully young lad, doe-eyed and eager to serve his laird and his king. Tosia’s eyes misted over at the sight of this laddie in a man’s body. She moved close to him and ruffled his auburn waves. Time spent outside in the intermittent summer sun had added golden locks to his hair, and he seemed almost brighter for having come to Auchinleck.
At least one of us is, she thought with irrational bitterness. Why was she so inflexible against the prospect of finding a measure of joy in this new path of her life?
“Aye,” she told him, unsure of the truth of her words. She gave Tavish another tight smile. “We will make the best of it.”
If Tavish doubted her, he didn’t show it. His cherubic grin tugged at her heart, and in that moment, she made a decision.
She vowed to give her marriage to the Black Douglas, and their service to the king, an honest chance. Not necessarily for herself, but for her hopeful and excited brother.
“Go now,” she waved him toward the door. “I must finish dressing, and I’m certain that Sir James has a list of chores for ye this more. He rose with the sun.”
Tavish dipped his head and swirled toward the door. Before he disappeared, he looked back over his shoulder at her.
“I am happy for ye, Tosia. I had only hoped for the best for ye.”
Then he was gone in an amber flash of his tunic, and she was again alone the James’s chambers.
She regarded the quarters in which she sat, noting several of the amenities she had missed the night before. Though relatively austere, the room did hold a few comforts. Larger than her cramped, pre-wedding chamber, with a navy and cream-colored tapestry of horses hanging on the wall by the door, the room was tidy. A smaller matching tapestry hanging over the narrow window, and tucked into the corner between the window and the hearth sat a table which held a wooden bowl of water for washing. Not what she expected from a brutal warrior.
Any clothing he had was put away, for no evidence of it, not even a tartan cape or extra tunic, hung in sight. Someone had brought her belongings in the night before, and they sat in a neat pile next to his trunk under the tapestry. Aye, not the chambers of a rough man, but of a disciplined one.
“Our chambers,” she said aloud to herself, letting the sound of it roll off her tongue. Could she grow accustomed to that phrase? And as she learned more about him, the real James, could she grow accustomed to the man?
Recalling the sensations he drew from her the night before, a new realization flashed in her mind like lightening.
Perchance she could.
The day passed quickly, full of smiles and cheer at her new position as James Douglas’s wife. Too soon, however, night claimed the land, and she found herself in their chambers, on his bed, completely nude under his voracious gaze. He’d vowed to have her find her ecstasy this night, and now he was following through.
“Lean back, lass,” James whispered above her.
He shifted to sit on the bed, and Tosia did as he bid, so her nubile body was stretched in front of him. His eyes flashed at her offering, the fire in them burning to match the fire at the hearth.
“Touch yourself,” he commanded.
Tosia froze, her hand on her thigh. Touch myself? What does he mean? I’m touching my leg!
When she didn’t respond, James chuckled, a deeply resounding vibration in his chest that made the air around Tosia thick. She could taste his need, salt and leather and male. He reached for her hand.
“Like this,” he told her as he took her finger and placed it between her quivering woman’s lips.
He stole her breath from her when he handled her, and she quivered all the more, only not from passion. What was he doing? Why did he want her to touch herself there?
“Ye have a place there, aye?” James’s voice was as thick as the air in the room. “Special to a woman that brings her pleasure. I know ye didn’t fell the fullness of passion on our first few nights together, and I swear that ye will know that passion every night we spend together for the rest of your life. Now, brush your finger across, right, there.”
His finger pressed hers into her own flesh, and as he guided her, she swiped across a small round bud between her legs that made the deep quivering in her belly when they were alone together blossom into a tempest. Every part of her body wanted to launch off the bed, and when he guided her finger over it again, she had to bite back a scream.
What has this intimate spot on her body that had been hidden this whole time?
“Aye, lass,” James’s breathy voice rumbled into her core, matching the vibrating deep in body. “I would have ye find your pleasure as ye will. It is my joy to bring ye to it, but if I ever can no’, I’ll no’ have ye left unsated.”
Her finger moved across her nub between her legs, and her quivering and shaking bloomed more, igniting like a fire until it had a mind of her own. Then a shock went through her, a hot wave washing over her from head to toe, and she arched her back as she lost herself in the all-consuming sensations. There was nothing else in the world but that shock of ecstasy that robbed her of breath and thought.
Her hand fell away from her woman’s mound, and before her mind could regain control, James thrust his shoulders under her thighs. She squeaked in surprise.
“’Tis your honey pot, flavored just for me, and I long to taste your pleasure. Bring ye to your rise again,” he told her, his voice ragged.
Any words of surprise or protest were lost on her lips — her body wasn’t her own, and he dragged his tongue over her inner lips, teasing her sensitive bud again. His tongue was slippery as it dipped low again before cresting her bud again. Tosia shuddered as she inhaled. What was all this? How did her body give her this sense of perfect, uncontrollable delight?
She gripped his black hair, holding onto it in fear she might fall off the world. Then his head popped up, his sage green eyes dancing with mirth and his face shining with the wetness of her own juices.
His lips fell to her belly, kissing his way to her jaw. Her hands held his head as he moved his lips to hers, kissing her deeply, savoring the taste of her own salt and sour.
“Did you find your pleasure?” he asked against her mouth.
She moaned lightly. “Aye, now ‘Tis time to find yours.”
She surprised herself with her bold words, and James reacted immediately. He lifted his lips from hers and grinned wickedly. ‘Twas like he embodied the demons that haunted him — he was her own personal demon in her bed and between her legs.
His hips moved in response to her demand and tickled her already ripe pleasure bud as he entered her. Her desire for him overrode everything else and her hips lifted to his. James groaned deep in his chest. He placed his hand under her backside, clamping her hips to his in an iron grip, grinding into her over and over. His eyes remained fixed on hers, that slightly wicked grin plastered on his face as his hips worked, his manhood grinding into her again, deeper.
She closed her eyes and lost herself in her arched body that he used for his own needs just as her body reached a crescendo. He penetrated her, reaching to the very core of her, and as peaked again in thunderous waves, James worked into a frenzy, roaring his climax into her, raw and animalistic.
His body clenched against her, and when she opened her eyes, he was panting above her, his damp head hanging against her breasts. His broad shoulders blocked everything else from her view, and in this moment as their frenzied passion calmed, only the two of them existed, joined as one against the harshness of the world.
Tosia skimmed her hands over his sweaty back, pulling him down so they touched skin to skin, and James accepted her comforting embrace. She held him as though this hardened warrior were a fragile glass, as though here in bed was the one place she might keep him safe and drive away any lingering demons.
If she could forget the world in the passion he stoked in her, then she might do the same for him.
When he finally rolled away, the cool air raised pimples on her skin. James flipped a fur over them, chasing away the chill. Then he turned to his side and placed an arm over her, drawing her close, and pressed a kiss on her shoulder.
In these chambers, in his arms, Tosia felt a new sense of security, one she hadn’t experienced before. Oh, she hadn’t thought such a feeling possible with the Black Douglas! Yet he was her own beast, one that circled her protectively, guarded her, and brought her immeasurable joy.
Like the joy he’d shown her this night. She shivered at the lasting memory of it. James tugged the fur higher on her shoulder.
“Are ye chilled, lass?” he asked, wiping her hair to the side to kiss the back of her neck. She shivered again.
“Nay. ‘Tis the sensations ye give me.”
He chuckled behind her, his breath warm against her neck. “Ye found your pleasure then?”
She warmed as a blush flared over her skin, turning her of a shade of pale rose. “Aye,” she admitted in an embarrassed voice. “I did.”
His hand caressed her shoulder and down to her waist, encircling her. “I would have ye find your pleasure with me every time. I want ye to know all the joy that ye might have in this world.”
She moved her hand and found his hand. His fingers moved to clasp hers, as if he needed every part of their skin, even their fingers, to touch.
“’Tis a hard thing, to find joy in this world. I hope that ye find joy in it as well.” She held her breath after she spoke. Had she overstepped in her words? Reminded him of his own hard life? His lips found the back of her neck again.
“I find joy in ye,” he whispered against her skin, “and ‘tis enough to bring me joy in this world.”
Tosia smiled to herself as their breathing shifting, steadying as sleep embraced them. Any fears she’d had for her husband had evaporated, disappeared completely, and an undeniable realization washed over her. She was growing to love this man and would do everything in her meager power to keep him close to her.
And considering James’s ability to rage and destroy if provoked, Tosia pitied anyone that might try to separate them.
