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One aspect of battle that remained constant was the fire it ignited in the blood, an explosive blaze that men could only quench between the thighs of a woman.
Vengeance makes a man’s sword strike with greater ferocity, and the slain MacDoualls had no chance against the vendetta of the king and his loyal knights.
They returned the next day, their tunics and plaids still stained with the blood of the king’s vengeance on those who executed his brothers, and James didn’t wait for a dismissal from the king. His sole intent was to find Tosia. And their bed. Now.
And after the bloody battle with the MacDoualls, James’s mind and veins burned with vitriol. The soundness of Robert and Shabib’s desire for James to have a calming foundation, something to prevent him from losing the last of his humanity, became truly understandable at the prospect of taking his wife to bed. In sinking into Tosia, he’d reclaim his soul, his humanity.
The kitchen maid, Brigid, pointed to the gardens when James burst into the kitchen, bellowing Tosia’s name.
She was pulling weeds from the pea plants, her hands and skirts encrusted with dirt.
Perfect, we shall be well met, sharing in the dirt of our tasks.
With all the will power he could muster, he gripped her upper arm. She balked, turning to look up at him.
“Ye must come with me now. I have need of ye,” he commanded.
All the color washed from her face, and he cursed his tone.
“As my wife. I need ye as my wife,” he clarified. She dipped her head silently and rose, letting herself be led by him.
He all but ran to their chambers, dragging her with him. Before they were in their quarters, his lips were on hers, slanting and aggressive, his bold hands twining in her hair and crushing against her backside.
“I should wash,” she tried to say as his lips slipped to her jaw. He kicked the door shut behind him.
“Nay, I long to have ye as ye are. I need ye, Tosia. I’ve needed ye since we left.”
His hands were rough, tugging at the neckline of her gown so her breasts popped from the thin fabric, ready for his eager mouth that found a nipple and sucked greedily. Tosia gasped, and James lifted his head, his bleary gaze barely able to focus. The grinding pull of his cock consumed him, like a beast he couldn’t control.
“My apologies, wife, but I canna be gentle this time,” he growled into her neck as he yanked her gown down to her waist, snapping her laces. “This is a driving need, one I canna tame, but know that it comes from a place of love for ye as my wife. I come to ye for this release.”
He wasn’t making sense — his mind couldn’t form the words, and as he spoke, he drove her backwards to the bed, his lips scoring her skin as his hand lifted her skirts.
James rose up over her and loosened his braies, freeing that part of him that drove him mad with need.
“Forgive me this aggression, love. I’ll be gentle with ye next time. Part your legs for me, aye?”
He didn’t want to force his wife — God save him, he was already marked as a beast and he’d vowed never to be one with Tosia, but here he was, demanding that she tame that side of him. What if she didn’t agree? What if —?
His thoughts were cut off when her gaze, steady and unafraid, bore into him and she dropped her knees, giving him full access to the one part of her that could give him succor.
James didn’t hesitate. He drove forward, sinking himself into her warm welcoming sheath, grounding himself, pouring out the vitriol and regaining his humanity.
“Were ye satisfied, lass?” James asked as he huffed his breath, standing above her with his braies yet unlaced and manhood exposed. “I fear I took ye far too quickly. Hurt ye when I could no’ think clearly.”
Tosia shifted over to look up at him, letting her skirts fall where they may. The sheer force of his need, his desire driving him like an animal, should have frightened her, shocked her. Instead, his ferocious, beastly lust thrilled her, the burst of pleasure she’d experienced arising from his rough hands and pounding hips as much as from any joining they’d had.
Until this moment, James had been the pinnacle of gentle lover, guiding her to find her moments of pleasure with him.
This, today, had been all James, a raging hunger that thundered from him. Her skin was branded from his calloused hands and the rough scrub of his beard. He was blind with his need, possessed and driven to claim her, even if he hurt her doing so.
He hadn’t. The sight of his rippling arms, his clenched jaw and his eyes, oh, tormented and predatory as he stared her down. She was his prey. His only prey.
And she was the lone person who might calm that beast and bring James back from the brink.
That knowledge set her entire body ablaze with her own passion. Such power in the control of that animalistic need.
“Ye did no’ hurt me,” she assured him in a languorous voice, one of a satisfied woman.
James’s chin clipped to the side, and his gaze dropped to the length of pale thigh that extended beyond her hiked-up skirt. His eyes blazed wolfishly again.
“Nay?” Ignoring his own state of undress, he trailed a finger along her thigh.
“Ye have been a gentle, cautious man until today. Whilst ye have shown me my own pleasure, I had no’ known that coupling between a man and woman could be so —”
“Rough? Carnal?”
“Urgent. Torrid,” she answered.
James tucked himself in his braies and sat next to her on the bed. Blood yet stained his hands and tunic, and he dropped his head into his hands as if he were trying to hold his skull together lest it break apart.
“I’ve wanted ye like that since our first night. But ‘tis no way to take a lass, a wife. Yet, seeing ye, knowing ye were yet safe, knowing I found vengeance for ye, set my head on fire. Knowing that ye are mine and no one else’s, and that I can have ye when and where I may, can make a man ragged. And I was burning with blood lust. Those three can change any man into an animal.”
Tosia had rested her hand on his back and now pressed against it to sit upright.
“I am yours? I belong to ye? As your wife, aye?”
Her curious tone was not lost on James, who shifted to face her, dropping his hands to his lap. With one finger, he traced the line of her jaw. Now that the beast inside him was tamed, he was again the gentle husband.
“We belong to each other, but aye. With men, we have a sense of ownership with our wives, with the women we love, or our children and kin. Ye are mine. And if someone were to take ye from me, I would fight every demon from hell to get ye back or find vengeance if ye were harmed. Men are no’ as rational as we like to believe in that way.”
Tosia was silent for a moment, studying the lines of his face. Whenever he opened his heart this way, she was awe-struck. It didn’t fit the image of the Black Douglas. Yet more, it helped her understand the king and his motives, and the men of Scotland as a whole.
“’Tis why the king has ye as his second in command. Someone took his wife and child, who belonged to him. And his country, too. So he’s fevered with getting them back.”
James nodded. “Men might find solace for a night, but ye’d be surprised how they pine for the woman they love.”
Tosia’s lips quivered to suppress a smile. Oh, but she was learning much about the ways of men from one of the most hardened men of them all! Then her smile dropped, and her face grew serious.
“Would ye pine for me?”
He had said he owned her, but much of his words spoke of love. Did he love her enough to pine for her if she were no longer here? Or just seek vengeance for the loss of something that was no longer his? A girlish fancy, but she’d come to care for this man, more deeply than she let on or was ready to show to those outside their chambers. Was that emotion one sided?
James moved his hand to clasp hers, threading her slender fingers through his much thicker ones.
“I would no’ say it outside this chamber for fear ‘twould be used against me. Please always keep that in mind. Look what happened to the Bruce when his wife and child were imprisoned. They are using the lasses against him, and it eats away at him body and soul, like a disease. I would no’ survive if I were the cause of your abduction, or worse.” He kissed her forehead before returning his gaze to her eyes. “I had no’ thought it possible, Tosia Douglas, but ye are the one single good thing I have in my life. And I adore ye for having the strength to be wed to the Black Douglas. Ye have trusted me in a way no other has, and your willingness to be so open to me, the monstrous, broken man that I am, has scarred my heart as much as my battles have scarred my body. I want ye and no other, my dear Tosia.”
If his rough loving earlier had set her body aflame, then the strange tone of his heartfelt words scarred her heart, and she had to blink back the emotional tears that filled her eyes.
James cleared his throat and made to rise, obviously unsettled by his sudden, affectionate words. Clenching her fingers so he couldn’t slip away, Tosia tugged him back to the bedding. She placed a tender hand on his lightly-furred cheek.
“Thank ye for those words. Ye are a man of war, no’ sweet speech, and they could no’ have come to your tongue easily. And I well understand how ye have taken strides to keep me safe, to ease my move here with ye. I’ll have ye know, I no longer see the Black Douglas when I look upon ye. I see James, a man, my husband whom I am eager to have in my bed. And if anyone took ye from me, I, too, would pine and fight with the same vengeance as the king to have my retribution.”
The side of his lips curled. “Bold words from such a tiny lass, but seeing as how ye tamed the king’s beast, I’d quiver in my boots if ye sought vengeance upon me.” Then he lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. “’Twould seem we are well met, wife. Much to my surprise.”
Tosia’s lips also curled as she gazed upon her husband. “Well met indeed,” she whispered.
James finally stood and assessed the mess of his arms and tunic. “I must wash. The king will want to discuss our next steps, and the next time I come to ye, I should be much more presentable.”
His gaze lingered on hers for several more heartbeats, then he turned and left in search of a water bucket.
Tosia leaned back on her elbows and admired the man as he left. This crazed, violent man who was her dear husband. Then she adjusted her skirts and bodice, trying to salvage what remained of her laces, and rose as well to make herself useful in the kitchens.
