He looked down at her, at her tangled hair and fiery eyes and soft vulnerable mouth, and his hunger flared again. Once more, Raith thought with a feeling akin to despair. The risk would be no greater if he were to make love to her one more time.
“Because, my sweet shrew,” he murmured, bending closer, “we have far more pleasant things to do.”
“Raith, I still think you—”
“Will you be quiet?”
His hand slid under her hair, curving around the nape of her neck. His warm breath caressed her face as he pressed a series of light kisses across the ridge of her cheekbone and then lower, along the side of her jaw.
Katrine immediately fell silent, her own breath trapped in her throat. Then Raith took her mouth, his lips savoring hers with a slow fevered urgency, transforming hostility into subtle sensuality, while his body pressed her down, giving her a tantalizing awareness of his hardened maleness.
His embrace left Katrine weak and wanting and melting. It no longer mattered that nothing had been settled between them, or that Raith didn’t know how she felt about him. It only mattered that he was here, loving her physically, if not with his heart. She was certain that someday his heart would follow.
Without shame, she wrapped her arms around his neck, straining closer. “Show me, Raith,” she murmured against his lips, “show me how to love you....”
One last time, he thought distractedly. Only once, and then never again…But he left the thought incomplete as he gave himself over to the desire that was sweeping through him with savage heat.
But later, when their passion was spent, when Katrine lay sleeping quietly in his arms, exhausted from their slow but fierce loving, Raith lay awake, staring at the sloping ceiling, watching the dancing shadows made by the sputtering candle flame.
He should never have allowed their relationship to come to such a pass, should never have enmeshed Katrine further in a dilemma that could have no happy solution. But he wouldn’t touch her again. If he had to leave his own home, he would. Indeed, perhaps that was the only way. Only by distancing himself from Katrine would he have any real control again. And he needed control, needed to regain the upper hand where she was concerned. For the sake of his sanity. For the sake of his clan.
Slowly, so as not to disturb her, Raith turned his head on the pillow, gazing down at his stubborn, thorny, independent hostage. Watching her, Raith felt a tightness in his chest, an unwanted emotion stirring in him. She appeared so innocent when she was asleep. Innocent and totally at peace. Not at all like the sharp-tongued vixen who had turned his life upside down.
Just now she looked sated and flushed with lovemaking, yet with a radiant glow that was all her own. So lovely it made his heart and body ache…
His gaze fell to her mouth, soft and dewy and bruised red from his kisses. How could he still want her so?
Involuntarily Raith reached up to touch her cheek, but as he did so his hand became entangled with her tumble of curls. Silently he stared at a fiery lock that clung to his finger like an eager lover. With thumb and forefinger, he held it for a moment, rubbing it tenderly. Then deliberately he let it drop.
If he was ever to regain the ability to reason, he had to begin now. And that meant not giving in to the urge to touch her, to kiss her until she was sobbing breathlessly against him.
No, he couldn’t allow it to happen again.
No, never again.
Chapter Thirteen
It was near dawn when Raith relinquished the warmth of her sleeping form. Slipping from beneath the blanket, he dressed quietly and went to the window, going down on one knee to avoid hitting the sloping ceiling. As gray light filled the small chamber, he made a concerted attempt to remember his resolution. Yet he couldn’t banish the haunting memories of the night he’d just spent with Katrine. His mind overflowed with thoughts of the feel of her against him, of the exquisite way her body surrounded him, of her eager passion, her fiery hunger.
Swearing silently, Raith braced his forearm against the window frame and rested his forehead against it. Only by shutting out every reminiscence of their fierce, soul-satisfying lovemaking, only by making himself remember the reason Katrine was here, only by forcing himself to recall how he had betrayed his clan and his clan’s hatreds by succumbing to his untenable, insupportable attraction for a Campbell, only by reflecting on what was at stake in this feud, was he able to renew his resolve.
Behind him on the pallet, Katrine stirred. As she slowly came awake, she winced at the unfamiliar ache between her thighs. Then she remembered the cause and experienced a momentary twinge of alarm. But he hadn’t left her, she saw when she glanced around. Raith had his back to her, in a defensive pose that was strangely solitary, like a man praying for strength before he went into battle.
Hesitantly Katrine raised herself on one elbow, clutching the blanket to her naked breasts as she pushed her unruly hair from her face. “Raith?”
/> His head came up slowly, and it was a long moment before he glanced over his shoulder at her. He looked like the dangerous outlaw she had once thought him, his jaw dark with stubble, his midnight hair tousled. His blue eyes, hooded beneath long velvet lashes, hid all emotion, but Katrine could sense the change in him, even before he spoke. He seemed to have gone back to enmity to cover whatever it was he might have felt for her…if he felt anything at all.
“I meant what I said last night,” he said in a low voice, “about moving you to another bedchamber. Flora can tell you which one. You can remain there as long as you like. That is, if you want to disappoint Meggie. I promised her you would resume her lessons today. It would be kind of you to continue tutoring her until you leave.”
He was using Meggie again for his own ends, Katrine realized absently, but that didn’t seem important just now. What was important was Raith’s certainty that she would be leaving. Katrine took a deep breath, knowing the time had come to make him listen to her.
“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here…with you.”
“That isn’t possible.” His answer was immediate and curt, and so adamant that it stung.
“Why not? Because you don’t want me?”
“Not want you?” The dark flash she saw in his eyes before he turned his head away might have been torment. “What I want carries little weight in the matter. If your uncle manages to persuade Argyll to deal fairly with my clan, you’ll be returned to him, safe and sound…if a bit worse for wear.”