Bride by Stella Cameron Read Free Book Online

catch a breath or say a word, she was upon him, pulling up the tunic, wrapping her strong legs around his hips, rolling until she lay beneath him.
    Struan looked down into her flushed face, glanced from her parted red lips to her breasts, still wet from his mouth and tongue. And he felt the tip of his bursting rod against damp curls—and drove into her. He drove and drove again, all thought gone, all thought snuffed out by the searing sensation of her sheath drawing him in.
    A third thrust and the pent-up male juices he'd sworn never again to spill burst into her.
    Supported on his arms, he fought for breath while strength rushed away.
    “You shouldn't have!”
    Struan squeezed his eyes shut.
    “I was a virgin. Who'll want me now?”
    He saw tears coursing her cheeks. She clawed at him, pushing, writhing. Struan frowned, tried to capture her hands.
    “Help me! Someone help me! I'm ruined.”
    Suddenly cold, Struan struggled to rise away from her. And then he heard another voice. “Dear Lord. Oh, my son, what have you done?”
    Struan looked from the place where his body joined with the girl's, to the doorway, fully open now.
    Framed in that doorway stood the man he admired most in the world. His confessor and friend. The Abbot of Moreton Abbey.

Chapter Four
    “S truan?” He started, opened his eyes, and looked into Justine's worried face. “What is it? What's wrong?” she asked.
    The envelope was still pressed to his nose. He withdrew it and stuffed it back into his waistcoat pocket.
    “My dear friend,” Justine said. She touched his cheek. “You were asleep and having a nightmare. You cried out.”
    A nightmare? He tried to smile “Did I? What did I say?”
    She bent and wrapped her arms around him—and he could not deny himself the pleasure of that embrace. “You said: Forgive me for I have sinned.”
    Struan rested his brow on her shoulder. “Must have been something to do with you asking me if I took the children to church. My conscience making itself felt.”
    “Your conscience is above reproach,” she said firmly. “You are tired and oppressed. Thank goodness I came. From now on you shall not deal with your burdens alone. If I had the smallest doubt about my decision to help you, it is completely gone now.”
    She caught his wrists and pulled until he rose from the chair. “Come,” she said. “I have your cloak and you are cold. In the morning we shall see to putting this house in order. Obviously the bedchambers are such that you do not wish to show them to me. That will change. For now, we two friends shall warm each other. Put more wood on the fire. It is all but gone out.”
    The morning would not bring the domestic bliss she mentioned. Rather, it would bring sanity. He would thank her for her kindness, insist he needed no help, and make certain she was dispatched as quickly as possible. Struan piled fresh kindling and wood into the fireplace and used bellows to send flames leaping once more. The storm had quieted somewhat and he thought he saw the vaguest glimmering of dawn through a Crack in the draperies.
    “Now,” Justine said. “Sit with me until you are warm and quiet again.”
    He stared at her a moment, then did as she asked, dropping down beside her and allowing himself to be covered with her cloak and his. She rested against him, her head on his shoulder, and within moments he heard her steady breathing as she must have fallen asleep again.
    Struan dared not as much as close his eyes. To do so now might mean a return to that dreadful time and place and to the events that had followed his weakness.
    He turned his head to stare into the fire. Justine was a slight, warm weight at his side. Why could it not have been that she should come to belong at his side permanently?
    From somewhere in the lodge a thud sounded.
    Struan stiffened. He glanced at Justine's sleeping face and tried to edge away.
    The thud was followed by another and another. Struan made to leap up.
    Too late.
    The hard