Journey of the Wind Read online

  knee so he could push her legs apart, and when he lifted it to her center, she arched

  beneath him.

  Their kiss deepened. Rylee’s hands ran over his naked back. Her fingernails trailed

  fire down his flesh. Her body strained upward until she was moving against his knee,

  rubbing her sex on him through the cottony material.

  Tearing his mouth from hers, he eased off her so he could pull down the drawstring

  neckline of her chemise to trail kisses along her neck until he could close his lips around

  her nipple. He felt her fingernails dig into his back. Cupping her breast with his hands

  so he could push that puckered bud farther into his mouth, he ground his erection

  against her thigh.

  “Sandair,” she sighed, and raked her hands through his thick hair to hold him to his

  suckling.

  He shoved his hand down beneath the covers and tugged on the hem of her

  chemise, dragging it up until he could touch the moist curls at the apex of her thighs.

  Sliding the palm of his hand down over that fiery triangle, he stroked her—his middle

  finger just delving into her warm folds with each up and down movement. Drawing

  upon her nipple in counter rhythm, he clenched his teeth lightly around her stiff bud.

  “Sandair!” she cried out, and writhed beneath him.

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  His finger slid inside her then withdrew. He put it in again—deeper—but brought

  it out again over and over, never staying long but feeling the juices of her sheath oozing

  around him with each thrust.

  She was whimpering and wriggling her little ass against the mattress. Her hands

  were tugging at his hair but instead of hurting him, it goaded him on until he added a

  second then a third finger to his assault before going into her as far as he could and

  holding still there.

  “Please,” she whispered. Already a thin sheen of perspiration was dotting her chest

  and making the chemise stick to her flesh.

  He pulled his mouth from one nipple to ravish the other and as he did, he heard her

  begin to pant again but this time from desire instead of fear.

  In and out went his fingers. Around and around went his tongue. Pressing upward

  to touch that mysterious area inside the ceiling of her vagina he knew brought her such

  extreme pleasure. Grating his teeth against her swollen nipple and stabbing it with his

  hot tongue.

  She slammed her hand down to his wrist and jerked, wanting something more than

  his knowing fingers inside her.

  “Milady wants her man, does she?” he asked around the little bud clamped

  between his teeth.

  “Aye!” she hissed, tugging harder on his wrist until his fingers slid free of her.

  Almost as soon as his hand was out of the way, she was pulling him over her, spreading

  her thighs as wide as the restriction of her chemise rucked up around her hips would

  allow.

  He moved over her again, insinuating his hips between her legs and the hot tip of

  him touched her moist curls before gliding down over them to press at her entrance.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked, and moved himself to her honeyed slit.

  “Damn it, Sandair, aye!” she moaned. She wrapped her arms and legs around him,

  twisting her body in an effort to impale herself on him.

  “All right, milady,” he said, and thrust into her—going all the way to the very root

  of him.

  She bucked beneath him as he took her. She could feel him nested in her all the way

  to her womb. He was thick and hard, steel under silk, and when he pulled out just a

  little then slammed hard into her, the first ripple of orgasm seized her.

  He could feel the tremors beginning inside her and ground his hips, pushing into

  her as strongly as he could. As the little pulses became tight squeezes on his shaft, he

  started pumping inside her—hard and fast.

  “That’s it, sweeting,” he said. “Come for me. Come for your man.”

  Rylee’s thighs tightened on his waist. Her fingers dug into his scarred back and she

  arched her hips off the mattress as far as they would go as wave after wave of sheer

  gratification rocked through her. The muscles of her vagina milked his cock and at the

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  moment he spilled his seed inside her, her orgasm intensified until it was one long,

  vibrating pleasure that completely filled her lower body and she cried out with the joy

  of it.

  Pumping into her one last time, Alsandair held himself steady as the last of his

  ejaculation shot deep into her willing body. His head was pounding brutally as he let it

  fall back and he roared his release.

  She gathered him to her as he collapsed upon her. Her arms and legs were like steel

  bands—imprisoning him, refusing to let him escape. She held onto him with every bit

  of her waning strength, burying her chin against the top of his head.

  His cheek was pressed to her breast and he was gasping for breath. Never had he

  had an orgasm that had rocked him as solidly as this one had. He was spent, drained,

  winded as though he’d just completed a long, grueling race. Incapable of moving, he

  just laid there with his full weight upon her, sweating and depleted.

  Rylee had always gloried in the feel of Alsandair lying on her. It was a sensation

  that made her feel totally woman, completely taken. He was heavy, but it was a

  heaviness that thrilled her. Like a captive woman brought to ground by her vanquisher,

  she reveled in that hard, masculine weight. With his hips between her thighs, his cock

  slowly sliding out of her so that his juices oozed from her channel, with the mingled

  scent of their sex permeating the air, she closed her eyes and felt a contentment she

  knew she would never experience with any other man.

  Easing himself off her despite her moan of protest and the tightening of her arms

  around him, Alsandair turned over to his back, his arm flung over his eyes.

  “You sapped every ounce of energy from me, woman,” he said, flinging the covers

  off them for he was burning up with the heat their lovemaking had generated. He

  pushed them down to the bottom of the bunk with his foot.

  She turned to her side so she was pressed up against him, sliding her hand over his

  heavily muscled chest, spiking her fingers through the silky hairs that grew there.

  “We have always been able to bring great pleasure to one another, haven’t we?” she

  asked, twirling one wiry curl around her index finger. Beneath her palm she could feel

  his heart pounding fiercely.

  “Aye, that we have,” he agreed on a long sigh.

  They were silent for a long moment as she smoothed her hand over his pectorals,

  down his abdomen and up again to finger one taut little pap.

  “Is that all this was?” he asked. “A good fuck?”

  Rylee’s hand stilled. Although the storm had passed over them while they had been

  making love, there was a flare of light at the porthole and it lit his face and the sparkle

  of a tear sliding down his cheek.

  “Sandair,” she said, pushing herself up. “How can you think that?”

  To his utter mortification, he was crying and couldn’t seem to keep the tears from

  falling. It had been many, many years since he had spilled tears and now he’d done it

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  twice in just as many days. He felt foolish and unmanly and without hope, but most of

  all, he felt lost. He had to ask, though he knew the answer would hurt him far more

  than any lash he’d ever had applied to his flesh.

  “Have you slept with him?”

  He believed her silence was his answer and that silence went through him like a

  cold, dull blade.

  She stroked him gently. “Do you want to know when we met?”

  He wanted to yell at her that it didn’t matter, that he had no desire to know

  anything about Kyle Striker and her connection to the gambler, but there was a part of

  him—a part that apparently liked to wallow in misery and self-torment—that ached to

  hear.

  “Aye,” he said through his clenched teeth. “Tell me.”

  Rylee lay down on her back. Though their bodies touched at the hip and shoulder,

  she felt he did not want her hands on him as she explained about Kyle.

  “He showed up at our door late one morning,” she began. “His horse had come up

  lame and he asked if we had a mount he could buy.”

  Alsandair pictured the door of her father’s keep, the lush rolling green hills of the

  McCourtland estate, and knew any visitor would be welcomed with open arms. Such

  was the way of her clan.

  “We were expecting rain and Papa invited Kyle in, asked him to eat with us until

  the storm had passed. Kyle seemed reluctant but he did, and as we sat at the table, he

  entertained us with tales of his travels.” She turned her head to look at Alsandair. “He’s

  been just about everywhere.”

  Alsandair nodded, unable to speak past the dry lump of hurt in his throat.

  “The day passed into late afternoon and the storm raged on. The roads would be a

  quagmire. You know how it is when it rains.”

  “Aye,” he agreed. It had been storming the night Cowan and Daniel had taken him

  to Ravendale, the McCourtland holding.

  Rylee’s voice lowered. “Kyle was flirting outrageously with me all day. He made

  me laugh and I was enchanted with the stories he told. He made the distant lands come

  alive with his descriptions.” Her voice went even lower—a sign he knew all too well. “It

  was while we were at the evening meal that a messenger came with a note from you.”

  His eyes were closed beneath the obstruction of his arm and he squeezed them

  tighter together. He knew before she spoke what the note had said and when it had

  been sent.

  “You wrote that your mission had been extended and you would not be home for

  another month at the earliest,” she said. “I was heartsick at that news for Lily and

  Erylon’s engagement party was within a week and I had wanted you to be there to

  escort me. It meant so much to me to go.”

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  He could imagine her hurt and anger that he wouldn’t be back to take her to her

  cousin’s party. He’d known how she would react to his missive as he wrote it. He had

  apologized profusely, but even as he beseeched her on paper to excuse him, in his heart

  he knew she would never forgive him for not being there when she needed him.

  “I left the table in tears and Papa followed me upstairs. He tried to comfort me but I

  was inconsolable. I was furious at you, and had you been there at that moment, I

  believe I would have slapped you until your ears rang.”

  “And Striker took advantage of your anger,” he said softly.

  “He and Papa discussed it over brandy that night and Kyle offered to be your

  stand-in. Papa must have been relieved that the situation might have a happy ending

  and gave his blessing to Kyle escorting me. I don’t think he saw any real harm in Kyle

  taking me to the party. After all, he and the rest of my family would be there with us.”

  There was no need for him to ask her what had happened at the party. She would

  have been watched like a hawk by her father and brothers and cousins—not once

  allowed out of their sights. She would have behaved as the daughter of an earl and an

  engaged woman should, and not one hint of scandal would have been bandied about

  concerning her.

  “After we came home that night and the excitement of the party had worn off, I

  became so depressed I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how beautiful Lily had been

  and how proud Erylon looked every time I saw him watching her. Memories of them

  dancing together, laughing, smiling into one another’s eyes made the heart inside me

  ache. I was furious with you for not having been there to dance with me, to laugh with

  me, to look down at me and smile as Erylon had with Lily. The more I dwelt on the

  party, the angrier I became. I had to work off that anger or I thought I’d burst.” She

  glanced at him. “You know what I did.”

  He nodded, envisioning her pulling off her nightgown and putting on a pair of her

  youngest brother’s pants. He could see her buttoning one of Brent’s castoff shirts,

  thrusting her feet into a pair of her brother’s old boots. He knew she had opened her

  window and silently made her way down the trellis outside her bedroom window.

  How many times had she come to him like that over the years?

  “When I got out to the stable, I was shocked to see Kyle there,” she said.

  “About to steal a horse?” he growled.

  “No,” she said. “He was there checking on his lame horse.”

  “Sure he was, but he was dressed for riding though, wasn’t he?”

  Rylee sighed. “No, he wasn’t. He had on a velvet robe Papa had loaned him and he

  was wearing a pair of Tyler’s slippers. He was truly concerned about the horse,

  Sandair.”

  She said nothing more for a long time and when she finally continued, he could

  hear the guilt in her soft voice.

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  “We sat there in the stable and talked for over an hour. He knew about our

  engagement of course, but Papa had not told him your name and I didn’t either. I don’t

  know why it seemed important that I not tell him but it did.”

  “Then one thing led to another…” he said, his voice trailing off.

  “It was a spiteful thing I did,” she said. “I justified it at the time by reminding

  myself how angry I was at you, how much you had hurt me by not coming back for the

  party. All the resentment I’d ever felt about your job, all the fears I had for your safety,

  all the uncertainty of our future together just seemed to come at me at one time. I was

  tired of being left behind all the time and I wanted to travel, to see the world and not

  spend my entire life in Oirthearach Province.”

  “I had told you we would travel when we were Joined,” he reminded her

  defensively.

  “Aye, Sandair, you had,” she said, her voice tight. “And when was that to be? You

  kept pushing the date forward every year. Your job always came first, me second and

  our Joining a distant third.”

  He flinched for there was truth in what she said. “So Striker offered you the travel

  you so desperately wanted.”

  “He asked me to run away with him, aye,” she said. “He had booked passage on a

  ship docked at Dellymal. The ship was to sail for Sulan in a fortnight.”

  “And you agreed and sealed the bargain
by giving yourself to him.”

  Rylee stiffened. “You make me sound like I’m a whore.”

  He let his arm fall to the pillow above his head and turned to glare at her in the

  darkness. “It was wrong, Rylee,” he said. “You were engaged to one man and you slept

  with another. What else would you call it but sordid?”

  “I was angry at you,” she said.

  “And that made it acceptable?” he snapped.

  “I admitted my flirting with him was spiteful.”

  “Spiteful,” he repeated. “Aye, it was that and a helluva lot more.”

  “I could have gone with him that night, Sandair, but I wanted to wait until you

  came home. I wanted to talk to you, to see if I could get you to listen to reason about our

  Joining and you quitting the military,” she told him. “He said he would be in Dellymal

  and he’d book a passage for me if things didn’t go as I hoped they would with you.

  When I went to Dellymal that night, I did not go there to see Kyle.”

  “No,” he said. “You came there to fuck me, but wasn’t it convenient he was already

  there to run to when I wouldn’t prance on the end of your marionette strings the way

  you’d planned?”

  The silence was telling. Rylee lay as though she were a board beside him and he

  stared up at the dark ceiling above him with eyes that he refused to allow to shed any

  more tears. He was grinding his teeth, the hand over his head opening and closing into

  a fist, his other hand digging into the twisted sheet beneath him.

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  He made no effort to stop her when she sat up and swung her legs from the bunk.

  He lay there listening to the rustle of her gown as she padded barefoot to the door. The

  slide of the bolt out of the lock sounded loud to his ears. When the door closed behind

  her, he turned over on his side with his arm crooked beneath his pillow and he spent

  the remainder of the night staring at the wall.

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  Chapter Six

  Three days passed as Kyle wanted desperately to ask Rylee what had happened the

  night she had gone to Alsandair’s cabin, but the stony look in her eye kept him from

  doing so. She refused to speak to him at all and took all her meals alone in her cabin. He

  would have broached the subject with Alsandair but the man was keeping to himself as