No Fury

Now: Thirty Three

The first Saturday after our weddings, I find Harry sitting beneath our tree, in our field. He stands as he sees me approach.

He looks as though he hasn't slept in weeks. His eyes are dead when they first find mine, and then life flickers behind them and his smile could light up the night sky.

All I want in the world is to be near him. To forget everything else. I want to forget Liam's easy tenderness. I want to forget Maria's existence. I want to forget the crown, and the ale house and the two lives we cannot force to become one.

I fall against his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist as he bends, pressing kisses that feel like electricity against my scalp.

These days, these Saturdays, will always be ours. Can I live life one drop at a time? Now that I am here against him, knowing he was waiting for me, hoping he will always be waiting for me, I believe I can.

"Has he claimed you?" he asks.

Cold water rushes through my veins.

Pushing away, I take a step back. "This is your first question? You've not seen me in two weeks."

His eyes flicker away from mine. "I have been going mad thinking of it," he admits.

"I am fine, Harry. I am able to eat again. I am no longer tossing up every manner of food. Thank you for asking."

With teeth clenched, he stares me down, asking once more, "Has he claimed you?"

"We were married," I tell him, eyes blazing. "What man would not claim his wife? I lie there and take it so that our child won't be born a bastard."

I've never seen such fury in his eyes. "How many times?"

"How many nights have I been wed to him?" I fire back.

He turns, pummeling the tree with a speed that shocks me. Blood appears on the bark, and I reach for his shirts, pulling him away.

"Harry! Stop this!"

"Every night?" he roars at me, fists dripping.

His reaction unleashes my own fury I have suffered these past two weeks.

"How do you take her?" I hiss, fists clutching the collar of his shirt. "Like a beast on her hands and knees? Does she scream when you bite her? Does she clasp you when her body lets go?"

His face falls. "Cath, please-"

His anguish is like a drug. Liberating. Obliterating. "Do you groan her name? Suck her breasts?"

"No!"

"Have you tasted her pleasure?" I shove at him, slapping at his shoulder. "Have you kissed her between her thighs? Has she taken you between her lips, swallowing your-"

"No!" he shouts. "We don't do any of that! It is awful!"

I pull back, choking on my rage.

"It is awful for both of us," he whispers. "Only twice have we tried. I close my eyes, stroke myself while thinking of you until I'm nearly finished, pushing into her only to spill. She cries afterward, I can hear it as I leave her rooms. I believe she wants me, but I can't, Cath. It is the worst form of humiliation for her. She knows I do not desire her, can you imagine such a thing? Can you imagine being sent to another land and the man you've married can barely stand to touch you?"

I shake my head, tears streaming down my face.

"No, you can't, because I will want you every time I am anywhere near you. And you will never know that feeling because you married a man who desires you."

I want to tell him that Liam is so mild, so placid that I believe he simply wants pleasure and a wife, and cares very little about the specifics of either. "He-"

"Don't, Cath. I've seen Liam. He's good, and yes, I know he will give you a good life. But I've thought of nothing else but this for days on end, trying and failing to find peace. I know there is no other way for us right now. But there is no comfort in the knowledge that he is good, when I know that this man will lie with you as often as he can, and relish it every time."

"I won't relish it. I lie there, saying nothing."

"You crested with me inside you, even when you struggled not to," he reminds me, and my face heats in anger.

"That was different." I take a step closer to him, stretching as tall as I can. "I loved you already. I craved you. I love you still. His touch is nothing like yours. It is tender, and soft. Yours is hungry and desperate. If you had me for a million years it would still be the same. Do you not think I crave you still? I wish I could lie there and think of you, but there is nothing of your passion in my marriage bed."

He nods, ignoring the tears that fall from his eyes. "Aye. There is nothing of us in either marriage. But I envy that you may be married to a friend. Maria despises every second she spends in this castle."

Finally, I reach for him, cupping his face and pulling him to me. "Kiss me. Kiss me so that you feel nothing but my touch for the time we have together. Why are we fighting?"

He speaks against my lips: "I do not know."

His kisses start soft, but quickly turn desperate and I find myself pressed between his body and the tree, sharply gasping for more and more of him. He reaches for me, pulling my legs around his hips, and rocking until we are both crying out, so hungry for contact that we didn't even have to undress.

"Do you see how I desire you?" He laughs, pressing his forehead to mine. "I don't even require your skin on mine. Your scent and wicked little sounds suffice."

I kiss his jaw, his neck, his swollen lips.

Breathing heavily, Harry pulls away, looking behind me, around the tree and then turning to look back the other way.

Glancing his lips across my jaw, he says, "I miss having you in my bed."

"I do as well."

"Come tonight."

Laughing incredulously, I say, "Harry, I couldn't."

"Just for an hour. Please, Cath, I need you alone in there, bare with me, talking to me so that I know you are truly mine. I want to make love in a bed not on grass or against a tree."

I close my eyes.

"Please. Come to me tonight."