Heart of the Highland Wolf (12 page)

“So you ended the relationship?”

“I might have stuck it out for longer, for my da and her da's sake. But when I caught her with my cousin Flynn, and not in a way befitting the woman who was handfasted to me, I'd had enough.”

Julia didn't even want to know what he might have done to his relation. But her curiosity was piqued. Where did he catch the woman and his cousin? She envisioned Ian stalking out to his stables, dogs at his side, wanting to take an early-morning ride and catching his bride-to-be with his cousin, both naked, rolling in the hay.

Then she considered the story she wanted to write. She'd have her hero and heroine start out with a handfasting, at the hero's request, but shortly afterward, he'd decide he couldn't live without her and wanted to wed her in the kirk. Julia wouldn't include the cousin, or maybe she would as an interesting side character who was often in the barn dallying with the lasses.

But then again, if
lupus garous
didn't marry here in Scotland, just like they didn't in the States… No, he'd be titled, so that was the reason for the marriage. And maybe, the hero was a
lupus garou
and the heroine was not. Maybe that was what was bothering her story hero to such an extent about marrying the woman. He would have to go along with the lawful ceremony to satisfy her family and other human types, but then ultimately, he'd have to turn her. What if she objected? Not everyone could handle such a feat. Some went mad. Sure. That could work.

Yet as they continued to walk to the falls, she kept pondering where Ian had caught his cousin and his handfasted bride in the throes of passion, and tried to envision how Ian would have handled it. And was dying to ask him the truth. But she was certain it was an unpleasant memory, even if it had been a very long time ago, and this time she kept her mouth shut.

They walked forever, it seemed, and although she was thoroughly enjoying being in the woods with the hero of her story, the dogs running around excited and happy, her ankle was beginning to bother her more. But she was afraid to say anything and spoil the hike. She kept envisioning that the falls were just a few feet away, since the sound of the rushing water had been growing closer forever. She tried not to lean against Ian, to give away that her ankle was hurting. She would rest the remainder of the night once she retired to bed at the cottage, but she so wanted to do this.

Turning back now would be like climbing the Himalayas only to be stopped near the summit and forced to go all the way back down without reaching the peak. A deeper reason was the fear of being a failure in her own estimation and, worse, showing the Scotsman she wasn't hardy enough to make it.

The roar of the falls was deafening to her
lupus garou
's ears, and she walked more quickly to get to the spot.

Ian chuckled. “Not anxious, are we?”

“Oh, yes.” But she couldn't tell him how much so.

By the time they reached the falls, and she saw the water cascading over rocks, creating white foam, and the rowan trees laden with bright red berries leaning over the stream, Julia was hot. And spellbound by the beauty of the area. She sat down next to the water and began removing her boots.

“The water's cold, lass.” To her surprise, Ian crouched in front of her and helped remove her boots.

Before she knew what he was up to, he gently peeled the sock from her right foot, making her feel as though he wanted to strip off the rest of her clothes and make wild passionate love to her. Instead, he lifted her foot, considered both ankles, and
tched
. “It's swelling.”

She realized then that he wasn't considering wild abandoned sex but just checking to see if she'd hurt her ankle further. So much for red-hot kilted lovers. And for a little red American wolf who had only one thing in mind. But his concern for her endeared him to her.

She sighed. “It's swelling just a little. The cold water will do it good.”

But now, the way he looked at her, his eyes smoky and dark, he gave her the impression he wasn't as unaware of her as she thought he had been. Then he pulled off her other sock with such a gentle touch that his tender action made her think again of him undressing her the rest of the way.

She couldn't help it. If he didn't keep looking at her with such keen interest while his thumb stroked her good ankle, she wouldn't be having this problem! Yet the way their gazes collided and froze, she couldn't help but believe he was thinking along the same lines as she was.

His gaze slid to her lips. He looked like he wanted to kiss her. And she wanted to kiss him back. She licked her lips, anticipating, wanting. She knew it would mean nothing more than a little wolf intimacy. Nothing long-term, no commitment to anything further, and she was willing, if he was.

But he seemed hesitant. Probably because she was American and with the film production staff—or so he thought. His gaze searched her eyes as if looking for an invitation. But he was still crouched at her feet too far away for her to make a move quickly in his direction, to grab hold and kiss him, not when her ankle hurt. He had to make the first move.

“Are you sure you want to stand in the water? To press weight on your ankle then?” he asked, and God, his voice was husky and sexy and more erotic than any man's voice she'd ever heard. If he did voice-overs for films, he'd have the women swooning in the aisles.

Idiot, she said to herself.
He doesn't want me like I want him.
She held out her hands to allow him to pull her up. “Yes. The cold water will be like an ice pack and help the swelling go down.”

“Aye.” He hesitated to take her hands, though, as if he thought it might not be a good idea for her to stand in the swiftly moving water when she was partly incapacitated.

But she knew she could do it. At least she was bound and determined to try. When he didn't take her hands quickly enough, she placed them on either side of her and pressed against the earth. Which sent a ripple of pain into her ankle, and she moaned a little.

He quickly moved in close to her and leaned down to lift her at the waist, but as soon as he did, she wrapped her arms around his neck, and again their gazes met. She lifted her face to his and kissed him.

His mouth was hard and firm and still. For a moment, she thought he didn't want her. That she'd attempted to seduce a laird, for heaven sakes, when they probably were used to doing the seducing on their own terms with whom they wanted. That's when she again noticed how cloudy with lust his eyes were. How his hands had stilled on her waist. How his lips had remained noncommittal.

She wasn't the kind of woman who forced herself on an unwilling man, ever. Yet by the way he looked at her and the virile smell of him, she knew he was just holding back. And that made her want even more for him to acknowledge the craving he had for her just like she had for him.

She swept her lips over his mouth, kept her arms locked around his neck, closed her eyes, and savored the feel and smell of him. Piney woods, manly, wolfish, delicious. She concentrated on his mouth and licked the seams, her heart pounding, his beating at a faster pace. She felt the gradual change in him, the way his lips took on a life of their own, sweeping across hers very much the way she had his, tongue teasing her lips open and pressuring her to give herself to him.

Luring, hard, wanting.

But he wasn't gentle like she'd been. He angled his mouth over hers and kissed her lips with passion and strength and determination. It was as if he'd been holding back because he couldn't control the primal need once it was released. And she welcomed it. Welcomed what his kissing did to her. Fed into desire so strong, her body melting with shivers of pleasure, that she wanted him like a wolf wanted a mate. She couldn't have him in that way. But she could still satisfy some of the pent-up urge as she kissed him back with the same desperate desire, like a woman who'd been without a man for way too long.

He rubbed his cheek against hers, first on one side, then the other, his stubble lightly abrasive, but she didn't care. She yearned to have more of him, more of his heated kisses, the way his mouth molded to hers, claiming her for his own; the way his lips swept gently and roughly across hers, willing her into submission.

His tongue licked the seam of her mouth, and then when he found her opening to him, he entered, his breath heavy, his body hardening, his hands tightening on her shoulders. She savored the velvet warmth of his tongue, the stroking heat, the simulation of what he would do if he could thrust into her as her mate. She moaned with the thought, tangling her tongue in a gypsy dance, tightened her arms around his neck, claiming his mouth,
him
, if only for the moment.

Hungry, greedy for his touch, she encouraged his deepening kiss, his hands hard on her shoulders, holding her as if he never wanted to let go. Her hands were on his waist, clinging to the fortress of a man, hard and hot and sexy.

But before she was through, before she was ready to end the kiss, she felt his body tense slightly, felt his mouth pulling away a hint. No! She wanted more. Much, much more.

His breath heavy, he broke from the kiss, smiled tightly, and pulled her from the ground, careful not to let her foot touch the soil. “Your ankle?”

Julia bit back her sexual frustration.

It almost seemed comical, as if she had forgotten her mission to see the falls in a kiss that had sent her soaring to the moon and falling back to earth again in a matter of seconds at the edge of the stream. But it wasn't over. She could feel it in the way Ian's body was hard with desire and her nipples were firm and her breasts swollen, the way she ached deeply for fulfillment, the way she wanted him to keep on kissing her until they were too exhausted to do anything else. But he was putting on the brakes, showing her that he did have some control when she seemed to have lost all sense of hers.

She tried to quash the irritation with herself that she'd let her emotions get the better of her, when she never usually did. Not with men. Not like this.

Silent, he kept an arm around her waist and held on tight as she stepped gingerly into the icy water. The rocks were slippery, but Ian's strong grip kept her on her feet. The dogs raced in and out of the water, snapping at the spray and running about them in excited circles. She almost envied them—the fact they were dogs and didn't care whether they were Irish or American or English or Scottish. That titles and land and power didn't mean anything to them. But dogs mated with any other dog, and that didn't agree with her. No, wolves had it right as far as choosing a mate for life.

“They like it here,” she said as Ian wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back against his chest tightly so she could see the falls while the water iced her swollen ankle. But more than anything, her attention remained riveted on his touch. She couldn't help it. He was too damned sexy.

“One of their favorite places to run,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, appealing and hot.

His arm moved higher under her breasts. The cold of the water seemed to fade away. With her eyes closed, she concentrated on the feel of him pressed against her back. He was fully aroused, and she recalled the way his wet trousers had clung to him in the pub. He was really well hung.

He leaned down and nuzzled her neck with his whiskery cheek. She melted like a stiff rag dipped in water. He said something in Gaelic, a whisper against her ear that sent tingles of anticipation zipping through her system. Love words? Curses? She didn't know.

And didn't care.

His mouth nibbled her ear while his hand slid over a breast. Sweet heaven, she was already getting wet, and it had nothing to do with standing ankle deep in the water or the light spray from the waterfall.

With her back to his chest, she was at a disadvantage. No way to kiss him or hold him close. She was at his mercy. A new experience for her. She wanted him, wanted to kiss him, to bare her skin to him, to feel him thrusting deep inside of her, to satisfy the deep-seated ache that was growing with his simple touches. Yet for their kind, there was no way to go that far without becoming committed to each other for life. And there was no way that was happening.

She did the only thing a hot-blooded female could do when backed up against a hard-bodied hunk who was stirring up her hormones to firestorm proportions—rub up against him. Give him a little back.

He groaned. Then his hand tightened on her breast, his tongue licking her neck, and his free hand moved down her thighs, then between her legs, and cupped her tight against him. She stilled.

She'd awakened the Highland wolf.

The pleasurable feeling of his touch, the way he showed her how much he wanted her, increased the unbearable ache between her thighs. She pushed her back harder against his rigid staff, and his fingers rubbed between her legs, pressing the jeans fabric and her silk panties between her feminine folds.

She moved, wanted to be free of her clothes, to feel him thrusting inside of her, deep, rigid, free, and feral. He breathed so hard, his heart pounding, hers beating just as fiercely, as he continued to stroke her that the roar of the falls seemed to fade into the distance. She'd never experienced anything as erotic as this when she was still wearing every stitch of clothes, minus her shoes and socks.

“Bonny lass,” Ian whispered in her ear, his voice husky and sensuous with its Scottish burr.

She spread her legs, hoping she wouldn't push against him too hard and make him lose his balance on the slippery rocks. But he seemed surefooted and, like the castle itself, steadfast and immovable.

Except for his hands, which were doing sweet things to her body. First, his fingers pressed erotically against the fabric between her legs. And then, his free hand slipped under her sweater until he'd reached her bra and tugged it down, exposing her breast to the underside of the soft cashmere sweater.

Again, he spoke in Gaelic, and she managed a weak smile between clenched teeth as she rode the rising tidal wave of pleasure, his fingers rolling the nipple between them while he continued to stroke her. The roar of the falls in front of them drowned out her heavy moans.

“Are you talking dirty to me?” she murmured, so breathlessly that she didn't think he could hear her.

He chuckled and nipped her ear, but he continued to press to his advantage, his fingers shifting from between her legs and beginning to work on her zipper. The fastener slid downward, and he jerked her jeans past her hips as if impatient to get on with business. But he left her panties in place until his fingers pushed the panel aside at the crotch so he could access her eager wetness.

If he hadn't been half holding her up, she would have sunk into the churning water at her feet. But his arm tightened under her breasts and his other hand plied her with hard, urgent strokes, dipping inside and then slipping out to stroke her some more.

She could barely breathe now, could barely stand as his member strained against his trousers and pressed hard against her back. She felt the end coming, so close, so very, very close that she could almost taste the beauty of the rising climax, the need so great she could hardly stand the sweet ecstasy, desperate for release.

Like the beauty and power of the falls, she felt the climax shooting through her, a heavenly exquisite release like no other. She melted in pure satiated exhilaration in his arms. Limp and without body, she didn't think she could make it back to the bank of the burn, much less to the castle. Ripples of climax filled her with a wondrous sensation, and she savored every moment.

He helped tug her clothes back in place and fastened her zipper.

As if he knew she was unable to make it to the bank on her own, he lifted her in his arms and carried her back. “I believe we might be late for dinner,” he said, with a half smile that garnered a smile from her own lips. Dinner could wait an eternity.

***

Ian had never been with a woman so utterly sexually responsive. Ghleanna had been so unreservedly cold to him that he had barely believed it when he'd caught Flynn with her, both bare-arsed in the woods, doing a hell of a lot more than kissing. He'd banished Flynn from the clan, returned his not so bonny bride-to-be to her da, and sworn never again to fall into that trap with another human female, no matter how titled or wealthy she was. But Julia was a sexy wolf siren.

Ian let out his breath as he carried her to the woods. He hadn't planned on letting things get out of hand, just on taking the dogs for a walk and asking her about the car accident. He knew from the glint in Guthrie's eye that his brother had discovered something interesting about Miss Julia Wildthorn. And he wanted to learn what it was as soon as he could. They certainly didn't need any further trouble in the clan.

In the meantime, he hadn't meant to give in to the strong-willed fascination he had for the lass. Yet alone in the wilderness and seeing the way she had enjoyed the hike—despite the pain her ankle must have been giving her, as evidenced by the swelling—and the excitement she'd exhibited about witnessing the falls, he felt like a youthful lad all over again, perceiving everything in a thrilling new way. She moved him in ways no one else had ever done.

He laid her down on the pine needle and leafy cushioned forest floor and considered her flushed face, her eyes and mouth faintly smiling, more in blissful satisfaction than amusement. The lass was bonny and desirable, and as much as he hated to admit it, he'd been unable to help wanting her from the moment he'd started tracking her down in the woods earlier, his prey, his claim, and later when he'd seen her in the pub. Thinking she was human had made all the difference in the world.

A wolf—that was another story. But once they'd reached the falls, and she'd sat down and begun removing her shoes…

That was it. He didn't want to stop there. With the utmost control, he'd managed not to kiss her, knowing she wanted him to as much as he desired kissing her back. But he also knew it would go much further than that if he gave into temptation.

He'd wanted to see her ankle, knowing it was hurting by the way she leaned into him and the way her breath caught when she took a step on several occasions, but he didn't trust her to tell him the truth. The problem was that once he'd removed her sock, he hadn't wanted to end it there. The longing in her eyes told him she hadn't wanted him to, either. Then the kiss happened, and again, he'd struggled with controlling the outcome. Tried to keep from giving in to desire so strong that he didn't believe he could suppress it once they'd started down that rocky road.

So he had done the next best thing he could, abruptly cutting off the kiss and carrying her into the water, hoping to chill both their desires. But
losing all restraint
, he had brought her to climax. Hell, he'd really thought he had everything under control.

At least he had left her clothed for the most part, but that hadn't stopped his craving for her and certainly her delicious response to his touch hadn't curbed his appetite for her, either.

He thought to lie with her in the woods, allowing her some time to rest her ankle and so that his arousal would have time to settle down, but as soon as he lay down and then pulled her into his arms and pillowed her head against his chest, she began stroking his erection through his trousers.

Losh.
He'd never had anyone bring him to near completion when he was still wearing his clothes. With her hand on his trousers, she stroked him through the fabric, and he fisted his hand in her hair. He groaned with ravenous need, felt her silky hair in his tight grip, and saw through a lust-filled haze that her green eyes watched him, judging the way her touch made him feel and using that to guide her. But then she unfastened his zipper and slid her fingers down his rigid length through the boxer shorts, found the fly opening, and exposed him to the cool air. Her touch was enough to make him lose any reasonable thought.

Her hand continued to work its magic, except now, skin to skin, every stroke, every heated touch, firm and steady and determined, made him silently beg for more. She slipped her leg over his thigh as if opening herself up to him again, which brought unbidden notions to mind—of peeling off her trousers and her panties, and getting on with the business of pleasuring her all over again. But then she kissed his mouth, pressing her tongue between his lips, and he moaned with feral hunger. He released her hair, slid his hand down her back, and cupped her arse, wanting to do more as her hand continued to firmly stroke him.

Until he couldn't hold back any longer. He closed his eyes to savor the sensation, a tidal wave of need rushing through him, before the most earth-shattering release shook him to the core.

Cursing in Gaelic under his breath, he pulled Julia into his arms and kissed her hard against the mouth. She responded with a faint moan, her mouth desirous, yielding and softening against his. He wanted to hold her and kiss her and take her for his own—a woman he didn't know, who had only wanted him in the heat of the moment but couldn't possibly be interested in anything further than a little wolf intimacy.

“I'll return,” he said, his voice husky and strained as he gently laid her back against the ground. “Stay here.” He couldn't help making comparisons between the little red wolf and his betrothed. Was it the wolf in Julia that had made her respond so willingly to him?

But then again he was reminded of how Ghleanna had responded to his cousin's sexual overtures just as amorously. Too many years had passed to stew over that; nonetheless, he still couldn't help feeling Flynn's death was due to his own anger over the incident.

Yet, Ian couldn't explain the craving he had for Julia, either. He'd felt obligated to please Ghleanna. He also wanted to please Julia, but only because he found so much pleasure in her company, not because he saw it as an obligation.

At the water's edge, he cleaned up and then returned to Julia who was lying on her back, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around her waist, shivering slightly but bonny indeed. He still intended for her to rest her ankle before the long trek back. Lying down beside her, he pulled her into his arms, and she snuggled against him, willing, enticing—and damn if he didn't want her all over again.

Their fur wet, the dogs curled up nearby, waiting for him to give the word that they would be returning home. But he didn't want to return home. Not when he had the little red wolf in his arms like this.

Hell, forget just dining with him. She was staying the night.

Julia loved resting against the braw Scotsman, his arms wrapped around her, his breathing steady, his body hard and warm and protective. The air grew chillier, yet she wouldn't give up cuddling with Ian in the woods like this for anything while listening to the melodic rush of the falls, the breeze stirring the pine needles, and the sound of Ian's blood pumping through his heart. Not until he said it was time to go.

She wanted the moment to last forever. To envision it for her book. To sleep with him in her dreams after she returned to the cottage she was sharing with Maria.

She sighed, not wanting to return to the castle and have to face Ian's brothers, who would most likely tease him mercilessly about his walk with her in the woods when she was gone. Or maybe they would be careful with what they said to him since he was laird. That made her want to know more about his relationship with his brothers.
For her story.
Having never had any siblings, she thought it would be good to take a few notes concerning their rapport with one another.