Highland Jewel (Highland Brides) (16 page)

The kiss was not unexpected. In fact, if the truth be known, Rose had been waiting for it, and yet the heat of it seemed to torch her senses. She felt his tongue tickle her lips, felt the tight bands of his arms press her against the rugged wall of his chest.

Hold, fast, and pray,
a voice said from her conscience, but it seemed distant now, and rather nonsensical.

She opened her mouth and her arms to him. The plaid parted to encompass him. Flesh met flesh, titillating and warm and sensual. He moved closer, until the hard shaft of his desire was pressed against her.

She gasped against his mouth and pulled away, shocked by the sheer maleness of him.

"I m-must n-not," she stuttered, but his hands had slipped behind her, kneading her aching back.

"Dunna be scairt, sweet Rose," he breathed. “I willna hurt ye."

Hurt? It was the last thought on her mind. Rose's eyes fell closed as his large hand slipped lower, sweeping gently over her right buttock.

His touch felt like heaven. She'd been riding for days on end. Every muscle ached.

He heard her moan of pleasure and though he ached for a different reason he was not fool enough to take her before the time was right.

"Sweet lass," he murmured, shifting her slightly so that she straddled him. The brown and green plaid fell lower and he slid onto it while pulling some of its great length high about her shoulders again. They were completely enveloped in the tartan now, warmed by it, the fire, and each other. "I have pushed ye too hard," he continued, letting his fingers massage where they would—her back, her buttocks, the firm, smooth muscles of her thighs. "Ye have ridden rough country at a hard pace." He leaned closer, letting the throbbing length of his manhood press against the moistness of her. His own eyes fell closed as he gritted his teeth against the painful desire to enter her. "Were things different, I would have ye take a more pleasurable ride now."

"Leith." She could not open her eyes, for she knew what she would see. Sin! But if she remained blind she could only feel the wonder of his hands, which worked together now, pressing gently up her back in tandem waves of pleasure, smoothing the ache from it and making her arch nearer the fire of his form.

"What, lass?" He barely managed the question, for the peaks of her breasts were now pressed against the partially bandaged mass of his chest.

"Leith..."

Somehow they had begun a slight rhythm, rocking gently against each other.

"What, love?" he rasped, his hands still moving as he leaned forward, kissing her lovely ivory throat.

Her head fell back. She arched nearer, breathing hard. "I think ... I like this."

"It is right, lass," he breathed. "Ye are a woman, meant for loving."

"It is... " She pushed harder against him so that her mouth fell open slightly as the pleasure mounted with the heat of his shaft. "It is not right."

"Aye, love." His kisses dropped lower, nearing the crest of her breast. "It is."

Her desire was so intense now that it felt like pain, like a fire about to devour her.

His tongue touched her nipple and she gasped, her body jerking involuntarily.

He suckled her! Dear God! He suckled her!

Hold, fast
—
and pray,
her conscience screamed, and so she clutched the blanket about his shoulders, holding him fast to her... and praying, "Please Leith..."

"What, me love?"

"I—I need..."

"Aye?"

"I need something."

"Aye," he growled and, pushing back her crimson hair, kissed her neck. "Ye need to be loved. By me.”

"But..." She gasped as his kisses swept lower again, grazing the crest of one breast before slipping down to blaze a scorching trail across her abdomen. “I am to be a nun."

"Nay," he murmured against the flaming warmth of her flesh. "Ye are meant to be mine. Destined to spend yer life by me side." His lips skimmed upward again, through the valley between her breasts to kiss her tingling ear. "Promised to me. Already promised," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "So surely there is na need to wait. Who will know?" His eyes were dark and intense as they found hers. "Who will know if we share ourselves now?"

By the firelight's glow Rose watched him. Every instinct demanded that she pull him to her, that she fill the void inside and ease the ache. But his words made no sense.

"Promised?" she asked breathlessly.

His gaze held hers. "The MacAulay did vow to give me Fiona as me wife should I bring her back to Scotland."

Silence held the place.

"Fiona is dead," Rose breathed softly. "Resting in the abbey's gravesite."

Leith nodded. "And hence God brought ye to me. To forge peace between the clans," he breathed. "I have waited so long for a means. Ye will be Fiona, for the auld man will na know ye are na his daughter."

Fiona? Rose struggled to find some sanity in his words. What was he talking about? He had waited for a means to forge peace? He had used her? "What?" she asked weakly, pressing away.

"The MacAulay shall believe ye are his own," said Leith, touching the flaming glory of her hair, sure that she must ache for him just as he did for her, and sure that that flaming desire would win his cause. "He will accept ye, for ye are the very spirit of the Scots. Bold. Bonny," he murmured. "Ye will be Fiona and ye will be mine."

"Yours?" she breathed.

"Aye, lass." His fingertips brushed a damp curl from her face. "And I shall pleasure ye for ye are the very tool I have long awaited."

“Tool?" She still straddled him but had pressed far back now. "I am but a tool?"

"Nay! Na
but
a tool," he corrected, mesmerized by her beauty and thinking of the pride he would find in calling her his wife. "Ye are to be me Fiona."

"Fiona!" She gasped the word at him as she jerked to her feet, straddling him like a warrior ready for the killing blow. "Fiona! You bastard. You lied to me. Said I was needed for a godly mission, to tend to the old lord. While all along you planned to use me, to cause me to break my vows, to defile me!"

"Defile ye?" he questioned softly. She was a magnificent sight, a naked angel, haloed by a glorious mass of hair that flowed in drying rivers of auburn fire, caressing her breasts, brushing her hips, leaving only her nether parts utterly naked to his gaze.

“I would never defile ye, lass," he promised, his bold gaze caught on the apex between her spread legs. "I would ... give ye great pleasure."

"Pleasure!" she gasped, jerking from above him to stand, legs together, at his side. "You would force me to ... to lie with you."

His grin was devilish, his chuckle deep and suggestive. "I willna need to force ye, wee one, for ye are as eager for the joining as I. Ye will come willingly to me bed."

"Never!"

"Ye shall be me bride," he said, rising slowly to his feet, his expression solemn now.

She did not back away but watched his face with sudden arrogance. "You dream..." she began, then gasped, widening her eyes and pointing frantically past his shoulder.

He wheeled like a trained destrier, knees bent, muscles bulging and ready as he raised his claymore to protect her.

But there was nothing to cause alarm. He shifted his gaze, searching the darkness outside for danger. "What did ye see?" he demanded, his tone low and deadly. But his only answer was the rapid patter of bare, retreating feet.

Chapter 12

“Lass! Come back!" Leith roared, but it was no use, for nothing but black silence answered him.

Damn it to unholy hell! This was not a safe place for a warrior fully armed, much less a slip of a girl with no clothes and very little wits. Leave it to her to stumble into the river in her haste to escape him.

What had set her off? One moment she lay warm and soft in his arms and the next she was fleeing like a hare from a wolf! Women! They were a plague upon mankind.

But there was no time to waste now. Folding his plaid into quick pleats, he lay down on the thing, rising a moment later to belt it rapidly about his waist. His shirt was gone, he learned with a scowl. So the lass was not bare-ass naked after all.

Thrusting his claymore and dirk into his belt, Leith ran barefoot from the shelter. He'd tied the horses only a short distance from the small cave but only the stallion remained, fretting against his tether as he tossed his thick mane and pranced in place, lifting heavily feathered legs in rhythmic displeasure.

The knot of the saturated rope was hard and stubborn, resisting Leith's hurried attempts until he finally wrestled it free. In a moment he was astride and they were off, racing through the thick underbrush after the midnight mare.

Wet branches slapped at Leith's face and legs. Mud slipped beneath the stallion's churning hooves. To their left a stream tumbled southward, swelled and turbulent from the recent rains.

A sturdy tree limb thumped Leith's wounded shoulder, stunning him with pain and nearly knocking him to the ground, but he gritted his teeth and grappled for Beinn's mane, holding on by sheer tenacity.

The stallion slipped, heading downhill. Through tattered clouds the moon skittered overhead. Ghostly mist rose from the glen below. A pale, motionless figure could be seen, seeming strangely disembodied. "Rose," Leith whispered, realizing now that the pale fairy was the lass, encased in his saffron shirt and riding the black mare that was nearly invisible in the darkness.

She was safe. All was well, he thought, but a man's scream jerked him to reality. Leith twisted about, not seeing Rose slip to the ground.

Danger! Where? Leith searched for it, his gaze skimming the darkness until he saw his shirt flitting through the night.

Dear God, what was she doing? For a moment Leith remained frozen, stunned by her foolishness, until he saw the warrior, his weapon raised. And another form that stood before him.

The warrior raised his axe again.

"No!" It was Rose who screamed the word, diverting the attacker's attention and causing his blow to go slightly awry, only skimming the other man's head.

Nevertheless, his victim fell backward, tumbling into the rolling burn behind.

The warrior turned, weapon raised, and in a heartbeat Beinn was galloping, thundering down on the man, hungry strides eating the distance between them.

Every detail was sharply etched in Leith's mind. Rose was running along the burn toward the south—the warrior following. Sweet Jesu! He carried a battle-axe! But who was he? Only a few horses' lengths lay between Forbes and his quarry and at the last moment Leith turned his claymore, holding the blade in his bare hand as he swung for the warrior's head. There was the sound of metal against bone and the man crumpled.

Beinn turned with the lithe speed of a giant cat. Leith's eyes searched the riverbank, but she was gone. God's wrath! Where? Had she fallen? Had the other man...

There! He caught sight of his shirt again, close to the earth now.

"Sweet Jesu!" he rasped. She'd been felled, but how?

"Catch my hand!" Her voice was loud and strong, jerking Leith from immobility.

"My hand!"

What now? Leith urged the stallion on until they skidded to a halt only inches from the girl's squatting form.

"Here!" she yelled to someone in the water, one hand gripping a branch as she strained farther over the rushing burn. "My hand!"

Above the boiling river a head bobbed and an arm reached, grasping her small hand in a slippery
grip. "Hold now! Hold!" she commanded, but her
own small body was sliding, pulled along by the
ferocious power of the swollen water. "Oh!" She
shrieked as her body hit the stream, and with a
vehement curse Leith followed. The water was cold as hell and shocked his senses with the efficiency of a blow from a soldier's club, but he caught her about the waist and held on, fighting for footing in the sliding sand.

The man's head bobbed above the waterline again, and in that moment Leith realized the truth. Rose had caught the injured man and now held on as desperately as he did to her.

"Let him go!" Leith roared, hauling back with all his might, but she would not and in the end he battled his way ashore, dragging the two along behind him until all three lay gasping and panting on the rough, soggy slope beside the river.

"Ye could have..." Leith panted, gritting his teeth against the pain in his chest as he gripped Rose's arms in rough hands. "Ye could have been kilt."

"And so could have... he," she managed, nodding toward the dark form that coughed and sputtered near her bare leg.

"Have ye no sense at all?" Leith rasped, shaking her slightly. "Ye dunna even know this man. He may be a thief! And a murderer!"

"And so might you," she snapped in return, feeling the cold bite her so that she trembled against the wind, though she refused to turn her eyes from his.

"Lass," he growled, feeling such a heavy relief for her safety that it made his arms go weak, "if ye ever do such a foolish thing again I shall—"

The half-drowned man moaned beside them and Rose jerked her arms from Leith's grasp. "Perhaps, my lord," she said, her tone chilly, "you might threaten me later. After we see to the murderer and thief." She bent toward the downed man and Leith watched, noting how his saffron shirt drooped away from her bosom.

"Lie still." She touched the man's forehead, testing the scrape there. "You are safe now."

The man's eyes opened, focused, and widened. He was dressed in a dark plaid and shirt, his left hand bound in a gray bandage.

Quiet held the place, broken only by the sound of water—the rush of the burn behind, the drip of fat drops from nearby leaves.

"Bean-sith?"
he whispered into her moon-gilded face.

Leith scowled.

Rose shook her head, not understanding his Gaelic.

Silence again, then, "Be ye a fairy?" he asked, changing his words to heavily burred English.

"No." She shook her head again, brushing dark hair from the man's slight wound. "I am only mortal."

In truth the wounded fellow was little more than a lad, Leith realized, noticing his wide, round eyes, his narrow build.