Highlander in Her Bed (17 page)

There was only so much a man could endure.

His heart hammering, he set his jaw so fiercely, he wondered his teeth didn't crack. Gall rose in his throat, so hot and thick he nearly choked.

"Did you know she is immortalizing two of the worst jackals in all her benighted clan's history?" he ground out, keeping his stare on the rocks. "I have seen the design for the memorial tablet, heard the workmen speak the names in wonder and awe."

He drew a sharp breath, kicked a pebble over the cliff edge. "Ignorant fools."

"Ahhh, yes," Hardwick crooned as if he hadn't heard a word, "show me your back so I do not see your desire. Gaze out to sea and pretend you haven't met your match. Tell me you are not aflame to possess the wench."

Alex clamped his lips together. There was nothing he could say.

His friend knew him too well.

"Your silence speaks loudly," the knave said, proving it. "I shall leave you now. Our old friend, Bran of Barra, has invited me for feasting. You'll be spared my presence for a while, at least."

"Saints be praised," Alex breathed, still not looking at him. "I'm weary of your clattering tongue."

Hardwick stepped in front of him, blocking his view. "You could join me," he suggested, catching Alex's arm. "The old Islesman's table is always heavily laden and his wine flows freely. Not to mention the women…"

"Bran of Barra's hall is a breeding ground for the pox," Alex said, jerking free. "I'd rather be gelded than touch one of the whores he procures for his guests."

"Gelded?" Hardwick rocked back on his heels and laughed. "Why bother? You haven't dipped your wick in centuries. Unless you've been lying to me."

Alex turned back to the sea. "Matters of greater importance have occupied me. I—"

"I know, your accursed bed," Hardwick cut him off. "But for the sake of old times, do me the favor of looking after the lass after I go. If you listen to your heart, you'll make haste to aid her."

Alex made a noncommittal grunt. He wasn't aware that he had a heart.

Not since a long-ago day he chose to forget.

"Perhaps you'll stop being so stubborn once I'm gone," Hardwick suggested, stepping away from him. "One parting word before I go: If you do not assist her, sooner or later, one of those
whelps
will."

Then Hardwick was gone.

This time none of the usual laughter lingered behind.

Only a hint of friendly recrimination and Alex's own maddening desire.

Scowling, he rammed a hand through his hair. The lass could perch on her unmoving steed until the sun froze. He was not going to turn around. Not that there was any need.

Her image was already emblazoned on his soul.

Such as it was.

And that only made matters worse.

Were he a flesh-and-blood man, perhaps she would be the female to mend the wounds inflicted on him by her ancestors. And certain other pressing matters he suspected she could heal. He'd surely seen enough of her to know she was made for passion.

His passion.

Since he'd seen her in his bed, clad in naught but two tiny bits of black lace, he'd suffered a raging need so fierce it consumed him.

More annoying still, her affection for the cross-grained auld seneschal bothered him. Not in the way he resented the two overgrown stable lads, but because the knobby-kneed steward minded him of his own da.

A great champion in his day, but bent and muddle minded in later years, he'd welcomed Alex with open arms and always treated him with the same love he'd shown his legitimate sons.

At times even more.

His fool eyes burning again, Alex let out a deep breath and stared at the sea. "She's a MacDougall," he growled, his mood darkening.

She'd likely stab him in his sleep with his own dirk if ever he did risk bedding her.

Pacing now, he unfastened a hip flask from his belt and tossed down a healthy swig. Fiery
uisge-beatha
. Fine Highland spirits guaranteed to banish painful memories and any dangerous softenings toward Mara MacDougall.

Whether she seemed fond of grizzled old men or not.

Enough wickedness could be told about her dastardly blood to keep the most prolific bards occupied for eternity.

Even so, he quaffed one more generous gulp of
uisge-beatha
, then swung round.

Just as he'd suspected, she still sat astride the balky mare. Her hands clenched the reins in a white-knuckled grip that showed her just as stubborn as the horse she couldn't control, and frustration or anger flamed red in her cheeks.

Of especial interest, the early morning chill had done wondrous things to the tips of her breasts.

Alex swallowed. Damn but the lass had luscious nipples!

How he wished
he'd
caused them to peak in such a provocative manner. Better yet, he'd love to rip away the clingy black top she wore and bury his face in the fullness of her creamy breasts, drink in the bewitching scent of the smooth and silky skin he'd feasted his eyes on but hadn't yet touched.

A lacking he meant to remedy.

The corners of his mouth twitched with the beginnings of a wicked smile and he started forward. He couldn't stand by and let her struggle with Pagan's descendent all morning.

Liking the idea better by the moment, he summoned the energy to materialize.

After all, helping her was the only thing he could do. As a knight of the Scottish realm, he was honor bound to rescue damsels in distress.

It had nothing to do with the prospect of the tall, broad-built stable lackeys coming to her aid if he did not.

Nothing to do with it at all.

Chapter 8

Mara gripped the reins and let her breath out slowly. She also straightened her back and did her best to look unafraid. Cool, calm, and collected. Totally in charge. But feigning an attitude of dignity proved difficult with arctic chills sliding up and down her spine. Especially when some of them swept round and teased across her nipples.

Almost
plucking
on them.

No, caressing them.

And in delicious, luxuriant ways that made her tremble. A deliberate and concentrated pleasuring that could easily dampen her.

Instead, she summoned her fiercest Cairn Avenue bravura. She lifted her chin to the wind, defying its claim as she strove to ignore the titillating sensations. Pretend the shockingly cold air swirling so intimately against her was no different from the brisk sea wind blowing in from the cliffs.

But it was, and when her wretched mare quit chomping grass and began to prance and quiver, she accepted what she'd known all along.

She was no longer alone.

A glance to the side confirmed it.

He
was striding toward her! And coming from the edge of the cliffs—an area that had been empty just moments before.

Mara stared at him, Cairn Avenue forgotten. Her senses went wild and her knees turned to water. A sizzling excitement began pulsing through her, the living air seeming to crackle and burn. On he came, the intensity of his stare making her heart pound and her blood quicken.

No way had she been so occupied with trying to get her mount to move that she wouldn't have noticed him walk past her.

She almost laughed out loud at that impossibility. Ghostie or no, Hottie Scottie was too delectable to have been missed.

O-o-oh, yes, she'd have noticed.

But she hadn't. And that spelled trouble.

It meant he'd appeared out of thin air.

"Not possible," she breathed, then swallowed hard at the foolishness of her denial. "You're not there," she added all the same. "I'm just having a bad dream."

"Och, nay, lass, I am the
stuff
of your dreams," he purred, coming closer. "You shouldn't wear your soul in your eyes if you didna want me to know."

Mara went still, all too aware of the predatory aura about him, his purposeful stride. Her chest tightened until she could hardly breathe, and when she opened her mouth to argue, the words jammed in her throat.

"You know very well that I'm here, don't you, Mara, lass?" His mouth curved with just the trace of a smile. "For truth, you should be glad I am. Did you not ken that the boulders hereabouts are far more dangerous than that wee clump of granite you stubbed your toe against in the yew grove?"

Mara gasped.

The little smile playing across his lips turned devilish.

"Och, aye," he went on, waving a hand at the innocent-looking boulders dotting the cliff top, "where'er you see two or more boulders clustered together, there's often deep holes in between. Or bottomless fissures hidden by the bonnie patches o' heather I've seen you admiring. Even worse—"

"I am not some greenhorn who's never seen a hill or wood," Mara bristled, not about to admit she'd never indeed stood on such a wild, windswept cliff.

"Even worse, adders teem in the heather," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. "And they love summer, enjoy slithering onto large, flat rocks and basking in the sun. Or spooking the horses of unskilled riders."

He paused, letting his gaze dip ever so briefly to her tightened nipples. "Dinna get me started on how often the mists come up from the sea or slide down the braes, how swiftly they can thicken."

Mara looked at him, wanting to frown but not quite able.

His silky-smooth burr did that to her.

And something else.

Maybe the way his sea green eyes darkened when he spoke of the dangers of hill and moor. The slight furrow that touched his brow. As if he truly cared if she'd happened across such a calamity.

Crazier still, she found herself believing he did.

After hearing all the hazards he'd rattled off, she was rather glad he'd appeared.

She wasn't about to admit it, but were he real, she'd even be thrilled. She pushed that thought from her mind. Too many misgivings tempered her appreciation. It wasn't every day a girl held a conversation with a man she might or might not be imagining.

At least this time he wasn't decked out like the tin man.

Now he looked halfway modern, had on the same reddish brown outfit he'd worn when she'd first seen him in Dimbleby's Antique and Curio Shoppe.

Medieval hose and tunic, she recognized now. But a sinfully revealing getup that suited his powerful build and glorified his broad shoulders and long, manly legs. His well-muscled calves. Mara gulped,
that
part of her reacting again.

She'd always had a thing for sexy calves on a man.

The jeweled dagger he'd used to skewer her nightgown was rucked jauntily beneath a wide leather belt slung low around his hips, and he made the mistake of allowing himself an amused smile when he saw her recognize it.

"There was nothing funny about that." She leveled a hard stare at him. "And for a knight, certainly nothing honorable."

His full-of-himself smile vanished. "Och, lass, did you not ken Highlanders have an irrepressible sense of mischief?"

"I haven't known that many Highlanders," Mara admitted, glancing aside. "I might be of Scottish descent, but I'm from Philadelphia. I was raised at One Cairn Avenue. A place as far away from Highland Scotland as the moon."

He tilted his head, clucked his tongue sadly. "O-o-oh, lassie," he said with a touch of smugness, "if you haven't known a Highlander, I'm afraid I must tell you, you haven't lived."