Return of the Highlander (14 page)

Draping his arm over her hip, Darach covered both her hands with his to warm them. “Is that better?”

“Much better,” she replied. “Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure, lass,” he cheerfully said. “Truly.”

Maybe it was her nerves that got the better of her, for she couldn’t help but laugh quietly to herself.

Darach lifted his head. “Is something funny?”

She tried to stop herself, but couldn’t. “Is it really your pleasure, Darach? Or are you being facetious?”

He chuckled as well. “If you must know, it’s more torture than pleasure, because I promised I’d behave myself, so as much as I’d love to tempt you into a lively shag this evening, I’ll do my best to keep my hands to myself.”

She laughed a little longer and hugged his hands close to her belly. When the moment passed, they continued to lay quietly, motionless in the darkness. The mist rolled like a phantom across the moor and Larena tried with all her might to fall asleep, but with Darach’s muscular form pressed so tightly against hers, and with the thrill of his lips at the back of her neck, her insides ignited with excitement. All her senses purred and hummed, and eventually a slow ache began between her thighs.

She could do nothing to control it. Quite involuntarily, she wiggled in the smallest degree, but it was enough to arouse a matched response in Darach, who swiveled his pelvis as if he were moving to achieve a more comfortable position, but she knew that was a ruse. Their mutual arousal was undeniable. He was rubbing up against her, and it sent a flood of erotic heat into the pit of her belly.

Intellectually, she knew she should put a stop to this immediately and think of her pledge to another—a man she would meet the next day—but nothing outside of this moment seemed to exist. All that mattered was the delicious allure of Darach’s touch, her awareness of his arousal pressing against her backside, and the rising tide of her own pulsing, aching desires.

And the fact that this was their last night together.

“Are you trying to start trouble, lass?” he whispered in her ear, then nuzzled her hair and sent tantalizing ripples of delight across her flesh.

“I can’t help it,” she breathlessly replied.

He gently thrust his hips in tiny, irresistible circles that made it difficult to remember her own name.

“But I just promised I’d keep my hands to myself,” he said.

“What if I didn’t want you to? What if I asked you to kiss me?”

This was dangerous territory and she knew it, but wicked, enticing sensations were quickly overtaking reason.

Darach spoke softly in her ear. “Then you’d be putting me in a difficult position, because it’s my duty to deliver you to your betrothed tomorrow. When the sun rises, I must take you home, whether I want to or not.”

Her betrothed
. She didn’t want to think about that. Maybe it was simply cold feet because of the unknown—the sort of fear every future bride must feel. Maybe that’s why she was fighting such a powerful attraction to Darach. It was a way to escape her fate for a brief moment in time. One last chance to be free, to choose what her heart and body wanted before committing to a lifetime of duty and fidelity to the unknown.

“I must save my father,” she whispered defensively, still wiggling her hips, arching her back, and pressing her behind up against Darach’s rock hard arousal. “I cannot change my future, but I do not know Colonel Chatham. We were children the last time we saw each other. I don’t love him, Darach. All I know now is what I feel for you.”

“And what is that, lass?”

Heart thumping wildly, she paused to consider the question, but she wasn’t sure of the answer. “All I know is that I want to touch you and feel your hands on me. But of course that’s wrong, and I don’t understand why this is happening. It wasn’t part of the plan.”

He eased her onto her back and slid on top of her. Her legs instinctively parted for him.

“I’ve been wanting you since the first moment I laid eyes on you in the woods.” He looked into her eyes and stroked his hand down her hip and under her bottom.

“But you despised me that day.”

“Aye. I despised you for being Fitzroy’s daughter, and for making me remember where I come from and what I’d done. I also despised you for making me want you. Maybe part of me still does, but I’m still going to kiss you.”

At last, his lips found hers in the darkness. All her shivering ceased as her body melted into his…sizzling beneath the sweltering glide of his open mouth and probing tongue. It all felt terribly sinful, but she wanted to drown herself in it, to open herself fully to the pressures of his driving hips.

His silky hair fell across her face.
Take me
, she wanted to say, but she resisted the urge to speak those words, for she knew, deep down, that it was wrong.

But she wanted it, regardless.

The kissing went on for many moments, lifting her up into a divine world of pleasure and sensation. Darach’s mouth was hungry, possessive, and sexual. When he came away, she felt stunned and branded, desperate for more.

He rose up to brace himself on both arms above her while his hips continued to thrust in exotic circles. “I need to ask you something.”

“
Now?
” She wasn’t sure her brain could make sense of any sort of verbal enquiry. She felt rather thickheaded.

“Are you a virgin, lass?”

She blinked up at him for several heart-stopping seconds. On some level she knew why he needed to know, but her answer was the simple honest truth, without strategy or consideration for the future. “Yes.”

He bowed his head and looked down to where they were intimately connected, with only his kilt and her skirt as barriers to lovemaking.

He seemed to be working hard to control his movements down below.

“Why do you want to know that?” she asked.

His eyes lifted. They were on fire with lust. “If you were not a virgin, it wouldn’t matter so much what we did tonight. No one would be able to prove anything, but seeing as you are innocent, I must be careful.”

“You mean that if I had been with a man before, you would be willing to make love to me tonight, even though I was pledged to another?”

“If you asked me to… Aye. How is that for honor, lass? Clearly I have none.”

She shook her head frantically. “That’s not true. If you had no honor, you would deflower me now, without ever asking. I am under your spell, Darach, but Gregory Chatham will expect me to be untouched on our wedding night. I must remain so, for I cannot take chances with my father’s life.”

Darach squeezed his eyes shut. “It kills me to hear you speak of your wedding night.”

He thrust his hips more firmly in angry circles.

“Please, Darach…. Maybe we should stop.”

His movements stilled. Then he opened his eyes and gazed down at her. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”

“But won’t this make it more difficult? Especially when we arrive at the castle?” She took a breath and swallowed uncomfortably. “I don’t know what’s happening here. I’ve never done anything like this before. We barely know each other.”

“I know everything I need to know about you, lass.”

“But after tonight, we must forget each other. You mustn’t tell anyone about this.”

A blinding fury in his eyes reflected the dancing flames of the fire.

“I won’t forget you,” he firmly said. “I will remember every last detail of your face and every word you’ve ever spoken to me. I’ll remember the flavor of your lips and the scent of your skin. I want you to remember me, too, lass.”

Her passions rose up suddenly and she lifted her head off the bedroll to kiss him deeply on the mouth. He crushed his full weight upon her, his lips hot and silky, his big hand roving down over the curve of her hip to the top of her thigh.

Wanting him urgently, she dug her fingers into the rippling muscles of his back, clutched at the fabric of his shirt, tugged at his tartan.

He gathered her skirt in his fist and drew it up until he could cup her bare knee and slide his hand up the inside of her thigh.

“Oh, Darach,” she whispered, “it feels so good when you touch me.”

“I want to make love to you,” he said. “Drive myself into you, take you as my own.”

Oh, how she wanted to give herself over to this incredible passion, this wanton desire that was quickly taking possession of her body. His hands, his mouth…. Heaven help her, she wanted all of him.

Hungry for more, she leaned up and tasted his neck, licking the salty skin just above the collar of his shirt. Then she greedily began to tug his shirt up until he sat back on his haunches and tore it off over his head. Smoothly, he lay back down, covering her with his hot skin. She ran her hands up and down his back, squeezing at the hard muscles, then slid them down lower over his kilt to his firm buttocks. He continued to thrust his hips and rub his manhood against the tender throbbing flesh between her open thighs.

But still…the fabric of her skirts and his kilt were barriers against penetration, and though it was a wise thing not to sweep the garments out of the way, it took immense power of will to resist it.

“I want to take this off you,” he ground out while laying wet, sucking kisses down the side of her neck and licking the tops of her breasts, just above the neckline of her shift and bodice. “I want to touch you and pleasure you. We’re safe above the waist. I could unlace you, lass. Touch you up here and not take your virginity. Please…let me have you up here.”

Breathless and dizzy, she nodded her head. He began at once, with fast roving fingers, to untie her laces and remove her bodice. He then used his teeth to pick at the knotted ribbon of her shift, opening it down to her belly and baring her breasts to the cool night air.

Her nipples tightened into firm peaks as he promptly took one into his mouth. Larena gasped in shock at the astonishing pleasure, for she’d never imagined a man could deliver such staggering delight by licking and suckling at a woman’s breasts. He groaned with hungry lust and tended to one breast devotedly before moving to the other. All she could do was throw her head back and cup his head in her hands, rake her fingers through his hair, and sigh with bliss.

“What are you doing to me?” she begged to know as his hand slid up under her skirt to the damp nest between her legs. Gently he used the heel of his palm to massage her, and the dual sensations from his tongue at her breast and his hand between her legs sent her into a frenzy of passion.

She was drowning in sensation, trapped between intolerable mounting pleasure and the desperate need for release. Her body tightened and her breathing grew rough and labored until a rush of heat shot outward from her core and all her muscles tensed and quivered. Her body became lost in spasms as she cried out, fisting thick wavy locks of Darach’s hair and grinding her hips forward.

He crushed her mouth with his own, silencing her cries with a kiss that prolonged the agony of his pulsing hand down below, bringing her to the very edges of sanity. Out of control with wanting, she wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles together, while pulling him close, clutching at his broad shoulders, burying her face in his neck.

He groaned with need. “Ah lass, what I wouldn’t give to be inside you right now.”

“We can’t,” she replied, which was the wrong thing to say. She wasn’t sure what the
right
thing would have been, but clearly this was not it, for he lifted his head and stared down at her with frustration.

A single heartbeat later, he rolled off her and rose to his feet, raked his hand through his hair and strode away from their tiny sanctuary in the rocks. The fog on the moor was thick as soup. As soon as he was away from the fire, he was completely gone from sight—as if he’d vanished into the mist. Only the crackling of the fire broke the interminable silence.

Larena sat up and tied the ribbons of her shift to close it over her breasts, then shrugged back into her bodice, and stood.

“Darach?” She looked all around. “Where are you?”

He offered no reply, and she had no idea how far he had walked or how long he would stay away.

Strolling to one of the big boulders and laying her hand on the rough stone, she strained to peer through the darkness. “Darach?” she called out again.

Eventually, the sound of footsteps stalking across the tangled bracken caused her to perk up, and she prayed it would be Darach and not some other uninvited guest.

Logan came to mind.

Like an apparition out of the fog, Darach appeared before her.

“I know I am supposed to hand you over tomorrow,” he said. “I gave you my word that’s what I would do, but the thought of it makes me sick, lass. It makes me want to strangle someone.”

“Not me, I hope.”

“Nay, not you.
Him
.”

She trembled with apprehension. “You don’t even know him.”

“Neither do you,” he practically spat. Then he brushed past her and returned to the fire. “It does not matter anyway. You’ve agreed to it, you’ve pledged a vow, so you’ll be giving yourself to him on your wedding night. But every time I imagine him touching you, undressing you, putting his hands on your body, my blood boils and my guts turns to acid.”