Under an Enchantment: A Novella (9 page)

And Ailie knew that she would finally know true magic this night. And madness as well.

Chapter 5

She looked like a ghost. A wraith, in her white nightrail with the mist surrounding her, kneeling in the center of the stone ring. Her breast was soft beneath his hand, but the tip hardened against his palm, and her blue eyes clouded in wonder and a longing that he’d have to be mad to deny.

Perhaps he was mad, as mad as she was, to be kneeling in the soft grass in the midst of a faerie ring, ready to take a lass who ought to be left in peace. He couldn’t tell himself it was revenge, or anger, or anything but a longing for her, stronger than the rage and grief that had filled him, stronger than his failed mission.

He wasn’t going to avenge his mother. He wasn’t going to punish Torquil Spens and his cohorts. He was going to make love to the girl kneeling in front of him, and he was going to remember her every day of his life.

If he had any decency at all, he’d let her be. But right then he was a stranger to decency, to honor. He lifted his hands and threaded them through her thick fall of golden hair, pushing it away from her face, telling himself he’d kiss her, just kiss her, and then he’d send her away. But her mouth was so sweet beneath his, as her body swayed against him, and he could feel the softness of her breasts against his open shirt, and he wanted to feel the warmth of her flesh against his, skin to skin, heat to heat.

Her lips were soft. It didn’t take much pressure to make her open her mouth, and he used his tongue, shocking her. He didn’t want to think about who had kissed her before. Who had been the first to take her body. All he could think about was how much he wanted her, needed her. Needed to lie with her in the grass with the sweet scent of crushed heather beneath them.

He took her hand in his, drawing it down his body, placing it on him, half hoping he’d shock her into running away. Instead she touched him with delicacy and wonder, her fingertips tracing his swollen length until he had to bite back a groan of need that threatened to shake him apart. He forced himself to endure the pleasure of it, until he could stand no more, pulling her hand away.

“
Don’t,” he said in a harsh voice.

“
You started it,” she said simply, looking up at him. “Ach, you make me crazy, selkie. Do you want me
or
no? I thought you’d come to the island to father a bairn. You’re not going about it very effectively.”

God, he wanted to smile at her. “I thought you were already crazy, Ailie. To be kneeling in the moonlight with a man you think is half seal isn’t the wisest act.”

She smiled then, and he was the one who was bewitched. “There’s a difference between wisdom and sanity. I believe what I wish to believe, I’m just as daft as I care to be. Until you came along. You upset me, selkie. Confuse me. I don’t know what I want from you.”

“
Don’t you?”

She shook back her hair. “Yes, I do,” she said suddenly. “I want to run away with you. Live in the clouds, live in the sea, I don’t care where. I want to lie with you and give you bairns, I want to walk barefoot with you and sing songs and dance. I want a man who’s as mad as I am, who’ll never make me be what he expects but only what I am.”

“
And you think I’m that man?”

She shook her head, and her expression was wry. “I think you’re here for cruel reasons, selkie. And I think I’m not wise enough to care. All I know is I want you to put your hands on me, and let the devil take the consequences.”He stared at her, telling himself he was a bastard in deed as well as name if he took her. Knowing that there was no longer any question of “if.”

He rose to his feet then, with one fluid movement, and he took her with him. Without a word he pulled her, away from the stone circle, into the scrubby forest, back the way he’d come. She followed behind him, her hand secured in his, barefoot, silent, and graceful, along the woodland path that led to the north end of the island.

His grandparents’ house was dark, deserted, as he pushed open the creaking door and drew her inside. He moved with unerring instinct, up the narrow, dusty stairs, and she followed after him, foolishly trusting him.

The mist had lifted by the sea, and a full moon shone down, in the window of the little bedroom under the eaves, turning the narrow iron bed silver in the moonlight, creating a halo around Ailie Spens’s rich mane of hair. She looked up at him, guileless, believing in him, and he told himself he’d give her one more chance to save herself.

He took her hand and placed it against his chest, against the thudding certainty of his heart. “I can’t promise you anything. Not true love, nor tenderness, nor even tomorrow. You think I’m a selkie, come from the sea to claim you.”

She smiled at him, a tall woman, looking almost directly into his eyes, and the room was filled with the scent of the sea, the ancient wood, the pine and the heather and the crushed grass that clung to her white nightdress. “You’ve come from the sea to claim me,” she said in a hushed voice. “As to whether you’re a selkie or not, I don’t really give a damn. All I know is that I want you. Put your hands on me, Malcolm. Please.”

There was no way he could resist her, looking at him with such beguiling sweetness, asking for what he needed to give her. The past, the future slid away, so that there was only the two of them, standing by the bed in the moonlight, she in her nightdress, he in breeches and an old shirt that would be all too easily discarded.

“
Run away, Ailie,” he forced himself to say. “This is your last chance.”

Sudden confusion crossed her face, and she began to pull her hand away from him. “Don’t you want me?” she whispered.

It finished him. “Lass, I’d have to be mad not to want you. And you’re supposed to be the daft one around here.” He pulled her up against him, her strong, slender body fitting against his, perfectly, and he groaned, a harsh sound of longing and regret in the back of his throat.

Ailie told herself she ought to be frightened. Frightened of the tall, dark man in the bedroom with her, his hands at the neck of her nightgown, unfastening the buttons with an unnerving dexterity, his eyes intent. He’d done this before, she thought. Many many times. It would mean nothing to him, and it would mean the world to her.

She wanted him to leave her with a bairn. Because leave he would, she knew it. He’d walk back into the sea and disappear, leaving her to grieve and mourn, and she wanted something of his to cherish.

Crazy she might be, but she loved him. She knew that what lay between them had nothing to do with common sense or practicality, with sanity and wisdom. It was basic, elemental, and magic, and if it was one-sided, so be it. She would take what he was willing to give her, claim him as he claimed her.

The night air was cool on her shoulders as he slipped the gown away from her, and it pooled at her feet, leaving her naked in the moonlight.

She had no false modesty as he looked down at her, his sea-green eyes hooded, unreadable. She was as she was, and he could either accept her or not.

“
Get on the bed,” he said.

“
In a moment,” she replied in a deceptively tranquil voice, and reached up to unfasten his loose white shirt.

She wanted him to think she was calm, used to this sort of thing, when in truth she’d never seen an undressed man in her life. Sir Duncan’s few attempts had been made under the cover of darkness, and while Fiona had given her detailed explanations of what went on between the two sexes, it was still all a matter of theory. She wanted to see what he looked like. She wanted to learn all of him. And she didn’t want him to know she was nervous.

He tried so hard to be cool and wicked, but beneath that mocking exterior was the soul of a selkie, gentle and pure. If he knew she was untouched, if he knew she loved him, he would leave her be, and that would be the cruelest blow of all. Better he thought her experienced and bold. She could only hope that he didn’t notice her hands were trembling as she pulled the shirttails from his tight black breeches.

But Malcolm was a man who noticed everything. He caught her hands in his, stilling them. “You’re cold,” he said.

Cold from fear, but she wouldn’t tell him that. Not when she was blazingly hot as well. His hands slid up her wrists, to her elbows, and she swayed against him, looking up, hoping he wouldn’t notice the faint shadow of worry that haunted her. If he’d simply kiss her again, she wouldn’t notice the cold. If he lay with her on the bed, his big strong body covering hers, she wouldn’t notice the cold.

His mouth was hot and wet against hers, and she felt that familiar/unfamiliar coil of desire in the pit of her stomach. He released her hands, and she slid them around his waist, against his bare, taut skin that was burningly hot, and she wanted his warmth, wanted his heat.

The bed was small and sagging beneath her, but she scarcely noticed as he followed her down, covering her, still half-clothed, his body pressed against her, between her legs, as he cupped her face in his hands and began to kiss her. His lips against her eyelids, her cheekbones, the corner of her mouth, were tempting, arousing, and she tried to turn her head, to catch his mouth with hers and kiss him back, but he was having none of it. His hands covered her breasts and she shivered with the wonder of it, arching against him.

His hands were rough, callused, the hands of a man who wasn’t afraid of working for a living. The moonlight was like a benediction, blanketing their bodies, and she closed her eyes, giving in to the wonder of it, as his mouth moved down the line of her throat, to taste her hammering pulse, and then to capture her breast, like a wee babe suckling.

But this was no maternal feeling pounding through her. This was no gentle faerie coupling such as she’d long imagined. This was desire, hot, heavy in her blood, something that was a far cry from her daydreams of lying down in the heather with a selkie.

His hand moved between her legs, touching her there, and she knew a sudden fear. His fingers slid deep, into her heated dampness, and she moaned, a sound of entreaty and protest. He was a deft man, able to kiss her as his hand kept up its inexorable stroking, and she wanted to stop him, to change her mind. This was rapidly spiraling out of her control, and it frightened her, she who was frightened of nothing. The pleasure was too sharp, too overwhelming, and she wanted nothing more than to run away and hide.

She tried to pull away, but he was having none of it. His mouth left hers, to trail a path of damp, erotic kisses across her cheekbone to her ear. He caught the lobe between his teeth, biting gently, and she jerked against the wondrous encroachment of his hand, as new warmth suffused her body.

“
Easy,
m’eudail
,” he whispered in her ear. “I won’t hurt you. You’ve given yourself to me. Are you wanting to change your mind?”

Her eyes met his in the moon-gilded darkness. He would leave her if she asked. If she told him the truth. And that was the worst fear, the worst devastation of all.

She ran her hands up the smooth, heated length of his body. “No,” she whispered, brushing her lips against his. Wishing she’d paid just a wee bit more attention when Morag had told her of the things that went on between men and women. At the time she hadn’t been interested, faced only with the prospect of Torquil.

Now she wished she had more solid knowledge to allay her fears. She could feel him through his tight black breeches, and he was very large indeed. She didn’t think it was going to work.

She told him so, not wishing to discourage him. He kissed her then, silencing most of her doubts, and then he rose, shucking his breeches and tossing them over the side of the narrow bed.

Lord, he was a bonnie man in the moonlight! It was no wonder that no sensible woman could ever resist a selkie. Ailie’s sense had been banished long ago, and she stared up at him, lean and strong, with gilded skin and long black hair.

He knelt between her legs, and she could feel him, hard and hot against her. She closed her eyes, bracing for the first stroke, bracing for the pain, and she clamped her teeth down on her lip to stifle any errant cry.

He didn’t move. “Open your eyes, Ailie,” he said in a soft voice that brooked no denial.

She did so, unwillingly. She could see the rigid cord of the muscles in his arms as he braced himself over her, see the faint sheen of sweat that covered his beautiful body.

“
That’s right,” he murmured approvingly. “You look as if you’re expecting the worst. It’s not going to hurt, love.” He took her hands and placed them on his shoulders. “I know fine how to do this without making a botch of it. Trust me, Ailie.”

Oh, but she did, in ways he couldn’t begin to know. She smiled up at him, a wary smile, but a smile nonetheless, hoping he wouldn’t see the fear in her eyes.

He smiled back at her, and the pressure increased as he pushed his hips forward. “You should remember it only hurt the first time you did this.”

She said nothing, closing her eyes again, the better to savor his relentless invasion. His breathing was harsh, labored, as he struggled to control himself, and she was afraid of that control. Afraid that he still might leave her.

She slid her arms past his shoulders, around his neck, under the long black hair. She raised her hips to meet his steady advance, she put her mouth against his, and her tongue met his, mimicking what he’d taught her and what she’d learned to like so well.