He scarce understood himself.
She touched his jaw, lighting her fingers across his beard. “It is what, lord?”
“I am nae lord, only Iain.” Frustration made his chest tighten, his heart thud against his ribs. “Your Master of the Highlands, I’ll accept.” He managed a smile, a crooked one. “And you, sweeting, you are-” He broke off again, paced a few strides and then whirled back to face her. “You are…we are-
“Odin’s bone!” He tipped back his head, stared up at the raftered ceiling. He could be such a buffoon. He was not good with words.
Behind him, Madeline laughed. “That bad?”
“What?”
“I am Odin’s bone?”
“Gods, nae.” He started to turn away, just long enough to regain his composure, but she came forward, circled her fingers around his arm.
She looked up at him, her gaze just as firm. “Tell me, please. What am I?”
“I dinnae want to frighten you.”
“You could never do that.” She smiled. “You also forget I am a Drummond.”
“Daring lasses, eh?”
Her chin came up. “It is true. Never doubt it.”
“I would no’ dare.”
But warning bells rang all through him. He knew the reason. He couldn’t bear to lose her.
And so…
“You are my bane,” he said, speaking quickly before his better sense could stop him from making such a silly-sounding pronouncement.
“‘Tis a clan legend,” he rushed on, trying to get past the explanation before her eyes widened any further. “The Bane of the MacLeans. A blessing or a curse, depending on how it strikes.”
Confusion clouded her eyes. “I am your bane?”
“Aye, I am sure of it,” he told her true.
“Why bane?”
He shrugged. “Bane is what the legend is called by the bards.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, kneaded them.
“MacLean males are said to have but one true mate,” he began, willing her to believe him.
“One true love?” Her voice held wonder.
“So it is said. We all have a woman bound to us from time immemorial according to clan belief. Nae other love can compare, and a MacLean man will search relentlessly, never finding peace or contentment, until he is joined with this woman, his bane.”
“And you believe this?”
“I do now.”
“Are you saying what I think?” She stared at him, her eyes luminous in the candle shine. “You believe I am your bane? That I am this woman to you?”
“I dinnae jest, sweeting.” Iain heaved a sigh, drained from his speech and feeling a mite ridiculous.
Half-afraid she might yet laugh.
Or think him daft.
She was a strong and intelligent woman. She might scoff at old Celtic myths and lore.
But she’d voiced a direct question and deserved his answer.
“Aye, lass, you are the bane of my heart. I have known it, known you, for months now.” He told her true. “I met you inside my heart, knew of your existence the first moment I sensed your presence.
“That was at the beginning of my journey.” He lowered his head, kissed her softly. “The night I sailed from Doon.”
“Oh, my.” She gasped, her red-gold brows winging upward. “You sensed me?”
The warning bells came back, and louder.
Iain ignored them.
“I felt you, sweet. Deep, deep inside me,” he admitted, watching her carefully, wondering at her lack of surprise.
“‘Tis the way of the legend. When the time is right, the MacLean male becomes aware of his bane. He will sense her, the sennachies claim.” He kissed her again. “He’ll know she is out there, somewhere in the great vastness of the world, and so he waits for her.”
“Ahhh…” She tilted her head, her braids gleaming in the candlelight. “He doesn’t search for her?”
“He will if he can. For sure, if that is so, he’ll scour the width and breadth of the land, and tirelessly, until he finds her. That he will do,” he said, knowing that for her, he’d have even crossed the greatest sea.
“But?”
“Sometimes circumstances prevent him.”
“And you were one who had to wait?” She blinked, her eyes bright.
“Aye, I could no’ seek my fate at will as others before me. Nor did I believe in the legend.” He glanced aside, released a long breath.
“I dinnae think I accepted any bit of the tales until that day in Glasgow Cathedral,” he owned. “Then I knew, could no longer deny it. I felt you inside the moment I swung down from my horse before the cathedral steps.”
He traced a finger down her cheek, and that wee touch blasted heat all through him. Just standing close to her lit fires inside him, even made his soul soar.
He wanted her badly, and soon.
“You knew I was in there?” She peered at him, her face alight with something he couldn’t define, something beautiful.
“So I did. But, as I told you, a part of me knew even before then,” he said, marveling at the silken warmth of her skin, how smooth and precious it felt beneath his touch.
How right and dear.
So very much his.
“A bard might say my heart was aware, drawn to you as if by a magical silvered thread.” He shrugged. “All I know is that I sensed you at Glasgow. Had we no’ met as we did, I would’ve still spotted you, recognizing you.”
“How?”
“Because, sweet, I had been feeling you so strongly inside me,” he explained, toying with a loose curl just above her ear. “I knew you as a fine golden warmth that would come unbidden to spool all through me, chasing away my shadows.”
And setting my loins to stone.
“I have felt you in a similar way,” she said, surprising him.
“You did?”
“Too many times to count,” she admitted, and reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “I will tell you true as you unburdened yourself to me. Since birth, I have the ability to sometimes hear the thoughts of others. To feel their joy or heartbreak, any strong emotion running through them.”
She paused, drew a breath. “Most often, such impressions are fleeting as an eye-blink. And never at will.”
“And with me?” Iain could hardly speak. “That was different?”
“It was.” She lifted up on her toes, kissing him this time. “Always, I could feel you.”
“What did you think of that?”
“I ached to know you,” she said, her eyes shining. “I wanted to be one with you.”
Something leapt inside Iain.
Her words let him forget his cares, made him want to sink into the solace she brought him. Earthier, more heated needs, fueled desires he hadn’t known he possessed. And he was supposed to be the seducer. The one in charge and control, beguiling her.
“I would feel you this night.” She let her free hand glide across his shoulder, down his arm.
“Feel me?” He knew what she meant – it stood all over her.
The hard throbbing at his groin also knew.
“Do you ken what you’re saying?”
“Of course.” She held his gaze. “I would share this night with you. Savor it fully.”
“This fully?” Iain skimmed his fingers across the lush, upper swells of her breasts.
“More fully.” She touched his face, traced the hard line of his jaw.
“You were made for passion.” Iain grasped her hips, pulled her close. “I want you,” he said, his voice rough.. “But I will no’ press you into something you might regret on the morrow.”
“It is because of the morrow that I want this.” She pulled away from him to turn back the bedcovering.
“I wish to open my heart and body to this force between us.” She paused, plumping the pillows. “It is rare and powerful and true. But the fates could conspire against us, the morrow leaving one of us with cause to grieve.”
Grasping her
shoulders, Iain turned her. “You wish to lie with me?”
“I do.” She stood tall, proud. “I have never desired anything more.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Precious lass, I could devour you whole,” Iain said, backing her to the edge of the bed. “And even that pleasure would no’ be enough.”
“I would not stop you.” She dropped onto the mattress. “You make me as hungry.”
Madeline’s blood raced. Just the heated darkness in his eyes as he removed the pins from her hair sent pleasure rippling through her. When he began undoing her braids, his fingers working so gently, delicious tingles fluttered low in her belly.
“You are a vixen,” me with needshe drew up one knee, rubbed it along his thigh and hip.
“A vixen?” She smiled up at him. “I only know I am yours.”
“And that will always be so.” Leaning in, he nuzzled her neck through her unbound hair. “Sakes, but I want you so fiercely.”
“And I will never have enough of you,” she said, her pulse racing for he’d somehow not only undone her braids but also managed to untie the laces of her bodice, magically sliding it and her undergown down her shoulders without her even realizing it.
Her breasts sprang free, nothing standing between her bared skin and his heated gaze but the cold night air streaming in through the chamber’s half-opened window.
“You have magnificent breasts, lady mine,” he told her, lightly rubbing his thumbs back and forth across their crests. “I could ne’er tire of admiring them,” he added, now splaying his hands across their fullness. “No’ if I lived a thousand years.”
“And your touch is as I knew it would be – tender yet thrilling, sweet but so rousing I am feeling things I doubt any well-bred lady should admit.”
“You are my lady.” He smiled, his hands still working their magic. “I would be grieved if e’er you speak less plain with me.”
“Praise be.” She laughed, still sure she’d turned wanton. But now…
She no longer cared.
“I have even more plain speaking for you,” she said as he slid his hands up and down her sides, exploring her hips, the rounds of her buttocks. “I have dreamed of us doing these things. Imagined the thrill and wickedness, the pleasure…”
“Then lift your hips, bonnie lass,” he said, and when she did, he eased her clothes down her thighs. She helped him by raising her legs until he’d pulled every last stitch from her body and she sat full naked before him.
“You stop my heart, sweetness.” Iain stepped back so he could look his fill at her, savor her beauty as he removed his own clothes. Her hair spilled to her hips, while the hardened peaks of her breasts thrust through the gleaming red-gold strands.
“Do you ken what it does to me to see you like this? So open to me?” Coming closer, he looked down at her, let his gaze travel her length before locking gazes with her.
“Tell me I am no’ dreaming, lass, for if I am I dinnae want to waken.” He lifted a hand to brush her hair behind her shoulders, so freeing her breasts. “I would that you know I have ne’er desired a woman more than you.” He caressed down her sides again, rested his hands on her hips, kneading gently. “That from this night onward, I willnae be whole without you.”
“I feel the same.” Taking his hand, she pressed his fingers against her breast, there, where he could feel the steady beat of her heart. “You are in me here, filling me with need and warmth such as I never dreamed existed – and it was so from the very first time my heart sensed you, as I have told you,” she said, speaking true.
“You consumed me and I ached for your caress.” She drew a long, slow breath, arched her back, desire pulsing deep between her thighs. “Just keep touching me, please. Even the moment you took to reach from my hips to smooth back my hair left me aching for your hands on me.”
She sighed, melting beneath his heated gaze. She burned to pull him to her, rub her breasts against his naked chest, delight in the friction of his chest hair against her bared skin.
“You shall have my hands and more,” he promised, leaning down to flick his tongue across first one nipple, then the other. “You are purring,” he added, and drew a nipple into his mouth, taking the hardened peak lightly between his teeth, using his fingers to circle and pluck at the other.
“Do not stop,” Madeline breathed, the sweetest tension spreading through her belly, pulsing there and deeper.
“Oh, I shall no’ do that, minx.” He pulled back to look at her. “No’ until I have tasted and sated myself on all of you. I mean to drag my tongue through your deepest heat and savor the very essence of you.”
“Do you mean what I think you do?” she asked, already melting in anticipation. “Can it be you think to…?
She couldn’t finish, not quite that daring.
He flashed a wolfish smile. “Aye, sweeting, I shall devour you – lick, taste, and dine on your womanhood.”
“Mercy!” she gasped, a strange combination of eagerness and embarrassment humming inside her as he smoothed his fingertips up and down the outer edges of her thighs, each glide sending tingly warmth through her.
“You are mine,” he vowed, easing her onto her back and stretching out beside her. “And I am yours. This night and always, for all time.”
He rained the lightest of kisses along the curve of her throat, over her breasts, then lower still, across the smoothness of her belly – and then downward toward her most intimate place.
“Finding you released me from such darkness,” he said, swirling his hand across her abdomen, letting his fingertips brush over the tips of her feminine hair. He teased her there, using lighter-than-air touches to toy with the curls.
“A bard would say you pulled down the sun, caused it to shine on me, bringing me back to life.”
“You have done the same for me,” she admitted, parting her legs, gladly opening them so he could deepen his explorations. The delicious things he was doing to her.
Wanting, needing him to keep on, to never stop.
“I want you in all ways this night,” she reminded him, sliding her hands over the hard muscles of his shoulders and upper arms.
“You are so lovely,” he said, and obliged her, closing his palm over the slick heat of her woman’s flesh. Very deliberately, he rubbed her with the same, delicious slow circling motion his other hand used on her breast.
“Then make me yours so fully I will be able to taste and remember your scent on my skin for the rest of days,” she said, trembling with need. “Only so could I bear the stretch of my tomorrows if the next setting sun should find me without you.”
“That willnae happen,” he promised, squeezing and stroking her intimate flesh. “You needn’t fret o’er the morrow. The fates would ne’er be so unkind. I have already paid them a goodly enough tithe, I’d say.”
She shivered. “I hope you are right.”
“I am.”
Pleased when some of the worry left her brow, he shifted his position and lifted her legs, settling them over his shoulders. His own need now a raw and raging ache, he looked straight into the glory of her.
“Och, my heart…” He inhaled deeply of her rousing female scent, pulled in great, greedy gulps of her essence. “Gods, but you bring me to my knees,” he said, his deep voice husky with passion.
Consumed with the need to taste her, he lowered his head until his lips hovered just above her fragrant heat. His breath coming hot and ragged, he touched his tongue to her, flicking its tip oh-so-lightly up and down the soft crevice between her thighs.
“Be warned, sweeting – I shall ne’er let you go,” he breathed against her silken warmth. He licked her fully now, dragging his tongue again and again through her sweetness.
“I do not want you to let me go, and ‘tis you who are beautiful,” she gave back, stretching her fingers through his hair, holding his dark head close to her center. “Never have I-…oh!”
She cried out, arching upward, pressing hard against him as he ci
rcled his tongue around and over a maddeningly sensitive spot near the top of her woman’s mound.
“So sweet, so sweet.” He paused to blow soft, warm breath across the tingly place. Then he resumed the tongue-circles, but just when she thought she might splinter apart – so good did she feel – he eased away and once again licked the whole of her, melting her with long, wide-tongued strokes, drawing his tongue over her with exquisite slowness.
“Sweet, aye,” Madeline gasped, looking down, imagining she should be shocked and appalled. But in truth, she was incredibly roused. The sight of his dark head between her thighs excited her. What he was doing felt so good nothing else mattered. And the way he reveled in drawing in her scent, her taste...
“Dear mercy…”
“Indeed,” he agreed, his voice muffled.
“You are wicked, sir.”
He glanced up. “Shall I stop?”
“Nae.”
“Well, then…” He blew on her.
“You will end me,” she cried, lifting her hips, straining to get closer.
He released another soft breath over her. “That willnae do, but this might.” He returned to the sensitive spot, settling his mouth there, drawing on the pulsing bead, flicking his tongue over it.
“Ahhh…” Madeline fisted her hands, bucked her hips.
Waves of tingling pleasure streamed through her, and her entire body tensed. Her need began to lift and crest, straining for something that spun ever tighter inside her. A wild pulsing began at her very center, an astonishing intensity about to shatter, the pleasure of it saturating her.
“Heart of my heart, I adore you,” Iain vowed then, rubbing his cheek against the tender flesh of her inner thigh. Pushing up, he stretched himself atop her, his weight on his arms. Easing her thighs wider, he settled himself between them, let his hardness rest against her as he reached down between them to keep stroking her sleek, female heat.
He slipped his fingers into her soft curls, returned to the tight and throbbing nub there, rubbing gently with concentrated, circling strokes.
“Ne’er doubt that I love you,” he murmured, his passion almost breaking when she parted her legs farther, opening them beneath him. Her soft gasps, and the gentle rocking of her hips, inviting him to make her truly his.
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