She’d be lost, swept beyond mere oblivion. Every fiber of her being vibrated with wanton anticipation for the ecstasy awaiting her.
“Nay.” The contrary command escaped her lips before she knew what she was about. Her hands framed his face and coaxed him upward. “I want ye, Finn. I want ye now.”
She wanted him with her. To join her in the journey.
Ever the considerate lover, Finn confirmed her readiness for himself with a satisfied growl. “Losh, ye’re wet for me.”
“I always am.” Aila closed her eyes when the confession slipped out. She fumbled at the remaining buttons of his breeches until he sprang free. Hot and ready. “Take me.”
With a primitive groan, he grasped her hips and drove into her ready heat. Their shouts of triumph tangled together as he seated himself to the core. Her body bowed against him, ankles locked to hold him there. He permitted it as he did each time they came together, that pause provided her a moment to savor the staggering bliss of his possession before he drove her to the exaltation of another mind-boggling orgasm.
This one came with mortifying speed. Perhaps it was the added visual that set her off so soon. If the play of shadows and dying firelight were that effective, she feared what would become of her if they ever had sex when they could actually see one another.
Oh, whatever it was, Aila buried her face against his chest to muffle the scream that tore through with her release. Her body convulsed around his member still hard and throbbing inside her.
“See?” she mumbled into the curve of his neck, helpless against the urge to lick the underside of his chin along the way. “This is no’ normal.”
His soft chuckle warmed her ear. “For us it is, I think.”
He began to move in long, languid strokes to coax her replete body back to life. Each deeper than the last. Lost in the darkness, each contact was heightened. The feel of smooth skin over the steel of muscle. The sound of his ragged breaths. The smell of soap in his hair. The taste of him. Whisky and seduction. Each sensual thrust that demonstrated his patience to wait for her to get caught up in the maelstrom of their passion with him again before he let go. She clung to him and let him have his way. Her breath caught. A signal for his pace to increase until he drove into her with desperate gasps to mark each thrust. Her fevered body tensed against the storm.
“Finn.” The word was a thin, pleading wail.
“Losh, Aila.” His lips brushed her temple. “Gèilleadh dhomh.”
She had no idea what the words meant, but delivered in a husky, passionate brogue they were sensual enough to send her over the edge. She refused to go alone this time, however. Locking her ankles, she refused to let him withdraw as he always did. She clenched him tight, arched against him, and dragged him into the abyss with her.
“Mo Dhia,” he groaned. “Is leatsa mo chorp. Mo chridhe…”
Chapter 18
Finn ran his hand over Aila’s bare hip, her skin like a silken road to paradise. What would that make her luscious bottom then, snuggled up as it was against his groin? A scornful smile curved his lips. Alas, he’d never claimed to be a poet. Or a connoisseur of anything beyond a good whisky and a good book.
He’d never had occasion to give undue consideration to his prowess as a lover — beyond an overall gratification in the knowledge that he’d brought first lovers, then his wife, the same satisfaction in bed that they brought him. These past few days however….
Och, perhaps his reaction to making love with Aila was inflated by years of celibacy. He was so attuned to her every response — spoken and unspoken, sighed and cried out — he knew where to touch her, how to arouse her, and how to move to take her to a fever pitch of rapture. By instinct alone, he played her body with the skill of an aficionado of the sensual arts.
As she played his.
The will of his body had proven victorious over a reasonable mind this night. He feared any further battles between the two of them would end in much the same fashion. Never in his thirty-four years had he been set so atremble by the touch of one winsome lass. It was rather humbling to know she had the power to take him to his knees.
At the height of his passion, he’d begged her to surrender to him. In truth, he’d willingly fall to his knees for another chance to supplicate himself at the lush altar of her body.
She was right. It was a bit of an anomaly, this reaction he had to her presence. To the lightest caress of her hand…the carnal curl of her tongue around his…
Her bottom wriggled against his hardening groin. “Again already?”
Aye, again and again and yet again.
It was madness. Coming inside of her… Losh, it had been so long since he’d done that. It was a moment in Paradise that he should regret. Instead, he couldn’t wait to do it again. To take her with every ounce of the fever that raged inside him and release it in a mindless fury. Mindless? There wasn’t a moment when his mind was at rest. Especially when it came to her. Bugger it, all he could think about was her. Touching her. Taking her. She’d said much the same earlier. Said that was her only purpose.
Because of her, his focus would be lost to the wind if he didn’t snatch it back soon.
“Ah, there it is.” Was she so attuned to him she could feel the shift in his very mood? “I wager ye’d feel better if ye talked about what’s bothering ye.”
Finn rolled his eyes with a groan. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph no’ again. What is it with ye?”
“It can be cathartic to talk about yer feelings. What troubles ye.”
With a yawn, she snuggled deeper in the circle of his arms. Such trust when he couldn’t offer his completely in return. He was missing something. He just couldn’t place what it was yet.
“I’ll tell ye what troubles me….”
Ye. What ye do to me. What I do to ye. All of it.
He offered none of this aloud. “I shouldnae have spent myself inside of ye.”
“Is that’s what bothering ye?” A huff of laughter shook her shoulders. “Dinnae fash, it’s my fault. I would no’ let ye go.”
As if she could have stopped him had he chosen to do the right thing. “If ye become with child—”
She rolled on to her back and pressed her fingers to his lips. “Dinnae dwell on what willnae happen.”
“If God wills it—”
She pinched his lips closed. “It will no’. Ye’ll have to trust me on that one.”
“Are ye a witch to see the future?”
“If I were, I would no’ dare admit it.” In the darkness, he made out the curve of her lips. “I have nae desire to be burned at the stake.”
“Yet ye torment me as if the fires of hell were at my feet.” His thoughts turned back to the questions he’d entertained before she had…aye, bewitched him. “Ye dinnae answer my queries earlier.”
She stiffened in his arms. “Oh, that. I forgot about that.”
“Aye, I wager ye did.” God knew she wouldn’t have asked the question in the first place if she recalled the subject interrupted by their lovemaking.
“What brought ye to Inveraray, lass? Employment? I cannae imagine what would compel an unattached woman to take up such a position. I ken the Adams brothers from our years at Edinburgh University, but how did a lass from the Orkneys become associated with them?”
She was silent for so long, Finn thought she wasn’t going to answer. When she spoke, her voice was hushed. “I’ve nae parents, nae family to speak of except a brother. We’re no’ close. I’ve sort of adopted my best friend’s grandmother as my own. Just to ken what it’s like to have one.” She kept her face averted from him as she spoke, eyes closed as if she were too tired to open them. He knew her body though. Aye, he knew it well. While she hadn’t moved a muscle, she was as tense as a stag in the seconds before it raced away from a hunter’s sights. “I broke it off with my ex-boyfriend almost six months ago now —”
“Yer what? Ye mean yer husband?”
“Nay, I’ve never been married.” She turned her h
ead to look at him, her fine features barely discernable in the dim room. “I’m talking about a former…what’s the word? Beau? Suitor?”
Aila hadn’t been a virgin when he first bedded her. As she wore no ring and traveled alone, he’d assumed she was a widow. Never been married? That meant that once before she’d wanted a man enough to bed him outside the bonds of matrimony.
“We dinnae part on the best of terms.” She looked away again. A sigh and exhale curled her shoulders into a huddle.
It wasn’t shame that bowed her body so. As she’d proven herself to be outspoken on the disparity between commending a man for his sexual experience and castigating a woman for hers, it couldn’t have been embarrassment that caused her to withdraw into herself. She wouldn’t consider her reputation compromised by an affair. He also knew she wouldn’t appreciate questions about her lack of innocence. That’s why he hadn’t asked before about who’d been the first to bed her. The truth of it had no influence on his opinion of her — she’d rain bloody hell upon him if he dared say so.
That didn’t mean that he hadn’t wondered. Hadn’t experienced a shocking jolt of jealousy for the man who had once been the object of Aila’s desire. Who’d known her body and passion as he did.
“Suffice it to say, I’ve been at odds,” she continued, unaware of his rumination. Even in the dim light, he could read the sincerity in her eyes. “Looking for something new. Something to give me purpose. When I was offered the opportunity to come here, I took it. That’s the truth of it.”
“And the architects?”
Another pause. “The architect of all this is an acquaintance of my friend’s grandmother.”
The words rang with truth, nevertheless he couldn’t help but feel she withheld something more from him.
“Ye said ye dinnae part from this suitor of yers on the best of terms?” She stiffened again and he knew he’d struck a nerve. “What happened?”
Her head shook against the pillow. “We had differing views on the anatomy of the perfect relationship. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
She was hiding something. He sensed it. “I dinnae think I can. I get the impression it was something more specific.”
“It wouldnae make any sense to ye.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Aila pushed aside the bedcovers and tried to rise. He caught her around the waist and pulled her back down. When she struggled, he pinned her beneath him. “Ye can trust me with the truth, lass.”
“As ye trust me?” She glared up at him. “Tell me, what is yer truth, Finn?”
“Da?”
With that single, questioning word, Finn stiffened with all the folly of a man who thought he might disappear from sight if he remained motionless. Beneath him, Aila stilled as well. A grimace of pure dread on her lips. One he mirrored when his daughter spoke again.
“What are ye doing on top of Aila?”
There was no way to answer that question sufficiently. Finn countered it with one of his own.
“Effie, what are ye doing here, lass? Ye should be asleep.”
He climbed off the bed — off Aila — dragging a sheet along to wrap around him while she buried herself under the coverlet.
“I dinnae feel well, Da,” she whimpered, rubbing her eye with one fist and her stomach with another. “My belly hurts.”
“Got yerself a case of the mulligrubs, have ye?” He lit a candle and squatted down in front of her with a smile. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d conjured a fanciful infliction to garner his attention. “I warned ye no’ to eat too much Dundee cake, did I no’?”
“I ate Aila’s care-a-mel, too.” Before he could ask what that was, she flung her arms around his shoulders with a pitiful sob. “I’m sorry!”
“There now, dinnae fret, lassie. Nae one is upset with ye.” He dropped to his knees and took her in his arms. He glanced over at Aila to see her struggle either under the bedcovers or with them. It was hard to tell. “Do ye have any idea what she’s talking about?”
“Sweets,” her voice was muffled. “She must have found the rest of my stash and gotten a belly ache for her trouble.”
She emerged from beneath the covers with her neckline tightly gathered and tied once more. She combed her hair over her shoulder with her fingers to regain some semblance of order and scrambled off the bed. He thought he saw a flash of unusual color on her thigh before she pulled on her skirt, but didn’t pay it much attention. Right now, he was more concerned with the other lass in his life. One who was uncommonly warm in his arms.
Worry swept away all other thought. “She’s feverish.”
* * *
“What?” Aila laid a hand over Effie’s forehead. “She is a tad warm.”
More than a tad. She could feel the heat radiating off Effie’s flushed cheeks from inches away. Her nightgown was damp with sweat, and she was shivering. This was something other than payback of too much candy.
Finn scooped his daughter up and carried her to the bed. Smoothing her hair back from her temples, he whispered calm assurances that she would be fine.
What if she wasn’t? Aila moaned when it came to her. “I’m so sorry, Finn. I should never have taken her to the mill. Mr. Boyce hisnae been well. I kent it and took her anyway. Ian said it wisnae catching—”
“It isnae,” he cut her off with a frown. “Half my workers have come down with the same. Men I work next to day in and day out. I’ve no’ suffered any such malady. Besides, ye were there, too. Are ye ill?”
Nay, but she had the power of twenty-first century inoculations running through her blood to protect her from most random illness. Either way, whether it was exposure to sickness or too much candy, it was her fault Effie suffered. “What can I do?”
What could she do? She’d always prided herself on her composure in emergencies. Grace under pressure. In her time, with the normal sort of crises afoot, she was all those things.
Here in this time, she hadn’t a clue what to do. Panic was not the answer. Obviously. Aila took a deep breath and tried to think. Call for a doctor? Did they have those yet? Her mind blanked. How did they fight fever in this time?
“Bring some cool water and a rag.”
The instructions were surprisingly composed. His serenity in the face of adversity recalled her rational mind and the realization that there was something more she could offer than water.
The better way to fight a fever. The right way.
Lighting a nubby candle, she shoved it into a silver chamberstick. Dashing down the hall to her room as fast as the candle’s flickering flame would accept. Rab leapt off the bed as she entered, gave her a sniff and bolted out the door. A second later, Effie bawled his name.
Aila opened her trunk and burrowed through it to find her purse. Digging through it, she retrieved a small plastic bottle where she stashed a collection of pills in case of emergency. Migraine medicine, pills to ease her monthly cramps in case of emergency…and aspirin.
God’s gift to the modern world.
In a historic world such as this?
A bloody miracle.
Chapter 19
Three days later
“Tell me another story, Aila.”
“I’m sorry?”
“May I please have another story, Aila?”
“Better.”
Effie’s fever vanished with miraculous speed. So fast, Finn would have thought he imagined her ruddy face. It reappeared the next morning only to recede again with the same haste. Many in the village had been taken with a severe infliction of the bowels, vomiting, and burning fever. Those first couple of days had been hell for him. Sleepless nights and tormenting days, he stood vigil at Effie’s bedside, awash with the fear that she would succumb to the fever. He’d known children, even robust ones, to perish under lesser illness than hers.
When she’d awoken this morning, her symptoms were — thank the good Lord — far less severe. A slight warmth that flushed her cheeks, wooziness, nausea, and an audible gurgle of h
er stomach that was her greatest complaint. Nothing so dire that he feared for her life or safe recovery any longer. His worse fears were laid to rest.
Thank God for Aila. She’d stayed with him night and day. She nursed his daughter with care and soothed his worries with unwavering assurances.
Since the worst of Effie’s sickness had passed, she’d been the calm amidst the storm. A salve to his sanity.
This indisposition had turned his sweet daughter into a virago. She was temperamental and demanding. Cross at being kept inside when she wanted to play outside. The pouring rain that had marked each day since the onset of her illness made no difference on the matter. She jumped on her bed with the announcement that she felt much better, only to feign an aching belly when he tried to leave the room to bathe. She’d want milk, then water. Happy with neither. A book then a story told her, with no satisfaction in either. Even Aila’s dog couldn’t draw her from her doldrums for long.
Aila had been right about his children being spoiled. Either that, or he’d sired the worst patient in history. He suspected it was the former.
Aila also set an admirable example for him to emulate in dealing with his daughter’s tantrums. When Effie’s symptoms were bothersome, Aila was attentive and caring. She offered diversions and suggestions to pass the time. When his lass became demanding or threw a fit, Aila studiously ignored her then lavished attention on her when she asked for things more politely. Aila called it positive reinforcement and suggested that conceding to Effie’s demands only encouraged more of the same.
While the effect wasn’t instantaneous in his case, Effie became a far easier patient.
Aila also had his daughter practice something called “self soothing.” When Effie was frustrated or angry, she was to close her eyes and breathe in slow, measured breaths. To picture her “happy place.”
Or some such nonsense.
A Good Scot is Hard to Find (Something About a Highlander Book 2) Page 16
