“Make me yours, Brody.” Dazed, enthralled, she stared up at him as he stood by the bed. “Don’t make me wait any longer. I’ve already waited forever.”
“Elspeth…” That proud, hawkish face softened so that if ever she’d doubted his love, she could never doubt it again. He stared at her as if she made the sun rise every day. Love shuddered through her. Love, and curiosity about how that love would find physical expression.
Her lips curved in a smile of welcome and to her amazement, the hand she extended toward him was steady. “Show me, my darling. Show me everything.”
***
Brody’s hands shook as he unbuckled his belt and unwrapped the kilt from around his waist. He was hard and heavy and ready for his wife. He watched Elspeth’s eyes grow so large that they threatened to swallow him altogether.
His lips twitched. “Och, say something, lassie, or I’ll think I’ve terrified ye into silence.”
Her gaze still focused on the thick column of flesh rising between his thighs. She licked her lips with an unconscious sensuality that sent arousal thundering through him.
“My goodness me.” Her gaze flickered up to meet his, then returned to his cock. “Will you fit?”
He laughed in delight and kneeled over her on the bed. “Aye, mo chridhe. With a bit of skill and a lot of care, I will indeed fit.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said doubtfully, even as she buried her hands in his hair and brought him down for an urgent kiss that set his heart pumping.
Through the heat igniting his blood to fire, Brody remained aware that he was a large man, and his bride was a small woman, and a virgin besides. He was proud to be the first man to possess her, but he owed it to Elspeth to see that her first experience of a man was everything she hoped for.
While his mouth was demanding on hers, his touch retained a hint of gentleness as he explored the hills and valleys of her luscious body. By the time he stroked between her legs, she was quaking and gasping. Feminine arousal weighted the air with evocative perfume.
She was wet and slick under his fingers, and when he touched the center of her pleasure, she released a husky moan of encouragement. He took his time, although holding back nearly killed him. His balls were tight and heavy, and every beat of his heart shouted for him to take her.
He used his fingers to penetrate her and introduce her to the rhythm of love. She tightened, and her hands dug into his biceps. Her lovely face was flushed, her eyes turned black with desire, and her small white teeth sank into her full lower lip.
“Please…” she said in a strained voice. “Please, Brody. Don’t torture me anymore.”
“I dinnae want to hurt ye,” he grated out, scraping his teeth down her neck, as she pulsed around the fingers he’d pushed inside her.
“It hurts me to want you this much. Don’t make me beg.”
Elspeth sounded on the verge of tears. He wasn’t proof against her distress. Almost roughly, he parted her legs and shifted until he lay cradled between her thighs. He kissed her once more with every ounce of love he felt, before tenderness sank beneath his overwhelming need to claim her as his wife.
He pulled her knees up, hoping that might make what was to come easier for her. Then he tensed his hips, pulled back a fraction, and pushed forward with a steady ruthlessness that belied the storm of turbulent emotion in his heart.
She whimpered and went rigid under his invasion. By God, she was tight. He pressed onward, and felt her sharp flinch as he claimed her virginity. She didn’t cry out, but her shaky moan made him wince. The need to thrust into her was a pounding drum behind his eyes, but he made himself proceed slowly and carefully.
“Breathe, Elspeth,” he said on a broken gasp. He rose on his elbows to look at her. The creamy skin clung to the bones of her face, and her lips were thin with discomfort.
“If you think it will help,” she said in a constricted voice.
“I do.”
She closed her eyes and released a breath, before she snatched another. Her muscles eased around him, drawing him further inside her. With an incoherent murmur, she shifted and tilted her hips up. The change in angle seared him like lightning.
“It will get better,” he said, dipping his head to kiss her.
After a hesitation that made his heart cramp, she kissed him back. “It’s not too bad,” she muttered against his lips.
“Wee liar,” he said and kissed her again, longer this time. Her deathly grip on his arms softened, turned into a caress. With a sigh, she shut her eyes, and he felt her body loosen. He slid forward until she’d taken his full length.
Satisfaction flooded him, satisfaction and an ineffable sensation of homecoming. Possessing Elspeth was new and exciting and fresh, but it also felt like an act ordained from the beginning of time. When she squirmed with luxuriant enjoyment, he settled more snugly. She opened eyes alight with pleasure and love.
“You’re right.” She stroked the back of his neck with a gentle fervor that raged through him like wildfire. “It does get better.”
“I told ye.” He buried his head in her shoulder, feeling her body adjust to his. She clenched around him tighter than a fist. The connection extended beyond two bodies joined in a bed to something transcendent he’d never known before. That was love’s alchemy, he supposed.
“There’s more,” he said and proved it by slowly pulling back, relishing how she clung to each inch.
“Oh, Brody…” she said in wonder. “I like that.”
He laughed, despite his raging desperation, and slid into her again, the movement easier this time. Again he found that unforgettable welcome.
Elspeth wriggled once more, sparking a fierce hunger that he’d leashed until now, for the sake of her innocence. He could hold back no longer. On a guttural groan, he began to move in purposeful strokes that pushed her deep into the mattress. The rough saw of her breath was like music, as he struggled to last until she achieved her peak.
With every second, his control became more ragged. Through the blood roaring in his ears, he heard her give a sharp cry of ecstasy, and her body gripped him hard in a throbbing culmination.
As she tumbled over the edge, he thrust hard and felt his seed gush out of him. For a long time, he wandered lost in pulsating darkness and incomparable carnal pleasure. The power of his release blinded him, left him shaking and exhausted. And whole in a way he could never remember feeling before.
In giving himself so completely to Elspeth, he’d gained a new life.
Brody slumped onto his wife, overcome with the glory of what they’d just shared. He sucked in a fractured breath, tinged with the scent of sexual satisfaction.
“I love you, Elspeth,” he whispered into the side of her neck. His world would never be the same.
Her arms curled around his back. “And I love you.”
Without releasing her, he rolled to the side so he didn’t crush his exquisite, passionate, naked bride. He smiled into her warm, damp skin. The simple, profound exchange of vows was the perfect ending to that sublime union.
Brody’s embrace tightened. Elspeth was his, now and forever. Soon he and this wondrous lassie would go home to Invermackie, where a life of joy and purpose extended before them like a long, golden road. Each day, love would guide their steps into a shining future. He could hardly wait.
This year’s Christmas at Achnasheen had brought him a gift beyond compare. And as any canny Scotsman knew, treasures were meant for cherishing. In the interest of further cherishing, he drew his bonny bride close into his body and kissed her until neither of them could see straight.
***
I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to the world of the Lairds Most Likely. The Laird’s Willful Lass is the first book in the series. Keep reading for more information and an excerpt:
Excerpt from The Laird's Willful Lass
Blurb:
An untamed man as immovable as a Highland mountain…
Fergus Mackinnon, autocratic Laird of Achnasheen, l
ikes to be in charge. When he was little more than a lad, he became master of his Scottish estate, and he’s learned to rely on his unfailing judgment. So has everyone else in his corner of the world. He sees no reason for his bride—when he finds her—to be any different.
A headstrong woman from the warm and passionate south…
Marina Lucchetti knows all about fighting her way through a wall of masculine arrogance. In her native Florence, she’s become a successful artist, no easy feat for a woman. Now a commission to paint a series of Highland scenes promises to spread her fame far and wide. When a carriage accident strands her at Achnasheen for a few weeks, it’s a mixed blessing. The magnificent landscape offers everything her artistic soul could desire. If only she can resist the impulse to smash her easel across the laird’s obstinate head.
When two fiery souls come together, a conflagration flares.
Marina is Fergus’s worst nightmare—a woman who defies a man’s guidance. Fergus challenges everything Marina believes about a woman’s right to choose her path. No two people could be less suited. But when irresistible passion enters the equation, good sense soon jumps into the loch.
Will the desire between Fergus and Marina blaze hot, then fade to ashes? Or will the imperious laird and his willful lass discover that their differences aren’t insurmountable after all, but the spice that will flavor a lifetime of happiness?
Prologue
Western Highlands of Scotland, April 1802
“I think we’re lost,” Diarmid said, trudging along the narrow path a few feet behind Hamish.
Hamish could hear how hard his eleven-year-old cousin fought to stop his voice trembling with fear. He was frightened, too, and he was only ten, but as was his habit, he hid his disquiet beneath humor. “We can’t be lost. My mother will kill me if I’m not home for breakfast.”
The weak attempt at a joke didn’t do much to lighten Diarmid’s mood. “You said you could guide us by the stars.”
“I could until the moon came up,” Hamish retorted, wrapping his arms around his chest to contain a shiver. The day had been warm for April; the night turned bitterly cold.
“I can’t even see the moon anymore.”
No, damn it, he couldn’t either, and then the blasted mist had risen, as well. Although his mother wouldn’t like him swearing, even if only in his head.
On a bright, clear night, he and his cousin had set out to stargaze. They’d sneaked out of their tower bedroom in the rambling hunting lodge their parents had rented for a few weeks. The trip offered a chance for the two families to get together, for the Macgrath sisters to catch up on gossip, and for the children to play.
The moment he heard about the plan to stay in the hills outside Plockton, Hamish had been ecstatic. His cousin Diarmid, a whole year older, always struck him as the finest fellow in the world. And any masculine company made a nice change from a household shrill with three older sisters, and now the addition of a baby girl in arms.
When he’d climbed out of the high window and down the old oak tree, an excursion in the open air had seemed a great lark. Now thick mist rose about them, the temperature dropped toward freezing, and the slopes were so steep and rocky that if he or Diarmid stumbled on the path, a plunge to the death surely awaited.
“We should wait here,” Hamish said. “It’s too dangerous to go on. I brought a tinderbox to make a fire.”
“I doubt we’ll find any dry kindling,” Diarmid said. Hamish began to find his cousin’s habit of looking on the negative side rather grating.
“We’re still better off stopping.” Hamish turned back to Diarmid who formed an indistinct black shape against the looming rock. “It’s too dark to see our way, and the mist is getting worse.”
“If we stay in one place, we’ll freeze to death.” His cousin stood a few feet away, and Hamish felt him staring back through the murk.
“If we go on, we’ll fall off a cliff.”
“Is that any better?”
Diarmid had a point. But Hamish was tired of fumbling around in the dark, especially as he had a horrid suspicion that for at least the last hour, they’d gone around in circles.
A grim silence descended. Hamish shivered again and curled his toes against the soles of his boots to try to restore the circulation. When he left the hunting lodge, he’d been snug in his thick coat and woolen socks and stout boots. Now he was colder than he’d ever been in his life. His home on the coast at Glen Lyon was much gentler country than these wild northern climes.
“Hullooo!”
At first, the sound seemed a trick of the gusting wind.
“Hullooo, up the brae!”
“Is that…” Hamish asked, turning his head, though mist and darkness prevented him seeing anything.
Diarmid lifted his head and shouted. “We’re up here!”
“Are ye in trouble?” This time there was no mistaking that the sound was human, although it was difficult to tell from which direction it came.
“Yes. We’re lost.”
“Then don’t move.”
“Should we keep shouting so you can find us?” Hamish called out.
“Aye,” came the ghostly reply.
“What shall we shout?” Hamish asked.
Over the last acrimonious hour, Diarmid’s hero status had lost some of its shine, but Hamish had never admired his cousin more than when he broke into a stirring tune.
“Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome tae yer gory bed,
Or to victory.”
Hamish laughed with a shaming trace of relief and joined in the song. Now that rescue was on the way, their scrape turned back into a grand adventure.
They were into their second reprise before two figures emerged from the mist on the path ahead of him. One was a large, black dog of indeterminate breed. The other was…
“But you’re just a boy, too,” he said, his brief hope of safety vanishing and all his earlier fear rushing up in a choking wave.
“I’m all of fourteen,” the lad said huffily, lifting the lantern he carried to reveal Hamish and Diarmid shivering on the ledge. Under a long leather coat, their rescuer wore a rough linen shirt and a red and black kilt. A brace of dead hares dangled from his wide black leather belt. “I’ll have ye ken I’m up to bringing a pair of brainless Sassenach laddies down a brae. You’re lucky I was out chasing some game and heard your voices on the wind.”
“My cousin didn’t mean—” Diarmid said.
“I’m no Sassenach,” Hamish interjected. “I’m as Scots as you are. I’m going to be the Laird of Glen Lyon one day.”
“Och, is that so?” The newcomer sounded skeptical as he peered at Hamish through the flickering light and clearly found nothing noteworthy. “Yet here ye are, sounding like ye live in Mayfair and take tea with King George every afternoon.”
This time, Hamish was grateful for the unreliable light. It hid his blush. His father might be hereditary master of beautiful Glen Lyon, but he’d worked for years at the War Office in London, and Hamish had spent the last two years at Eton.
“I mightn’t sound Scottish, but it’s what’s in your heart that counts,” he muttered.
The tall, thin boy with dark red hair subjected him to a searching regard, then smiled with sudden, surprising charm. “Well said, laddie. I beg your pardon. I’m Fergus Mackinnon, and I am the laird of this glen. I’m guessing you’re staying in the hunting lodge beside the loch.”
“Aye,” Diarmid said, and Hamish noted his cousin made an effort to sound Scots, too, even though he went to Harrow and his school was as much a bastion of the English establishment as Eton was. “I’m Diarmid Mactavish, and this is my cousin Hamish Douglas. We’re devilish glad to see you, Master Mackinnon.”
Mackinnon arched an eyebrow and rested his free hand on the dog’s shaggy head as it sat at his side, observing the conversation with intelligent yellow eyes. The boy’s manner was altogether superior, and Hamish was
n’t sure he liked him, although he was deuced thankful someone had come along to lead them down the mountain. “I suppose you’re a wee laird as well?”
Diarmid pulled himself up to a full height that was impressive for an eleven-year-old, if not equal to Mackinnon’s. “Not yet, but I will be. My father is the Laird of Invertavey, down on the coast by Oban.”
“Then it’s a gey distinguished gathering we have indeed.” More irony. “What I want to ken is why two bairns are out so late, wandering the hillsides of Achnasheen on a dreich night that promised mist.”
Hamish bit back an objection to being called a child. He mightn’t approve of Mackinnon, but he wasn’t stupid enough to offend him. If their rescuer abandoned them, he and Diarmid would be stuck out here the rest of the night. However, he couldn’t help pointing out a salient fact. “You’re out wandering the hillsides, too.”
“Aye, well, it’s different for me. Even if I was a blind man, I’d find my way over every inch of this glen. A wee bit of Highland weather doesn’t change that.”
A pang of envy sharpened Hamish’s hostility. While he loved Glen Lyon, the family only spent a few weeks there a year. He was a stranger to his inheritance in a way that Fergus Mackinnon wasn’t.
“We came out to look at the stars,” Diarmid said.
“Aye?” Mackinnon’s single word communicated endless wonder at Sassenach stupidity, despite these particular Sassenachs claiming to be Scots. “I dinna see the stars for the mist, but then I am a dim-witted Highlander.”
Hamish would wager a year’s allowance that this boy wasn’t dim-witted at all. “They were bright as diamonds before the moon came up. I’ve never seen Arcturus so clear.”
“Hamish knows all the constellations,” Diarmid said eagerly. It was very like his cousin to try to smooth over any antagonism. “He’s going to be Astronomer Royal one day.”
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