The Great Scot

by Donna Kauffman

  She interrupted his stumbling speech by placing her fingers across his lips. He had to fight the urge to grab hold of them, press them against his lips, and keep them there.

  “Dylan…” she started, then stopped. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again, and he could scarcely believe what he thought he saw in their sparkling green depths. Fear, yes. Desire, certainly. And, if he was perhaps the luckiest man alive, that elusive spark of hope. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you from the moment I drove away from Glenshire. I’ve rejected, out of hand, and out of fear, perhaps one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. It’s…it’s hard not to cling to what I know, to what I’ve built for myself. Only I realized, with perhaps the help of people who do care about me, that maybe I’ve done that at the expense of allowing myself any real freedom. For someone who considers the world her oyster, I’m somewhat trapped by my own circumstance, in a life that must be lived solo.

  “I’ve been solo pretty much since day one. So I clung to a life that suited that, where I’d never have to trust in someone else not to abandon me, or the world we created together. It’s why I never allowed myself to be adopted. Better to be self-reliant, then you always know where you stand. And I like this life, yes. I’m lucky, very lucky, to have had the chance to see the world, to do what I do. But I’ve never really let myself think about what I might want beyond that life. A life lived exclusively for work, devoid of putting down any real kind of roots. Where you have to learn to trust, both in those around you, to want to keep you there…and in your own ability to want it badly enough to stay. Long term. Forever, even. It’s not that I have to travel, it’s merely the thing I do. I know there’s more to the world than traveling through it. And…and…” Her voice was a little shaky at that point, and her eyes grew a bit glassy.

  Dylan was fairly certain his heart had stopped somewhere during her little speech. Was she truly working up to saying what he, in his wildest hopes, hadn’t dared to allow himself to believe she might say? “Erin, I’ll ask no promises of ye. I know it would mean an absence from your work, and I’m no’ certain what that would mean, in your ability to go back to it at some later time, but—”

  “I—I spent most of my trip here, and all of the afternoon, working on a plan. It’s why I looked like I just rolled out of my suitcase. I was supposed to be researching Andrae.” She paused. “Is he really…you know?”

  Dylan lifted a shoulder. He shouldn’t have stooped so low, but he was a desperate man. “A plan?” he prompted.

  “Yes, a plan. For me. I—I needed to know, to have some kind of idea, of what I would do, you know…were I to stay and…see.”

  “And see.”

  She nodded, then swallowed hard. “Yes,” she said, lifting her gaze to his. “And see. I know I’d need a purpose, beyond just discovering what I might have with…with you.”

  Suddenly his heart, which couldn’t have been beating at all, thundered to life. He had to work very hard not to squeeze the life out of her hands, still held in his own. “And…?” he choked out.

  “Daisy was the one, actually, who gave me the seed of an idea.”

  “Daisy?”

  Erin nodded. “I think she’ll support it. She…she wants you to be happy, and I think if she thinks I might be a part of that, she’d help me—”

  “I’m certain she will,” he said, believing it, even though he had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I thought maybe I’d put my talents to use as an excursion coordinator. For the bed and breakfast mainly, but maybe also set up shop in the village. A tourist center and day trip sort of thing. The show will bring people to the village, and if Daisy and I promote it properly, I think I can turn it into a business. I know I can boost the revenue for Glenshire at the very least, and—”

  “So…are ye comin’ back wi’ me, then?” he blurted, unable to hold his tongue another second. “My heart’s about to pound out of my chest and—”

  Her smile was slow, but certain. Her shining eyes held his as she blinked away a bit of sheen glossing them over. And then she nodded. “Aye. That was my plan. As soon as I took care of business here, I was going to come back. If you’ll have me. I’m not an easy woman, Dylan. And I have no idea how I’ll handle—”

  The rest was cut off with a fierce hug.

  He spun her around and around, making her squeal, then scooped her up in his arms as they both laughed like loons and turned blindly toward the villa. “If we’re going to start something, we’re going tae start it properly,” he said, groping above the ledge of the door for the key and finding it where it was promised to be.

  “I can walk,” she started.

  “Aye, but ye feel too damn good in my arms.” He pushed the door open and had a brief vision of a sunshine-filled room accented in lemon yellow and navy blue tile, and filled with white furniture. At the moment, nothing could compete with the vision in his arms. “Indulge me,” he told her, as he strode through the small villa, finding the stairs, and climbing upward to where he’d been told the master suite awaited.

  She looped her arms around his neck. “I’m noticing a pattern.”

  “Complaining?”

  She pressed her lips against the side of his neck. “No,” she said with a deep, heartfelt sigh, punctuating the word with another kiss. “Not at all.” She teased her way along his jaw until he thought he’d go mad not to have her mouth under his.

  Two doors he tried, then three. Discovering a closet, an office and a bathroom. “Dammit, where is the bloody bedroom?”

  Erin was taking full advantage of his fruitless search. She ran her fingertips up the back of his neck, toyed with his hair, and bit his chin. “Dylan,” she murmured against his ear.

  And just like that he turned her toward the nearest stretch of wall and pinned her tightly between it and his body. She wrapped her legs around his hips and he buried himself fully there, making them both gasp in pleasure as he captured her mouth and plundered it deeply.

  “I canno’ seem to get my fill of you,” he breathed, when he could, running kisses along her cheek, down to the ticking pulse that beat at the side of her neck.

  “Good,” she responded, and dragged his mouth back to hers.

  His body roared to life and she tightened her thighs and pulled him closer still. He loved how she was such a match for him, not simply compliant to his needs but meeting them fully and head on, unafraid to reach for what she wanted as well.

  He lifted his head, touched her cheek, needing to look into her eyes, needing to be certain she knew what this was, wanting to see that in her eyes as well.

  She instantly grinned at him.

  “What?”

  “You look almost…piratical.”

  “Do I now?” He nipped at her chin, making her gasp. “I do feel as if I’m plundering a treasure.”

  She sighed. “Would you think me terribly shallow if I told you that your accent drives me crazy with lust.”

  “No,” he said, actually liking that admission a great deal. “But I’m no’ above using that tidbit of knowledge to my greatest advantage in the future.”

  “Darn,” she said, her lips curving into an even more delectable smile. “Poor me.” She kissed him, softly, and quite sweetly, surprising him with the sudden bit of tenderness.

  It jolted him and tugged hard at his heart. “Och, Erin,” he murmured. “You undo me.”

  “Aye,” she agreed, “and you me. Tell me that part again,” she whispered against his cheek.

  He turned his face, caught her gaze. “What part would that be?”

  Her arms tightened slightly around his neck and he felt the tension in her fingertips as they dug into his scalp. “The part with the word future in it.”

  And his heart slipped the rest of the way out of his control. Without saying a word, he gathered her close and found the right damn door. The platform bed was massive and dominated the room. It could have been a cot for all he cared. Or a blanket on a ruined ca
stle wall. But he wanted to feel all of her against all of him when he said what he had to say.

  He let her feet slip to the floor beside the bed and slowly, almost reverently undressed her. She didn’t shy away, nor did she stand proudly, she was merely herself. He’d seen her body, but this was somehow different. A more deliberate baring. As if they were baring souls along with their skin. He reverently kissed the skin he was revealing. Along her shoulder, down her narrow collar bone. He stripped her bra off, and took a great amount of time paying homage to her breasts, and their rosy tips. She was gasping, small moans issuing from her lips, balancing her weight when her knees threatened to buckle by bracing her hands on his shoulders. But she said nothing, allowing him to continue his reverent journey.

  He sank to his knees, trailing kisses along the center line of her torso, running his palms along the swell of her waist. He slipped her pants open and gently pushed them down her legs. She kicked free of her shoes, then her pants, leaving herself standing in front of him in only the thinnest of cotton panties.

  “Have you the least idea of how completely ravishing you are?” he whispered as he pressed a kiss against her navel.

  That elicited a choked laugh from her.

  He looked up and her hands came to rest in his hair, caressing his face, as she gazed down at him. “You make me feel ravishing,” she said, her cheeks stained a bright pink.

  “To me, you’re this amazing adventure of discovery. I’ll never tire of this journey, Erin.” And with that he turned his face to her, and caught the elastic band of her panties in his teeth. As he tugged downward, she tensed a bit. And he paused just long enough to look up and wink. “Pirate, eh?” he said, between clenched teeth.

  And she laughed.

  And he knew he’d found his forever.

  He turned and tumbled her back onto the bed, then pushed her up until she was in the center of the sea of soft, plush comforter. Then he slid back down to where he’d been a moment ago. Teasing his finger along her panty line, as he dropped a trail of light kisses along her inner thigh. She whimpered softly, and arched into him. And his body leapt in response.

  But this time, his control came more easily, if still at a cost. He’d have a lifetime of getting to know her now, so he could take her fast, take her slow, it mattered not. What mattered was that this felt like the first time for them. And in many ways, it was. The first time when it was a promise of something more to come, and not simply a slaking of need. He wanted her to know that, to feel that, too.

  He kissed the panel of cotton covering her and was rewarded with the damp musk of her. He was so hard he thought he might come right then and there, and he pressed his hips hard into the mattress, trying to assuage the driving need he had to bury himself to the hilt inside of her. She moved beneath him, urging him on, and he slowly peeled her panties down, replacing cotton with his lips, and when he finally had them free of her legs, with his tongue.

  She pushed hard against him, at the first feel of his tongue and mouth where she most needed it. Hands came down to fist in his hair, as he continued his sweet assault. He could feel her begin to gather beneath him and knew he was driving her to the brink. Giving her pleasure, knowing he could drive her there as she drove him so effortlessly, filled him with enormous satisfaction…and made him desperately wish he’d stripped his clothes off when he’d removed hers.

  Her fingers tightened in his hair and she was bucking against him. “Dylan, oh…my…”

  He teased her, flicking his tongue over her, then slid one finger deep inside of her. He wasn’t sure who groaned more loudly. So hot, so tight, so ready for him. He was grinding his hips against the bed now, throbbing to be released from the ever tightening restraint of his pants. She began pumping against him more insistently…so he slowly slid another finger in. And she keened loudly as she bore down…and came gloriously beneath him. Shuddering, jolting, pistoning, and noisy with it, her climax was every bit as honest and direct as she was in all parts of her life. Nothing delicate and simpering about her.

  Grinning, he slid his fingers free as she still twitched, kissing the inside of her thigh, then working his way up her body, pausing for a rather long and delightful interlude at the tips of her breasts. She wasn’t having any of it, of course, tugging him up rather insistently.

  “Dylan,” she demanded, wrapping her ankles around his, trying to drag him up higher onto her body, her hips arching off the bed as her body sought his, needing greater fulfillment than a mere orgasm could give her.

  Och, but he knew that better than anyone.

  “I rather seem to have too many clothes on,” he murmured against the side of her neck.

  And instantly found himself on his back. When the shock subsided, he found himself laughing.

  “Amusing, is it?” she said. “Torturing a puir lassie like me?” She all but attacked his white shirt and dark trousers.

  “You have a rather piratical gleam of your own there, you know.”

  “Aye, matey,” she said, making him laugh again with her ridiculous accents. She wiggled her eyebrows. “But I’ll have you know, I take my prisoners.”

  He flung his arms outward, opening himself more fully to her than he had to anyone, in ways she, perhaps, could not know. But he did. And she would.

  After all, they had time. Blessed, wonderful, precious time. Something he knew better than to ever take for granted.

  “Don’t bother being gentle with me. I can take it,” he told her. He wiggled a bit and she gasped, still twitching, still needy for him after her climax. He laughed, thinking he could hardly remember a time now when that hadn’t been such a natural part of his day.

  “You take pleasure in my discomfort, do you?” she teased.

  “Oh, I believe I’m the one suffering at the moment,” he said, then gulped when she got to his zipper, which was strained beyond belief.

  “Why, yes,” she said, sliding down his body until she straddled his legs. “I can see that.” She leaned in, and his hips involuntarily pumped off the bed. He twitched hard inside the restricted confines of his trousers.

  She was naked and completely free within herself, her hair standing almost on end, like any good pirate queen. And dear god he’d never seen anything lovelier. Was it honestly true she could be his?

  “I’ll free the prisoner,” she told him, “but I warn you, I’ll be keeping quite a close watch on him.”

  He wanted to say something equally teasing, but the very sight of her tugging down his zipper and freeing him to her lips, her tongue, had him digging his fingers into the mattress for all he was worth. He’d never last if she took him into her mouth. And time they might have, but this time…this time…

  Once free of trouser and shoes, he reached for her and swiftly pulled her beneath him.

  “Hey,” she protested, “no fair.”

  “Pirates don’t play fair,” he told her, making her laugh.

  And the teasing left him then, and that sweet, aching tenderness filled him instead as he settled between her legs. “You can and most certainly will have your way with me, and often, I’m sure,” he told her, stroking the hair from her face. “After all, you’ve had your way with me almost from the moment we met.”

  Her lips curved slightly. “This is true.”

  He smiled briefly, looking into her eyes, then tracing the lines of her face with his gaze. “I’m no’ so certain how I came to be such a lucky, fortunate soul,” he said. “But I’ve learned no’ to question fate, to appreciate the now, as there might never be a tomorrow. It’s why I couldnae stay behind in Glenbuie if I thought there might still be any chance to have something worthwhile with you. Erin, you ask about the future…and…I don’t want to imagine mine without you in it. It’s that simple. And that complicated.”

  “When I got to Greece,” she said softly, “Hell, when I drove away from Glenshire toward Inverness, it was the first time I’d left a place and felt sad, rather than relieved. I felt a belonging there, in Glenshire a
nd the village, that, I guess, didn’t make sense to me. It’s hard for me to trust that, but mostly, I think, because I never gave myself a chance to. Maybe it’s that I’m afraid, not that the place won’t hold me, won’t keep me, but that I won’t measure up.” She stroked his face, ran her fingers over his lips. “When I got here on Mykonos, and looked at this magnificent place, instead of enjoying the view, I felt…lonely. In just those few trips we took together, I learned how much more fun it is to share that enjoyment, that feeling of discovery, with someone else. With someone who appreciates it, and me, in that special way you can’t just forge from nothing. And I missed you. Terribly.”

  His throat tightened. “Och, but you have my heart, Erin. You must know that. I know this won’t be easy for you, but I swear I—”

  She lifted her head and placed the sweetest of kisses on his lips to silence him. “That, I think, is the part that scares me most. Because, once decided, this, in some ways, is almost ridiculously easy. Being with you feels like the most natural thing in the world. And I ache to go back to Glenbuie, to see the familiar faces, people who smile when they see me, just because I’m me, and not because I work for them or with them. The true challenge, it turns out, was never seeing you again, never having that feeling of fitting in somewhere, after having felt all of it with you.”

  “You’ll come home with me, then, Erin MacGregor?”

  She settled herself beneath him and held him tightly, as she pulled him slowly, deeply, into her body, smiling up into his eyes as he pushed himself fully inside her. They both sucked in a deep breath, their gazes locked as he held himself there. She moved then, and he moved with her, long, slow, deep strokes, each one met with a slow thrust of her hips.

  “I already am home, Dylan Chisholm.” She pulled his mouth to hers. “I already am.”