“I doono’ believe it has ever felt such desire to show off, afore now. ‘Tis too bad that I must be going.” He sighed, and the sound was heavy and full of remorse.
Before he could move, she grasped his swollen erection, and her other hand palmed his ball sac. When she gently kneaded the sensitive flesh, his quick intake of breath made her smile, especially when he didn’t demand that she release him.
“Ye doono’ have to…”
“Gavin, I want this. Besides, I can’t get pregnant this way.”
He laughed. It was loud and open-mouthed, and she would give him this, then send him happily on his way. He planned to leave soon, so why not give him something to remember her by?
She kissed the tip, and her tongue licked away a tiny pearl of pre-come. He sat very still, as if waiting to see if she would actually put him inside her mouth. During the short time she lived in 1603 Scotland, she learned that good women rarely went down on men. Village whores were the experts, and she even met one named Lana, a woman who had come to Castle Ruadh in search of Niall.
Everyone searched for Gavin's older brother, and she assumed it was still ongoing. Gavin wanted to return home and rejoin the search. She hoped his brother was still alive, but the longer he was lost, the less likely he had survived a fall from the cliff.
When Gavin’s hand settled on her head, she realized her mind had wandered. The man was anxious, and rightly so. Every time they kissed, he had hardened like a rock. She’d felt him against her stomach, and could see the blatant need in his sparkling green eyes, turning black, as she watched. She rarely pleasured a man this way, probably because she had never found a man worthy of a lasting relationship. Here she was, on her knees, with a man she knew would soon leave.
As she gave his balls a gentle squeeze, she opened her mouth, leaned forward, and took as much of him as she could. Her other hand squeezed his long length from root to tip. The musky smell was intoxicating, and he responded to each lick and suckle with moans of pleasure. His hand in her hair commanded her to keep him deep in her throat, while her tongue circled just beneath the huge swollen crown. What would he feel like inside her? He was generously large, and hard as steel, and her inner thighs throbbed with the sudden urge to ride him.
No. If I ever felt him inside me, no one else would ever measure up.
***
Gavin had died and gone to heaven. One hand rested on the edge of the small bed, his fingers digging into the mattress. His other hand tangled in Jenny's shiny brown hair. Glancing down, he watched as his cock disappeared inside her mouth, as she moved down his sensitive length. Her berry-red lips latched on tight, and she suckled him, pulling him deeper and deeper.
The sensation made him giddy, as her tongue swirled around the swollen head, and her hand gripped the middle of his shaft. She drew his rigid flesh deep inside her lovely mouth, then receded in a rhythm that made his bollocks prickle with an approaching orgasm. When her soft fingers cupped his sac, all breath fled his lungs. His entire body tightened, every muscle, every finger, every organ.
“Jenny, love, ye must release me,” he said, his voice cracking, and edgy with desire.
Pulling back, she licked her lips and gazed up at him with eyes that sparkled in the morning’s gloom. “Nope. I told you. I’m ravenous. You didn’t share your apple, earlier, so I want all of you instead.”
Her words sliced through him, as sharp as a blade. He could not breathe, and could not think. When her mouth opened and she suckled him with renewed vigor, a bright white light blinded him, and his fingers grabbed tight to whatever lay beneath them, as he poured his essence into her welcoming mouth, pumping and pumping until he was empty, and spent. As he cried out with his release, a huge boom shattered the windows.
CHAPTER 23
Jenny screamed, grabbed Gavin around the knees, and dove to the floor. Glass shards hit the bed, missing them by inches. A few larger pieces rained down around them, shattering into smaller, deadlier, projectiles. Gavin had protected her by pulling the musty blanket with him, covering them like a shield, as they fell to the cottage’s wood floor.
“What the heck was that?”
Gavin pulled her to her feet. “I doono’ know, but we must leave this place.” When he swept her up into his arms, and carried her to the door, she slapped his chest.
“Put me down. I'm fine.”
Glass crunched beneath his boots, as he set her beside her own short boots, protecting her feet from the glass littered floor. “Oh. Thanks.”
She shook out her boots, then slipped them on. Her dress hung over the back of the chair near the door, far from the window that had shattered. She shook the gown, and slipped it over her head, while Gavin stuck his head out the door.
“What do you see? It sounded like an airplane crashed.”
“Aer-o-plane?”
“I'll explain later. Do you see any smoke or flames?” She tightened the laces on her dress, and smoothed out the wrinkles. Searching beside the bed and the overturned barrel, she scooped up her tiny dagger, and slipped it into a pocket.
Gavin watched her, his eyes still darkened by desire.
“Focus on the explosion, please,” she said, stopping beside him.
He leaned down, cupped her chin, and kissed her. When she sighed, he broke the kiss and peeked out the door. “I doono’ see flames, but I smell smoke.”
Stepping outside, he headed to the edge of the trees, then slunk toward where he had stabled his horse. “Please stay here.”
“Since you asked nicely.”
When he returned with a saddled Falcon, he jumped onto the small porch and faced her.
Jenny sensed his dismay. “What? Tell me what’s happening.”
“I fear the smoke comes from the direction of your domicile.”
“What? Is my house on fire?”
“ ‘Tis possible, lass. It could be a trap to garner our attention, and bring us back. Ye must stay here, far from danger, while I investigate. Alone.”
If he could read the pain squeezing her chest, he didn’t acknowledge it. She was worried about him, but this was his profession, so she nodded at the warrior. “Okay, if you insist.”
When Gavin brushed a kiss across her forehead, tears stung her eyes, but Jenny refused to let him see her fear, or her sorrow. She would wait for answers.
“Promise me you’ll return?”
“Aye, love, I shall. Please go hide in the woods.”
She glanced at the thick, dark forest, then back at the broken glass that littered the cabin’s floor.
The woods will have to do.
***
Gavin gathered up Falcon’s reins, mounted, and headed for the trail that would merge with the one behind Jenny's home. As he passed Faerie Falls, the acrid scent of burning timber, and the rising column of thick black smoke, increased. He approached the back edge of the property, near the barn and the paddock. As he and Falcon rode closer, the smell of smoke intensified.
Dismounting, he left Falcon protected behind a dense stand of brush and pine trees. Crouching, with his dirk drawn, he circled behind the barn. The large farmhouse that was once the home of Izzy, Jake, and Jenny, was a smoldering pile of charred remains.
‘Tis a loss that will break Jenny’s heart.
He kept low, and listened. Was his sire near? It would be just like him, to use magic to harm Jenny. Gavin vowed, that when he found the witch who had aided his sire in harming Jenny, he would kill her.
Walking closer, with his dirk at the ready, he circled toward the front of the barn. Sirens blared from the ruins, and others grew louder in the distance. Jenny had explained about police and fire departments, and had pointed out the fire alarms in her home.
“If something were to happen,” she had said, “the boxes are connected to the fire department in downtown Lincoln.”
Obviously, they had worked.
He did not have to wait long for the fire personnel to arrive. Large red vehicles, with bright silvery metal trim, soon
filled the parking area. Men in padded suits, wearing large black helmets, hopped out. Several of them unraveled long snakelike cylinders. When water gushed like waterspouts from the tubes, the men doused the burning remains.
Another group of men sent two streams of water raining down upon the barn’s roof.
They are trying to save at least something, he thought.
He knew the feeling.
He had tried to convince his brother not to leave Tulac Castle, but failed. Even after their sire had disappeared with his mercenaries, Niall had chosen to remain with his men. That decision may have cost him his life.
Wrenching his thoughts away from his brother, he spied a tall woman dressed in men’s clothing jump from a black and white car. Blue lights swirled from the top of her vehicle. She headed toward the firefighter who sported a white helmet. When two other firefighters walked out of the smoke, carrying a body, dread filled him.
When the fire was out, the men ceased dousing the barn with water. Gavin slipped inside the barn, and climbed into the loft. Crawling across a beam, he peeked through a small louvered grate. The uniform-wearing couple talked loud enough for him to hear from his hiding spot.
“Do we have a positive I.D.?” she asked.
The man in the helmet, who must have been an authority figure, handed her something small and brown.
She flipped it open, and glanced at the contents. “Randolph Hay, Junior. Damn. He’s my cousin.” The officer’s face paled, and her jaw clenched.
“I’m sorry,” the man said.
“I’ll have to tell his pa. Uncle Hay will be devastated. This is bad. Cause of death?” she asked, turning to face her companion.
“Looks like smoke inhalation. As you can see, the fire didn’t reach him. He might have died from the explosion. They found him beneath a pile of rubble.”
“Did you find anyone else on the property?”
“Nope. Even the horses are gone.”
“Horses?” When she turned to glance toward the barn, he ducked.
“There’s new straw in the stalls, and fresh manure in the paddock.”
She nodded. “If you can gather info on who lives here, I’ll go find Randy’s pa.”
Randy? The man who nearly drowned Jenny?
Gavin retraced his steps, fading into the trees. He was saddened that a man had died, but a tingle of dread made him want to return to Jenny. His father was close. He could feel him. Jenny was the one in peril, because he suspected his father had caused the building to explode, killing Randy Hay. If he had watched the man die, waited for Gavin to investigate the smoke, then had retraced Falcon’s tracks, Jenny was in terrible danger.
***
The hair on the back of Jenny’s neck stood on end. Clasping a hand to her throat, she crouched in the bushes, but kept the cottage in sight. She had tied Balfour to a tree near the trail leading back toward the corn maze. The brownie was somewhere down that trail. If what Gavin told her was true, he watched their backs.
“Danger is close. I can almost taste it, and I’m alone,” she whispered, hoping no one was within earshot. Where was Gavin? How long did it take to find the cause of the smoke? She’d removed the sword from a sheath that Gavin had left hanging from a nail in the lean-to. He wanted to travel light while checking out the smoke. With the heavy blade lying on the leaves at her feet, she peered through the vegetation, and waited.
“I hate waiting.”
“Then I have done ye a service, wench. Yer wait ‘tis over.”
Jenny grabbed the sword, and jumped to her feet, tripping over her hem. Raucous laughter, and boots crunching dead vegetation, grew closer. She rolled behind a tree, struggled to her feet, and raised Gavin’s sword with both hands. Sinclair rounded the tree, then stopped just beyond the blade’s reach.
“Now see here, lass. Ye task me when ye try to outsmart me. Canno’ be done.”
“You’re the idiot, for coming after me again.”
“Nay,” Sinclair said, stepping closer. His dirk was in one hand, while his injured shoulder and arm drooped. “My mission is no’ yet complete. Gavin must heel. Ye will make him come home.”
The man was like a dog with a bone. “It won’t work. He doesn’t want me. The only reason he even came to the future, was to protect me from insane vultures like you.”
“As I planned, but yer young lover did not survive.”
He couldn’t mean Gavin, could he? “What? Who? What did you do?”
“I set a trap, but the potion I used was too strong. When he stepped inside, the explosion destroyed everything.”
The explosion occurred when Gavin was with her, so he wasn’t dead. But, who died? Sinclair stepped closer, and pressed his chest against her blade’s pointed end.
“ ‘Tis only a setback, but I shall prevail. Gavin is bound to leave ye in the dust, once he tires of yer loveliness. If he does not return, I shall kill his Mackenzie and Keith friends. Since many from the Gunn Clan have also attended the harvest festival, I will remove all who have thwarted me, at once, and I will rule what ‘tis left of the Highlands.” He pushed his leather vest against the blade’s tip.
“You sound power crazy. Leave me alone, or I swear I’ll thrust this blade through your heart.”
He chuckled. “Ye can barely lift it, lass. Drop the weapon, and we shall wait for my son. Together.”
Before she could answer, he swung his dirk at the blade. The shock reverberated up her wrists to her arms, and she dropped Gavin’s sword. Unarmed, she raised her hands and prepared to rake her nails down his face.
“Get away from her, ye black-hearted bastard!” Jaden-Tog leaped from a branch above Sinclair, and the two tumbled away. “Run, lass!”
Though worried for the little man, Jenny gathered up her hem and the sword, and ran away from the battle. “I never asked for any of this!”
Stumbling, she used the sword’s tip as a crutch, as she ran. She ran for what felt like miles, and her chest heaved with the exertion. The sword was heavy, but she dare not lose it. Perspiration trickled down her back, and she narrowly missed tripping over several downed branches.
Leaving the dense forest, she staggered into the open, and recognized the Petal Pusher farm. Glancing left and right, but seeing no one who could help her, she crossed the harvested section of the cornfield. The corn maze was ahead. At this time of the morning, she doubted it was open to the public. Her only concern was that a member of the farmer’s family was nearby. Angus Sinclair killed people that stood in his way.
“Where are ye, wench?”
The older Sinclair’s voice thundered from the forest, at her back. She mouthed a silent prayer for the brownie, who must have lost the fight.
At the outer wall of the corn maze, a combination of cornrows and stacked hay bales, she headed left. If she could get to the open mouth of the maze, she might lose him. She had studied the maze last year, and Denise had shared the secret to finding the exit.
“I’ll get him lost, then escape.” What else could she do, without Gavin or Jaden-Tog’s help? When she rounded a corner, a dozen or so crows squawked, and lifted into the air like a dark raincloud.
“Drat. If Sinclair didn’t know where I was headed, he does now.”
“I sense ye be close, ye sly whore. Perhaps I’ll make use of yer attributes, until my son shows his sorry face. I am getting hard just thinking about ye.”
Dear Lord! He isn’t planning to kill me. He wants to do something much worse.
The maze entrance, constructed of towering piles of hay bales, appeared. She ran beneath the curved welcome sign. Large sunflowers, tied with orange ribbon, decorated bales of hay to her left and to her right. According to Denise, if she followed the paths decorated with sunflowers wrapped with green ribbon, they would lead her out.
“Green means go!” she’d said.
“I can smell ye, lass. Slow down and take yer punishment, and I’ll no’ scar yer pretty face.”
Slapping a hand against her cheek, she accidently
dropped her gown’s hem. She tripped, and slammed into a stack of hay bales, piled in a corner. A startled Red-tailed Hawk flapped its wings, dropped a half-eaten rat, and flew away. When the rodent rolled onto her boot, she screamed.
“Ye be easier to follow than a bloodied half-dead deer.” Sinclair appeared in the entrance, tall and frightening, with the look of lust and desire in his eyes.
She lay back against the stacked hay bales, visible and vulnerable. Grabbing her hem, she stood tall. He glared at her, his gaze lowering to her naked knee, and calf. “Feast your eyes, creep. You will die before I let you touch me.”
He laughed. “The mischievous brownie sounded brave, too, but the scamp shall be no’ help to anyone, ever again.”
“You killed him?” She waited for his answer, but he pointed his dirk, and walked toward her. She turned and ran, fighting back tears. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” If she couldn’t see the flowers, she’d miss the turns, because she soon realized that this year’s maze was shaped differently than last year’s.
Jenny needed to follow the clues Denise had shared, and to watch for hay bales stacked in the corners. She wished her friend was with her, but then her best friend would be in danger, too.
A sliver of green satin caught her eye, and she raced to the right, down an alley. Bleary-eyed, she wasn’t sure it was a green ribbon. This was madness. With tears filling her eyes, she was running blind, and with a sword she could barely raise.
Growls, and a few gasps, echoed through the maze. If he’d taken a different alley, she might make it out alive. Trying not to picture his hands groping her, or dragging the sharp edge of his blade across her cheek, she ran until she was out of breath. The morning sun beat down, and the heavy purple gown slowed her steps. Perspiration made the hand holding Gavin’s sword slick, and she shuddered with apprehension.
Where is Gavin?
If she dropped Gavin’s weapon, she’d be defenseless. She’d lucked out during her first terrifying encounter with Angus Sinclair. She’d landed a few kicks, but she feared Sinclair would protect against it. Spying another bouquet of sunflowers up ahead, tied with a green satin ribbon, her heart lifted, and then her shoulders drooped. It had fallen to the ground, between two alleys. She glanced right and left.
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