A Faerie Fated Forever

by Mary Anne Graham

  With those words, he joined the rest of the party in the wagon that would carry the group to Kilcuillin. The journey was only a few minutes in duration, but now that he had returned to the island so much a part of them both, his desire refused to be contained. It billowed his kilt and commanded attention. Ignoring the other occupants of the wagon, he traced the line of his lady’s mouth until the wench opened her lips and proceeded to nibble his finger. He returned the favor by nibbling her ear as he softly whispered in most graphic terms how much he needed her and how he intended to satisfy that need. His attentions were open and observed by all, and everyone was glad when the wagon pulled to the front of the Castle.

  He was so intent upon impressing the immediacy of his intentions upon her that it was a couple of moments before either of them realized they had arrived and that they were the last occupants of the conveyance. With a laugh, Nial jumped down and reached up to help her out of the wagon. She put her arms on his shoulders and he reached up to curve them around his neck as he place his arms under her knees, and carried her away from the group.

  With a frown showing the ingrained nature of the English propriety she had become accustomed to, Violet said, “One would think that he could wait three short days.”

  Boz showed that perhaps the wildness of his nature still had a fair amount of Highlands in it when he remarked, “Personally, I don’t think he could wait three minutes.”

  ******

  The progress of Nial’s rapid strides was interrupted several times because he periodically stopped to take her lips and tell her how he ached for her and how much he needed to bury himself inside her, joining them so closely that nothing could separate them. Finally he brushed through the last of the trees into a brilliant yellow field of rape that swept down to the edge of the blue waters of the hidden loch. The muted crash of a waterfall was straight ahead and an enchanted mist hung over the area. It was a place apart in time and space, and he could wait no longer to fulfill his fantasy.

  From the day she had ran away from him with tears melting the gold of her eyes, he had haunted the loch. He would not believe she was his until he had her here on the bed of rape where he had come day after lonely day to gaze and fantasize. Now, at long last, they were here, and he could claim the promise of the passion that had raged between them. To the law, she would be his when he stood before a priest and exchanged vows with her. To the Scot, she had been his since first he had claimed her. She would only belong to the man when he had her right here, in this spot.

  He laid her in the center of the yellow mattress, and knelt over her allowing his eyes to feast on her glory. The neckline of her dress had slipped down so that both breasts were about half way visible.

  “Sorry, love, so sorry, but I can’t…”

  He couldn’t wait and he couldn’t even finish his sentence. He seized the top of her gown and jerked it down, ripping the delicate fabric in his unbound eagerness. She thrust her pebbled nipples towards his mouth and he licked his lips. She moaned and writhed beneath him and he closed his eyes, wanting to focus on her, wanting to satisfy her, but his entire body burned and shook like he had a fatal fever. He was too hot, too ready, too damned pathetically needy himself to tend her craving. He could wait for nothing.

  He jerked her skirts up without words save the plea in his eyes. That plea grew stronger as he grabbed the seam of her drawers and ripped the fabric apart. He tossed his kilt up and wrapped a hand around his tarse, prepared to ram his full length inside her with one thrust before a memory of the beast’s behavior halted him. His full lips trembled too badly to allow speech and what emerged from his vocal chords was a loud sob as tears he could no longer restrain poured from his eyes.

  His soul lay bare before her in those moments. She was humbled by the depth of emotion it took for the proud laird to be brought to tears by the force of his feelings for her. The loss in his eyes provided irrefutable proof that she had not been alone in the bottomless pit of sorrow that had consumed her soul every lonely moment she was away from him. Unbeknownst to her, those emotions had been mirrored in the soul of the laird who loved her.

  He paused but didn't withdraw and rapped insistently at her portal. He had taken her once before when he had not been certain of her permission. Despite the conjoined demands of his body and soul, he couldn’t proceed until he knew that she could forgive his invasion.

  “Heather?” He managed to rasp, just as a teardrop dripped from his face to sparkle amidst the glory of her wild nest of feminine fur. He shuddered, and bit his lip to restrain a second loud sob. She knew what he was asking and she knew the reason for the inquiry, although she had repeatedly assured him that his concern over the prior passion was unfounded.

  Being needed so desperately by her Prince Charming had tapped her feminine font whilst he nibbled and whispered in the wagon so she was more than ready. She opened her legs wider and surged up to meet the staff that grazed like an impatient filly. He needed no further invitation, and thrust inside immediately. The smile that sprawled over his open mouth at feeling how wet and ready she was belonged to the triumphant predator who had bagged his prey.

  “Thank God,” He said, as the ribbed, tight walls encased his suffering staff and the joining encased his soul. At last, she was his right here, where he had cried for her, had mourned for her. She was his right here where he courted death as preferable to a lifetime without her. He made her his where he had felt her loss most keenly and when her release met his their union was complete.

  They loved amidst the profusion of wildflowers. Nial decorated her long rainbow of brown curls with chains of orchids, and then threaded her feminine lower locks with sprigs of rape. She insisted on returning the favor, and incongruously adorned his chest hair with rape and wove a garland of sunflowers and orchids round his phallus, which was at rest when she started, and wildly aroused as she neared the end of the task. He writhed beneath her hands as she worked, so she repaid him by teasing him where he was most sensitive with the trailing ends of the flowers.

  Somehow it didn’t seem at all manly to become so aroused by the tickle of flower petals, but held by his fate he sprawled his legs and grinned at her play. He made an erotic picture lying wantonly in the field of yellow, with his brawny muscular chest glistening with sweat and decorated with blossoms. Even as she felt the itchy ache of desire between her thighs, she felt more strongly a vibrant sense of control, a sense of owning this encounter. So she continued her light touch, trailing only the blossoms over his turgid manhood.

  “Heather,” he groaned, “I don’t want to…”

  “Don’t want to? It looks like you do want to. It looks like you want to very much.” Her smile was pure temptress as she plucked a long blade of grass and used it with the brush of the petals. The brush of the blade was more direct, and a pulse of pleasure escaped his control. She smiled down at it, as much the triumphant female as he had been the conquering male earlier.

  He clenched his muscles against the pleasure as he said, “Wanton wench. I don’t mind you playing but I don’t want to come from flowers, love. Don’t,” he said as she reached down to the other end of the flowers and trailed them against his full balls. “Don’t,” he groaned, even as he thrust his balls up to give her greater access. “Baby, ahh God,” he said as he bent his knees and flexed against the sensation tearing through his nether regions.

  When he flexed he wasn’t clenching and another burst of milky pleasure emerged and trailed down amidst the winding stem of flowers. “Mmmm” she said as the sight lured her to play at the top again. She continued the tormenting touches with only the flowers, even when he pleaded with her to use her fingers. In the end, she set the scene and the pace and she controlled how he enjoyed it. At her choice, he unraveled slowly, a single burst at a time, until his control eroded completely, and he came in a torrent of milky white that plastered the blossoms to his staff.

  When it was over, he tried to hold on to his resentment. But she leaned over and said ten
derly against his lips, “Nial, I love you so much. ” At that, he found that like his control, the resentment had vanished and he could feel only the love for her that was so strong and potent that it overwhelmed even his sense of himself.

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her up then, saying, “I feel the need for a bath.”

  He pulled her under the waterfall, and made her smile. “Love, promise me that you won’t tell anyone what I just let you do.”

  She started to crack a joke, but then saw that he was serious. “Nial, it was beautiful and a memory I’ll treasure when we are both too old to play in wildflowers and waterfalls. It was also my turn.”

  “Your turn?”

  “You may be the boss in public – or at least from the outside it might look that way – but in private, I get a turn and a voice.”

  “I’m glad to have her back again.”

  “What?”

  “My friend. I feared perhaps in the blaze of passion we had lost the quiet friendship that even a dunce like me recognized from the first.” He considered the novel idea for a moment before he acknowledged his acceptance. “Yes, my friend would need a voice and if that friend was also my lover, I suppose she would need a turn as well.”

  Her beaming smile was his reward, but he claimed another as well. “I will always cherish the memory of today. I will fondly recall you begged for it. How you pleaded with me for it. I’ll well remember how loudly you screamed your pleasure when you finally got it.”

  Puzzled, she said, “But Nial, I haven’t done any of those things.”

  He positioned her on a rock and spread her legs so that the cascading waterfall fell directly on her cleft. She writhed from the sensation even before he spread the outer lips apart with his fingers. Then the cascade fell directly and endlessly on the already engorged and normally hidden inner nub. She was already moaning and thrusting to meet the water as he smiled and said, “It’s my turn and you will do all of those things, love. Starting right now.”

  ******

  They had docked at Skye with the morning mist. The twilight Scottish evening accompanied their walk back to the Castle. Hand in hand with smiles of contentment, and similarly stained and torn clothing, they mounted the steps. Both ignored the raised eyebrows and grunts of disapproval from various clan members. Business called, but Nial said quite firmly that he would settle Heather in his room before he returned to attend to any urgent matters.

  Several ladies had kept themselves fetchingly arranged about the castle all day long as they awaited the laird’s return. Each one knew that she could lure Nial away from the interloper. His eye would land on her when he walked in and he would spirit her away to teach her all of his masculine secrets.

  The couple’s appearance was discouraging enough but now he confronted the combined disapproval of the clan elders and Heather’s English Aunt and Uncle to openly have her in his bed before the vows were said. Well, the ladies were confident that the elders would win that battle, and leave them free to pounce in the nighttime hours as they planned.

  “Now see here, Nial,” Shamus said firmly, “until Heather is your bride you would shame her by having her in your bed. It is improper and we will not have it.”

  “Well said,” John Crandle spoke up. “This haste is unseemly. It is clear enough across the Kingdom that she will not go to your bed a virgin. Surely you can contain yourself until the vows are said young man. By all rights Heather should return to her home until the wedding.”

  Nial kept a hand on one of Heather’s shoulders and throughout the irate sermonizing about propriety, his teeth and his tongue played with her unbound hair. He reached down to whisper that she had a sprig of orchid they missed when the silence indicated that it was time for him to speak again. Rumpled and unkempt he might be, but it was the Laird of the Clan Maclee who spoke, leaving no doubt that his was the voice of command. “Heather is mine. I did not dishonor her. Laird MacIver has held his tongue because he knows that I claimed Heather publicly before I made her mine privately.”

  He continued, and faced the Englishman, “You seem concerned about the vows being spoken. I can assure you that your haste does not begin to match the urgency I feel. I put up with the need for pomp because the ceremony seems important to my lady. But I can assure you, I will gladly dispense with all of it. Heather will sleep in my bed with me on this night and on every night that follows. If you wish the vows to be said first then bring on the priest.”

  Bonnie said, “I will not be denied my right to see my daughter wed with proper ceremony. If it doesn’t bother me and Carrick that Heather belongs with Nial, then I don’t think any of you have the right to object.”

  Nial challenged the others with his gaze. John Crandle was working to hold his tongue. Boz winked at him, and at that gesture, he shepherded Heather upstairs to his room. A knock at the door brought maids and footmen fetching Heather’s belongings, and as a maid began to help her unpack he heard another knock and turned to find Boz standing there uneasily.

  He stepped outside the room at the other man’s gesture. Boz paced at the end of the hall, periodically stopping to stare out the window. His cousin’s unease quickly transferred to the laird who didn’t waste words.

  “What’s up?”

  “Damn,” Sedgewick thrust a hand through his hair and then put it to his forehead. He turned to face the window and then turned back abruptly to the other man.

  “Boz?” Nial’s demand was more strident, as his cousin’s reluctance to speak of what brought him upstairs became more than evident.

  “It’s the bloody Sedgewick sixth sense. I fear that you will not react well no matter how I say it so I’m just going to say it, straight out. I sense danger here. Great danger.”

  “For me? A challenge as laird, perhaps?” Nial had faced a number of those from warriors who thought a “pretty boy” should not lead them. Each died on his blade.

  “No. Danger to Heather.”

  Nial gave the Maclee call to arms before another second passed.

  Boz snarled, “You are overreacting.”

  “Overreacting? You tell me there is danger to Heather and if that is true I will protect her no matter what it takes.”

  Behind them, the hallway filled with warriors from two clans, all armed for battle and all confused about why they had been summoned to a hallway where the closest thing to a threat they saw was a disagreement between two unarmed men.

  Alarmed by all the noise, Heather rose from her bath and threw on her robe, which clung to her damp curves like a second skin. She stepped in the hallway to investigate.

  Male appreciation flared in every set of male eyes, including his cousin’s. “Stop it,” Nial hissed to Boz who only shrugged. Then he stepped in front of his lady, as grumbles of protest surrounded him.

  He leaned over to plant a brief but openly possessive kiss on her lips as he pushed her back into the room. “Would you display the bounty that should be for my eyes alone for the admiration of both our clans my love? Please stay here and I will be with you in a moment.”

  He returned to the hallway. “I ask again, does any here wish to challenge me for my lady?” No voices raised in challenge, and after a moment longer, he called his two stoutest warriors and assigned them to guard his lady’s door. He ordered the others to disband, and the hallway emptied of all but the elders, Carrick and Boz, who still regarded him warily.

  “Where is the threat?” The MacIver demanded.

  Boz explained what the Sedgewick sixth sense had revealed. It was a bit hard for the elders or Carrick who had not seen that force in action to take seriously any claimed threat, but the laird knew better.

  Hugh said, "I think, perhaps, Laird, ye've grown a wee bit overprotective of the lass." All the heads in the hallway nodded agreement, save Boz's. "Come downstairs now to attend to business and surely this worry will pass."

  Nial reluctantly agreed, but about halfway down the hall, he remembered that he now owed someone an account of his whereabouts.
The rapid spurt of male resentment was involuntary, but when he recalled the threat, he knew he would gladly make the adjustments marriage would require.

  Curtailment of some of his freedom was a small price to have her in his life. Who or what threatened to take her from him?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The scene outside distressed her, so Heather was doing some pacing of her own as Nial explained the threat. She appreciated his concern even if she couldn’t take any of it seriously. She smiled and nodded at his rather lengthy lecture about how she wasn’t to go anywhere unguarded. Her ready agreement pleased him and he lowered his mouth for a brief farewell kiss as he explained that he must attend some clan business and would see her at dinner.

  Unfortunately for the elders who waited at the top of the stairs, Heather wore only her robe which still clung to the dewy wetness of her body. Nial felt safe kissing her, because today’s romps surely drained him. He still told himself that as his hands went to the tie of her robe. He still told himself that as he willingly moved back a step to allow her hands to go to the buttons of his shirt as she murmured that she wanted to feel his bare chest against hers. He still told himself that as his mouth bent to suckle her nipples.

  It was only when his fingers found the moisture beckoning his pressing need to come inside and play that he stopped lying to himself. As he began pushing her down on the mattress, she said, “I thought you were heading downstairs to attend to pressing clan business.”

  As he ripped off the rest of his clothing he said, “To hell with the rest of the world. I only need you.”