Desire in Tartan: 2 (Highland Vampires)

by Suz deMello

  “In a moment.”

  While she fussed with her clothing he went to inspect last night’s bonfire. His belly roiled, but he took a stick and poked through the cold embers. He found a pewter button that the Beans had overlooked, one that he recognized, for a stag was stamped into the thin metal. The presence of their clan emblem confirmed what he’d surmised. His young cousin Malcolm had been cooked and eaten in this place.

  He crouched on his heels and sighed. Not much of Malcolm was left to return to Kilburn for proper disposition, but at least Dugald could assure the clan that Malcolm had been burned, as their customs required. He retrieved the big, long bones that hadn’t been consumed by the flames and rinsed them in the sea before returning to the discarded clothing for a plaidie to wrap the remains. He’d take them home to Malcolm’s mother along with the head.

  He wondered what his little mistress would think of their customs, but decided that she’d become used to their ways, just as had milady.

  “Come,” he said to Alice. He led her to the path up to the cliff and helped her with the climb. The sun wasnae so hot, but he noticed that she struggled a wee bit even though he held her arm. Though she didnae complain, she panted and sighed with relief when they reached the top, where Archie awaited them along with three mounts.

  She exclaimed with delight. “Mary!” The mare snorted and tossed her head while Alice petted the black mane.

  Archie coughed and she turned to him. “Hello,” she said rather formally, holding out her hand. “Thank you.”

  Archie shot her an amazed look while Dugald chuckled. “Ye can put away your company manners, mistress. Ye’re one of us.”

  She nodded and looked around. “I hope you didn’t wait long,” she said to Archie. “But at least you had a nice view.”

  He snorted, sounding rather like the horse. “‘Twas dark and foggy throughout the night.” He shot Dugald a glare. “The long, cold night.”

  “Whisht, mon. All’s well that ends well,” Dugald took Alice’s hand. “Up ye go, mistress. I doonae ken how ye feel but I want me breakfast.”

  * * * * *

  ‘Twas a longish ride to Kilbirnie but they stopped several times, once to retrieve a wrapped bundle surrounded by a swarm of curious insects. She didn’t dare to ask what it was, for she could guess by the somber expressions on the men’s faces. Later Archie spotted some late berries by a stream. Small and shriveled they were, but sweet, and Alice hoped that they’d keep the worst of her hunger pangs at bay. They had to. She had no choice, she grimly reminded herself.

  They arrived at Kilbirnie Castle in the afternoon, having lost one day to the depredations of the Beans…one day and one man, she thought, despondent. How would they fare during the rest of their travels? This was only the afternoon of the second day and already she felt as though she’d lived a lifetime on the road.

  Kilbirnie Castle was a graceful edifice, not a great, gloomy stone pile like the university in Glasgow. She had no reason to conclude that it was a friendly place, save her instinct, which was surely influenced by the need to find shelter, warmth and amenities.

  They were met at the open castle gate by someone she assumed was the castle’s steward. He took one look at Dugald’s face and said, “We’ve hot baths and a good supper for ye, sir, at our table.”

  He turned to Alice. “Welcome, Mistress Derwent, to Kilbirnie. Ye may bide with us as long as ye like, certainly until ye’re rested.”

  Alice nodded and, swaying, slid off her mare, holding back tears of fatigue. Her knees buckled and the steward grabbed her before she crumpled to the ground.

  Dugald leaped off his mount. “I’ll take her.”

  The steward nodded. “Come awa’ then. We’ll find her a maid to help her.”

  For Alice, the next minutes were a blur. Dugald carried her to a small room where a maid awaited her. The round-faced young woman stripped Alice of her dirty clothes, wrinkling her freckled nose as she did so. She dumped Alice into a bath where, despite the brisk scrubbing, she fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  When she awakened, she didn’t know how she’d ended up in a bed, but she had, and a very nice one. It was clean, and big enough so that when she stretched out her arms and legs she didn’t touch any side of it at all. She rubbed her head, carefully examining the small bump she’d suffered in the grotto. Her hair was damp, although the maid had braided it.

  Alice wasn’t sleepy anymore but was ravenously hungry. What time was it?

  Even though her eyes were accustomed to the dark, she couldn’t see anything whatsoever except the vague shape of a candle near her bed. P’raps it had been left for her but it had guttered out. Despite hunger and thirst, she had no taste for wandering around an unfamiliar castle in the dead of night.

  The dead of night. Why had she thought of that phrase? But there it was.

  She shivered, her memory dredging forth the image of Malcolm’s headless corpse dangling over a horse. Body parts dripping with blood strewn around the Beans’ cave. Dugald’s mouth rimmed with red.

  She curled onto her side, tucking her empty tummy away, and resolved to dream of something other than death.

  Dugald. He’d wiped his mouth on his sleeve and the cloth had been red. With blood, but not his blood. She’d seen his body on the beach—all of his body—and he’d been quite uninjured.

  She pushed away the image of what the Tupping Threesome had done with the street whore. Dugald had merely been spattered with blood because he’d fought the Beans. And won. Fought and defeated several men—she didn’t know how many—to save her life.

  But how had he done it? What kind of strength could he have if he’d torn them limb from limb?

  She shivered, this time from fear.

  Who was her man?

  What was her man?

  She pictured him in her mind, how he’d looked rising from the ocean like the sea god, his long hair streaming with water, his tall, strong body shining in the pale dawn. Heat stole through her.

  Did she care how he’d saved her life? She was here and she was alive.

  She pillowed her face on one hand and slipped the other between her legs, finding her opening slightly sore. She caressed the slick bump below her mound. Closing her eyes, she let her finger wander while she thought about what had happened between them. The stroke of his long hair on her thighs when he kissed her cunny. How his tongue had felt rubbing her. And when he’d put his fingers inside… She drew a juddering breath as desire took her.

  And his cock. The tiny nubbin she’d seen on classical statues and paintings was nothing compared to the rod her man bore. And she’d taken him—all of him—inside her.

  At the memory of him dividing her, her body convulsed and the magical colors again flashed behind her closed lids.

  The click of a latch and a cough interrupted her bliss and she froze. Someone was in her room.

  “Mistress?” came a hissing whisper.

  “Dugald, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Whisht, lady, ye’ll rouse the entire castle.” Flint and steel snapped before a spark illuminated Dugald’s face, a pale blotch in the darkness. The spark went out but a moment later, her bed creaked and settled beneath his weight. “How are ye?”

  She shifted and stretched her limbs, conscious of the pleasure still tingling in her body. “I’m fine, if a bit peckish. What time is it?”

  He went to a tapestry and shoved it aside. The moon peeked through the arrow slit the hanging had concealed. “The moon is starting to set, so I would judge it to be about four of the clock. A few hours until we would break our fast, mo dòchas.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, though the hollow in her belly felt as deep as a well. “What are you doing out and about?”

  “I came to check on ye.” He resumed his spot on her bed.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. ‘Twasn’t proper to have a man in her room when she was abed, if ever. “At this time of night?”

  He shifted restlessly,
the bed creaking again. “I do not…find I need much sleep.”

  “Are you hungry too?”

  He chuckled. “Not for food, mistress.” He stretched out on the bed and reached for her.

  She shifted away. “We shouldn’t be doing this anymore.”

  “Why not?” A long, cool finger stroked her cheek.

  She shivered and nestled deeper into the bedclothes. “It’s…um, not proper.”

  He chuckled. “Between us, mistress, the time for propriety has long passed. Doonae worry about being found. All’s quiet, and I wouldnae endanger ye or yer reputation.”

  “What if I—”

  He silenced her with a finger across her mouth. She opened her lips and nibbled on his finger.

  He groaned. “Lady, if ye do that…”

  She wondered what he meant and gave him another nibble followed by a nip. He yelped.

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Doonae be sorry, but that was a little more pleasure than I can take without…” He trailed his hand suggestively down her blanket-covered self.

  She didn’t know how, but his touch seemed to seep through blanket, quilt and sheet as though he had a magical ability to penetrate cloth and arouse her with nothing more than a casual stroke of his fingers. She inhaled to try to get control of herself, but all she really wanted was to pull down the linens and invite him to share her bed.

  Another deep breath. “Are you saying you like it when I bite you?”

  “Aye. Don’t ye feel the same? I bit your throat and your cunny when we—”

  “Um, yes, I s’pose I did like it.” Sitting up in bed, she ignored her qualms in favor of exploring this interesting new thought. She’d wondered about the biting and now she’d find out.

  She leaned toward Dugald, her eyes having adjusted to the darkness, and slid her hands into his long, unbound hair. Cool as darkness and black as midnight, the smooth strands slipped through her fingers like water.

  They crackled, emitting tiny sparks, and she jerked back with a little cry.

  He laughed. “Doonae be afeared, lass, that will happen when you touch me sometimes.”

  “Why?” She reached out again but with some hesitation.

  He shrugged. “I doonae ken. Maybe it’s the spark that’s between us. Didnae ye see sparks when we kiss?”

  “Yes, I do,” she whispered. “You do too?”

  “Och, aye.” He nodded. “Beautiful lights like a fae elf’s rainbow, always shifting and changing.”

  “I thought that was just me.”

  “Nay, mo dòchas, ‘tis both of us. We create that beauty together. How can ye resist that chance?”

  He reached for her again and this time, she didn’t stop him.

  His kiss was the same as she remembered, but better, with his cool, agile tongue darting in and out of her mouth, his beautifully cut, mobile lips caressing hers. Dugald was right. A bed was best for almost any activity between a man and a woman. With his long body stretched out beside hers, his big hands gently clasping her head, he plundered her mouth thoroughly, but she gave as good as she got.

  She pushed her tongue against his, flicking up and down before stroking the edge of his tongue with the tip of hers. Utterly absorbing. She could kiss Dugald for a century or two and never become bored. She gave a hard suck, tasting his unique flavor, and he gasped.

  He rolled his body atop hers, and she wondered how and why his weight should feel so wonderful, as though she were cherished and protected rather than smothered or imprisoned. And when he stripped off his clothes and rubbed his tool against her cunny, she added pleasured to the list of good feelings Dugald’s bulk upon hers engendered.

  Even through the bedclothes, his length was hard against her mound. He was ready and she was also. After the briefest additional hesitation, she pulled the bedclothes down as best she could with his big body resting upon them. With a chuckle, he lifted himself and dragged the linens down to the foot of the bed.

  “Now,” he said, breaths harsh. “Are ye ready for me, mistress?”

  She gave a little nod but stopped, aware that he couldn’t see her in the darkness. But p’raps he had seen, for he used one deft hand to part her thighs and push his rod deeply into her.

  “Aaahhh…” His groan and hers harmonized as his shaft forced its way past tight muscles and he was again opening her, creating a special space for him to nest.

  The mingled pain and pleasure undid her and she cried out.

  He went instantly still, though he didn’t withdraw. “Mistress?”

  She sought to slow her frantic pants, and he waited until her breaths had evened. “It’s…I’m all right,” she managed to say.

  He bent his head to kiss her again with great gentleness. She entwined her fingers in his hair, his glorious mane of wild, black hair, reveling in the smooth slide and feel of it across her palm as they kissed.

  He started to move inside her, a slight thrust and wiggle that were about all she could take. Through the haze of pleasure clouding her mind she wondered how he could know exactly what she needed, how he could divine her feelings so truly.

  He raised his torso and his head, and in the dim light she could see his face only as pale and featureless in the darkness above her. The pale shape receded, but his cock was firmly implanted. Strong hands grasped her hips and pulled her in tight so he was embedded even more deeply. She flung her legs out wide and he went deeper still.

  She gasped with the intensity of it—the pressure, the slight tingle of pain and the greater waves of ecstasy rolling through her, unstoppable as the tide and the wind. She wanted to open to him, but her body disobeyed her, her muscles clamping down on him and releasing. She let go and didn’t try to stop that—the pleasure, the magical flashing colors that increased with each flutter of her channel.

  “Do ye like this, mistress?” He increased the speed of his pumping.

  “You…you know I do.” The brilliance gleamed even more brightly behind her closed lids, and she found it difficult to form words.

  He slapped her thigh, and she cried out. The tingle and heat from the slap seemed to sink through her skin straight to her already sensitive channel.

  “And this?” he asked, slapping her again.

  “Yes!”

  “Think ye we can make a go of it?”

  She stopped moving beneath him and blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You may have it, but I’ll have your answer, mistress.”

  “I…don’t understand.”

  “I’m asking that ye handfast with me.”

  “Handfast?” She grabbed his sides, stopping his frantic surges within her.

  Obediently he halted. “‘Tis a Scots c-custom,” he said, panting. “When a man finds a lassie he wants, they may marry or they may handfast.”

  “What’s the difference?” She rolled her hips and was rewarded by another gasp.

  “Marriage is forever, and deserves great contemplation. A handfasting is for but a year and a day. If the couple doonae match, they part with no hard feelings.” He stroked her breasts.

  Offended, she blinked away sudden tears. “I…I’m not good enough to marry?”

  He kissed her forehead. “Och, lassie, after a year is over you may decide you doonae wish to marry me.”

  “I doubt that. You’re my man, remember?”

  “Och, aye, I do remember.” His voice took on a tender note. He laid a gentle kiss on her lips.

  She turned her face a little so as to continue the conversation. “What if I become pregnant?”

  “Then we must marry, for the bairn’s sake.”

  “For the bairn’s sake.” An encyclopedia of doubt unfurled its pages inside Alice’s mind.

  “Mistress, I will be honest with ye. I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of being without a woman I desire. I’m tired of being unhappy. Do I love ye?” He arched up and flung his arms wide, his cock shifting inside her. “P’raps so, but…’tis so soon. I doonae ken! But I ken ye make me hap
py, and I believe I make you happy also. Am I right?”

  He dug his cock deeper and she gasped. Abruptly, he pulled out, leaving her bereft, but then slid down her body, parted her legs and began to eat her as though she were the tastiest pastry.

  She writhed and panted, his tongue forcing pleasure through her like shafts of light piercing shadow. The lights flickered, brightened and transformed into the rainbow that had become so familiar and so welcome, yet so magical and special.

  A sharp prick of pain lanced like a needle, but was forgotten as Dugald continued to suck and lick. She screamed and thrashed, flinging her arms above her head to grasp the bedrail. She undulated her hips, shoving her cunny wantonly into his mouth.

  He gave her one last, hard suck then raised his head. “How can you say no to such joy? Every night, mo dòchas, I promise ye, every night, I’ll take ye to heaven and back.”

  She managed to speak through her pants and gasps. “Y-you are very confident, sir.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  Her heart broke wide open and she welcomed him inside where none had ever entered. “No, you’re not. You’re right—right about everything.”

  He lifted his torso and leaned back, kneeling on bent legs. His black eyes twinkled as he regarded her. “Make sure ye remember that, mistress.”

  Chapter Eight

  “A handfasting!” Lady Kilbirnie clapped her plump hands together then wagged a finger. “Dugald Kilburn, you sly dog!”

  The laird, standing behind his wife, caught Alice’s astounded glance and laughed. She said, “But you don’t—”

  “No, we don’t think less of you.” The laird laughed. “And we’d be surprised if you didn’t. Or hadn’t.”

  She gulped, aware of her heated cheeks. “Thank you.”

  He laughed harder, then said, “We’ll make the preparations.”

  “Doonae fash yoursel’, milaird,” Dugald said. “Winter approaches on swift, chill feet. We cannae tarry.”

  Lady Kilbirnie, as round and ruddy as her husband was pale and thin, shook her finger at Dugald again. “Shame on you. Your bride deserves a ceremony.” She whisked Alice from the room, chattering all the while. “’Tis a long time since we had a handfasting but I feel sure I remember the details.”