Desire in Tartan: 2 (Highland Vampires)

by Suz deMello

  “That’s because ye’ve only seen it at table, Master Carrick. We mix dried fruits together with oats, butter and eggs, then boil the whole lot. When we serve it, it’s out of the bag, sliced and on a nice plate for ye.”

  Alice set the boy down and asked, “Any scraps for two weary scholars?”

  “Och, aye. We’ve some scones for your snackie,” Fenella said. “If ye go up to the solar, I’ll bring tea. ‘Tis almost time.”

  Alice smiled at Carrick. “Shall we?”

  He slipped his mittened hand into hers and smiled up winningly. “I need to use the gardy-robe first.”

  “Yes, and we must take off all these heavy clothes.”

  Hand in hand, they went up to the next floor and into the room that Carrick shared with his brother. Isobel, deemed old enough to leave the nursery for her own quarters—she quarreled with her brothers incessantly—had been moved to another room closer to her parents, so they could keep a tighter rein on the girl. Baby Marian still slept in her parents’ room.

  The boys’ room bore the marks of Fenella’s tidying, but Alice knew that wouldn’t last long. Carrick pulled off his hat and mittens, then dropped them on the floor, where the ice that had accumulated started to melt and run down in rivulets.

  “Carrick, where do those belong?”

  He eyed the pegs on the wall. “I cannae reach.”

  “I’ll help. Pick them up, please.” She lifted the little boy so he could properly hang his wet clothes to dry, then helped him off with his coat and boots. His socks were damp so she changed them, also, then led him to the garderobe. “Afterward, go back to your room, wash your hands and face and comb your hair. I’ll meet you in the solar.”

  Upstairs, she took off her outer clothing and exchanged her wet boots for warm slippers. She adjusted her linen blouse and kerseymere skirt, then smoothed her hair and arranged the tartan shawl Dugald had given her around her shoulders for a little extra warmth. Though everyone struggled to keep the castle cozy, inevitably drafts slipped through the arrow slits, even though they’d been shrouded by hangings and tapestries.

  She hurried down to the solar and paused in the doorway. Lady Lydia and the children were already there, with Grizel pouring tea while Fenella served scones. Isobel struggled with embroidery while Ranald, in the window seat, was reading with Carrick nestled by his side. Marian rested in a light wooden cradle that could be moved from room to room.

  A fire glowed and crackled on the hearth. Candles and lamps lit the room with a warm yellow glow that reflected off the silver teapot and the thick, glazed mugs the children used. The fragrances of fresh scones, smoke and evergreen infused the air.

  Alice blinked away tears. She’d never been happier in her life. She hoped that one day, her children would join their cousins in this comfortable, happy room. She’d tried hard to shove away most of her misgivings about her husband and his past. Nevertheless, a pang needled her heart.

  What if she never increased?

  Well, ‘twouldn’t be from want of trying. She and Dugald commonly made love at dawn and midnight, and whenever they got the chance to slake their desire for each other in between.

  And she still wasn’t pregnant. With a sigh, she stepped into the room and headed for Carrick, checking his hands to find them clean and damp from washing up.

  A yelp drew her attention. Isobel sucked her finger. “Do I have to do this?” She’d evidently stabbed herself with her embroidery needle.

  “Yes,” Lydia and Alice replied immediately and in chorus.

  “But why? I’ll have servants!” Isobel, ever dramatic, often spoke in exclamations.

  “Often our lives don’t proceed according to plan,” Alice said, thinking of her mother. “What if you don’t have servants to obey your every whim?”

  “But I will. I’m marrying Edgar.”

  “And what if your servants don’t know how to embroider?” Lady Lydia asked. “Or perform other tasks that are needed? ‘Twill be your job to teach them.”

  “’Tis true,” Fenella said. “Before milady came, none of us knew how to find the wild mushrooms ye love so dear without killin’ ourselves. She showed us.”

  Alice tipped her head to one side and regarded milady. “How did you learn that, milady?”

  “My father was a soldier, and he taught my brother and I an assortment of…well, motley knowledge. Bits of this and that. And ‘tis useful to know how to survive in the woods with nothing, or at least very little.”

  “But embroidery?” Isobel flung the cloth into the fire.

  “Isobel!” Lydia stood.

  Isobel scrunched into a tiny ball.

  Lydia pointed toward the door. “Your room. Now. And I don’t want to see you again until tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re sending me to bed without dinner? But I’m hungreee!”

  “Go. Now. And another word will earn you a whipping when your father gets home.”

  Isobel stomped toward the door, grabbing a scone along her way. As she passed, Alice snatched it back. Isobel turned on her with a scowl but Alice stood her ground. Isobel emitted a little whimper as she slunk out.

  “She’ll probably get something from the kitchen later,” Fenella said. “We oft find this or that out of place in the morning. But that could be himself.”

  “The old fellow up above?” Alice asked. She took a chair next to Lydia.

  “Aye, he keeps odd hours.” Grizel poured tea and reached into her pocket.

  “I wonder if I’ll ever meet him. P’raps at the Yule feast.” Alice took her teacup from Grizel.

  “I doubt it,” Lydia said. “He’s quite elderly and doesn’t emerge often.”

  “Who takes care of him?”

  “I do,” Fenella said. “And Dugald.”

  “Dugald? He’s never mentioned that.” She sipped her tea, which seemed oddly bitter, and reached for the honey.

  Grizel, Fenella and Lydia looked unaccountably nervous before Carrick dropped his mug onto Ranald’s lap, raising a howl. Alice leaped to her feet, napkin in hand, and addressed the situation. After Ranald had been cleaned up and Carrick comforted, two hulking figures appeared at the door. Milaird entered the room, kissed his wife and looked down at his slumbering bairn with a fond smile. Then he greeted Alice.

  Dugald waited in the doorway. She glanced at him and raised a brow.

  He pointed upward. “Mistletoe.”

  She grinned. “Ah.” She went to him.

  “Miss me?” He pulled her in tight for a big, romantic kiss. He was as cold as the snow that now melted on his shoulders and in his damp hair.

  She drew away and kissed the tip of his nose. “A little.”

  He gave a mock gasp.

  “Och, laddie, I missed ye a wee bit.”

  “Ye’re back to mocking me. Ye ken what that means?”

  She leaned in close to his ear. “Aye, I do.” She pinched his bottom.

  He laughed. “I see I’m getting my Yule giftie early.” Like everyone else in the castle, he pronounced the word “Yeel”.

  “I meant to ask about that. I did not think that the clan would celebrate Christmas, as there’s no church and no one seems religious.”

  “We doonae celebrate Christmas. We celebrate the Yule, like our ancestors.”

  “They were pagans, you know,” Lady Lydia said. “Their—our—holidays may fall at similar times, but they’re different. More…attuned to the cycle of the year and the seasons.”

  “Except for Hogmanay.” Kier picked up Carrick and sat next to Ranald in the window embrasure.

  “Isnae that the shortest day of the year, Da?” Ranald asked.

  “Nay. It used to be, but now we celebrate the Yule on the winter solstice,” Kieran said. “Hogmanay is the new year’s eve and the biggest cèilidh of the winter.” He grinned at Alice.

  “A kaylee, milaird?”

  “Essentially the whole clan celebrates the entire week between Yule and Hogmanay,” Lydia explained.

  “I see.”
She returned to her seat and sipped her tea, which was better for the honey. “So nothing gets done except, p’raps, for the emptying of casks and larders.”

  Dugald stepped into the room and stood behind her. “Exactly.” He laughed and dug his fingers into her shoulders, then caressed her neck, left bare by the chignon at her nape.

  She leaned in to his hands and hummed with joy.

  Later, after they’d supped and gone to bed, they lay head to toe in the darkness. With the red bed curtains drawn for warmth, any light in the room from candles was shut out. Dugald’s sensations, already unusually acute, were heightened as they enjoyed a ritual they’d developed in the last weeks.

  Because Alice spent much of her day on her feet, running after children, riding with one or the other of the bairns, or p’raps skating, a massage of her feet was something that greatly pleasured his wife. And, while his day was much easier—his horse did the work while he was on patrol or hunting—he enjoyed her caresses because they’d oft lead to more intimate attentions.

  He’d found that he enjoyed rubbing each of her little piggies individually with lavender oil, wiggling and stretching each one until it loosened with a tiny pop. And with each little pop, his Alice seemed to relax more. He also noticed that he’d echo her movements, or she his, and following these cues led to more fun.

  An odd fancy seized him and he kissed her big toe, then sucked. She sighed—with pleasure, he hoped—and he gave the toe a nip. Giggling, she pinched his toe. Hard.

  The game was on. He tickled her arch and she howled, rolling onto her back away from him. He gave chase, pinning her, and grabbed her legs. His mouth was at the level of her lush cunt, so he parted her thighs and rubbed his tongue on her tasty bump.

  She gasped, taking his cock into her mouth, and flung her legs into the air before wrapping them around his head, bringing him in tighter.

  He chuckled into her sweet quim.

  “What?”

  “I love your lust for me, mo dòchas.”

  “Good!” She shoved her slit onto his tongue.

  He licked deeply, tasting fresh blood. Something inside him jumped and danced. “Och, wot’s this?”

  “Is it my courses? ‘Tis time.”

  “Aye.” He returned to his doubly pleasurable task. Mayhap three times more pleasurable, for he had the joy of bringing his wife to climax as well as taking her blood…and on top of that, he’d noticed that her courses ran more smoothly when she was mightily pleasured. Alice had never complained of cramps or a sore back, and he believed ‘twas because she was so well loved.

  Or four times better, for he had another reason to be pleased. That his wife wasnae pregnant took a worry off his shoulders.

  “Oh.” Her voice was heavy with disappointment.

  Should they discuss her feelings? She wanted to increase even knowing the risks, but he did not. He didnae wish to lose his precious Alice.

  He raised his head, licked his lips and said, “Never ye mind, kylyrra. Ye’re no less of a woman. If ye arenae increasing, ‘tis me fault.”

  She sighed around his cock, then took it deeply into her mouth, sucking. He eased his hips down a tad, asking her to take more. She opened her jaw wider and reached around him to grip his buttocks, pulling him in deeper ‘til he hit the soft flesh at the back of her gullet.

  She swallowed around the head of his cock and a blast of sheer ecstasy ripped through him, lightning streaking across the darkness behind his closed lids. A shout tore from his throat. He bucked in and out of her mouth, swiving her lips the way he swived her cunt, licking her in time to his thrusts.

  She moaned around his tool and the vibrations from her throat shivered around his cock head. Overwhelmed by the rapture her mouth created, he was hard as one of the castle’s stones, his balls ready to burst and flood her mouth. But he didnae want to spend until she was also ready.

  Lifting his hips, he pulled out of her until only her lips were clinging to his shaft’s round head. The rim was sensitive, and now she let her lips pulse around it ‘til he was well-nigh driven mad. But he reached for control and found it. A little—enough to focus on rubbing his tongue firmly on her bump.

  He used his teeth and tongue to tease it out of its lair between her plump cunt-lips and gave it a hard suck. It lengthened in his mouth and he thought that p’raps it had swollen, even grown since they’d started to make love.

  She gave a strangled cry before her head dropped away from his rod and onto the pillow. Spreading her legs wider, she began to hump his tongue. Her hands dug into his buttocks, forcing him down as though she was chasing the pleasure his mouth gave. The sharp little stabs from her fingernails took him higher.

  He breathed in the good fragrances of lavender, fresh blood, his wife’s sweet cunt and over all, the exciting aroma he’d sniffed all those months ago in Glasgow. Alice, still so enticing, so tasty…even toothsome, especially during her courses. He pulled her thighs farther open, setting his thumbs on her cunt-lips to draw them apart. Then he shoved his tongue into her channel and used his nose to rub her clit.

  He licked her clean, inside and out, while she writhed and moaned beneath him. With his legs apart, his hard cock hovered over her mouth, but she was too absorbed in her pleasure to worry about what he did with his rod. And as she twisted in her ecstasy, her lips would brush his erection. These occasional caresses aroused him more, possibly because they werenae consistent. He never knew when to expect a kiss from her hot mouth, a lick from her scorching tongue.

  The flutters and clenching of her sultry channel told him she was ready to come and so was he. But he knew that putting his cock into her mouth while she was climaxing was mighty risky, so instead, he spanked her bottom to push her over the edge while he sucked her clit hard.

  She screamed and bucked, driving her parts against him. Her shout diminished into a softer moan as her legs dropped onto the bed, limp. Her hands likewise fell onto the rumpled sheets. He’d have tiny red crescents on his arse from her nails. Didnae matter. He loved her passion.

  He rolled her off his body and flat onto the bed, then reversed himself so he was kneeling between her spread legs. Open, her quim was deep pink, the bump reddened. He lifted her knees and hooked them over his shoulders.

  “Ready, kylyrra?”

  A muffled moan. Not really words, but he’d take them as assent. He leaned over her and thrust his cock into her slowly, but as deeply as he could go.

  Another cry. So satisfying, taking his woman to orgasm again and again. He never tired of pleasuring her. Now he could take his own pleasure, fucking her slow and deep the way she liked it, then fast and hard, the way he liked it.

  A slender woman, Alice remained tight even though they’d swived many times. Her hot, wet sheath clutched his cock, clinging and clenching like a live thing with a will separate from its owner. She was flat on her back, eyes tight shut, arms flung wide in abandonment and surrender, her legs draped over his shoulders…entirely his to use, his to love.

  Grunting with each stroke and surge, he slammed into her harder than the blacksmith banged his hammer against the anvil. White light filled his vision despite the darkness and his closed eyelids. He gripped her thighs, holding her in place while he fucked her.

  He wanted to go even deeper, so he rolled her onto her belly and raised her hips to impale her from behind. Her swollen cunt felt even tighter, and with his hands on her he could move her the way he liked while driving into her.

  She cried out and he sensed that she needed more. He slid his hands along her body until he supported her torso, damp with their combined sex-sweat. He lifted her high so he could caress her tits and her bud while still inside her.

  “Yesss…” Alice hissed, and squirmed against his hand. “Like that! Like that!”

  Like that, aye, raw and carnal. She reached down, slid his finger around her slippery bump, then pressed it into her flesh hard until she came. This time he did also, pushing her down with a hand between her shoulder blades so he coul
d again plunge into her down to his cods, roaring.

  A moment before he spurted, he regained control, pulled out and lay his steaming rod into the furrow cleaving her arse. He pressed the halves together, creating a channel. Not as good as his wife’s lovely body. Not as hot or as wet, but grand nevertheless, with the fae lights and shimmering stars filling his vision as every muscle tensed and released.

  Groaning and limp, he let his weight bear them both down onto the bed then took her into his arms, marveling at the slight body he held.

  She’d seemed so sad, so confined and repressed when they’d met. He hadn’t any idea that this delicate frame held such a passionate spirit.

  Yet the signs had been there. Her fragrance. Her mouth, made for kissing and being kissed. Her lively intelligence and, above all, her courage.

  “Mo dòchas,” he murmured. “My sweet hope.”

  He was on the edge of slumber when Alice sat bolt upright, clutched her belly and dove off their bed. She scrabbled beneath it for their chamber pot and heaved out dinner. “I don’t know where that came from or why,” she said, “but suddenly I felt so ill.”

  He got up and found water in the pitcher on her dresser. He poured some for her and said, “Drink.”

  She obeyed. “Actually I’ve been a bit out of sorts since teatime.” She frowned and murmured to herself, “That’s interesting.”

  “What’s interesting, kylyrra?”

  She shrugged and got back into bed. “Nothing in particular. Just a stray thought.” She smiled at him.

  “I enjoy your stray thoughts.”

  “Thank you. How about this stray thought?” She tickled his side.

  After they’d laughed together they collapsed against the pillows, spent.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Life had not treated Hamish Gwynn well—or rather, he had not treated his life well. Since his ill-fated attempt to destroy Clan Kilburn, Laird Kieran had demanded tribute, as was his right, and Hamish, as an honorable laird, had paid. Vast swaths of Gwynn forest had been felled so Gwynn clansmen could rebuild Kilburn crofts while the homes of Hamish’s people went unrepaired. He’d also forked over a tenth of that autumn’s crop and done the same for the next five years, fattening Kilburn’s larder.