A Warrior's Taking

by Margo Maguire

  He sucked her tongue into his mouth and lowered his hands to her hips. Pulling her flush against him, he hoped to ease his throbbing erection, but his need only increased.

  He broke the kiss and took her by the hand, leading her to the house. They ran together through the rain and stopped only long enough for Brogan to find the key and unlock the door. They fell into a darkened room, and he kicked the door closed, pressing Sarah against the closest wall, savoring the soft pull of her body. She cupped his face in her hands, drawing him down to meet her kiss, and Brogan shuddered with desire.

  There had to be a bed somewhere.

  Yet a bed was the last thing he should seek with Sarah. His unquenchable lust was a madness, brought on by some kind of Tuath magic, and he needed to rise above it. He wanted to show her how desirable she was. Not seduce her.

  Ignoring his own better judgment, he encircled her waist with his arms and took her mouth once again, dipping his tongue inside, tasting her sweet fire. He felt her slip her fingers into his hair, sliding up from his nape, pulling him closer.

  The rain came down sideways, viciously pelting the windows and shaking the glass in their panes. Brogan hardly noticed. Quaking with pleasure at her touch, he wanted more. He wanted her naked, lying beneath him.

  After he removed her cloak, the buttons of her bodice were easily released. He slid the gown from her shoulders and shoved his own coat down his arms, letting it fall to the floor. Her underclothes posed a greater challenge, but he managed to free her breasts. Their pale, pink tips were visible in the dim light, and Brogan touched them gently, groaning low in his throat when they hardened in his hands.

  She arched into him, letting her head fall back, intensifying the contact between her soft, womanly cleft and his hard arousal. Brogan moved against her and felt her tremble with the same kind of pleasure he felt. He pressed his lips to the tender skin just below her ear, then kissed her shoulder, moving his mouth lower and lower, until he reached her nipple.

  He swirled his tongue ’round it, then sucked it into his mouth.

  “Brendan,” she sighed, and Brogan wished ’twas his own name she’d called.

  He licked and sucked one nipple, then turned his attention to the other, while Sarah shivered in his arms. Her pleasure was all that mattered, and Brogan dropped to one knee before her. She grabbed a fistful of his hair as he slid her skirts up her legs. She pulled tightly and gave a small cry of distress.

  “Trust me, Sarah.”

  She whimpered once again, but made no further protest, sighing deeply when he parted her legs with his hand, then touched her womanly center. He laved her nipples with his tongue, each in turn while he stroked her, feeling close to his own climax when he slid one finger inside her.

  “Oh!” she whispered.

  “You feel it, moileen, the pleasure I can give you.”

  “Brendan, you must not.”

  “Aye, I must. Let go, sweet. Feel the sòlas between a man and a woman.”

  The room was nearly dark, but with her skirts raised to her waist, he could see her, fully exposed to his gaze. In hopes of quieting the fire that raged within him, he pressed one hand against his erection, then bent to her and blew a kiss against the nub that gave her pleasure, then licked it as he slid his finger inside her moist channel.

  Brogan’s heart pounded in his ears. He felt Sarah’s breath coming in spurts, and knew that they moved close to the edge together. Her hands were on his head, holding him in place, and when she gave out a low cry and pressed her legs tightly together, he knew she’d reached her climax.

  She shuddered in his arms while he tamped down his own driving need for culmination. His thoughts might be muddled, but he had a clear recollection that a Tuath maiden’s virginity was a valued commodity. He would not take it from her, not when it would be treasured by the man who took her to wife.

  Now that she’d experienced a fraction of the pleasures to be shared with a man, she would surely know how to flaunt her charms. She knew he found her desirable, and she could not lack the confidence of a beautiful, sensual woman…a woman no Tuath man could resist.

  “Your blushes are charming, lass,” said Brendan…Mr. Locke, Sarah reminded herself, yet she could hardly think of him in such a formal manner, not after the intimate act he’d just performed.

  She blushed even more deeply, but she had no desire to push him away after her skirts dropped to their proper place and he rose to his full height. He nuzzled her neck and called her beautiful.

  Sarah could almost believe it. Brendan gathered her hair into his hands and pressed his face to it, whispering words that were foreign to her ear, but felt soft and endearing. He slid his hands over her shoulders, then down to her breasts to cup them once before pulling her chemise over her shoulders.

  Was it possible that he did not intend to leave? He was so adamant that she stop thinking of Squire Crowell as a possible husband, saying that he would find her a better man. Did he mean himself?

  “I have little experience…” But she was no fool. He had given her pleasure without taking his own. Even now, he pressed light kisses to the skin that was still exposed, sending wonderful tingles from her nipples to her most private parts.

  Parts that he had kissed, licked, and nuzzled.

  She swallowed heavily, tentatively moving her hand to the placket of his breeches. The powerful ridge of his erection strained against the fabric, and Sarah was encouraged by his obvious arousal. “You must feel…”

  He must feel as she had before those intense sensations had peaked, hurling her into a world of pure physical pleasure, where she had no awareness of anything but his perfect touch.

  As she drew her fingers along the length of his arousal, Brendan exhaled sharply. “I would give you the same pleasure,” she whispered.

  “Sarah.” His voice was a harsh rasp that sent shudders of awareness to that sensitized area between her legs. He leaned his forehead against hers, allowing her to unfasten the straining buttons of his breeches. She felt him then, his naked manhood, surging powerfully against her hand. It was long and broad, and hard as a rod of iron, yet smooth and soft as the satin she’d just bought. Sarah slid her fingers over the tip, and felt a bead of moisture there.

  She rubbed it over his length and felt his sharp intake of breath. She withdrew abruptly, afraid she’d done something wrong. But he caught her hand and put it back, groaning at her touch.

  Sarah felt emboldened. “Tell me what will please you. Show me.”

  His large hand engulfed hers and he demonstrated, shuddering as she stroked him, moving his hips reflexively. “Mo oirg,” he muttered on a hoarse breath, and though Sarah did not understand his words, she comprehended the tumultuous sensations running through him. She knew of only one other thing that might intensify what he was feeling.

  She dropped to her knees and pressed her face against him.

  “Sarah—”

  He made a strangled sound when she took him into her mouth and used her tongue the way he’d done to her. She closed her eyes and savored the taste and texture of him, and the knowledge that she was pushing him toward the same burst of pleasure he’d given her.

  It shocked her to realize she was heading toward that same peak again, too, even without his touch. Merely the awareness of his impending culmination was enough to push her over that precipice.

  He braced his hands against the wall above her as she found a rhythm, moving down his heavy length and up again, sucking and swirling her tongue ’round him. Her climax came as he pulled away from her and took himself in hand, holding his shaft with his kerchief.

  “Ainchis ua oirg,” he whispered.

  Shuddering with her own pleasure, Sarah looked up at him and met his incredulous eyes, and knew she’d pleased him. He drew her up to her feet and kissed her soundly. She felt sated and confused, content and puzzled. But she was not embarrassed as she should be. They stood together on more intimate terms than Sarah had known with any other, but she did not feel
mortified. Or sinful.

  All she felt was the need to be enfolded in his arms. He held her against him and stroked her hair and her back. Sarah had never felt quite so cherished.

  “You make a man forget himself, Sarah Granger,” he said.

  “’Tis kind of you to say so, even though it isn’t true.”

  “Aye, it is. Can you no’ understand the power of your allure?”

  She would have laughed at such a notion, but his caring touch and sweet words brought tears to her eyes. She quickly blinked them away.

  “The rain has stopped,” he said.

  Before righting his own clothes, he helped Sarah with her bodice, then fastened her buttons. He picked up his jacket and slipped it on while Sarah searched for the pins for her hair.

  “Turn ’round,” he said. When she did, he gathered her hair into a loose knot and kissed her neck before trying to pin down her tresses. “Have I told you your hair is verra fine, lass?”

  His words against her neck gave her a shiver of delight, and she turned in his arms. “Brendan, what is sòlas?”

  He looked at her strangely. “You must have misheard me, Sarah. I likely said solace.”

  Even during their intense encounter in the shadowy room of the cottage, Brogan would not have spoken of sòlas. He couldn’t have. ’Twas a bond shared only between Druzai mates. This liaison with Sarah, as intense as it had been, could not be permanent. Fortunately, some instinct had kept him from carrying her to a bed and taking full possession of her.

  Yet he could not resist pulling her close as they rode back to Ravenfield, and nuzzling her ear. He must make her understand how desirable she was. “I’m glad you’re not above a bit of scandal in private, lass. A man enjoys knowing he can make a woman mindless with pleasure.”

  “I should never…” She did not finish the thought when he pulled the lobe of her ear gently through his teeth. He could not continue this way. In Sarah’s arms, he’d completely forgotten his reason for coming here. It was imperative that he regain his focus.

  Sarah suddenly stiffened against him.

  “What is it?”

  She did not reply at first. “I don’t know…just an odd sensation. Like a premonition.”

  “A premonition,” Brogan repeated, wondering if Sarah’s strange sensation actually was a premonition. He’d never heard that the Tuath were capable of auguring, but in the past few days, he’d found many gaps in his knowledge of these people.

  She nodded against his chest. “Foolish, I suppose.”

  Not half as foolish as his persistent reaction to her. His body still pulsed with desire, even after their wildly sensual encounter. He could barely keep from turning ’round and going back to find a bed in that small house, and fully mating with her.

  It was some sort of madness.

  His intention had been to show her that she was attractive and desirable. Surely that was the only reason he’d allowed that desperate seduction in the cottage to occur. He had not intended to let it go so far, and he berated himself for losing control, for playing the selfish lùigean who sacrificed his better judgment for the attentions of a comely lass.

  It would not happen again. Nor would he allow her suggestion of sòlas to haunt his thoughts.

  He would return to Ravenfield and his search for the stone, and Sarah could go to the Pruitt event with the confidence of a beautiful woman, one who knew she’d been wanted. A woman who understood her power to drive a man mad.

  Brogan tightened his hands on the reins, ready to put some distance between them. ’Twas well past time to locate the blood stone and take his leave of Ravenfield before he became any further enmeshed in these Tuath affairs. He’d never anticipated caring what happened to Ravenfield’s residents…

  Or wanting Sarah with every drop of his blood.

  They soon arrived at Ravenfield. Brogan helped Sarah dismount and watched her head for the house, straightening her bonnet and brushing the moisture from her cloak. She seemed slightly unsteady on her feet, as Brogan did himself.

  He jabbed his fingers through his hair, then turned to the horse’s flank. Lowering his head, he laid both his hands on the mare’s sides. He took a deep breath before collecting Sarah’s umbrella and her purchased cloth, and taking them inside.

  Sarah began work on the new dresses immediately. She had to occupy her mind with something other than the interlude in the cottage and Brendan Locke’s cool attitude toward her since returning to the house.

  She should never have let matters go so far. It was Squire Crowell whose attentions she’d yearned for, not those of a strange Scotsman who had clearly not changed his plan to leave in another day or two. He had not even promised to stay for Mrs. Pruitt’s soiree.

  What could she have been thinking?

  “Your face is red as a beet, Sarah,” said Maud, who worked nearby, cutting out the sleeves for Jane’s frock. “You must be too close to the fire.”

  She felt her cheeks grow even ruddier at the thought of Maud or anyone else learning of her tryst with their handsome visitor.

  He’d come in only to drop off her parcel and collect his own satchel, then gone out again. The girls had followed him out to the caves, but they’d soon come back for permission to go exploring with him. “I don’t think so,” Sarah said. “’Tis damp and slippery down there, and dangerous enough for a grown man.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Jane, some of those caves open out to the cliffs over the sea. If either of you were to fall…”

  “I won’t fall! I want to look for Brownie!”

  Sarah looked across at Maud, who shook her head. “Brownie has found a nice, dry place to wait out the rain,” the housekeeper said.

  “Jane, Mr. Locke is unaccustomed to little girls,” said Sarah. “He’s liable to forget all about you and leave you stranded.”

  “Do you think it’s just the runes that interest him?” Maud asked.

  “What else could there be?” Sarah remarked, sorely aware that her presence had not been interesting enough to keep him inside the house. While she had helped Maud with supper preparations, he had remained glaringly absent.

  “Remember the fellow that came up from Oxford a couple of years ago?” Maud asked. “He couldn’t be pried away, either. Not until Captain Barstow told him it was time he moved along to Fullingham.”

  “Will you tell Mr. Locke to move along, Miss Granger?” asked Margaret.

  Sarah’s heart filled her throat. “I’m sure Mr. Locke will leave of his own accord, Margaret. He already told us he would not be escorting us to the soiree.”

  “’Tis a shame,” said Maud with a rueful chuckle. “If only he could see you in the fine new gown we’re making, he would just beg to stay.”

  He would not wish to stay. He might have availed himself of what she’d offered in the Hartwell cottage, but Sarah knew better than to fool herself. Those moments in the cottage had changed naught.

  The trot of a horse’s hooves drew the girls’ attention, and they went to the drawing room window, pushing aside the curtains to see who approached.

  Margaret turned to face Sarah and Maud, her face starkly white. “It’s him! This time, it’s him for certain!”

  “Come to me, girls,” Sarah said. Hadn’t enough happened in one day? “Maud, answer the door, please.”

  Chapter 10

  Mr. Ridley was nearly as tall as Brendan Locke, and his hair almost as dark. His black eyes scanned the room as he entered, removing his gloves, then his top hat and cloak, and handing them to Maud.

  His build was compact, and he wore a thick mustache after the fashion of the gray-haired men Sarah had seen in town. But he was not much older than Brendan. She supposed he was fair of feature, but she was no one to judge, at least not today, when Brendan Locke’s and John Crowell’s comely faces haunted her every thought.

  “This is Barstow’s brood, then?” he asked, his voice deep and thundering.

  Sarah felt the girls flinch at his words, and they clutc
hed at her skirts. She nodded. “Do we have the honor of addressing Mr. Ridley?”

  “Yes, yes, girl. I’m Ridley. Who are you? The governess, I suppose?”

  Flustered by the man’s brusque tone and questions, Sarah nodded. “Yes, sir. I am Miss Sarah Granger and these are Captain Barstow’s daughters, Margaret and Jane.” She placed a hand on each girl’s shoulder and squeezed as she said their names. “You met Maud, our housekeeper, in the foyer.”

  Mr. Ridley hardly acknowledged them, but went to stand before the fire to warm himself. “Beastly night. Would have stayed at an inn, but I was so close…”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarah said. A stunned silence ensued, none of them entirely prepared for the man’s appearance, even though they’d expected him at any time.

  Maud broke the silence. “We’ve just finished supper, if you’re hungry.”

  He rubbed his hands together and gave her a curt nod.

  Sarah gathered the materials she and Maud had been working on, and put the girls to work collecting the new thread and ribbons and placing them in their sewing basket. “We did not know when to expect you, sir.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll want a full tour on the morrow, but for tonight, it’ll be a quick meal and then bed. I assume a room has been made ready for me.”

  “Yes, sir. Maud prepared the master’s rooms when we learned of your impending arrival.”

  He nodded and turned back to the fire. Sarah wanted to know what he intended to do about the girls. And her. But dreading his answer, she was willing to put off the question.

  “Will you b-be staying long, sir?” she had the temerity to ask.

  “I have established no particular plans, other than to stay long enough to make an immediate assessment of the property.” He looked over his shoulder at the girls. “’Tis late for my wards, is it not?”

  Sarah swallowed audibly at the realization that the children were under his guardianship. “Yes, sir. We’ll retire to the nursery now.”