The Laird's Willful Lass

by Anna Campbell

  “Aye,” he said with a hint of mockery.

  “Who won?” The minister hadn’t much liked Fergus’s plans to build the school on land he’d earmarked for a new rectory.

  One dark red eyebrow tilted. “Who do ye think?”

  She didn’t need an answer. She flicked over to a fresh page, and her pencil skimmed across the paper. “Stay like that.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sometimes, lassie, I think ye only want me because you’re short of an artist’s model.”

  “Oh, you make a good subject.” She cast him a teasing glance. “Not to mention your other uses.”

  “Naughty wench.”

  “That’s me.” Her heart leaped at the magnificent sight he made in his kilt, as much part of this wild landscape as the steep hills and the sky. “Turn your head a bit to the right.”

  “As my lady commands. How is your work going?”

  “I’m surprised how well, considering what little attention I’m giving it.” After she became Fergus’s lover, her art changed. Even for someone as self-critical as she invariably was, she knew that these sketches were the best things she’d ever done. If she could transfer the magic to the finished paintings, His Grace would receive some extraordinary work from her.

  “You were frowning when I came up. Is something wrong?”

  She traced the line of his arrogant nose on the paper. “I often frown when I’m working.”

  “Aye, you do. This was different.”

  The close attention he devoted to her always surprised her. Nobody ever had before.

  Most of the time, she liked it. Occasionally, like now, his keen perception made her afraid that she’d never hide anything from him. And she had a horrid feeling that something powerful took root in her heart, something she’d rather he didn’t guess was there.

  “I was thinking how the last time we came here, you disagreed with me about a woman’s right to an opinion.” For some reason, puzzling over her father’s inexplicable blindness to his daughter’s ruin seemed too revealing.

  Fergus rolled his eyes again. “Don’t tell me you’re going to use that as a stick to beat me with.”

  “I wondered if your ideas had changed.”

  He cast her a knowing look. “Are things going so well that you’re looking for trouble where there is none?”

  Was he right? Her departure loomed closer and closer. Within a fortnight, her father should be walking, and once he was, she had no real excuse to remain at Achnasheen.

  Fergus paused. “Or are you really worried about whether I regard you as my equal?”

  She closed the sketchbook on the half-finished portrait. “We’ve hardly disagreed at all since…”

  “Since ye came to my bed. Scared you’re getting soft, Marina?”

  “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” she retorted.

  His grunt was wry. “Aye. In fact…”

  She shot him a startled look. “We’re miles from the lodge.”

  He ran his hand through his red hair, ruffling it so a lock tumbled down over his broad forehead. Santa pazienza, he was so effortlessly attractive. No wonder she was besotted. “We dinna have to have a bed handy.”

  “I know. There was the armchair and the wall and…”

  Amusement creased his eyes. “Aye. You don’t have to list every one of them. And all grand places for a wee bit of pleasure.”

  Her lips twitched. “I don’t remember anything being wee, including the pleasure.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said, and tilted his chin toward the space over her left shoulder. “There’s a dip in the brae behind you that’s covered in nice, soft grass. Unless ye fancy the trip to the lodge. I’m ready for you now, so it’s a long way to go when relief is here at hand.”

  Her cheeks flushed, partly because she’d more than once imagined lying in his arms, with just the sky as their roof. “How are you so sure that the grass is soft, Mackinnon?”

  He raised his eyebrows, and sly pleasure glinted in his eyes. “No need to be jealous, my bonny. You’re the only woman I’ve had my wicked way with in this glen. I caught a wee nap or two there, back in the days when you wouldn’t give me a second glance.”

  How she wished she could stay the only woman he had his wicked way with in the glen. Or anywhere else.

  Diavolo, she was turning stupid over him, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “What if someone sees us?”

  “It’s a very private spot. Anyone who found us would have to be looking.” He extended a hand. “Are ye no’ tempted?”

  Marina gave a delicate snort. “You know I’m tempted, curse you.”

  One of his rare, untrammeled smiles lit his face, and the restlessness she’d felt since he’d kissed her sharpened into desire. They had so little time left. She needed to seize every second of rapture she could.

  Because tragically soon, she’d be alone again. There would be no more sensual pleasure, and no more sweet, shared laughter, and no more basking in the knowledge that she’d found the other half of her soul.

  She set aside her sketchbook and accepted Fergus’s hand, glorying in the firm strength of his grip. “Show me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Fergus had once prided himself on his control as a lover. No more. He rushed Marina into the hollow and, once they were out of sight of the open hillside, dragged her into his arms for a ravenous kiss, wrapping his arms around her as if he’d never let her go.

  They’d been lovers for a little over a month, and with every day, his need for her grew more powerful. As had his impatience with the restrictions this affair imposed.

  At first, having to conceal their passion had been an annoying necessity, even while subterfuge added a tinge of forbidden excitement. Now he chafed against touching Marina only when they were alone. He wanted her with him all the time, not just when there were no curious eyes to take note of their attraction.

  He was surprised that she consented to this tryst. But she’d agreed with a readiness that set his blood aflame. Marina’s was a wild, free spirit. At first, that had taken him aback, but he’d come to appreciate the way her courage mirrored his.

  Now she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body so close that not even a breath separated them. Her lips burned against his, and her tongue darted into his mouth with a greed that made him mad for her.

  Shaking with uncontrollable need, he fell to his knees before her and shoved up her skirts in a froth of petticoats. He buried his face in her belly, senses brimming with the rich scent of her arousal. She’d flared into need as swiftly as he had.

  Over their time together, he’d spent hours exploring her silky cleft with his mouth. Today, he was too close to the edge to last through a slow seduction.

  He fiddled with the tie on her drawers, until they fell to her booted ankles. He placed a kiss above the triangle of dark curls covering her mound. A silent promise that on the next occasion, he’d take his time.

  Burying her fingers in his hair, she murmured incoherent words of encouragement. As she stepped free of her drawers, she shifted against his mouth. He groaned into her satiny skin. Sometimes, he’d spin out his desire by undressing her garment by garment, revealing each inch of her, until she stood magnificently bare to his admiring gaze. This wasn’t going to be one of those occasions.

  Unable to resist, he kissed her intimate curls, tasting the salty liquor of her arousal. She tilted toward him, then cried out when he caught her hips and pulled her down to face him.

  Another kiss, a duel of teeth and lips and tongues, punctuated with gasps of pleasure. He fell back against the grass, taking her with him. “Ride me, Marina,” he growled.

  Without a word of protest—sometimes she could be breathtakingly obedient—she straddled him. “I do love it when ye wear the kilt, my braw Scots laddie,” she said in a passable imitation of his Highland lilt.

  “Because it’s the dress of a proud Mackinnon?”

  He cupped her breasts through the
green jacket she’d worn the day they first came together. All those bloody buttons. He resisted the urge to rip the rag to shreds.

  Sensual appreciation curled her lips. During the last weeks, he’d become a connoisseur of her smiles. This one had only appeared since they’d been lovers. He adored its gloating self-confidence. He adored its unabashed hunger. As their affair progressed, Marina’s shyness had rapidly faded. This was a woman who reveled in earthy pleasure.

  “No, that’s not why.” She tossed up his kilt to reveal his erection.

  His hands slid under her skirts to shape her buttocks. Her naked skin was smooth and warm to his touch. “Then why?”

  To his regret, she twisted out of his hold, then regret exploded to ash in a flash of blinding heat as she dipped her head to kiss the tip of his cock.

  Mischief and desire lit her black eyes as she looked up from where she crouched over him. “It’s because you’re easy to reach. A most convenient costume.”

  “I wish you’d adopt it. I swear you’re wearing this devilish cocoon to torment me.”

  She laughed, a low ripple of amusement that only made him want her more. “I like to make you work for your reward.”

  “Whereas ye don’t have to?” he asked ironically, while his thundering pulse threatened to mash his brain to porridge.

  “That’s right.”

  With a sureness that shuddered through him like a blow, she took his cock in her hand and squeezed. By the time she rose on her knees and sank down to take him inside her, he was tensing every muscle and grinding his teeth to hold back from spilling.

  His sight dimmed, until the sky and the hillside became a blur. All he could see was light-speckled darkness and the beautiful woman rising above him like a queen. Then he closed his eyes and yielded to glorious sensation.

  Heat. Darkness. Pressure.

  As she rose and fell against the bright blue sky, he opened his eyes to watch. He loved the way her face changed when she strove after ecstasy. He caught her waist, the subtle shift of her muscles under his palms echoing the subtle shift of the muscles holding him snug inside her.

  She descended with voluptuous slowness, and he groaned as he verged closer to losing himself. Be damned if he’d let this end so fast. He tightened his jaw to the edge of agony and dug his fingers into her hips as he strove to restrain himself.

  The taunting smile on her lush mouth told him she recognized his struggle. “Not yet, caro.”

  “Not yet,” he grated out, as she clenched and almost shot the top of his head off.

  With shaking hands, she undid the row of buttons down the front of her jacket, then the buttons down that saucily masculine shirt. He had a sudden powerful memory of their first day as lovers when she’d worn nothing but that shirt over her nakedness.

  Panting with excitement, he ran his hands up the thighs framing his hips. With each move, she set off thunderclaps of pleasure. He hoped to hell she didn’t intend to take her time, or he couldn’t answer for the consequences.

  At last the shirt parted to reveal breasts pushed high by her corset. The sight of that sumptuous flesh pressing against her sheer shift made him groan and bump his hips higher.

  “Have you any idea how much I want you?” he asked hoarsely.

  Marina gave a wiggle that drove him closer to the brink. “I think I just might.”

  Clumsy hands shoved aside the material covering her chest. When he began to tease the hard pink nipples, she spasmed around him and cried out.

  He bowed up and closed his lips around one hard peak, while his hand continued to torment the other. By the time she slid back to take him inside her again, she was lusciously hot and slick.

  She moved on him, circling her hips, varying the rhythm, sweeping him to the doors of paradise. He tightened his balls against the clamoring need to fill her. He couldn’t doubt her enjoyment, but she hadn’t yet reached her peak.

  He cupped and stroked the breasts on wanton display. “Don’t wait too long, mo chridhe,” he groaned.

  She flattened her palms on his chest, her touch hot through his shirt. “I love having the upper hand.”

  “Remember I’m only human.”

  “You?” She gave a choked laugh. “Never. You’re the Mackinnon, great Laird of Achnasheen.”

  Until he’d met Marina, nobody had teased him. Over the last six weeks, he discovered he rather liked it. “Not so great, when he’s slave to a slip of a girl who’s too clever for her own good.”

  “Ooh, I like that even better.”

  “I thought you might.” He smiled at her in delight. “Now put me out of my misery, lassie, and take your pleasure so I can take mine.”

  “So considerate,” she said, and he marveled that she had the cheek to mock him when he was so far inside her that he felt like they became one entity.

  “Aye, well, that’s the great laird for ye.”

  She laughed low in her throat. “One thing about him is great.”

  His grunt of laughter did nothing to steady his slipping control. He seized her by the hips and caught the flare of thrilled astonishment in her eyes as he rolled her over.

  Fergus rose above her where she lay on the crushed grass. “It’s time to show ye who’s in charge.”

  When he plunged into her, she gripped him tighter than a fist. Dear God above, he really wasn’t going to last.

  “Is that so?” She curled her hands over his shoulders.

  “Aye, it is.” He kissed her hungrily, then began to move, glorying in how she met every thrust. “Hold on, and pray for mercy.”

  She quaked and moaned as she crossed into rapture. Being inside Marina as she found her shivering climax was so magnificent, he only remembered at the last moment to pull free.

  With a guttural groan, he withdrew and turned to pump his seed into the grass beside her. Hell, they’d had a few close calls, but this was the closest yet.

  He collapsed onto his back and stared unseeing up at the cloudless sky. Satisfaction and exhaustion coiled lazily in his veins. “I’m never going to move again,” he said, his voice gruff.

  He felt her hand seek and find his. “That was wonderful,” she said, and he was shocked to hear her voice was thick with tears.

  Weariness forgotten, he sat up to look at her. She was an unforgettable sight, spread-eagled upon the rich green grass, her breasts bare, and her skirts rucked up to reveal spectacular legs.

  He took a second to appreciate the view, then focused on her face. She was flushed, and her features were soft in the way he loved after a tumble. But her generous lips turned down, and there was a sheen in her eyes that betrayed unhappiness.

  “What is it, Marina?”

  She avoided his questioning gaze. “I’m being silly.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Tell me.”

  She bit her lip, then spoke in a rush. “Everything’s coming to an end. Papa should be up and around next week, and winter’s almost here, and I have to go back to Florence. I know all of that is true. It’s been true from the beginning. After what we just did, it seems cruel that our time together is so short.” She turned away. “You’ll think I’m a fool.”

  Tenderness as intoxicating as fine wine engulfed him. He turned her face toward his. After brief resistance, she gave in. Her eyes were dark pools of misery.

  “I’d never think you’re a fool.”

  “I am, to fret like this when I know I must go.”

  “Must ye?”

  “You know I must.” She frowned in bewilderment. “We’ve escaped discovery so far, but our luck won’t last forever. And I can’t stay at Achnasheen indefinitely as your mistress. You must see that.”

  He did. He’d seen it for weeks. Since they’d first come together in such a blaze of passion.

  “Then don’t stay as my mistress.” He sucked in a fortifying breath and spoke with a conviction that caught him by surprise, although this was the obvious solution. It had been from the start. “Stay as my wife. Marry me, Marina.”

 
; Chapter Twenty-One

  Marina stared into Fergus’s face, while his astounding words echoed in her mind. For one mad second, she let herself imagine what life would be like if she said yes.

  Nights with Fergus in her bed with no need for sneaking around. Day after day in this beautiful glen, watching the seasons change in all their beauty.

  Having Fergus’s babies.

  For a fleeting instant, four small Mackinnons filled her imagination. A pair of daughters and a pair of sons. Two redheaded like their father, two dark like her. The thought made her empty womb contract in yearning. How she’d love to bear this magnificent man a brood of strong and spirited children.

  Then deliberately, she tucked those alluring images away and buried them deep in her heart. So deep that with any luck, she’d never have to look at them again.

  She sat up, keeping a careful distance from Fergus, and tugged her hand free.

  “Marina, did you hear me?” he asked, and she’d come back to reality enough to register the vulnerability in his expression and to regret that she was going to hurt him. “I asked you to marry me.”

  “You know it’s impossible, but thank you for asking,” she said, surprised at how composed she sounded.

  Baffled anger darkened his features. “You speak as if I invited you for afternoon tea, not asked you to share a lifetime with me, lassie.”

  With calm movements, she began to restore her clothing to decency, tugging her shift into place and doing up her shirt. Her hands weren’t even shaking. Everything seemed to happen at a great distance. It was an eerie sensation, as though her body no longer belonged to her. Doubly eerie when mere minutes ago, she’d basked in a sated daze that had felt like the sun’s embrace.

  “Fergus, we both knew this couldn’t last.”

  He surged to his feet and glared down at her. “So why were you blethering on about not wanting to leave me?”

  That had been her soul crying out for the unattainable.

  “I wasn’t being practical.” Her hands weren’t quite as steady as they had been. When the buttons on her jacket defeated her, she decided to keep it open.