The Devil of Dunakin Castle (Highland Isles)

by McCollum, Heather

  He realized he was staring at the swirls of wood grain on the table when Grace bent her head low to reach his gaze. “Keir, what did your mother teach you about?” she asked.

  “Secrets,” he said, pushing away the dark memories that crept in whenever he thought of Margaret Mackinnon. “She taught me to keep secrets.”

  Grace stared at him for a long moment. She shook her head. “About being kind? How to trick people into thinking you’re horrid when your heart is good. Those secrets?”

  Anger and dishonor curdled in his stomach. He shoved back his chair, scraping the wood floor, and stood. He leaned his knuckles on the table to peer down at Grace. “My heart is not good. Ye need to know that.”

  She narrowed her eyes back up at him, unafraid. “If you are trying to convince me of your cruelty, why didn’t you want me to see you beat that boy today?” Her fingers curled into the edge of the table. “Why, Keir?” She stood up, to lean forward. “You even whispered to me that the boy would be fine before you headed out. Why bother to give me comfort when you want me to believe you to be a vicious, murdering monster?”

  “Dammit! I don’t know.” He pulled back, walking around to grab her upper arms, holding her there where he knew she couldn’t disappear, leaving him alone like he’d been his whole life. And yet she should stay away from him and his black soul.

  Grace, her lovely angel face, tipped up so her eyes could pierce him. But the anger that had narrowed them, softened. A gentle smile touched her lips as one eyebrow arched delicately. “Well,” she said. “I don’t believe any of your devil act, Keir Mackinnon. It is all lies. You are honorable and kind. Traits that were born to you, innate parts of you like your wavy hair and deeply dark brown eyes. You were taught to be a devil, but you are not one in your soul.” Her words finished soft like a breath of a whisper, words that pulled at his heart, a heart that he had thought died years ago in Aonghus Mackinnon’s bloodstained room.

  He should turn away from her, have Brodie take her home before Rab could order the Devil to harm her, but no one had ever looked past his mask before. No one had dared. Only Brodie knew the secret, his trusted friend from boyhood, who’d sworn to help him. Keir stood still, frozen on a precipice, unsure whether to walk away or…

  Grace lifted her fingers to his face, running one along his hairline and down his temple, past his ear to his jaw. “You were born a man, not a devil. Remember, I have excellent instincts when it comes to people, and I’m a coward. If your heart was as dark as you say, I’d be running away.”

  She lifted her hands to his shoulders, sliding them up until he could feel her fingers behind his neck. Standing on her toes, Grace brought her face to his and pressed her lips to his mouth. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe; the feel of her softness was like a chisel against the brittle shield he held around himself. As she backed up, she tugged softly at her bottom lip, her lashes opening as she focused in on his gaze.

  And Keir’s discipline snapped.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Grace sucked in a small gasp as Keir pulled her to his hard form, his mouth lowering to capture her lips.

  The dam on her passion that had begun to crack with their argument broke, flooding her with sensation, molten fire that weakened her legs. Keir’s thick arms wrapped around her, holding her to kiss her soundly.

  His hands lifted under her backside, pressing the V of her legs against his hardness, which she could feel even through the many layers separating them. She should fight him, remind him of his sins in taking her against her will, but the memory of their evening together in another cabin turned traitor against her resolve. Was this another cruel ruse? The fire leaping between them felt too real to be deception.

  He broke away to kiss a hot trail down her neck, his hold moving her slightly up and down against him. “Bloody hell, Keir,” she said, with a breathy whisper soaked in desire. “Is this all another lie?”

  Keir lifted his head from her skin to meet her gaze. He breathed in through his nose and gave a slight shake of his head. “When I touch you…’tis the only time I am real.”

  His words, spoken with such emotion, cleaved the anger inside her. “Blast. No matter how much I want to be furious at you…” The man had tricked her, taken her against her will, carried her to this damned castle surrounded by death. She should hate him, but she couldn’t. Not when he’d shown her some of his heart. She wrapped her hands over his shoulder. “I want to despise you, but instead I fear that I want…more.” Her stomach fluttered, making heat flow downward.

  “Och,” he whispered, as if her words were almost painful to him. “Despise me, lass, but whatever ye do, do not fear me.” His eyes held the heaviness of regret and want.

  She shook her head. “I don’t fear you, Keir.” She rose onto her toes. “Give me more.”

  His hands dove into her hair, raking away the small hood, the pins scattering to plink against the wood at their feet. Grace tipped her face to his, seeking his mouth. Slanting to deepen the kiss, she clung to his shoulders, her nails scratching against the linen of his shirt until she reached the edge of his kilt. She tugged the shirt out, desperate to feel the heat of his skin under her palms, his muscles thick and rolling.

  “More,” she moaned against his kiss as she slid palms over his skin. He radiated heat, his strong fingers working to unlace the back of her gown, and she realized her cape was already pooled at her feet.

  He kissed her ear. “More what, lass?” he asked, inhaling along her neck as her bodice slipped downward exposing her thinly covered breasts.

  “More of this.” With the heat still rushing through her, Grace lowered one shoulder and then the other until her ample breasts spilled forth to sit upon her lowered smock. Feeling wicked, she slid hands under each one, plumping them up and pinching her own nipples.

  “Aye, Grace,” Keir said, the awe in his tone fueling her brazenness so that she continued to pull and tease herself. Keir rubbed his large hand over his obvious arousal.

  She came forward, her mouth going dry as she slid her hands underneath his tented kilt, reaching for him. He was thick and hot and long like she remembered. It caused her to ache anew. “Huge and heavy,” she said, bringing out a smile on Keir’s mouth. Oh, how she wanted to kiss it again. With Keir there was no shame, no worry that he would think her improper or too delicate for passion.

  He bent his head to trail kisses down her chest until he captured her nipple between his lips. Hot and wet, he surrounded it, teasing her. “Good God,” Grace breathed, feathering her fingers through his hair as he loved first one breast and then the other. She shifted restlessly against him. “Damn all these layers,” she said as he stroked down over her covered backside. “I want to feel your hot skin sliding along mine.”

  He growled low in the back of his throat as he trailed back up her neck. “I love what comes from your sweet lips, lass.”

  She breathed shallowly at the sensual tickles he delivered. “What comes out of these lips often creates trouble.” He nuzzled the skin of her collarbone, making her head swim. “At times, I wish I could capture the words I say and suck them inward.” Sensation, hot and rushing, filled her. “Yes, Keir,” she purred as he palmed her breasts while kissing up the side of her neck. “Capture and suck,” she murmured, her mind flowing with the heat.

  Keir stopped, glancing up at her. She blinked at the intensity etched in the planes of his face. “What?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Aye, lass, I love the words that come from those lips. Capture and suck all ye want, but don’t stop talking.”

  Keir covered her mouth with his. She held herself to him by gripping his biceps, which hardened and flexed under his shirt. “You need to become naked,” she whispered.

  “I heartily agree.” He backed up to remove the sash from his shoulder. Grabbing his untucked shirt, he raised it in a fluid motion, pulling it off over his head.

  Grace’s tongue turned dry as week-old toast as she took in the fullness of his arms,
the broadness of his shoulders and ripples of muscle in his chest and stomach. She wet her lips. “Good God,” she said, stepping forward to lay her hands on all that masculine beauty. She let them trail down to find the slight indent on each of his sides at the edge of his low-slung plaid. “Michelangelo should have sculpted you.”

  Keir chuckled with teasing happiness, the sound so foreign that Grace stared until he bent to kiss her. She barely noticed the release of the ties of her costume until Keir clasped her waist and lifted her up toward the ceiling. Breaking their kiss, she looked down to see him liberate her from her stiff farthingale, kirtle, and petticoat simply by lifting her out of them, as if she weighed as little as a child. She stood in her lowered smock, exposed from her navel upward.

  “Much better,” he said, drawing her against him. He stroked down her form, his hands gliding over her buttocks covered only by the thin smock. “All beautiful, soft curves.”

  Without the layers between them, Grace felt his heavy member strain for liberation within the wool kilt. She trailed her fingernails along the skin of his shoulders and down his sides to the wrap. “Your turn, Keir Mackinnon,” she said. She tugged on the end of the heavy belt that kept the layers in place.

  Keir’s hand closed around her wrist. “Grace,” he said, one hand grabbing the back of his neck as he looked up for a moment at the heavy beams of the ceiling, the playfulness vanishing from his face.

  “What?” she asked, her stomach contracting. Had he been ordered to stay away from her? Or worse, did he just not want her?

  With one finger, he gently raised the neckline of her smock, blocking his view of her breasts. “Grace.” He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her against the heat of his massive chest. “I didn’t bring ye here to seduce ye, to take your innocence. ’Twould not be honorable.”

  The tightness in Grace’s stomach relaxed. She looked up at him, but he stared out over her head. “I hadn’t planned to steal away your innocence, either, Keir. But here we are, mostly undressed.” She rubbed hands down his strong arms. “And I’m not putting those layers back on until you…do more.”

  She nodded, her face set. For Grace had decided well before his betrayal, when she’d tended the man who’d taken a wolf bite without dooming the pups back in the den, that if given the chance, he was the adventure she wished to give in to.

  He looked down at her, his brows pinched. “I have no innocence.”

  She tipped her head. “Innocence can be a damned nuisance at times.”

  A slow grin grew on his mouth, and he narrowed his eyes. “I should have expected ye to peek through a barn wall to eavesdrop on me, since ye’ve done it before,” he said, reminding her of the confession she’d made about spying on the couple in the barn at Somerset.

  The mere memory of moaning and wicked words, the undulating, mouths and hands everywhere, made Grace’s core boil. “Yes, I suppose you should have expected it,” she said, her words a breathy whisper.

  Keir’s hand slid down her spine and back up, the feel of it gentle and luring. “Tell me again, lass. Were the maid and groom wild against each other?”

  She nodded, a clenching feeling adding to the ache in the V of her shifting legs. “There was much thrashing and rolling about, moaning and…tasting each other.”

  “Like I planned to taste ye before,” he whispered, the smile replaced by an intensity that left Grace breathless.

  Her nipples pearled under her smock, and she lowered the linen again, drawing Keir’s gaze down. “She tasted him before he mounted her.”

  “And ye watched and listened the whole time.”

  “Yes,” she said, drawing out the word as she once again scooped slowly under each breast. “Just spying on them made me ache with want.” He watched her pinch her own nipples. “Do you like to watch me touch myself, Keir?” she whispered.

  “Good God, aye,” he said. “And bloody hell, keep talking.”

  She ignored the blush creeping up her neck and smiled mischievously. “Words can paint a wicked picture.”

  He reached forward to heft one of her breasts, stepping to pull her against him. “Aye.” He kissed her, moving his hand to stroke the side of her head. “But ye are certain, Grace? We should stop now if ye aren’t, because once swept up in the heat that I’m planning to kindle in ye, there will be no going back.”

  His words made her stomach quiver. “’Tis my choice, and I choose you, Keir Mackinnon. Make me burn, and moan, and thrash about.”

  “Och, lass, I intend to.” Keir reached down, tugging the ties holding his boots and toeing them off. He stood tall and met Grace’s gaze as he loosened the belt holding up his plaid, and the whole wrap dropped with a thunk to the cabin floor.

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Broad shoulders tapered down his muscled chest, narrowing at his waist and hips to display his full, powerful arousal. Even without a stitch of clothing, he looked completely at ease and invincible.

  Slowly, she stepped around him, trailing her fingers along the skin of his waist. His head turned to follow her with his gaze. The dark serpentine markings around his thick biceps flowed over his shoulder to drape the side of his back down to his full, taut buttocks, while the legion of small crosses stood in rows over the other side. Her gaze raked his chest to the intricate crosses over his heart, but she let her focus slowly fall in perusal down his frame, rippled with underlying muscle. His arousal stood proud against his abdomen, and although she’d touched it before, she hadn’t seen it in all its large proportions.

  Keir pulled her in, and she felt its hot length between them. “Your eyes are very round, lass,” he said as his hands swept up under her hair, raking through the tresses to stroke her head.

  She stared into his handsome face, focusing on the bits of gold in his dark brown eyes. “You are large and hard, and I am small and soft. You are experienced, and I am a maiden. You are a brave warrior, and I am a coward. It all adds up to very round eyes, Keir.”

  He leaned in, kissing the tip of her nose. “I have yet to see this coward ye speak of, Grace Ellington.” He stroked her hair. “I see a courageous lass who speaks her mind.” He rubbed the pad of this thumb over her bottom lip. The only sound was the low crackle of the fire in the hearth. “A beautiful woman who decides what she wants and pursues it.”

  The world outside the cabin no longer existed. The only place that mattered was the narrow space between their bodies. Grace set her hands on his shoulders and gazed into his deep brown eyes. “And I want you. Absolutely and completely.”

  Before another thump of her heart, Keir’s arms surrounded her, his mouth pressing against her lips. All sense within Grace shattered, and she met his kiss with a ravenous one of her own, rising on her toes to thrust herself against him. She slanted her head and opened her mouth, tasting him as he tasted her. His hands pressed against her back as she slid her palms down his arms and up his chest, her thumbs tweaking against his nipples. The cool air of the room broke along her legs and backside as Keir lifted her smock, rucking it up until he broke the kiss to pull it off over her head. They were both naked.

  Hands slaked over skin, and Grace rubbed against him, her stomach teasing his rigid length. He said something in Gaelic, guttural words that sounded like a growl, causing more excitement to flood into Grace. She felt years of ladylike training give way to animal instinct. Scratching her nails down his spine, she squeezed his tight buttocks, his groan making her bold. She reached around front to grasp him, wrapping around his hardness to stroke him up and down. Soft skin over steel, she marveled in the power that a simple appendage could exude. God help her, she wanted it inside her, wanted Keir inside her.

  Grace’s nipples pearled, and Keir broke free of her mouth to trail hot, wet kisses down to one. Plumping the other with his palm, he swirled his tongue around the nipple of her other breast. When he grazed it with his teeth and sucked hard on it, Grace moaned deeply as she felt the tug reach down to her aching core. Her hand lifted to hold his head to her
breasts, reveling in the feel of hot, wet heat on her sensitive skin. “That feels wickedly good,” she said, running her fingers through his hair to his scalp.

  He kissed back up her chest and neck to her ear, holding her close against his hot body. His lips grazed her earlobe. “Ye’ve moaned. Now for the burning and thrashing.”

  His deep voice and the erotic promise in his words melted through Grace, making her shift against him, her core seeking his hardness. “I want you in me, Keir.”

  He growled back in answer, pulling her in for his fingers to dive between the globes of her backside, searching for her hot woman’s opening. She arched back, spreading more for him. Teasing along the outside, she moaned, rearing against his hand until he entered, strong fingers working up inside her. “Oh God,” she said, her words breathy.

  “Och, lass, ye are so hot and wet.” He kissed her mouth, playing within the kiss to match the thrust of his fingers below. Breathing and slanting, tasting and exploring, she kissed him with wild abandon, succumbing completely to sensation.

  “No,” she said when he withdrew, but he lifted her, carrying her with swift intent toward the large bed against the wall. Setting her down, he lay next to her, his face over hers to kiss as his hands slid back down her side and waist. Her legs parted on their own as he sought her heat again, but this time from the front, his fingers deftly plucking at the nub Grace had explored herself. “Yes, Keir, right there,” she said, thrusting her pelvis higher into his hand as he played, rubbing outside while also delving within.

  “Open your eyes,” he said, and she blinked, gazing at him above her, his arms leading down to work her flesh as he watched her thrust and squirm on the blanket. Seeing him watch her sent another wave of heat, and Grace lifted her hands to her breasts, squeezing them together upward as she plucked her own nipples. Keir stared, his features tight and intense before he lowered his mouth down to suckle again.