“Oh God, Keir, I’m going to burst with want,” Grace said, finding a rhythm against his hand. The ache inside her was building, and she panted.
He raised his gaze to her. “Aye, lass, we will.”
Lowering to the other breast, his teeth tugged at her nipple as his fingers worked against her flesh below, faster, until Grace felt the ache build so high she couldn’t hold on any longer. Hands fisted in the blankets, she opened her mouth, tipping her head back to arch her neck. “Oh God, Keir!” she yelled, the noise of her passion, released upon the world, throwing her over the crest.
With the waves still flooding within her, Keir climbed atop. Her legs were already spread wide, giving him complete access to her body. Poised above her, Grace met his stare. “Yes,” Grace said, wrapping her arms around his back as his hardness pressed against her wet, throbbing entrance.
“See me, Grace. See who claims ye completely,” he said, grasping her face. “Mo ghaol,” he said and slammed forward, impaling her. The sting of his entry almost dissolved as soon as it broke through her. Braced on his forearms, he leaned in, kissing her as he held his body still.
“Keir,” she moaned against his lips, thrusting her pelvis against his. “More.”
Backing up, he pressed forward again, rubbing her most intimate and sensitive places. “Yes, more,” she said.
“I would not hurt ye,” he said, and she could see the strain in his features.
“I’ve ridden astride since I could walk. The sting is gone.” She reached behind to slap her palm against his backside and thrust upward. “I said more.”
He growled, his arms braced around her face as he looked down. “Bloody beautiful,” he said, and his lips pulled back, showing his teeth as he rose and plunged back into her with a guttural groan.
Grace met it with a growl. “Bloody hell, yes,” she yelled, thrusting to meet him as they picked up a rhythm that fed the flames within her. “Hard and deep, Keir. Mark me as yours from the inside out.”
Her words shredded any remaining limits between them, and they strained together, their bodies slapping against each other as the bed shook and scraped the floor. The aching wave rose, breaking once more over Grace. “Keir,” she moaned.
Keir met her call with a fierce growl, his voice filling the cabin as he, too, exploded. “Tha thu a ‘mhèinn!”
Grace’s body convulsed as his heat flooded within her. Shivers of sensation coursed up and down her, melting her muscles and prickling her skin as they continued to rock together, their rhythm slowing as the waves of intense pleasure receded like a slowly lowering tide.
Breaths ragged, Keir drew her with him as they rolled, intertwined, to the side. With a stretch, he reached over Grace to work the edge of the blanket up over her back and shoulders. She buried her face in his chest as it rose and fell rapidly. She inhaled their combined scents, mixed with the tang of their love. They said nothing, just held each other, as the muted sunlight fell in the window, and a wind blew around the corners of the snug cabin.
In Keir’s arms, completely sated, warm and safe, the flame of joy grew inside Grace. No wonder Ava preferred to love her husband rather than get a long night’s sleep. No wonder the maid had risked being caught when meeting the groom in the stables at Somerset, people sang tributes to love, and rogues sought out willing women. God’s teeth! She’d definitely been willing.
She tipped her gaze up to search Keir’s eyes. “I can see why people would want to do that every day.”
He kissed her gently and chuckled, running a hand down her back under the blanket. “If they did, there’d be more bairns about.”
A baby? Of course, she knew that a baby could come of this, but that certainly hadn’t been in her mind at the start.
Keir sat up. “The fire’s waned.” He stood, letting the blanket slide off him, and padded barefoot to add one square of peat. They must not be staying long enough to require more. She raised up on her elbow, watching the fluid motions of someone in complete control of his muscles, like a predatory creature, as he stalked back. Naked and proud and impervious to the chill in the room, he grinned down at her, his finger teasing her breast that had broken free of the blanket. “What’s churning in that bonny head of yours?”
Grace watched him closely, her question sitting like a bubble in her mouth. She tilted her head to the side, feeling her long hair fall over her naked shoulder. “Just…have you ever thought to marry?”
Chapter Nineteen
Marry?
The word tightened through Keir. Turning away, he lifted his plaid from the floor, stepping into it.
“I’m not asking you to marry me, Keir,” Grace said, sitting up on the bed with the blanket wrapped over her bountiful breasts. “I only want to know if you’ve ever thought about it.”
“The Devil of Dunakin doesn’t wed.”
“Why not?” A frown pinched her angel-like features, her blue eyes serious. Did she hope to one day marry him?
“It is rarely done,” he said, his words short to cut off the conversation. He threw his shirt back on and avoided her gaze.
Grace dragged the blanket behind her as she walked to where he’d lifted her from her many layers. “Oh,” she said, nodding, her brows raised high over her bright blue eyes. “Because to keep up the ruse, you’d have to beat her every night.” She tapped her lip with one finger. “And how could you ever be faithful to a wife when the Devil must spend his days raping the women in every village you storm through? If you think about it, that’s a lot of work, all that swiving. You would hardly have anything left for a wife.”
“Grace,” he said, warning in his voice. “Those are stories, bred by gossips and spun by Brodie to grow the legend.”
Grace dropped the blanket, reaching for her discarded smock. As her breasts hung with their fullness, Keir almost forgot what they were talking about. Och, she was beautiful. She threw the thin, white gown over her head, tugging it into place. Without a word, she moved to the pooled layers of her costume, climbing into the middle.
She sighed. “I know the stories aren’t true, but as long as everyone believes them, no one will come close to you.”
“’Tis how it should be.” He’d been told from the start, as a scrawny lad with freckles across his nose, that one day he would frighten away everyone. He had been given no other option.
“What happens to Keir Mackinnon?” she asked, pausing in her dressing, her eyes sad.
The pity he glimpsed there hardened his jaw. “He protects his clan and dies.”
“What a terrible and boring life,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts. The skirts still sat around her hips, undone. Her hair wound around her shoulders in wild curls. She looked unbound and free.
When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I doubt you dance, and you hardly laugh. You will never get to hold a small boy who has your beautiful brown eyes or drink fine whisky at your daughter’s wedding. As the damn Devil, you will never know the pleasure of rolling dice with friends over wassail or laughing at the antics of the Abbot of Unreason at Christmastide. The Devil of Dunakin can’t know love—”
“Enough,” he said, the churning in his gut turned to rock, hardened by the mix of pity in her tone and his own regret, which he thought he’d buried ten years ago, the day he’d held his mother for the last time. The day he’d fully become the Devil of Dunakin.
“I thought you liked the words that came from my mouth,” she said, meeting his gaze directly. How could Grace Ellington have ever thought herself a coward? She didn’t seem to care that he’d slaughtered hundreds, that his lethal look had been known to make men piss in fear. Yet, here, alone, Grace wielded a sharper blade than any he had ever carried before. Truth. Even he, Keir Mackinnon, the infamous Devil of Dunakin, struggled not to look away from her gaze.
“It is time to return to Dunakin,” he said finally and pivoted on his boot heel to stride out the door. Welcoming the chill of the winter air, Keir walked briskly to the single stable to
re-saddle Cogadh. His horse looked at him with intelligent eyes, as if asking what was amiss, but Keir didn’t need to answer. That was one reason he liked animals. They didn’t require explanations and didn’t pry into issues that had been locked away.
Keir patted Cogadh as he buckled the girth straps, securing the saddle on his back. What had he been thinking, bedding a virgin, an honest, pure-hearted woman? The Devil of Dunakin must be separate, alone, not tied to a soft, beautiful creature who made him question his duty. Bloody hell. He’d add the act of ruining a virgin to the list of his sins, which would surely fly him to Hell. After all, wasn’t that where a devil was destined to spend eternity?
He led Cogadh outside where Grace waited in the doorway. “I’ve stirred the fire apart,” she said. “And fixed the bed.”
He could tell by the color in her cheeks and the tilt of her lips that she was angry. Sard it. Leaving his horse, he walked up to her. “Grace.”
She turned bright blue eyes up to him, and he could see a slight sheen there as if tears had welled up. “Och, lass.” He pulled her into his chest, hugging her. “I have no answers for ye, and I’m sorry if ye regret this afternoon.”
She pulled back, her face serious. “I have no regrets.” She laid her palm flat on his chest over his heart. “Do you?”
Hadn’t he been damning himself moments ago for taking her, making her writhe and burn with passion? He exhaled, shaking his head. “Nay. I will cherish the memory, but I regret putting those tears in your eyes.”
She blinked but didn’t deny them.
He released an exhale. “Ye have to know, Grace, that I hurt all the people who come close to me. I am not just a man. I carry the devil’s name and his duty.”
Her lips pursed tight but then opened. “And you have to know, Keir, that I will always speak my mind when I think someone about whom I care is headed toward pain and sorrow.”
Her words coursed through him, but he squelched the small flame of happiness they sprouted. “Ye should not care for me.”
She gathered her skirts to climb upon the horse and narrowed her eyes at him. “Too late.”
…
Grace watched the weathered, gray stone of Dunakin’s wall grow crisper as Little Warrior carried them closer to the open, toothed portcullis.
A shiver trailed through her at the feel of riding into the gaping maw of a monster. Only Keir’s strength at her back kept her sitting straight, eyes forward and gaze steady. The ride back through the perimeter of heads had reeked of death. Even closing off the sight didn’t stop her mind from conjuring the horrific images behind her eyelids.
The villagers had retreated as they rode slowly between the thatched houses. With each closing door, Grace’s emotions twisted with anger and sadness. Keir didn’t flinch at the obvious shunning, the villagers’ fear making them abandon any type of loyalty to him. If Keir ever met a foe more powerful than himself, no one would come to his aid. Perhaps Brodie, but none of his clan. It didn’t matter if the Devil of Dunakin had been a Mackinnon guardian for generations, fear would cause his people to leave him to the wolves.
She leaned into the warmth he gave off, enjoying these last moments of closeness they might have before he became the damned Devil again. They had become lovers this afternoon, but she had no idea what that meant or if it would continue. In England, she would be considered ruined. At Aros, she might be thought of as weak and wanton to crave the touch of her captor. But was she truly a prisoner now? She’d agreed to see Lachlan through his illness, and she would stay to see justice uncover the assassin.
And what about Keir? Could she leave him here, embroiled in his clan’s fear and disloyalty? Suddenly, everything that had been straightforward—her attempted plans for escape, her hate for her captor—had been blurred by the passion they’d just shared.
Lifting her down, Keir squeezed her hand, bending toward her ear. “Only Brodie knows of the poisoning. I asked him to watch both Rab and Lachlan today if we were away.”
They climbed the few steps into the keep where Dara and Fiona sat at the center table. Keir’s sister stood, scowling at them both. “Where have ye been?”
“Has something happened to Lachlan?” Grace asked, breaking away from Keir to head toward the steps.
“Nay, but now Rab looks ill,” Fiona said. “This Spotting Sickness is spreading. Brodie has been up with them. He sent us away.” She frowned. “Here. Take this up if ye are allowed in.” She handed Keir a wooden plate that held bread, cheese, and a cooked egg.
“Ye said eggs could help,” Fiona said, looking at Grace.
“Yes, thank you.”
Grace and Keir climbed the dark stairs silently and stopped before a sconce outside Lachlan’s door. “Is there a fine powder on the plate or on the food?” she asked.
“I can’t see for certain in this light.” Keir knocked.
“Aye?” The voice sounded like Brodie.
“It’s Keir.”
“And Grace.”
The bar scraped down the door on the other side, and Brodie opened it. The room smelled of human sickness. “Make sure the shutters are cracked to let in fresh air,” Grace said as she passed to Lachlan. The boy’s eyes were open, but he still seemed weak. She smiled as she sat on the chair by his bed. “Awake is good. Have you taken in anything? Broth or ale?”
“Some,” he whispered. Relief at the simple word filled Grace, changing her forced smile into a real one. The boy’s mind wasn’t muddled from the poison.
She stroked his cool forehead. “Always make certain that one of us, in this room, has inspected your food or drink before you take it in.”
He gave a little nod, and Grace patted his arm, looking to a pale Rab. He sat in a chair near the fire. “You have a strong boy.”
“We are a solid lot,” he said.
“Who is doing this?” Brodie asked, his voice soft as he checked the hall outside the door. It remained empty. “And why?”
Grace pulled her wild hair to the side and hoped no one noticed the tangles. “I have my theories.”
“Which are?” Rab asked and sipped at a flask.
She glanced at Keir and then his brother. “You have a visitor. Normond MacInnes.”
Rab’s lips pulled back as if he’d tasted something bad and wished to spit. “He’s more than a visitor. He’s betrothed to Dara and soon to be a member of our clan.”
Grace stood. “He’s also the bastard who is being hunted by four powerful clans, south of here, for terrorizing and nearly raping Mairi Maclean, the woman whom he convinced you to retrieve.”
“Shite,” Brodie said. “Ye know him?”
“I’ve never met him in the flesh before Dunakin, but I know his name, and he fits the description. Also, he cornered me today, and my instincts tell me he’s not to be trusted.”
Rab rubbed his beard, tugging.
Grace continued. “Even if Normond MacInnes isn’t behind the poisoning, he should be held for the chiefs of Mull, Barra, and Islay, as well as the new chief of the MacInnes. If he becomes part of your clan, you will have four powerful clans against the Mackinnons.”
Rab leaned back in his chair and nodded toward Keir. “I care not, for the Devil of Dunakin guards our clan.”
“One man against four clans is hardly a defense,” Grace said. “Even if he is a devil.”
Keir stood as if carved from stone, his expression flat.
“And when the English decide that Skye is worth fighting for,” Grace said, “you will want allies, not enemies among the clans.”
Rab cursed under his breath and said something in Gaelic. “We will watch MacInnes, but I will not throw Dara’s betrothed into my dungeon until I’ve heard his explanations and we’ve caught the bloody culprit.”
“How shall we flush the traitor out?” Brodie asked.
She studied the white powder under the egg. “Considering the amount of arsenic dust on this plate marked for the chief, the assassin is trying to complete the deed. Perhaps because I’v
e arrived and might figure out that you aren’t succumbing to an illness.” Grace pinched her lips, while all four males in the room stared at her. She needed a reason for a gathering. “It is February,” she said, her words slow, and looked to Keir. “I think we shall have a St. Valentine’s Day feast in the hall.”
“To celebrate my near death?” Rab asked. His face turned red, and he coughed for several long moments into his fist.
“Dara has mentioned before that we don’t celebrate holidays,” Keir said. “Not since Bradana died—”
“Don’t say her name,” Rab said, his voice forceful even as he gasped, recovering from the coughing fit.
“If we have the gathering, the fiend is likely to try to poison you there,” Grace said. “We will be watching, and you will make sure not to let anything pass your lips.” She tipped her head, studying Rab as a plan solidified in her mind. “How well can you act?”
…
Keir stood in the decorated great hall. Over the last two days he’d seen Grace only in Lachlan’s room. When the circles around her eyes darkened with exhaustion, he’d convinced her to sleep in his bed while he guarded his nephew. He’d asked Dara to instruct the cooks to make a small feast for St. Valentine’s Day. She’d seemed surprised but pleased, rushing off to the kitchens. He’d asked his seanmhair to find a gown that Grace could alter for the celebration.
Meanwhile, the kitchen staff must think Grace was the clumsiest lass to walk the halls of Dunakin. She went by several times each day to replace the bowls and plates of food that she’d spilled in Lachlan’s room.
Keir kept the tankard he’d been careful to wash himself. He filled it from a common butt of ale and sipped while watching two maids scurry about with linens, dressing the table that ran the length of the hall. In the corner, three musicians gathered with their instruments, discussing the folk songs they would perform. Keir ignored their cautious glances. When one passed the sign of the cross before his chest, Keir snorted softly. Aonghus Mackinnon would be pleased. He took a swig of the brew, realizing that every time he thought of the man who’d raised him, he craved a strong drink.
The Devil of Dunakin Castle (Highland Isles) Page 17
