“Is that a challenge?” She laughed, looping her arms around his broad shoulders. “This time you might win. I don’t see how I’m supposed to manage anything in these skirts and with these buckets on my hips.”
“Och, so ‘tis true. My fair lass disnae ken everything.”
Picking her up, Keir turned her about in a swift motion. Lifting her skirts, he set her astride him. The broad panniers collapsing into themselves and folding up under his direction.
She was impressed by his rakish skills and told him so.
He grinned and drew her down to meet his kiss. Tender, teasing. He parted her lips with his. His tongue stroking her lips languidly, gliding across her tongue. She felt her bodice slip and noticed that while he’d been kissing her, he’d managed to tug her gown off her shoulders and loosen her it enough to bare the swell of her breasts above the corset Peigi and Ceana had insisted upon.
“My talented rake,” she sighed, holding his head to her breast as his lips whispered across her flesh, spreading goose bumps in their wake.
The same gooseflesh spread up her legs as he ran his rough palms over her thighs and around to cup her bottom and pull her closer. His long fingers parted and teased, finding her swollen nub, circling lightly. With a gasp, she shifted, giving him better access. He circled once more before sliding his fingers up inside her.
Her moan was matched by his. “Ye’re fore’er hot for me,” he growled in a thickened brogue. “Wet. Begging for me. Do ye want me, mo ghrá?”
He thrust his fingers deep inside her. “Yes!” Her response was strangled by a cry of pleasure.
Pushing aside his kilt, he lifted her, gliding her along his rigid erection, letting her feel the turgid length.
“Do ye want this?”
“Y-yes…” she stuttered hoarsely, trying to lift herself into position for him to take her but he’d not give an inch.
Instead, he thrust slowly against the juncture of her thighs, rousing her to a fever pitch. Until she was tugging at his hair and sobbing for relief. Her head was reeling, overcome by the blood pounding like the tolling of the clock through her with every slow stroke.
Their mouths met again, his tongue sliding across hers, mimicking the carnal motion of his body. Tension built low in her belly, spreading like fiery tendrils down the insides of her thighs. She gripped his hips tightly, her soft cries caught by his lips.
“Keir. Keir!”
“Let it go, mo ghrá. Mo rúnsearc. Let it take ye.”
“No.” She gazed into his flaming blue eyes and stroked his whiskered cheek tenderly. “Not without you. I want you to take me.”
His eyes flared even hotter. Turning his cheek into her hand, he kissed her palm. Then lifted her and let her slide down his thick staff. She threw back her head with a moan that shook her entire body. He held her hips, grinding her down until he was buried deep, stretching her almost painfully.
“Nay, lass. Look at me. Come wi’ me.”
Once their eyes met, he lifted her again. Driving his hips up as he pulled her down. She wasn’t about to let him do it all on his own. Holding tight to the flaring wings of the chair, she set a motion that pleased them both. Changing angles and rhythm to wrench growls and moans from him she’d never heard before.
And Gaelic, a stream of indecipherable words, roughened by his thick brogue, but tender. The tender sounds tore at her heart.
The torment building in her was getting harder to fight, but she was determined to make it last, make it the best she could. For him. For them.
The pleasure he was giving her, the pleasure she saw in his eyes was so pure, so poignant her chest tightened painfully. Tears filled her eyes.
“Ah, mo rúnsearc. Mo stór lómhara. Conas tú teagmháil liom. Come wi’ me now.”
He clasped her hips in his big hands and urged her on, faster still until he bowed beneath her. With that final surge, Al fell apart in his arms, the force of her orgasm so powerful blackness swirled before her eyes. Her head spun dizzily.
And dizzier still when he drew her to him for a tender kiss.
Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to his bedchamber. Setting her on her feet only long enough to strip her bare, he laid her on the bed, and shedding his kilt, stretched out next to her. He drew her close until they were touching from chest to toe. His legs wrapped around hers until their bodies tangled together.
His rough hands swept over her body from shoulder to hip, holding her even closer. She clung to him tightly. Ran her hands down his back and butt. She would never be close enough. Never have enough of him.
Never feel so deeply as he made her feel. She longed to tell him what was in her heart.
She knew it would be the most foolish thing she could do. Such an admission would drive him away even faster than telling him that her reality was not his.
Yet this… what she experienced with him was the most real thing she’d ever known in her life. It’d only taken an accident of science to make it happen.
His lips found hers once more, tender. Lingering. Trailing down her jaw and neck lazily. Yet she felt him stirring anew against her belly, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. His hand swept down her back. Kisses trailed farther down until he was nuzzling the valley between her breasts. Lower and her heart accelerated. Rolling her over, his lips grazed over her belly sending a shiver of pleasure down her spine.
Then he cupped her bottom in his hands, lifting her hips and Al tensed…
His lips hovered just over the apex of her thighs, his deep breaths teasing her damp curls. His hot tongue parted her, drawing slowly upward over her throbbing nub, and that little shiver became a long shudder. He probed lightly once more, eliciting a low keening from deep within her.
She felt his smile, his pleasure.
He laved her ever-so-lightly, circling with the merest flick of his tongue. She tried to arch beneath him, to deepen the contact, but he held her hips tight, keeping her in place. Taunting, teasing. Tasting. Just enough contact to leave her panting in desperate arousal. Wound tight. On edge.
His name was a desperate moan on her lips. His dark curls crushed in her fists. He continued to toy with her, taking her to the brink over and over. Until she was weeping for mercy. Body and soul.
He tongued her one last time, leaving her hovering on the pinnacle. She cried out in pain as he left her. Cried out again in exaltation as he slid his body up the length of her own.
Drawing her legs around his hips, he probed her with his hard member and pushed inside. Her body pulsated around him, drawing him deeper. Aching for his possession.
“Yer sweet body is crying out for me, mo mhuirnín. As mine is begging for yers.” His lips met hers, drawing on her lower lip as he filled her completely.
Then he withdrew so deliberately the keening wail built within her once more. He was wreaking havoc on her body. Ravaging her soul.
“Ah, lass, ye maun be the witch I first accused ye of being for ye’ve bewitched me as I’ve ne’er dreamed possible.”
He thrust harder, deeper. But unhurriedly. Over and over until an agonizing throbbing began deep inside her. She trembled at the power of it. Her release when it came was not explosive as it had been. It didn’t wash over her. The force of it expanded inside of her until she felt it with every fiber of her being.
It owned her.
Just as he did.
Chapter 28
“Good morning, mo rúnsearc.”
Finding Al at his desk hunched over a piece of paper, Keir moved behind her and tilted her head back to kiss her tenderly. He meant for it to be nothing more than a brief peck. A greeting. But the taste of her soft lips roused the memory of their passionate night and he couldn’t resist lingering, drawing it out much as he’d elongated their lovemaking. He hadn’t wanted it to end.
She ran her tongue over her lips with a beguiling smile, one he would never have dreamed seeing on her face.
She would ever surprise him.
Looking over her shoulder, h
e took in the rudimentary sketch she was working on. “What is this?”
“Well, there’s one thing about being in your time I just can’t get used to,” she said, retrieving her fallen pen and drawing another curved line. “They never talk about it in the novels and it didn’t take me even a day here to figure out why. It’s just intolerable. And I was thinking to myself this morning, hey, I don’t have to live like this. I may not be a sanitary engineer but I am a quantum physicist. Surely I can figure it out.”
“Figure what oot?”
“Indoor plumbing,” she announced with a triumphant smile and holding up her drawing. “Believe me, it’s going to be big!”
“Plumbing?”
“Yes! It was supposed be almost a hundred more years before it really caught on but I figure since this is a whole different rea… well, why wait?” she continued, drawing a few more lines here and there and muttering under her breath. “I think I have a fair idea, if I can just figure out how to build enough water pressure.”
“Al… I dinnae ken what ye mean.”
“Water closets. Necessaries. Whatever you call them.”
“They are already indoors.”
“But they can be better.” She grinned up at him, delight sparkling in her gray eyes. “This is it, Keir. This is how I’m going to make my fortune in this time. Believe me, it’ll be a revolution. And hot showers, too!”
She was nearly dancing in her chair, excitement evident in her every movement, but he didn’t have any idea what she was getting at.
“Yer fortune?”
“Well, yeah. I have to be able to support myself somehow, right? There’s not exactly much call for professional scientists yet so I’ll need to use the skills and some marvelous futuristic ideas to make my way.”
He was thoroughly baffled. “Make yer own way?”
“Is it that confusing?” Her grin broadened and her eyes danced impishly. She reached up to lightly chafe the scruffy growth of beard along his jaw. “A person might think you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Mayhap I dinnae because I hae nae idea what ye’re speaking of.”
“I’m talking about a way for me to support myself when I’m on my own,” she said, her winsome smile slipping away.
He was frowning and he knew it. Stealing away her joy and enthusiasm. But he couldn’t provide the enthusiasm she was obviously hoping for when he was so stunned by her words.
“We talked about this, remember?”
Aye, he remembered talking about it. Talking her out of it and convincing her to stay. To stay at Dingwall. To stay with him.
He’d thought that would be the end of it. Yet here she was, making plans for a life without him.
She truly meant it. She intended to leave Dingwall. Or Rosebraugh.
To leave him.
As if the incredible passion they’d shared being thus spent had put an end to it all.
His blood roared in his ears, drowning out the slapping rain against the windows, the thunder rolling in the distance. Everything but the deafening beat of his heart.
“I have to think about the future.” Her voice was dim, shaky, losing the verve and confidence she’d gained over her time in the past. With him. “And now that we’ve… you’ve…”
“What, Al?” he bit out. “Now that I’ve what?”
“Gotten some.”
“Some? Some what?”
“Oh, come on, Keir! You’re not so archaic that you don’t know what I mean. You’ve gotten some. Yo—you’ve had your fill. Or slacked your lust. Whatever you call it,” she blustered, flushing so scarlet she was surely red to her toes. “You know you’re not going to want me around here forever,” she added in a soft voice just above a whisper, glancing back down at her sketch.
He wouldn’t?
It hovered on the tip of his tongue to say, “but what if I will?”
He didn’t even flinch in surprise at the thought.
He’d never been one of those hardened bachelors who claimed he’d never wed. Nay, he’d only determined in his thirty-four years he’d never find a woman to suit him. One who cared about his interests, could handle his moods. Who would never bore him.
Allorah Maines was that woman. She fascinated him in every way. Intellectually, physically. His beguilement transcended the mere knowledge she could impart, what she might teach him. Though keeping up with her mentally was a challenge he relished. Nay, her wee quirks had their own allure. The way she scratched at her earlobe when she was nervous. Bounced on her toes when she was excited.
The way she cared for the feelings of others even when they had given her no reason to.
Even her own insecurity tugged at his heartstrings. He wanted nothing more than to be the man who would make sure she was confident in her appeal. That she was worthy of love.
But how to tell her all of that without frightening her away even faster than she already planned to go?
She was indefatigably certain she needed no one in her life. He knew her well enough by now to know she didn’t think herself worthy of true affection. No one had ever cared for her unconditionally before.
All that nonsense about being her own woman when no one, no one truly wanted to be alone in life. It was nothing but fear talking. Fear of rejection.
However, he knew well enough her feelings on marriage after hearing her response to Artair’s hasty proposal. Had seen for himself firsthand how she responded to a proposal of the decent sort.
Perhaps he needed to make one of the indecent sort.
“There’s but one problem wi’ that, mo rúnsearc,” he said flatly. “What makes ye think I’ve had my fill wi’ ye?”
* * *
“Excuse me?”
She blinked up at Keir in confusion. A burst of thunder had nearly drowned out the last of his words. Surely she hadn’t heard him right.
“I’m nae near done wi’ ye, mo mhuirnín. We’ve only just begun, ye and me.”
Elation shimmied down her spine. Damn, but he made that sound like a promise. One she was anxious to find out how he intended to fill.
“So, it might take more than a night but eventually—”
“Or perhaps nae,” he cut in. “Are ye in some hurry tae set oot on yer own? Because I am in nae hurry tae be done wi’ ye. Stay at Rosebraugh, lass.”
“And do what?”
“Be my lover.”
So simple. So tempting. It was what she wanted more than anything. “I-I can’t just…” Al sighed in exasperation. “I have to look ahead, too. I’ll need a job. Some employment to earn my keep… And don’t say I can do that as your lover or mistress or whatever. I’m not a whore. I can’t feel like I’m being paid for that. Like I’m being kept.”
“Ye dinnae think it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement?” he said, wondering how he was ever to get through to her.
She saw nothing of value in what she had to offer of her self and her heart. There was nothing he could say in words to convince her. She would believe nothing he said. Nay, he needed the time to show her what he felt. Demonstrate how much she meant to him.
But he couldn’t do that if he couldn’t keep her with him. “I can assure ye it would. I’ve much tae learn from ye, lass. I want what is in yer mind.”
Bloody hell, he was going to start sounding like a lad desperate enough to grovel at her feet soon. But what was the alternative? Clapping her in irons again and keeping her chained in his dungeon? Though the idea had some appeal, he doubted it would keep her desires stoked even if it would keep her close at hand. “If it is an occupation ye desire, I can offer ye a position as my tutor.”
Al rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “That has no more security than being your lover, Keir. Both positions are useful only for so long. You’ll tire of me and then someday not far down the line I’ll have told you everything I know on every subject. Then I’ll be in the same boat. I’ve got to think and plan further than that.”
Bloody, bloody hell. She was without a
doubt the most stubborn, obtuse woman he’d ever met in his life. If all women in the centuries to come were like her, he wept for the future of man.
She sighed sadly. “I have a whole lifetime to live here, Keir.”
She was leaving him with little choice. Either he kidnapped her or…
“Then live it with me.”
“I just told you—”
“Be my wife.”
“What?”
“Live your life wi’ me, lass. Be my lover, my teacher, my partner. For the rest of our lives.”
* * *
Surely he didn’t realize the permanence of what he was saying, she thought, gaping at him.
He couldn’t possibly be serious.
He was talking about forever. No one had ever wanted to keep her around indefinitely before. Not even her mother. He must be as half-cracked as the rest of his family to ask such a thing.
“Keir…”
“Your Grace,” the butler called from the doorway. “You have a visitor.”
“Nae now, Hastings,” he barked, never looking away from Al. His eyes were raging with a storm of emotion that echoed the one brewing outside the windows.
“I’m afraid she insists, Your Grace.”
“Who the hell thinks they can insist upon anything in this house?” he snapped.
“Oh, I think you’ll want to see me, Keir.”
Chapter 29
The woman lowering the rain-drenched hood from her head was utterly beautiful. She was probably in her mid-thirties but was so riveting with her rich, russet hair highlighted with shimmering strands of auburn and dark arching brows, she seemed younger at first glance. Her brown eyes were rimmed by thick lashes, her lips wide and red. Her skin flawless.
And she was tall, practically statuesque and willowy.
In short, she was the complete antithesis of Al. The sort of woman she’d always envied, who had overshadowed her in the eyes of every man she’d ever liked.
A quick glance at Keir told her he wasn’t likely to be any different. There was real affection in his eyes when he observed at her. Who was she?
Love in the Time of a Highland Laird (A Laird for All Time Book 3) Page 19
