Leaning forward, Helen kissed him. She invaded his mouth like a vengeful army, taking no prisoners and leaving no spot untouched.
The heat of her core pressed down on him, his erection jutting close enough to feel her folds.
Simon felt his control slipping. He broke away from her kiss and held her cheeks between his hands. “Are you sure of this, lass?”
Her eyes darted back and forth between his. “I’m straddling you naked, Simon. I think I’m sure.”
“I need you. Now.”
Her lips caught between her teeth. “Then take me.”
Releasing a breath, he moved his hands to her hips and with little effort, lifted her over his length. With his eyes never leaving hers, he nudged her open and sank into the tight cavern of her beautiful body. Together they sighed, their smiles giving way to stolen breaths.
Helen’s body gave him room and quivered around him, nearly undoing him right then. She moved her hips and he held her still. “A moment, lass. You’re so tight.”
She clenched him even more with his words.
He groaned.
“It’s been a long time,” she told him.
Good, he thought, no room inside her head for anyone but him. “I’ll make you forget anyone before me,” he vowed as he lifted her up only to plunge into her again.
“You’re so sure of yourself,” she teased.
Her eyes rolled up when he reached the back of her womb. “Us. I’m sure of us.” Everything about their joining felt perfect, as if she were the missing part of his life.
Speech became impossible as they moved together. Their bodies in perfect sync with the other. Helen’s hands roamed his hips, his chest. She set the pace and Simon willingly followed. He forced his body to stay alert and not give into the tsunami wave of pleasure building by being buried inside of Helen.
She leaned over him, the soft mounds of her chest slid over his, her fingers dug into his shoulders, and she reached higher. Simon kept the upward-thrusting tilt of his hips, giving more than he thought possible. Her breath hitched and when her orgasm crashed over her, he captured her lips to help keep her silent, knowing her pleasure would reach even higher. She spasmed, gripping him hard until her rocking body started to lax.
Unable to take more, Simon twisted her under him, positioning her back on the blankets. He cradled her hips and kept as much of his weight off her to avoid pushing her into the hard floor.
She snaked a leg over his hips and grasped his ass. “Don’t hold back,” she pleaded. “I won’t break.”
With her command, he drove harder, felt her surrender when his body tightened, and his release took over. All thought disappeared.
* * * *
A long time passed before either of them moved. Helen marveled in the weight of his body holding her firmly on the floor. She didn’t even mind the pebble that wedged itself between her shoulder blade and her spinal column. Every limb in her body melted like butter in a flame. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt so safe, so wanted. So deliciously used and most definitely bruised. She’d wear the marks with a cat-sized grin and picture this moment for the rest of her life.
Considering her previous intimacies could be counted on a few fingers, and none of them worth remembering, Simon could easily play the role of ‘world’s finest’ in her eyes.
“I’m crushing you.”
“Yeah, but it’s nice.” And it was, their bodies still attached and slick.
He moved to his side but kept her gathered to him. It was as if he wanted to leave the warm, inviting place between her legs either. The offending pebble dislodged and fell away.
“Did I hurt you, lass?”
She nodded with a little laugh.
Simon grew serious and ran his hand over her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “Very, very okay.”
He kissed her nose and settled. “I shouldn’t have taken you here.”
“Well, your room would have been off limits. The boys invaded your space last night to make room for one of your neighbors.”
In fact, the room she’d been given was taken too and she and Amber were rooming together. The massive Keep was getting tight.
“I see. Mayhap I’ll have a mattress brought up here.”
She liked the thought but questioned the wisdom of spending every night in Simon’s arms. After some mental math, she knew the timing was off for her to get pregnant, but that would change in less than a week. Birth control wasn’t necessary in her sexless life back home, and it wasn’t available here.
“I’m guessing that affairs aren’t smiled upon in these times.”
“Nay. Not with ladies of your standing.”
She laughed. “I’m not a lady of any standing.”
Simon placed a finger over her lips. “Yes you are, Helen. I’ll not have anyone say or treat you otherwise.”
She wrapped her leg around his hips and felt him start to harden inside her. “I noticed something.”
He linked her knee with his hand and caressed the sensitive flesh of her thigh. “What might that be?”
“I noticed that ever since we came back here, to this time, you have a little more burr in your speech, a lot more sixteenth century language rolling off your tongue.”
“Women like the accent. Makes them weep with desire.”
Oh, how he knew exactly what to say.
“Do you use your talents often, Lord Simon?”
Helen felt his hand slide between their joined bodies. His nimble fingers found the perfect spot of pleasure and began to move.
“I practiced my talents enough in the past so I can please you.”
Her body responded to his caress.
But what happens when I leave? He’ll find someone else to practice on.
Helen forced the thoughts of Simon in the arms of another woman out of her head and lived in the now.
And right now felt pretty damn good.
* * * *
Simon’s hunger drove them from their temporary haven. When they resurfaced, the first one to see them was Myra. With one look, she knew. As much as Helen thought herself an adult, she felt heat burn her cheeks and her feet fidgeted with the need to flee.
“My father is searching for you.” She directed at Simon. “And Amber is asking where you spent the night.” Myra’s brows shot up, and she reached over and straightened the nightgown Helen wore. The breakfast meal time had passed, and from the sounds emitting from below, the day had commenced.
And I’m wearing a nightgown. Helen wanted to cringe. It was one thing to be intimate with Simon, quite another to announce it to the world. The MacCoinnich clan was large enough to be a small world.
Simon kept a possessive arm around Helen’s waist and didn’t answer Myra’s concerns.
Wearing a kilt Simon had tucked into a hidden place in the wall of their private turret, he at least looked half dressed.
“Helen fell asleep upstairs. I’m escorting her to her room.”
Myra, a sixteenth century lady, all prim and proper, wearing her floor length gown with long sleeves and a neckline that didn’t plunge to even a freckle on her chest, burst out in a very broad grin. “Right,” was all she said.
“I should get dressed.” Helen moved out of Simon’s grip.
“I’ll make sure Helen gets to her room,” Myra told Simon. “The men are in need of information only you can provide.”
Simon glanced into Helen’s eyes, asking if it was okay for him to abandon her.
“I’m good. You go.”
He brushed a knuckle to the side of her jaw and winked at Myra as he walked beyond them and down the hall.
The tease didn’t even stop by his room for a shirt. He jogged down the hall and rounded the corner to the stairs. Once he was out of sight, Helen diverted her gaze to Myra who was watching her like a cat who’d trapped a mouse.
“What?” Helen asked.
“Nothing.”
Both of them turned into Amber’s room with
out another word and stepped inside.
“There you are. I was worried.” Amber was out of bed and dressed with the cloak draped over her shoulders.
And she smiled. Helen couldn’t recall if she’d ever really seen Amber smiling as she was doing now. Certainly not with this radiant grin lighting up her eyes, her face.
“You’re…you’re smiling.”
Amber lifted the lapels of the cloak and shrugged her shoulders. “It doubles as a blanket. I slept a full night. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
“Oh, Amber, that’s wonderful.”
“But you? You don’t look as if you slept at all. Where were you?”
Helen stole a glance at Myra.
“Well?”
Myra saved Helen some of her embarrassment. “I found her and Simon walking down the hall. Together.”
Amber’s eyes grew wide. “Together?”
Myra nodded.
“Oh for crying out loud. We’re both adults. Consenting adults.” Helen wasn’t a teen in need of scolding. Not that these women were scolding. “This is awkward.”
“Really? Why?” Amber asked.
“Because…” Helen crossed the room to the washbasin and poured water in the bowl. “Simon is practically a brother to you,” she said and pointed at Amber, “or a cousin at least. And a nephew to you.”
“We’ve both known Simon since he was just a lad,” Myra pointed out.
Helen brought a washrag to the water and wrung it out. She scrubbed her face and neck with more force than necessary. “Yeah, well, he isn’t a lad anymore. He is very grown up.” With grown up parts that worked well. Very, very well.
Helen felt her cheeks heat up again.
Someone behind her chuckled.
“Very grown up,” whispered Amber.
“Relax, Helen. We’re happy for you, truly.”
When she turned around, Myra and Amber were standing side by side. The two of them looked so much alike with their long black hair touching their butts, both the same size and height, and eyes the perfect shade of chocolate brown. Back home, Hollywood would would’ve snatched them up in an instant.
“You are?”
“Aye.”
Myra cocked her head to the side and her grin slid. “But you’ve met my father, right?”
Is this a trick question? Of course she’d met Ian. “Yeah?”
Amber glanced at Myra and her smile fell as well.
The hair on Helen’s neck started to tingle and her skin started to pop with sensations. The same energy she experienced when her gift manifested. Her own personal indicator that information was about to arrive. “What?”
Myra motioned to one of the chairs in the room, encouraging Helen to sit.
Tendrils of power ran up and down Helen’s arms. Sitting didn’t make it better.
“Well?”
Myra gathered Helen’s hand in hers and patted it like she would a child. Her attempt at calm wasn’t working. “If one of you doesn’t start speaking I’m going to go bat-shit crazy.”
“My father is um…. Well, he takes his role as leader of this family very seriously.”
Fine, Helen had seen that. “So?”
“He takes in everyone who travels here with the stones as if they are his own. He offered his full protection to Tara, Lizzy, and Simon…even Todd.”
Amber sat beside Helen. “He considers you his ward. His responsibility.”
Funny, Helen thought Simon took on that role. But Ian was captain of this ship. She got that. “I appreciate that.”
“He’ll treat you as he would his own daughter. Protect you as such,” Amber said.
“I’m not his kid. He doesn’t have to do that.”
“But he will. Does.”
“He feeds me, keeps a roof over my head. I get it.”
From the looks on Myra and Amber’s faces, she wasn’t getting it at all.
“When Tara and Duncan were found together, our father handfasted them within an hour—”
“And when Todd and I were found kissing, he promised to do the same to us if we continued,” Myra interrupted.
Helen started to see the theme here. “And Lizzy?”
“Well, Lizzy...” Amber’s voice faded.
“If we weren’t risking our lives daily, he’d have forced Fin and Lizzy to marry, too,” Myra told her.
Light flickered behind her eyelids. “So you think if Ian found out about Simon and I, he’d enforce a shotgun marriage?”
“Shotgun?”
Helen shook her head, forgetting these women didn’t understand pop culture. “He’d force Simon to marry me.”
Myra’s mouth formed a perfect “O”. “Aye, ’tis exactly what will happen.”
It was Helen’s turn to laugh. “He can try. But that ain’t gonna happen. Besides, I’ve heard of long distance relationships, but living hundreds of years apart is bound to end in divorce.” As she stood, the hair on her arms still hadn’t gone down.
“You’ve been warned.”
“Well thanks, girls. Message delivered. Now, can someone help me get into one of these dresses so I can go eat? I’m starving.”
Amber and Myra exchanged a look and a knowing smile.
Helen knew she hadn’t heard the end of this.
Chapter Eighteen
“So McNeil is after our women,” Ian mused aloud.
“I didn’t hear the name McNeil. In fact, I had the distinct impression a different leader led this band of warriors.” Simon sat among the men and explained what he’d learned.
“Are you sure?”asked Ian.
“I’m not sure of anything. I’m relaying the information I heard. But—”
“But what?” Fin sat his ale down.
“Something didn’t feel right.”
“How so?” Duncan asked.
“Everywhere I perched I heard the same mantra. Almost like the practiced lines of an actor. Like a jester telling the same jokes. They’re practiced and stale after a while, which was how these men spoke.”
Todd stood and started to pace. “Brainwashed? Drink the punch, my children, and follow me.”
Simon shook his head but uttered the word, “Maybe.”
“Manipulated. Like Grainna did to hundreds?” Ian’s voice held a degree of concern.
“Grainna’s dead. We all saw her die.”
Duncan nodded. “It’s not Grainna. We’d know if she’d managed to escape. But who could it be?”
“Someone who knows about us.”
Ian tapped the edge of his desk with his fingertips in a slow, steady rhythm. “If a Highlander who wasn’t Druid knew of us, he’d spread the word and all of Scotland would come to our doors to brand us as evil.”
“So we’re dealing with a Druid.”
Simon nodded. “I think you’re right, Fin.”
Cian, always the staunch observer these days, pushed away from the wall and spoke for the first time since entering the room. “A Druid from the future.”
They all turned his way. Simon wanted to deny the claim. He couldn’t. There was always a possibility that someone from the future haunted them now.
“Mayhap.”
Cian shook his head. “You said so yourself, a man from our time would flush us out as evil, as witches. A Druid with Grainna’s knowledge would capture any of us and not focus on the women. But a Druid from the future—”
“Would notice the pattern of missing women in the future and assume the power belonged with them,” Todd finished Cian’s sentence.
“Precisely.”
Todd shook his head. “I hope Cian’s wrong, but I think he’s right.”
“What of McNeil?”
“A name picked at random? Or maybe whoever’s behind this started their brainwashing with McNeil’s men. Who knows?” The police officer in Todd shone through. He might not hold one Druid gift, but he vastly contributed to the family.
Ian sat back in his chair and sighed. “It just gets worse.”
“
We have to protect the women.”
“And we will,” Fin told his brother.
Simon sat forward. “I think I may have a plan for the women and children.”
All eyes turned to him and he began to speak.
* * * *
The entire family, minus the youngest children, sat around Ian’s study. Dinner had commenced and the main hall was changing shift. At least that’s what Helen thought of it as. Twice a day, every day, the knights on watch would switch with those inside during the evening meal. The elders of the village would meet with Lora or Tara to discuss the issues arising in the yard. Needs were attended to and addressed in the morning hours. The flow of the Keep ran like a Navy ship. Everyone had their duties, their place. Helen found endless hours with nothing to do. If she were honest with herself, she knew she’d never be a ‘stay at home Mom’ or anything the like. Now that Amber was feeling better, they started gathering the materials needed to make the time traveling stones into jewelry. Still, the days felt like an endless wait for doom.
Lizzy and Selma were the last to enter Ian’s study. They sat beside Tara and Briac. The children exchanged a speculative glance.
Helen felt as lost as the kids. With them involved, something serious must have happened.
“We’re all here, so let’s start.” Ian stood behind Lora who sat in his chair at his desk. Helen thought they’d be better suited with thrones. She was reminded constantly that as regal as Ian and Lora were, they weren’t Scotland’s royalty.
Helen found Simon across the room, perched by the fireplace. He watched her with sharp eyes that softened when she glanced his way.
“We have a lot to tell you, and little of it is up for discussion.” Ian’s eye was on Lizzy. “I know that won’t settle well on you, Elizabeth, but please hold any comment until I’m through.”
So Lizzy was the resident skeptic.
Good to know.
Ian took a full breath and let it out between pursed lips. “I’ll start with information that just came to me. Information that none of you have heard.”
Simon twisted his eyes to Ian. Obviously, her lover’s Intel was not the information Ian wanted to share.
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