Lana and the Laird

by Sabrina York

  And somewhere, deep within him, the chains released. The talons holding him back shattered. The staid Englishman diminished, and the savage Highlander arose.

  With a growl he lifted her and tossed her onto the bed. She gave a little squeal, but he could tell it wasn’t one of fear. Not at all. It was a squeal of delight.

  He followed her down, covering her. He longed to spread her thighs and thrust inside, but he could not. Would not. This was her first time. He was determined to bring her to heaven, to show her the pleasure she deserved to know.

  And by God, he wanted her to know such bliss … with him.

  There were so many things he wanted to do, to try, to taste. If this was to be their only time together, by God, he wouldn’t miss a thing. So, though she wriggled and cajoled and attempted to incite him to take her, he held her still and stared down at her beautiful body. Her breasts called to him and he bent his head, sipping at her nipples. It had been deceitful, through the cloth of her nightdress, but this—this was perfection. Her flesh was tender and soft, perfumed with her musk, tantalizing.

  Though his lust was high, he schooled himself to wait, to explore, to bring her to pleasure again. Judging from her sighs and moans as he made his way down her body, he succeeded. He spent quite some time on her belly, because it was so fascinating to explore, but then he moved lower. Obligingly she spread her legs as he nestled between her thighs. Her breath caught. She stared down at him. He shot her a grin and then lowered his head, opened her, and lapped.

  Her entire body convulsed as he licked and laved her pearl. Her legs closed around his head and she made a sound, something feral and raw. He knew he couldn’t torment her, or himself, for long, but as responsive as she was, it wouldn’t take long.

  Indeed, she came, quivering and quaking and moaning his name. Her grip on his hair was brutal and he loved it. Her passion was so engaging, he couldn’t resist. He eased a finger inside. A thrill whipped through him as her barrier gave way. The knowledge that he was the first, the only man for this amazing woman made him feel like a rampaging stallion.

  And with that thought, with that flicker of an image, he went wild.

  He heaved over her, though she was still shaking from the overwhelming sensations, fisted his cock, and, holding her gaze, thrust home.

  Her wet heat scorched him, a splendid agony.

  Her eyes widened, her lips worked. Her body arched, up and into him. She clutched at him with a savage hold and huffed, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Her encouragement incited him on.

  Though he was nearly mad with lust, with wanting, with devotion, he attempted to discipline himself and he pulled out slowly. That the slick walls of her sheath clutched at him in his withdrawal nearly made him lose all hold on sanity.

  He didn’t intend to thrust again so brutally, but he did. And again and again.

  It was a blissful slide, a warm, wet haven within her body, a velvet hell.

  The urge, as ancient as the tors, overtook him and he began a barrage of maddened plunges, from this angle and that, until he found a spot that made her come again, made her snarl in his ear and impale him with her nails and scrape her teeth over the sensitive skin of his neck.

  Aye, he was a feral Scots beast, but she was a wild vixen as well. When she spread her legs farther, to give him more room for his manic lunges, she grabbed hold of his ass and squeezed. As she did, her body closed on him and his breath failed him. The pleasure was so intense, beyond intense. It was rapturous. A familiar spasm rippled in his balls. It crept inexorably up his spine and into his heart and soul.

  His thrusts became faster, harder, deeper.

  Her pleas rose.

  Something ignited between them, with them, in them. It coiled around them, binding them together on some spiritual plane. This wasn’t just a physical joining, this was something far more profound.

  As he reached his peak, as the colored lights exploded in his head, as her body closed on him with hellish shivers and quakes, he glimpsed it.

  Heaven.

  A beautiful, exquisite peace descended upon him. A defining bliss.

  She came with him. They came together.

  For that moment, they were, neither of them, alone.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until much later—until he had recovered his breath and his senses, as he lay in his bed with Lana in his arms, stroking her as though he could never stroke her enough—that he remembered the French letters, untouched in his trunk, and panic descended.

  What have I done?

  Oh, what had he done? He stared at her, his thoughts roiling.

  She must have sensed his sudden tenseness, the unfurling of his dismay, because she leaned up on her elbow and gazed down at him. “What is it?” she asked, curling her fingers around his neck and thumbing the underside of his chin. Her touch was captivating, beguiling; it made him want once more that which he should not want. But he didn’t pull away. He was far too weak for such resolve.

  “We should not have done that.” A croak.

  Concern flickered over her face. “Did I do it wrong?”

  He gaped at her. Wrong? Oh, hell no. He had to pull her down for a kiss. “You were perfect, darling.” She was, in every possible way.

  “Did you no’ enjoy it then?”

  “Of course I did.” It had been the most magnificent encounter of his life, bar none. “But Lana, I should have been more … careful.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “I told you Scotsmen were no’ timid. And I rather enjoyed your … recklessness.” Her grin nearly provoked him to recklessness again.

  He huffed a laugh, though there was little to laugh about. This was serious. “That’s not what I mean. We shouldn’t have done that without any…” He flourished a hand about his groin. Which was stirring. Again.

  “Any what?”

  “Protection.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Protection?”

  “Aye. Those ways to avoid conception we talked about? They’re called French letters. I have some with me, but I didn’t … I forgot … I…”

  “Ach, Lachlan. Doona fash yerself.” She patted him on the chest to soothe him. It did not. In fact, it roused him more. Her soft hand on his nipple, scraping it in her innocence, was a torment indeed. And a delight. With great effort, he recalled himself.

  “Lana, darling…” She shot him an entrancing smile at that. He forced himself to focus. “I canna take chances like this. I canna bear the thought of fathering a son, and exposing him to the horrors of my curse.”

  “I doona believe in curses.”

  Ah, God. She’d told him this countless times before, but that didn’t change the fact that it did exist. It did loom over his head like the Sword of Damocles and, damn it all, it would plague any heir he sired. He couldn’t bear the thought of his child suffering as he had.

  He took her cheeks in both hands and held her gaze. “Nevertheless, Lana, darling, we mustn’t take such chances again. It would be a disaster, should I get you with child.”

  He didn’t understand the pain that flickered over her expression. The stubbornness, however, he was familiar with. She set her chin. “A child would be a gift from God. Should I be so blessed, I would welcome such a happenstance.”

  He frowned at her. She didn’t understand. “The child would be cursed, just like his father.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “Are all sons cursed?” It was clear in her tone she was pandering to him, but he allowed it because she was finally beginning to see sense.

  “All firstborn heirs.”

  “Ah. Dukes-to-be.”

  “Aye.”

  “Legitimate sons only?”

  Something prickled at his nape. “Aye.”

  Huffing a sigh, she lay on his chest, which he rather liked, but then she said something he did not like in the least. Something that made his stomach heave.

  “Then the solution seems verra simple. If I get with child, I shall no’ marry you.”

  He lurched up, dra
gging her with him, and gaped at her. “What?” How was that a solution? Something burned in his chest. Bitterness filled his mouth and soul.

  Her smile was incongruous, and a bit vexing, especially when she said, “Do you no’ see? If I get with child, and if it is a boy, and if I doona marry you, he will no’ be your heir.”

  He didn’t like that thought at all. He didn’t like it in the slightest.

  “And therefore he would be free of the curse,” she added with a flourish of her hand.

  What utter nonsense. “I don’t think that’s how curses work.”

  She fluttered her lashes. “It is exactly how curses work.”

  He narrowed his eyes and tried to look stern, but, based on her continued nonchalance, he didn’t think he accomplished it. “I thought you didn’t even believe in curses,” he grumbled.

  “I doona. But if I refuse to marry you, it will at least ease your worry about us.”

  It did nothing of the sort. In fact, it had rather the opposite effect.

  Something tightened at his core. “If you become with child, you will, indeed, marry me.”

  “Pish.”

  Pish? What kind of argument was pish?

  “Lana, you must. It is the way of the world.”

  “Pish.”

  She was horrifying, this tiny bundle of curves and curls. With one ridiculous word, she shattered him.

  “You must.”

  “I willna.” She set her chin. Her expression sent skirls of dread dancing through his bowels.

  “What would become of you, my darling? Unmarried? With child? You would be ostracized.”

  “What utter rot.”

  He blinked. Granted, he’d lived in London all his life, but that was how things worked ’round the world. Wasn’t it? “Where would you live?”

  “I would live with my father and my sister Susana. She has a daughter. She doesna not have a husband. We would all raise the child together.”

  That was a terrible idea. She belonged with him—

  His heart stalled as he remembered that by then that he would be dead. Nine months from now, he would be dead and gone.

  It broke his heart, that. The fact that he would never see, never hold, never cradle this child.

  He tried to focus on the fact that it was an imaginary child he was grieving, but he couldn’t cling to the thought. All he knew, all he could contemplate was the cold hard reality that nine months from now, whether there was a child or not, he wouldn’t be with her. He couldn’t be.

  He would be languishing in a cold grave, or burning in a scorching hell.

  It was a small comfort to know that because of her gift, at least when he was dead, he might be able to see her, watch her, speak to her. But it would hardly be the same.

  He needed to know—know—that when he passed, she was safe, protected. He would do all in his power to assure that happenstance. Even if it meant breaking his vow and making her his wife. As shattered vows went, it was the least of his crimes.

  “Let’s discuss it in the morning,” he said, pulling her back into his arms. He wanted to make love to her again, but he wouldn’t. Not yet. Right now he just wanted to hold her.

  Because right now, in this moment, he could.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Though she sensed his inner turmoil, Lana said nothing, simply allowing her peace to embrace Lachlan in a warm cloak. His body relaxed, and his breathing became slow and deep.

  She should feel a prick of guilt, seducing him as she had, but she didn’t. When she’d seen her opportunity, after he’d saved her from that foul-smelling man, she’d taken it.

  Her lips curled with pleasure at the fact he hadn’t been difficult to seduce. Not in the slightest. And oh, what pleasure he’d given her.

  She’d heard tales of the joining of men and women and frankly they had worried her, especially when the matrons whispered about pain and blood. But Lana had had no pain, nothing other than absolute bliss with Lachlan. Then again, she’d known it would be this way with him. From the moment she set eyes on him, deep in her soul, she’d known.

  What she hadn’t known was how utterly wonderful such a joining could be. Every time he touched her, her body came alive, wept, quaked for him. When he teased her, coaxed her to bliss, it was mind numbing. But that was nothing to the sensations that had battered her when he’d mounted her. The feel of him, filling her, had scattered her wits and flung her off into some fantastical realm. Holding him, watching him, inciting him as he lost all control had been the best part of all.

  That she could do that to a man, to him, filled her with elation … and resolve.

  This wouldn’t be the only time for them.

  It would not.

  Aye, given his resistance to siring a child, it had probably been wrong of her to seduce him so completely, but she couldn’t regret that she had. And she couldn’t regret what they had done. In fact, she wanted to do it again. Now.

  His snore rumbled through the room and she stifled a laugh. All right, maybe later. Apparently she had exhausted him.

  She should also feel guilty for managing him as well, but she did not. He required managing. Strong, stubborn, obstinate men usually did, in her experience. Aside from that, what glory her machinations had wrought.

  She levered up on her elbow and stared down at his beautiful face. In repose, he seemed younger, more vulnerable. His lips were soft and snuffled in his sleep. His lashes made a sooty arc on his cheeks. His hair tumbled in a riot of curls. She couldn’t stop herself from sifting her fingers through the silk of his locks, tracing his ear, touching the dent at the tip of his chin that fascinated her. He was a perfect man. Perfect and beautiful.

  Her attention shifted to his chest and her pulse skipped. It was a tremendous chest, layered with muscle and spattered with dark curls. And his belly, ah, so flat. She glanced lower, at his manhood, that rampant spear, though now it lay, quiescent, along his thigh. It was no less impressive in this form. She wanted to touch it, but feared if she did, she would wake him, and it seemed as though he dearly needed his sleep.

  She should probably sleep as well. She would need to wake before him and skitter back to her room before the others rose. With any luck, the creature who had taken up residence there would have roused himself by then.

  So instead of waking Lachlan, she lay her head back down on his chest and wrapped herself around him, enjoying the feel of his body, warm against hers. Oh, and she plotted her next seduction. Perhaps tomorrow night. There would be another inn—at least one more—before they arrived in Dounreay. And then, once they reached her home … she had ideas for that as well.

  They would need to be careful, of course. She didn’t want to be caught seducing a duke. Surely if anyone knew what they had done they would squawk. And she didn’t want Lachlan to be forced to marry her. She didn’t want Lachlan to be forced to do anything.

  But it hardly signified.

  She’d meant what she said.

  If, God willing, she should conceive a child, she would not marry him—if it set his mind at rest. She didn’t need wedding vows to validate what she felt for him, and more than one woman she knew had raised a child without a husband.

  And if she did have a child, his child—her heart swelled at the thought—she would love it and care for it and cherish it, whether Lachlan was in her life or not.

  But she very much hoped he was.

  When the fire went out, burned down to but embers, a chill edged into the room and Lana pulled the covers over herself and Lachlan, creating a toasty nest. She knew she should soon rise and dress, but she didn’t want to leave. Not yet.

  A jiggle on the handle of the door made her pulse skitter. Though it was dark, the light of the moon glowed thinly through the room. She stared at the door, holding back a shiver of dread as the knob slowly turned. The latch caught and the door rattled again, as though someone was trying to loosen it. A scrape echoed, that of metal on metal, and then the door eased open.

 
Lana caught her breath as someone slipped into the room, a great hulking shadow. Her first thought was that the miscreant who had accosted her in the hall had woken and decided to come after her—which was horrifying, because she was naked. She knew she should wake Lachlan, but just then, a strange sound captured her attention, and curiosity overrode her need for his protection.

  The clink of a chain.

  She sat up, clutching the covers to her chest, and peered into the shadows as the figure approached. She felt no fear, as one might expect, receiving a shadowy visitor in the dark of night, even though, beneath her blankets, she was vulnerable and bare.

  She knew she was safe from this creature, whatever it was.

  Whatever it was, it was here for Lachlan.

  It must be the spirit that had been visiting him. His father.

  Odd that.

  He didn’t look the way she’d expected his father to look.

  The specter shuffled over the plank floors, chains rattling. As it neared the bed, Lana hunkered lower and sharpened her gaze against the murk. It was a man, tall and broad with dark, curly hair. His skin was an ashy color and he was draped in gray rags … and chains. He stopped by the bed and opened his mouth and issued a low groan, but halfway through it, his eyes fixed on her hair, shining like a beacon in the moonlight, and the groan strangled to a surprised halt. His jaw dropped and his lips flapped.

  Lana took this chance, in his consternation, to reach out a hand and touch him, to confirm that which she already suspected.

  This seemed to surprise him, for he leaped back, but not quickly enough. Her hand closed on his ragged cloak. The fabric was coarse and rough, and it told Lana what she needed to know. What she’d already known.

  As he whirled and fled the room, shutting the door behind him with a tight snick, she glared after him.

  This man was not a ghost. He was as solid as she.

  Also, ghosts, as a general rule, did not need to use doors.

  For some reason, someone was haunting Lachlan.