When she ground her pelvis against his thigh, a hot bolt of fire seared through his erection. His seed boiled in his bollocks. His cock jerked and a droplet of cum leaked out prematurely.
He groaned, knowing he would never make it inside her. He’d waited too long. He would likely spill his seed before he untied the laces of his breeks.
“If ye leave me wanting again, I’ll kill ye,” she threatened and sucked his nipple into her mouth. She drew on it, flicked it with the tip of her pink tongue, then pulled it between her teeth.
The woman was wild, untamed, and quickly becoming more than he could handle. He captured both her wrists in one hand and drew them over her head, then feasted on her damp neck, her sharp collarbone, the tops of her breasts pouring out of the corset. Shattered patience prevented him from fighting the rigid garment, so he filled his palm with her surprisingly round rump and slid her further up his thigh.
He always imagined their first time together would be gentle, loving, a slow exploration of flesh, but the woman was an aggressor and damn if he would switch to timid tactics now.
He propped his foot on the side of the berth taking her leg with him and spreading her wide. The musky scent of her arousal wafted through the thin linen of her undershift. It might kill him, but he would see her satisfied before they finished. He slipped his hand between their bodies, lifted the hem of her skirt, then slid his finger into the thatch of curls concealing hot, swollen, wet flesh.
“Oh, God,” they said in unison.
Before he could ease inside her, she thrust into his hand, impaling herself onto his middle finger. Her eyes twitched behind closed lids. Her entire body quaked. She whimpered.
He wanted to taste her, wanted to bring her to climax with his tongue, but he’d vowed long ago to reserve such an intimate act for their wedding bed. Instead, Reid added a second finger and watched as the signs of pure pleasure smoothed her beautiful face. A trickle of sweat fell from her temple down her neck where her pulse vibrated against her skin. He stroked her velvety sheath, pumping in and out of her, flicking the pearl inside her womb.
She was beyond ready, as was he.
“I want you, Robbie,” he whispered against her cheek as his thumb rotated around her most sensitive flesh hidden at the apex of her slit.
She cried out. Her nails sliced into his hand. Her body shook. The muscles inside her clenched his fingers with startling suction and before he could withdraw his fingers and enter her properly, a burst of hot release trickled over his hand.
To say he was shocked wouldn’t near describe his state of mind. He’d never brought a woman to climax so quickly.
“Holy Loki!” Her eyes flickered open, weighted with desire, but snapped wide when booming applause filled the cabin.
“Good show, cousin.” Eoin clapped from the doorway. “Not only do ye have her dressing like a whore, now she is acting like one.”
* * *
Mortification turned to shock, then escalated to fear within two heartbeats, but Eoin didn’t stay in the doorway long enough to witness the cycle of emotions.
“My God, what have I done?” Robbie peeled herself out of Reid’s arms and wobbled on unsteady legs to where her gown lay draped over the desk chair. The warm trickle of her climax dripped down her trembling legs as she wrenched the garment over her head. Her throat constricted, her hands shook, and the pulse still beating in her womanhood all reminded her of her infidelity.
Tears scalded her eyes as she rushed toward the cabin door, but Reid’s fingers wrapped around her arm in a bruising grip that stilled her flight. “Robbie, wait.”
“Nay! Release me,” she yelled, panic cracking her voice. “I must go after him. I have to explain.”
“Explain what? Explain that you deserve better?”
Her entire being shook. She felt ill, disgusted with her lack of self-control. “I’m not the only one who will suffer the consequences of my actions. I’m not like ye. I’ll not put my own selfish wants before the livelihood of those I hold dear to my heart.” She jerked free of him and raced from the cabin, away from Reid, away from the scene of her betrayal.
Tears nigh blinded her as she stumbled down the companionway and chased Eoin toward the bow of the ship. The wooden planks burned her bare feet. Heat dried her throat to ash. The crew gathered into pairs, but the heavy footfalls pounding behind her drown out their curious whispers.
A quick glance over her shoulder showed Reid fast at her heels.
Blast him! Blast him to Hell and back! She spun. “Please, leave me to right this wrong.”
Jean-Pierre appeared behind Reid, panting, his yellowed shirt soaked with sweat. “Forgive me, Capitaine, I tried to occupy the man while—”
Reid stilled Jean-Pierre’s tongue with a menacing look.
“Ye tried to occupy the man while what, Jean-Pierre?” While your captain seduced me?
The Frenchman held silent. The ropes and yardarms overhead filled with topmen like crows in the trees. She felt like they all knew. Like they’d all been part of a grand conspiracy to tear her and Eoin apart.
She narrowed her eyes on Reid. “Did ye plan to seduce me? Did ye know Eoin was there…watching?”
The vein pulsing at Reid’s temple made her heart hitch, but she took a bold step forward and pushed him hard against his bare chest.
He didn’t budge. Instead, he grabbed her by the hair and bent to her ear. “Did I plan for you to attack me? Did I plan for you to threaten to kill me if I left you wanting? Nay. I did not.”
He released her and made no attempt to follow her the rest of the way to the prow where Eoin leaned over the forward rail staring out at a dark ocean.
She inhaled, wiped her tear-streaked face, and stepped beside the man who’d provided her protection for more than a decade. “Eoin.”
He turned, but left his hip leaning against the rail in a pose she thought too casual given the situation. His face lacked emotion, his demeanor seemed oddly indifferent. Now that she was afforded a moment to gather her wits, she wondered why he hadn’t attacked Reid. She’d been the one pinned against the bluidy wall. Eoin had beaten men near to death during raids, but he hadn’t so much as raise a hand to defend her.
She hid her fists between the folds of her skirt and opened her mouth, but words failed her.
“The deed is done, Robbie. There is naught ye can say to remedy what has happened.” He raised a flask to his lips, and took a long draw from the mouth of the container.
“I lost myself. Please, dinnae be rash.”
“Rash? Your acts are unforgivable.”
She followed his gaze over her shoulder to find Reid several feet behind her, arms crossed, legs spread. Mayhap her guilt made her question their every look, but she couldn’t help but feel like they already knew how this confrontation would end.
She forced her attention back on Eoin. “Can ye honestly say you’ve never strayed from our bed? Can ye look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve always been faithful to me?”
The bastaird grinned. ’Twas more of a snarl really. “We are not bound by law, by God, or even by handfasting. I am well within my morals to take my ease with a different woman every night if I so desire.”
She expected anger, rage, mayhap hurt or disappointment, but nothing in Eoin’s bearing reflected the loss of someone he claimed to love. “Did ye ever intend to legitimize our union and settle at Rannoch?”
“Rannoch was always your dream, not mine.” He spit over the rail. “Our union would not benefit the clan. We both know I’ve been biding my time until I could gain a more substantial marriage. I’d always planned to keep ye as a mistress.”
A mistress? Biding my time? A flurry of blinding white spots speckled her vision. If the man thought all his eggs had two yolks, he was sadly mistaken. She wanted to rip his tongue out. Nay. She wanted to castrate him. She’d been a fool to give herself to him.
She searched for words to hurt him, something that would wipe the smirk off his face. “Ye need me
to get the gold.”
“Nay, I need Reid to get the gold. All I need ye to do is service my cousin the way you’ve serviced me in the past to fulfill our bargain.”
“What bargain?”
“I traded ye for the gold. Ye have to be the highest paid whore on the continent. I hope the treasure between your legs is worth the price he is willing to pay for it.”
What she thought was her heart pounding in her ears was actually Reid’s angry strides. He blew past her and threw an iron fist toward Eoin’s face, but the man had been prepared for an assault. He ducked the blow, spun, wrapped his arms around Reid’s ribs and squeezed.
“Is that not what we negotiated, cousin?” Eoin’s sardonic question was full of pomp.
“You bastaird!” Reid roared, muscles flexed and hardened in his arms just before he reached over his head and laced his fingers behind Eoin’s thick neck. Reid pulled him over his back and slammed Eoin onto the quarterdeck at Robbie’s feet.
She jumped back, not knowing who to defend, and thinking she didn’t want to defend either of them.
Without pause, Reid lunged atop Eoin and drove fists of fury into his sides, bone-crushing jabs that stunned Eoin temporarily, but the man had been in enough fisticuffs to know how to retaliate.
They rolled, spun, and flipped.
Positions reversed, Eoin now pinned Reid to the planks and drove his knuckles into Reid’s face, splitting the skin. Blood and sweat splattered the front of Eoin’s lèine shirt and seemed to unleash a savage beast lurking inside Reid.
Veins whelped in his neck and forearms. He bucked and sent Eoin scrambling.
“Shall I put an end to this buffoonery?” Jean-Pierre stepped to Robbie’s side and cupped her elbow.
“Nay. Let them kill each other.”
11
~ SECRETS ~
Where the hell is she? Reid stormed up the companionway after searching the gunner deck a second time. Robbie wasn’t there, nor was she in the cabin or her quarters or the storage chamber. He’d combed every nook of the Obsidian twice, but the woman was no where to be found.
Two days should’ve been an ample amount of time for her temper to cool, but the lass was still full of fire. The eve before when he’d last tried to talk to her, he swore if she’d opened her mouth, flames would have shot out.
He rubbed his aching temple and winced as a sudden jolt of pain wrapped around his skull and squeezed. His eye had turned ten shades of purple in the past two days, but he didn’t regret sparring with his cousin. S’truth, Eoin deserved a beating, but Reid couldn’t say he’d won. The only good that had come of it all was that she hated Eoin as much as she now hated him.
Hands on his hips, he stood at the ship’s center and scanned the deserted deck. The anchor had been weighed and the crew already rowed their way ashore, all save for Oscar and Henrik who waited patiently beside him. ’Twas past time the stubborn vixen came out of hiding. Reid filled his lungs with hot air and bellowed, “Robbie-e-e!”
Of course, he didn’t receive a response, but he was out of options. “God’s legions,” he mumbled and wiped his brow on his sleeve. Mayhap she jumped ship. ’Twould be just like the bull-headed, fire-hissing wench to do something so foolish.
“Ahem. Ahem-hem.” Henrik made a show of clearing his throat. He wore an odd face—crooked smile, crazed eyes, pinched lips—then he discreetly pointed up.
“What is it, man?” Reid followed Henrik’s finger up the mainmast where a hundred and fifty rungs led a ladderway straight into a burning sun. “She’s in the crow’s nest?” He glanced back at Henrik. “Surely you jest.”
“She went up before dawn,” he whispered beneath his hand.
“Why the devil did you not tell me?”
Henrik cupped his groin and peered back up the mainmast. “She threatened to cut off my bollocks and eat them for the noontide meal.”
“And you took her threat literal?” Reid rolled his eyes and reached for the first crosspiece.
“She looked hungry,” Henrik defended. “Practice caution, Captain. She has a blade.”
Reid looked down at Henrik from three rungs up. “Take Oscar to the remaining longboat and wait for us. We’ll be about shortly.”
“Aye, Captain. God be with ye.”
Reid climbed the mainmast, thinking God Himself couldn’t tame the shrew.
Once he’d reached the final crosspiece, Reid pushed on the hatch at the base of the crow’s nest, but the small door didn’t budge. He tried again, gaining an inch this time, but the weight bearing down on it refused to allow him entry. “Mary-Robena Wallace, you will cease this childish behavior and get off the damn door.”
She stomped on the floor—twice.
“Och!” Reid ground his teeth and pushed air through his nostrils like a ragging bull. The woman would be the death of him.
He curled his fingers around a handle at the base of the crow’s nest and pulled himself up the side, then flipped his legs over the edge of the small wooden circle. He blamed the unsettling feeling in his stomach on the gentle sway of the ship, but knew the ailment had more to do with Robbie than heights.
Curled into a ball, she hugged her knees with arms pinked by the sun and refused to look at him. He sat beside her, filling the remaining space with his massive frame and waited long minutes for her to speak.
“I hate ye.”
He expected as much. “I know.”
“What ye did was wrong.”
“I know.”
“Ye are a deceitful, conniving liar.”
“I know.” He really hadn’t lied, but he wasn’t about to argue with her. ’Twas best to accept her bitter words for the nonce.
The sun had highlighted strips of her honey-red hair to pale blonde and when he moved to push a curl from her face, she jerked back. “Ye dinnae own me, and I never want ye to touch me again.”
He scowled. That was not something he could do. “Why? Do you fear the passion between us?”
Her head shot up and her eyes glowed green with fury. “’Twas lust.”
“’Twas more and you well know it.” If the woman weren’t so mulish, she might admit how good they could be together.
“Think ye are the only man who has brought me pleasure?”
Her relations with Eoin were not a topic he cared to discuss.
She turned away from him, set her chin between her knees, and mumbled, “I’d have half a dozen bairns by now, had I married Lyall.”
“Lyall?” ’Twas difficult enough to imagine her with Eoin, but Lyall was ten years her senior.
“Aye. When I turned ten and eight, he offered to take me to his cousin’s in the Highlands, but I refused to leave the others behind.”
The clan. It always came back to the clan. She made a better chieftain than Eoin ever would. “And now you regret your mistake?”
“’Twas not a mistake. The weak will die without the strong to protect them. The winters are nigh more than Grandda and auld Angus can bear, and now we have Alana.” Robbie turned back toward him. “Do ye even know who Alana is?”
“Nay.” Why did he sense a scolding?
“She is your six-month old niece.”
“Niece?” To his knowledge, Reid had no other siblings apart from Shane and Kelsa who were too young to have bairns. He quickly did the math. “Shane is only ten and five, and Kelsa ten and three.”
“Kelsa would be ten and four this summer had she not died.”
Reid barely remembered the wee bit. She’d only been two when Da took him away. “I suspect her death was difficult for Nanna.”
“Difficult? Kelsa was the only lass not marked by the Colquhouns. She was the only one who stood a chance at gaining a marriage outside the clan. Nanna sent her to Glenstrae to barter for fur, but she never made it to the tanner. The Laird of Luss’s youngest bastard forced himself on her in the wood.” Robbie paused to wipe her unshed tears. “Alana was the product of that rape.”
Reid felt ill. Bitter saliva pooled in his mo
uth, and he was certain he would vomit. “Kelsa died bearing a child forced on her.”
“Nay.” Robbie’s chuckle reflected her insanity. “Neither King James nor God has ever made anything easy on a MacGregor. Kelsa delivered Alana, but hated the wean from the moment she slipped from Kelsa’s womb. She refused to feed the babe or hold her. Nanna tried to help her through it but failed. Three months past, Kelsa wrapped Alana in a wool and went to the cavern where she strapped on the iron boots and jumped into the loch.” Robbie pinched her eyes shut. “Knowing how Kelsa felt about the babe, I followed her that day and raced into the cavern when I heard the splash. I managed to save Alana, but I couldnae get Kelsa back to the surface.”
Reid could do little more than shake his head. Nothing he could say would bring Kelsa back. His heart went out to Nanna and for the babe who would never know her mam. He wanted to blame someone for not saving them, but deep inside he knew that someone was himself. He shouldn’t have waited so long to go back. He should have been there to protect them. “Where the hell was Eoin?”
“Where the hell were you?” she countered, her eyes shining with condemnation. It was in that moment he realized she would never forgive him. She blamed him for every wrong that had occurred to the clan over the past eleven years.
“When ye bartered with Eoin, ye should have thought with your head and not your bluidy cock, for your desire to have me in your bed will ultimately cost lives. He’ll not protect them. He’ll leave them behind when they move camp. Anyone close to you or I will have no chance of survival. Which is why I have to make things right with Eoin.”
Reid growled. His hands turned to fists. He stood and stared at the white sandy beaches of the place he’d called home for more than a decade. The longboats now scattered the shore where the Mopán people had begun to gather. He’d imagined this moment, even prepared the words. Welcome home, love.
But Robbie would never accept this place as her home. He looked at the windmill peeking out of the treetops. He’d spent years building Rukux and preparing for her arrival. ’Twas all for naught—the home he’d built, the garden, the butterflies….
A dark, suffocating emotion weighed heavy upon his chest. ’Twas a feeling he went to bed with at night and awoke with every morn. A man should not feel so alone.
Caribbean Scot Page 11
