Caribbean Scot

by Kimberly Killion

  “The water is cooler than I anticipated.”

  “’Tis not half as cold as the loch in Scotland,” she assured him with confidence. “’Tis fortunate we are both wearing a leather suit.”

  He hated this niggling feeling that something wouldn’t go according to plan. What if Jax and Kante didn’t pull them through fast enough? Or pulled them through too fast and knocked the ropes off the pulley system? What if her glass globe hit against a rock and shattered? What if… “Check the ropes again.”

  She sighed. “The ropes were perfectly knotted before Jax lowered us into the well. I’m certain they are still secure.”

  He sensed her impatience, but damned if he was going to slip into the river current pulling at his bare feet half-cocked. “By my calculations, we should reach the water reservoir in—”

  “Less than thirty minutes,” she finished for him. “Ye have told me this three times already.”

  He was fretting. He knew it. She knew it, but naught seemed to rattle her. “Are you not afraid?” He was.

  “I am, but I’m excited as well.” She adjusted the straps binding the leather-bound glass globe to her side. “’Tis time, Reid. Remember to exhale through your mouth.”

  Every second the crystals dissipated inside the globe was one less breath they might need in the end, but he couldn’t bring himself to take up the horn. He touched her lips behind the tube connected to her air source. “I should have kissed you.”

  “Ye can kiss me when we reach the water reservoir.”

  But what if they didn’t make it to the reservoir? Would she know how he felt about her? “If something goes amiss, if I dinnae make it and you do, I want you to know that I love you, Robbie.”

  She snorted. “My garment is tarred to my body, Reid. Now is hardly the time. Mayhap after the dive I’ll let ye chase me through the jungle again. Let’s go.” She reached over his head before he could decipher the confusion shaking his brain and blew on the horn twice—the signal for Kante and Jax to start pulling them through.

  “Dinnae forget to count.” She slipped out of his arms and disappeared beneath the water.

  The rope around his waist tightened. He stole a final breath from the diving barrel and followed her into the cool river current.

  One one thousand, two one thousand… Bewildered didn’t begin to describe his state of his mind. Four one thousand, five one thousand…

  He inhaled through his nose, exhaled out his mouth.

  Seven one thousand, eight one thousand…He tells her he loves her, and her response is My garment is tarred to my body?

  Ten one thousand, eleven one thousand…

  Inhale, exhale.

  God’s legions! What the devil was wrong with her? He wanted her to know how deeply he cared for her should they die, and she accuses him of lechery. Did she think he was wooing her with sweet sentiments because his bollocks were blue? Is that what Eoin had done?

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

  He recalled the two times he’d expressed his love for her: once in the jungle just before he ravaged her, and the second had been yester eve in the small tent just before he thrust his aching cock between her thighs.

  Mayhap he was a lecher!

  Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

  His heart beat increased.

  Damn! Engulfed in wet blackness, he attempted to calm himself and regain his bearings. He held his arms outright and focused on regulating his breathing else he risked depleting his air before they reached the reservoir.

  Inhale…exhale…

  The rope nudged him forward, guiding him through the river passage. Periodically, the ties connecting him to Robbie tugged this way and that. Knowing she was safe beside him made the whole task a little more bearable. Since the count was already lost to him he searched the passage for any splinter of light as well as a change in the current, something that might tell him where Xitali had spent her time between the wells.

  Time passed slowly in cold, wet, darkness, and his mind wandered haphazardly from one subject to the next. Regardless of what he tried to focus on, his thoughts always came full circle back to Robbie.

  He was no lecher. There was no man more capable of resisting the pleasures of the flesh than he. He resolved in that moment to prove to Robbie he was a man of supreme control, but more, he wanted her to see that he was a man worthy of her love.

  * * *

  Robbie burst through the surface inside the water reservoir mere seconds before Reid did. Jax and Kante, along with a dozen or more Mopán men, whooped and cheered at ground level, celebrating the success of the dive.

  They did it! They survived and so much more. Excited to the point of blathering, she sucked in gulps of air through her mouth and spun toward Reid. “Did ye feel it? The change in the water flow? At thirty-seven, ten thousand.”

  “Nay. I lost the count,” he admitted, his bearing aloof as always, but naught could diminish her spirits.

  “We must go again. This time without the ropes.” She swam toward the ladder draped over the well’s edge, but he caught her on the bottom rung.

  “Calm down, Robbie.”

  Calm down? Had he lost his wits? The brink of discovery was at their fingertips and he wanted her to calm down?

  “’Twill be dark soon,” he explained in a somber, impatient tone.

  “’Tis dark between the wells. What does it matter?”

  He put his finger in his ear, and shook it. “We’ll go again first thing on the morrow. There is much to prepare prior to a second dive.”

  Robbie climbed the rope ladder grumbling. “Why do ye get to make all the decisions?”

  “Because I act without haste.”

  Jax assisted her over the edge wearing a gapping smile. He wrapped his long fingers around her head, then squeezed her shoulders down to her wrists as if assuring himself of her wellness. “Jax was afraid for you.”

  The others agreed in muffled tones making hand gestures toward the sky to offer their thanks to the gods for protecting their brother.

  Reid pulled himself out of the well and onto a flat of black rock then proceeded to peel the mask from his nose. His features were smooth, void of emotion which frustrated Robbie more than an empty kettle of soup.

  “We need to measure the distance on the rope and mark it so Jax and Kante know where to stop on the morrow. We are not going without the ropes.” He gave her a look that warned her not to argue, then began delivering a slew of orders much like he’d done aboard the Obsidian.

  What in the name of Odin was wrong with him? Where was the man who spoke of Xitali with such enthusiasm Robbie was nigh jealous of the woman? Where was the man who’d lost his senses when she discovered vital air? Something had happened to him between the wells. Something that stole his passion.

  “Robbie, prepare the air globes as well as the fire lamps then set to work cleaning the tar from your skin.”

  That last order she felt certain he’d given simply to keep her occupied, but she held tight to her tongue and set to her tasks the same as everyone else.

  By the time their duties were complete, the moon hovered above like a giant orb of white light. The dew shimmered silver-green on the foliage, and the sounds of the jungle amplified into a soothing musical cacophony.

  Secluded from the others, Robbie lay on a bamboo mat outside her small tent waiting for Reid to join her as he had the eve before. With any luck at all his sullen mood had improved over the course of the eve, and if it hadn’t—she bent her knees and slid her clean undershift down her thighs—she would rid him of whatever troubled him.

  Thoughts of their coupling set her skin afire. She’d never burned for a man the way she burned for him. Her flesh tingled with thoughts of him. Mayhap ’twas the way he lost control when he was with her. He strived to be gentle, and when his desire for her refused to be caged, she felt a sense of power for releasing his inner beast.

  Smack. “Why are you not sleeping in the tent?”

  Startled
out of her musings, Robbie looked between her bare knees just as Reid slapped the back of his neck. “Because I am not yet sleeping.” She gave him a side-long glance and pursed her lips in an attempt to be provocative, but he’d clearly been bitten by a sour bug.

  Smack.

  “The insects will eat the flesh from your bones by morn.” He sat on the mat’s edge and pulled his boots off one at a time. “What is that smell?”

  Robbie sat up and rummaged through her satchel until she found the container of soft balm. “’Tis a liniment Wild Tigress made for me to keep the beasties from biting me. I thought it smelled pleasant.”

  He peeled off his shirt. “Spread some on me.”

  Propped on her knees at his back, she rubbed a generous amount of the liniment into his neck and shoulders, then proceeded to work the knots out of his taut muscles as she’d done so many times before for Grandda.

  Reid moaned and held still. “That feels good.”

  She smiled and rubbed circles up and down the sides of his spine, kneading the larger muscles between his shoulder blades and backbone until he felt loose and relaxed. Feeling rather amorous, she leaned forward just enough to brush her hard nipples across his back.

  The muscles she’d just thawed tightened beneath her fingertips. His back straightened, his head snapped upright.

  She grinned wickedly, reveling in the power she held over him and feathered subtle kisses across his back. She nipped at his skin as her fingers snuck around his ribs, slid down his abdomen, and then reached for the laces of his breeks.

  He grabbed her hand. “’Tis doubtful I’ll be needing any of the liniment down there.”

  Blast him! He was daft and completing behaving out of sorts. She didn’t know what had happened to the man with a ravenous appetite for her, but she intended to find him. She shot to her feet and started passed him in a huff.

  “Where are you going?” He caught her wrist, stretching her arm at the shoulder.

  “Back into the well to find my husband.” She glared down at him, acting dramatic on purpose.

  His chest shook a single time on a silent chuckle as he pulled her onto his lap and pushed the hair from her eyes.

  Taking advantage of his humor, she wrapped her long legs around his waist and hooked her ankles at the base of his spine. “Ye seem different. What has happened?”

  “I am weary. ’Tis all.”

  That was a bluidy lie. He’d behaved like a buck surrounded by a dozen does in heat since the day they’d become handfasted and now was no different. His manhood thickened beneath her with every passing second. She tickled the tops of his shoulders and gently rocked atop him. “Are ye too weary to tend your wife’s needs?”

  He leaned forward to kiss the skin beneath her lobe. “My wife has needs does she?”

  “Ye know I do.” While his lips trailed a path of fire over her neck, naught could compare to the inferno burning low in her womb. Perspiration thickened around her neck. She held his shoulders and rubbed her sex against the rigidity of his hard member. The bud hidden at the apex of her womanhood pulsed, aching for relief. She held the side of his head and guided his mouth to hers, but the ferocity she sought was not there. His lips were loose, his tongue barely responsive.

  She pulled back and stilled her grinding hips. “Have ye lost your desire for me?”

  That question gained her a bit of fire.

  “Nay.” He lifted her off him and stared up at her for long moments before he finally asked, “Where is it you need me the most, wife?”

  Without the slightest hesitation, she raised the hem of her undershift to her naval. “Here.” The word came out in a whisper.

  His breathing deepened as he caressed the fronts of her legs, his thumbs teased the inside of her thighs, coaxing them further apart. He leaned forward and kissed her directly on her shaved womanhood. “Here?”

  The contact of his lips to that most intimate place made her blood boil. “Aye. There.” That was the place. She pulled her garment over her head and discarded it onto the ground, then waited for him to remove his breeks.

  But he didn’t move.

  Instead, he propped her foot onto his shoulder and kissed the inside of her knee. Then he discovered another tender spot—the inner part of her thigh. He licked it, kissed it, made swirling designs with the tip of his tongue. He came so close to the place she wanted him most, only to float away. “Is there no other place ye ache for me?”

  His words tickled her, tortured her. The heady scent of her own arousal spiked her senses. Oh, she wanted his mouth on her. She could count on one hand the number of times Eoin had pleasured her with his tongue, but that had been so long ago.

  She wove her fingers into Reid’s hair to steady herself. “Please,” she begged. “Please kiss me there.”

  When he used his tongue to separate her folds, she jerked, and then trembled on a whimper. His kiss was gentle at first, slow and deliberate, sliding the tip of his tongue along the layers of her quivering flesh, up and down, up and down. Watching his mouth at play only heightened her arousal. Her insides burned, her skin tingled. She moaned and squeezed her sweat-slick breasts in unison to relieve the craving tightening her nipples. She bucked, and he responded with wicked intent.

  He used the tips of his thumbs to spread her swollen lips open and then delved his tongue in and out of her repeatedly, alternating between quick and slow thrusts. ’Twas maddening and divine and delicious…. And she wanted to thank him, to tell him what he was doing to her was exquisite, but when her mouth opened, the only sounds that emanated were warbling cries of rapture.

  Eoin had never taken the time to pleasure her so thoroughly. He would have sought his own release long before now. She expected Reid to do the same, to throw her down and bury himself between her legs, but he did not. Instead, he inserted one finger inside her, then two, and matched the rhythm of her gyrating hips.

  When the tips of his fingers scraped the roof of her womb, all rational thought dissolved into a white haze. Her eyes flickered behind closed lids. She tore cruelly at his hair, pushing him away, then pulling him hard against her mound.

  Then he found it—that secret treasure hidden where all the whorls and folds came together at the top of her mons. He licked the engorged bud gently, then hard, flicking his tongue side to side.

  “Aye,” she cried. “There. There!” Her muscles tightened, her toes curled around his shoulder. Every particle of her being awaited her release.

  “Come for me, love.” His words vibrated against her clitoris just before his lips formed into an O and drew that tiny ball of fire into his mouth.

  The lower half of her body shuddered as her climax burst forth in a fiery rush. Reid held her upright when her leg faltered beneath her and continued to milk the nectar of her orgasm into his mouth.

  A second ripple trilled through her and stole the remainder of her physical strength.

  He caught her when she melted into his arms and carried her inside the tent.

  Sated and exhausted, Robbie lay on her belly trying to recover while Reid tickled her skin. His caresses trailed along her spine, over her duff, and down her thighs only to repeat the process over and over again. Her gentle giant had returned, but there was a part of her psyche that told her all was not right. Something still ate at his mind. “Why did ye not find your release?”

  He leaned over and kissed the arc of her shoulder blade. “I burn with a desire far greater than you could possibly fathom.” He kissed the base of her back and then settled in behind her.

  While she attempted to decipher his words, he curled his massive arms around her and flushed her back with his chest. His knee pushed between her thighs, separating them, the same time his hot hand slid down her navel and cupped her tender mound; his other hand found its resting place over her breast. “Sleep well, love.”

  Sleep well? What in the name of Odin was wrong with him? His cock was as hard as stone nestled in her duff. Why wasn’t he taking his ease? They were husband
and wife. He had bluidy rights! Why wasn’t he acting on them?

  While the questions piled up at an alarming rate in her head, Reid’s breathing grew steady, then turned into a whistle within a matter of minutes.

  * * *

  Thirty-five, ten thousand, thirty-six, ten thousand, thirty-seven, ten thousand. Reid stopped the count in his head the same instant the rope pulling him and Robbie through the river passage went slack. At least he’d been able to keep the count this day. S’truth, he was in complete control of his person.

  While he’d awoken with the same stiff cock he’d gone to sleep with, he somehow felt powerful for having controlled his urges. Robbie on the other hand awoke with temper. He knew his behavior irked her, but he held determined to abstain from his conjugal rights until she realized she was much more to him than a soft body to spend himself inside.

  Reid drew a breath from the tube connected to his air source and pivoted in the darkened water until he spotted the fire globe in Robbie’s hand. That faint yellow glow illuminated a scowl that was evident even behind her mask. She wouldn’t give him trouble, not here, not now. He wadded before her, waiting for her to release the globe as planned.

  She didn’t.

  “Release the globe,” he demanded, but his muffled words floated away inside hundreds of bubbles.

  The stubborn wench shook her head, her brows drew tighter. She spun, and swam west, perpendicular of the main rope.

  That had not been part of the plan. He told himself he needn’t worry. They were both still connected to the main line by a twenty foot length of rope. Reid inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth and followed the hellion. What choice did he have really? The woman had a mind of her own, and if truth be told, she could out swim him.

  The water temperature turned frigid as if he’d swam into the center of an underground spring, and it was then he felt the shift in the river’s current. Excitement made his pulse kick up a notch. Robbie’s calculations had been spot on. The woman was brilliant! He really needed to trust her more.