“Of course,” she granted stiffly.
Shaking his head, he climbed onto the bed beside her. Drawing his fingers through her hair, he kissed her forehead, vowing to surpass anything she’d had before. Her breathing grew shallow beneath his lips. She moaned faintly when he nibbled on her ear.
“Do ye want to know something, Nicholas?” Mary whispered from beneath him, her eyes closed tight once again.
He paused, his fingers combing her hair. He smiled when her cheeks grew pink as she waited for his answer. “Aye, I am curious.”
Mary sighed and then finally opened her eyes. The blue depths held him in thrall, frozen above her as she watched him intently. “Ye would not be jealous now if I said that I might have liked a man’s kisses,” she inquired with a twitch of her lips.
Nicholas clamped down the flare of resentment and jealousy. He shifted to move a knee between her thighs. His body throbbed with hunger, impatient to be done with the conversation. He caught her wrists to stretch her arms over her head, her breasts straining the sheer fabric of her shift. He nearly groaned at the sight, her nipples clearly seen through the fabric. “What have I to be jealous about,” he answered, jaw tight. He leaned closer, his breath warm against her throat. “I’ve taken you, Mary Drummond, and claimed you for my own. Do you have fault with that after it’s all been said and done?”
She shuddered beneath him and then arched her back to press her breasts against his chest. “Nay, Nicholas. I do not. It was you r kisses that I liked.”
Nicholas drew back to look at her in surprise. The moment had been too brief, his desire nearly out of control once she’d straddled his hips. Had he not heard the horses he might have taken her there and then, the feel of her against him in the woods nearly his undoing. “It was only one kiss, Mary.”Mary’s cheeks grew pink again. “I know, but I still ken that it was nice.”
Nicholas sighed. He could do much better than a quick rampage in the leaves. He ran a hand along the neckline of her gown, felt her skin pebble beneath his fingers. “That was nothing, Mary. I will make you forget there was anyone else.”
She shivered beneath him, her lips parting as he bent to press his lips to the rise of her breast. “There is none like you , Nicholas.” Her hands slid into his hair to cup the back of his head, urging him closer.”
“Aye,” Nicholas agreed. He peeled back part of her shift to reveal her breast, but only brushed his lips across the tantalizing expanse. He meant to take it slow, no matter that she knew what would happen. He slid off the bed to pull off his belt, then his tunic to drop them on the floor. Mary sat up to lean on her elbows. She watched him remove his shirt, her gaze riveted on his chest. He paused to look at her, the shirt in his hands. “I can do much better.”
Mary smiled finally, her eyes glinting with amusement. This was the woman that had tempted him, that had filled his dreams. She lay facing him, her breast bared, her blond hair a sheen of pale silk behind her to coil on the bed. “Better with what, Highlander? Taking off yer clothes or with the other?” She gasped when he climbed back on the bed to pin her down. He bent low, his lips a breath from hers.
“Both,” Nicholas answered. He slanted his mouth over hers to explore her hungrily, reviled her sweetness with his tongue. Desire and hunger warred in his blood until he was aching to taste more, to trail his tongue across the luscious valley just below him. Breathing rapidly, he slid his fingers beneath her shift to slide it out of the way but Mary lifted her hands to put them against his chest.
“Does it hurt?” Mary asked.
“Not after the first time,” Nicholas murmured absently, his focus on the creamy skin before him.
Mary laughed, drawing his attention. “Nay, silly, it is yer chest I ask ye about; you still breathe shallow, as if ye can’t take a full breath. I’d not have ye in trouble if we get, well. If ye…” she colored prettily again.
“I’m bloody well fine,” he declared and rolled over, bringing her on top of him. “But I can let you be in control.”
Mary sat on him, squirming maddeningly. He gritted his teeth and caught her by the hips to hold her still. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to let her have her way; she was still innocent in his mind.
Mary sighed and leaned over him. “Ye give away too much, lad.”
Nicholas wasn’t sure he liked the smile that curved her lips; it spoke of something wicked. Mary? He was intrigued suddenly as to what she might do. “Kiss me then,” he demanded and she did, quite handily, until he was as breathless as she was.
Mary sat up and touched her lips with her fingers. Her eyes half closed, she smiled seductively. ‘I’m a quick learner,” she said.
“Indeed,” Nicholas agreed, his voice rough. Desire raced through his blood leaving him nearly reeling in surprise. He caught her arms, drawing her closer until she leaned over his chest, her hair a shield from the candlelight, her body more mesmerizing that any siren he’d met.
Mary pressed her hands against his chest and then slid her fingers lightly over his skin. Her hair slid across his arm and then his chest as she kissed his side, the scar across his ribs. He couldn’t help but groan, his groin tight with need. Mary shifted lower, her voice full of wicked laughter. “The lad I was with told me things,” Mary declared softly. His eyes widened when she moved to kiss his ear, her whispered description the final blow to his control.
Nicholas rolled her to her back to pin her against the bed. Mary arched beneath him as he shoved her legs apart. She was brazen, his Mary. He’d show her how much more there was to know.
Chapter 10
Mary opened her eyes to find her body felt lethargic and heavy. Nicholas slept beside her, his breath shallow, his chest heaving with the unconscious effort to take in air. She had worried last night that he would push too far, but he had been gentle when clearly he wished not to, for her. She’d made no argument even when she wanted him to do more, to sink deeper, harder… she let out a breath as the memory sent desire flooding through her.
Nicholas slid his arm around her waist, his fingers caressing her back to draw her close to his side. “Awake, Mary?”
She answered by sliding her fingers across his stomach. He caught them before she could reach her destination. “You are a wicked lass,” he breathed.
“Aye, I can be,” she agreed.
He coughed in answer, turning his head away and she sat up in concern. When he turned to look at her finally, his eyes were watery, his smile a crooked curve she found endearing. “By the gods, I deserve you not,” he replied hoarsely.
Mary shifted to lean on his chest, careful not to put too much weight on him. “Ye still are not well,” she complained.
Nicholas swallowed, smothering another cough. “I am well enough, Mary, leave it go.”
“What will ye do now?”
He sighed and stared past her at the ceiling. “Return home I imagine. Donald Mackay will have it no other way.”
“Do you not want to go home, Nicholas?” Mary pulled the sheet around her, peering at him curiously.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he explained. “It’s just been so long. I’ve evaded Donald for so many years, I am not sure I belong there anymore.”
“Tsk,” Mary chided. “Why do ye call you r father Donald? Are ye no longer his son?”
Nicholas smiled at her, his lashes shading his green eyes. “It’s a matter of stubborn will, Mary.”
She sniffed. Her brothers did much the same at times.
“Ye don’t sound like a Highlander,” Mary said, noting his lack of Scottish brogue from the first time he’d spoken at Bannockburn.
Nicholas grunted faintly and drew a hand along her cheek. “When you wish to blend in among men who are not Highland Scot, it’s best to learn not to speak like one.” He pulled her against him and she shivered at the hard length pressed against her. “I doubt I’d remember how to sound like a Scot again, another reason as to why I probably will never fit in.”
<
br /> “A black sheep, you think then?” she asked.
“Something like that,” Nicholas agreed.
She kissed him, enjoying the feel of his lips against hers, the arousal he could not hide. She shifted to lay over him. Her mother had once said in bed anything could happen if the man and woman were agreeable. Nicholas did not seem to mind her incursion beneath the blanket.
“Mary,” he said thickly.
“Aye?”
“Do much more of that and we’ll not be leaving this room anytime soon.”
“But you like it.”
He made a strange sound in his throat and closed his eyes. “God’s blood, Mary, you can’t have learned that in one time only.”
She giggled. “Nay, I saw Rory once.”
“Bloody hell,” Nicholas gasped.
“Never saw my brother quite the same way after that,” Mary admitted.
Nicholas laughed until he was wheezing, holding her tight against him. She waited until he could breathe again. “Best to wait until later, I expect.”
“Aye,” he said as someone pounded on the door.
***
Nicholas rolled off the bed as the door flew open, drawing his dirk from beside the bed. Rory thumped through the doorway along with Fiona, who shut the door in the face of the servants gawking outside in the hall. The Scot stopped in the middle of the room, smiled at Mary and then pointed his crutch at Nicholas.
“Ye can thank me later,” he said.
Nicholas pulled on the breeches Mary handed him, while Fiona remained facing the door.
“I told him to knock,” Fiona remarked irritably.
Rory grinned and winked at Mary. “I needed to know if there was a good reason for the silence.”
Mary drew the sheet tight over her chest. “It was a rather rude entrance, Rory. What do ye want?”
“They are clamoring for proof of yer taking,” he said. Mary blanched, drawing closer to Nicholas.
The Highlander stepped between Rory and the bed, his shirt in his hand.“Over my dead body,” Nicholas growled.
Rory chuckled. “Like that eh?” He glanced over Nicholas’s shoulder at Mary, brow lifted. “Not the sweet lass we all thought?”
She didn’t back down, but stared at Rory defiantly. Her brothers could know nothing of her previous encounter. “It is none of yer business.”
Rory shook his head. “Well, it was when Ian thought to clamor to the whole of Scotland he’d had yon wee Mary Drummond beneath the sheets. A good fist made him think better of it.”
Mary gasped, remembering the tall gangly Scot she’d taken to her bed and his sudden retreat after a brawl she did not know had been with her brother. “Ye broke his jaw!”
Rory nodded. “I’d have broken his neck had he blurted out one more thing, but Malcolm held me back.”
“Malcolm?” Mary squeaked in dismay.
“Aye, and William, near as…”
Mary pressed her fingers against her forehead. Nicholas smiled at her in amusement. “I think we understand you knew she’s not so innocent.”
Rory looked at Nicholas curiously. “And ye have no issue with that?”
“No.”
“Good man,” Rory declared with a grin.
Fiona glanced over her shoulder. “May I turn around now?” She did so anyways before anyone answered. “What ever you think, it’s better if none else know. What will the Mackay think if there is no blood?”
Nicholas pulled on his tunic with a scowl at Fiona. “I don’t care, it’s an abomination to continue such things,” Nicholas growled. Mary smiled at the protest, her face surely red with the heat rushing to her cheeks. She tucked the sheet tighter, unable to meet Rory’s gaze.
Fiona marched across the room to stand before the Highlander, hardly reaching his shoulder, and stabbed him hard in the chest. “Do you not care about Mary then?”
Nicholas rubbed his chest where she had poked him. “Of course I do I married her didn’t I?”
Fiona stomped hard on Nicholas’s foot and he winced but did not retreat. “Don’t be arrogant. She needs to be protected from those who would slander her name and you rs.” She turned toward Mary and caught hold of her wrist. A tiny dagger appeared from somewhere, earning a raised brow from both men. She slashed Mary’s fingers and drew them across the sheet.
“Show them, then, Rory, that she was innocent of any mischief.”
Nicholas finally let go of the cough he was holding in, mixed with laughter it nearly took him to his knees.
An hour later, he stood in the main hall behind Mary as she sat facing Donald Mackay. Maelcolm Beg resided beside them, overseeing the course of events, and along both sides further down, the remaining members of both clans crowded the remaining space.
Mary’s cheek flushed as the group discussed the evidence of their joining, teasing with raucous comments that nearly made Nicholas blush and then finally, thankfully put the proof away.
Maelcolm Beg cleared his throat to silence everyone. “Be still, all of ye.”
Nicholas gripped Mary’s shoulders in an effort to ease her discomfort. He could only imagine what their fathers had discussed and agreed to, his escape conveniently prevented by the woman in front of him.
Donald Mackay leaned back in his seat and sipped a glass of ale. “Truth to tell, Nicky, I approve of the lass. But it is said that perhaps she chose you ?”
Nicholas could not refute it. She had dragged him from Bannockburn. He’d have been dead had she not. “It could be said,” he agreed stiffly.
“I would like ye to come home,” Donald said.
The Mackay chieftain spoke softly, yet the words carried the length of the room, silencing the others where Maelcolm’s command had not. Everyone seemed to hold his or her breath as Nicholas studied his father. Did the man truly want him back? The years had been long between them, the gulf measurable in both distance and emotion. “Why? I do not belong there.”
Donald set his glass down carefully and Nicholas stiffened warily. His father stood to lean over the table. His grey eyes were clear, focused on Nicholas intently. “Ye are first and foremost a Mackay, if not the eldest of my sons. You belong at Varrich as much as anyone does. You are needed there, Nicholas.”
It was almost a plea. Nicholas felt his resistance waver, his father’s words an extension of his hand, and Nicholas realized, his heart. Nicholas made one last attempt to refuse. “Perhaps Mary does not wish to settle in the wilds of Scotland.”
Donald’s lips tightened. Nicholas nearly smiled at the reaction. Affection filled him, for his father and his temper, for his effort to pull Nicholas back into the fold of family and clan.
“Do not put upon Mary yer own decision to stay away, lad,” Maelcolm Beg complained from the end of the table. “If ye don’t want to go home, that’s yer choice, but Mary will go as you do.”
Nicholas thought otherwise if she wished it, but did not reply.
Mary patted Nicholas’s hand on her shoulder. “I will go wherever Nicholas does, as a wife should.” She sniffed faintly. “But I won’t force him to go home either. Should my father refuse us a place then I would live in a meager crofter’s hut should it be necessary.”
“He was that good, eh?” Maelcolm Beg asked wryly.
Mary blushed as laughter echoed down the table. Nicholas smothered his smile and moved back when she pushed out the bench to stand up, nearly quivering with indignation. “Laugh all ye like, but I’ll not force anyone to do something they don’t want to.”
“Just like Nicky did not force ye from Drymen,” Donald Mackay reminded her. His father returned to his seat, his gaze moving between Mary and Nicholas.
Nicholas gently pushed Mary back down. “I had my reasons,” he said. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure why he’d taken her. Rory’s idea had sounded plausible; his logic that Donald Mackay would press yet another wench on him seemed rather irrational now that he’d thought about it. Nicholas was not the heir
; his choice in wife had little consequence other than strengthening clan politics. The offer to wed Nicholas to the chieftain’s daughter might have gained him land, and for the Mackay of course, but would Donald have truly forced his son to marry her? Looking at Donald now, Nicholas thought not.
Mary glared at her father. Maelcolm Beg smiled back, unfazed that his plans had gone awry. It made Nicholas wonder if Rory’s information was true or a simple devious ploy? He glanced at Rory and then at the Drummond chieftain.
Donald took a drink of his ale. He smoothed his fingers over his lips, studying Nicholas intently. “I won’t beg ye to come home, Nicky, but I wish ye would. Yer mother will not be with us much longer.”
Nicholas lifted a brow. “Ann is not my mother,” he said, meaning no disrespect, but his father, as he often did, heard otherwise.
Donald closed his eyes, clearly fighting to control his anger. “Ann is to all intents and purposes yer mother after yer real mother died in childbirth. She raised ye, loved ye, and would like to see you again,” he finished with obvious effort to remain calm, his language once more that of a dignified noble.
Irritated by Donald’s reaction, Nicholas snorted. “She left you for Fitzgerald.”
“She was abducted by Fitzgerald. I retrieved her,” Donald replied angrily. “Do not cross me, lad for ye do as much as he did in taking Mary. Ann was mine and remains mine.” Donald heaved a deep sigh to control his temper. “It matters not, however,” Donald continued. “The lass must have some affection for you to agree so readily in all of this. In time, more may come of it. Time is also our enemy with the Bruce fighting the English. The King will call you to his side; ye’ll have no choice in that. I would have ye settle Mary into Varrich, which will be far safer than here.” He glanced at Maelcolm Beg.
Mary’s father nodded in agreement. “I’d have her far from here, where more battles will only rage on. Stirling has always been a spark, I fear at some point things will fall badly there. Take her away, lad, enjoy what time ye have.”
Fianna Leighton - Tales of Clan Mackay Page 8
