Grant frowned, looking at her as though she’d just spoken in a language he didn’t understand. He pawed through the clutter of small articles in the wooden bowl on the counter. “I put yer phone here, but ye dinna have to worry about anything. It’s all been taken care of.”
“Abandoning my group, allowing them to get drunk, and then having them quarantined in the most expensive lodging at the park is not my idea of everything being taken care of.” Joanna massaged her throbbing temples. Wild old ladies, alcohol, and throwing away money were definitely a recipe for one hell of a migraine. She needed to eat. Maybe that would appease the building headache and keep it down to a dull roar. “I’ve got to call Lucia so we can figure out how to handle this.” Lucia was going to shit.
Grant rounded the kitchen island, placed her phone beside her on the counter, then took her hands into his. He leaned down until his nose nearly touched hers. “There is nothing to ‘handle.’ Máthair and Miss Lydia ha’ seen to it that the ladies are comfortable and well-tended to for the evening in the lodge.” Grant chuckled and pecked a kiss to the end of Joanna’s nose. “They’ll no’ feel too well tomorrow, but for tonight, they’re havin’ a grand time.”
“You don’t understand.” Joanna pulled her hands away and picked up her phone. “We don’t have the money to cover a night of revelry for the gangster grannies. It wasn’t included in their tour fee and there’s no way we can charge them for it now.”
Grant plucked the phone out of her hands. “It’s you who doesna understand. Máthair holds herself responsible for the condition of yer ladies. If she hadna took them to the dyein’ barn, they ne’er wouldha got so wicked pissed.”
“What?”
Leaning against the kitchen island, Grant folded his arms across his chest. “D’ye ken a thing about yarn dyein’ or the processin’ of wool?”
Joanna thought back to the pamphlets about Highland Life and Legends. Nothing about dyeing came to mind, and she sure as hell hadn’t paid attention to the reenactors during any of the other tours. “I’m not familiar with the process,” she said, wishing she could grab her phone away from Grant and get the call to Lucia over and done with.
“Piss sets the color in the yarn. Indulgin’ in a great deal of drink helps ye make the piss ye need t’set yer dye.”
“That’s disgusting.” Joanna suddenly had this mental image of Hazel, Georgetta, Annamae, and Frances chugging shots, then squatting over metal buckets.
Grant nodded. “Be that as it may, the method has worked for centuries to produce some of the finest fabrics ye’ve e’er seen. Yer ladies wanted the authentic experience. I was assured that’s what they got.” Grant shrugged as though everything had been all wrapped up in a tidy little package. “Máthair feels responsible for the condition of yer ladies. There’ll be no charge for their evening at Highland Life and Legends.”
That made her feel somewhat better. At least their emergency fund was safe. For now. Joanna held out her hand. “I still need to call Lucia and let her know what’s going on. I’ll also need to call Miss Martha at the bed-and-breakfast so she won’t be wondering where we are.”
“I spoke to yer Mistress Lucia and Mistress Lydia called her sister, Mistress Martha. All parties concerned know that ye’ll be in my care this evenin’.”
“Oh really.” Joanna didn’t know whether to kiss him or kick him. How dare he pull off such a stunt as if she didn’t have a choice in the matter! “Did it ever occur to you that I might not want to spend tonight with you?”
Grant slid the phone out of her reach and gathered her into his arms. Walking her backward and pressing her against the counter, he cupped her ass with one hand and pulled her to his chest with the other. Nuzzling his way to her neck, he tickled light kisses up and down her throat. “I feel sure I could change yer mind,” he murmured against the skin beneath her ear.
Damn you. Joanna shivered, snugged into his hardness, and curled one leg around him. She slid her socked foot up and down his muscular calf and thigh, wishing they were skin to skin. “You’re not fighting fair,” she said, her nipples pebbling so tight they stung with a delicious throb.
“I fight to win.” Grant lifted her up and sat her on the counter. Pressing his forehead against hers, he teasingly smoothed his hands up and down the outside of her thighs. “And as soon as I’ve gotten some food into ye, we’ll retire upstairs for another fine battle.”
He expected her to eat? Now? When he already had her libido shifting into second gear and humming toward orgasm overdrive? “I don’t need food just yet. I need you.”
Joanna locked her thighs around his torso and crossed her ankles behind his back. She unbuttoned his shirt and yanked it free of his belted kilt with an impatient jerk. Slipping both hands inside his shirt to slide it off his shoulders, she breathed in the heat of him. A delightfully expectant shudder washed across her with the memory of those hard pecs and abs sliding against her body.
“Joanna,” Grant said in a scolding tone. “Ye’ve no’ had a thing but whisky and coffee all day.” He kissed her long and hard, then finally raised his head. “Ye’ll need yer strength for what I have in mind this evenin’.” Rubbing his lips back and forth across hers, he slid a hand up under her shirt and cupped one of her breasts. “I swear it. Ye willna be disappointed.”
“But I need you now.” She hadn’t meant to groan out the words, but she just couldn’t help it. Maybe she was light-headed from no food, caffeine, and the latent effects of alcohol, but all she really knew was that she was on fire and needed release. Badly. She reached down and cupped the hard ridge outlined at the front of his kilt, massaging and pulling. Before Grant could react, she flipped the kilt out of the way and rhythmically stroked the prize she was fighting to win. “Please…don’t be selfish and leave me like this. It feels like you’d enjoy a little release too.”
“When ye say it like that, ye leave me no choice.” Grant slipped his thumbs under the waistband of her sweatpants and before she realized what was happening, he jerked hard and yanked them and her panties down around her ankles. The cold countertop against her heated flesh nearly took her breath.
Smiling, she stripped her shirt and bra off over her head and lay back on the counter. “Now, this is the perfect appetizer.” A shiver wiggled her across the countertop.
Grant pulled a condom packet out of the sporran hanging at his side, ripped it open, then slid it on. Leaning over her, he licked her from her belly button all the way up to her throat, then nibbled his way to her mouth. “When I had this counter built t’suit m’height, I had no idea what a boon it would truly be.”
Joanna scrubbed her feet together, trying to kick free of her knotted pants and panties. Dammit! I’m tangled up. She slid her hand to Grant’s chest and gently pushed him away. “I need a little help. You’ve got my ankles tied together.”
Grant looked down at her with a wicked grin. “Aye, lass. And tied up is the way ye’ll stay.” He stepped back and flipped her over onto her stomach, bare ass in the air. He playfully nipped and bit across the fullness of her butt cheeks while teasing his fingertips across her drenched slit in the process.
Joanna shuddered, stretching to grab hold of the other edge of the counter while grinding her mons against the cold hardness of the granite edge at the tops of her legs. She wriggled, trying to spread her legs wider and hike her rear into Grant’s hand. She needed relief. Cock or fingers. She didn’t care which, but she needed something now. “Please—I need…”
Grant bent over her and swept her hair aside. Pressing his long, hard length along the crack of her ass, he rained nipping kisses along her shoulder and up to her ear. “What d’ye need, lass?” he whispered, hunger echoing in his rasping tone. “Tell me.”
Joanna bucked, the cold, hard counter beneath her growing hotter by the minute. She wriggled her butt against Grant, straining to spread her thighs. “You. Please
. Now.”
“As ye wish,” Grant said as he slid his cock in between her folds and slowly, with a teasing gyration of his body, buried himself to the hilt.
“Yes!” Joanna gasped and arched, hanging on to the edge of the counter until her knuckles popped. The tight wet fullness. The pulsing heat. Just a few more strokes. “Please, you’ve got to move for me. Now!”
“Aye, m’love. Aye!” He hammered hard and fast, the fronts of his thighs slapping against the backs of her legs as he drove as deep as he could go.
Just three strokes in, Joanna’s world exploded into body-shaking bliss. A shriek ripped free of her throat as she arched her back and reared up on the counter, stretching into the best yoga cobra pose she’d ever achieved and holding it while orgasmic lightning crashed through her in excruciatingly delightful waves.
Grant pounded faster, then dove in deep and stayed, pressing his forehead between her shoulder blades as his body tensed and pulsed inside her. Holding her where her legs joined her body, he suddenly straightened, yanked her hard back against him, then roared something unintelligible that echoed to the rafters.
So, this is what it feels like to be suspended in time. Joanna smiled at the first coherent thought making its way through the after-orgasm fog. She relaxed her arms and sprawled across the counter. Grant groaned one last time, then fell forward on top of her, body heaving as he gasped to catch his breath.
A shrill, ear-splitting beep peeled out, shattering the moment and managing to yank Joanna out of her delicious euphoria. She stirred under Grant, shifted to the side, then lifted her head and sniffed. Her eyes popped open. Shit! Smoke.
“Grant! The cornbread!”
Chapter 12
Two quick beeps of the horn and Carolina Adventures’ sleek black shuttle bus rolled out of the park, headed for the bed-and-breakfast with a load of extremely hung-over senior citizens.
Grant smiled and raised his hand in farewell. For the first time in a very long time, as a matter of fact for the first time since they’d arrived in this accursed century, he felt a sense of peace—and maybe even a little anticipation.
“Do ye no’ think ’tis time ye took the girl before the Heartstone and sought its advice? Ye’ve finally made her yer own. ’Tis time to seek the blessing in person and tell the lass the MacDara history.”
Dwyn MacKay. The nosy, redheaded demigod determined to be a thorn in every MacDara’s arse. Long ago, the goddesses ordained him as guide to all the druid clans—guardian to them, in fact. Grudgingly, Grant admitted that without Dwyn’s help with acclimating to the twenty-first century after they’d first arrived—and even now after they’d been here sixteen years—the MacDaras’ survival in this strange time wouldha been questionable.
“Ignorin’ me will do ye no good, ye ken? Ye best answer me, boy.”
“Go away, ye old bastard,” Grant replied without turning around. “Ye ken good and well how I feel about the Heartstone and its druthers.” The damn stone and the meddlin’ goddesses were as responsible for the murder of his precious Leannan and their unborn child just as surely as if they’d been the ones that had slit her throat. He’d had little to do with the stone and the goddesses since that terrible day. He didna care if his soul was headed for certain damnation. His heart had already been there for well over a decade.
Dwyn stepped up and stood beside him. The wiry demigod wore his usual attire of an expensive three-piece suit complete with a gold watch chain and starched handkerchief peeping out of the breast pocket. While larger than life when it came to personality, in his physical form, Dwyn was dwarfed by Grant’s size. His bushy red brows knotted above his narrowed eyes in a furious scowl and he clasped his hands to the small of his back. He glared up at Grant with an impatient sideways glance. “The stone doesna set nor choose yer fate, lad. It merely guides us and shows us the proper path for the good of all concerned. Remember yer teachings, aye?”
“I dinna give a damn about the good of all concerned. I’m no longer a protector. Remember?”
“Aye, ye are. It’s in yer blood, boy. Ye dinna have a choice in the matter.” Dipping his chin in a curt nod, Dwyn did a bouncing roll to the toe-tips of his highly polished, black wing-tipped shoes as though launching himself into motion. He sauntered back and forth on the sidewalk with a swinging methodical step. Finally, he came to a halt in front of Grant and jabbed a finger hard against Grant’s breastbone. “Ye will always be a protector and ye ken as well as I that if ye wish a more permanent arrangement with this woman, this Joanna Martin, she must be brought before the stone and the MacDara history must be revealed to her.” Dwyn barely shook his head, then added emphasis to his words by thumping Grant’s chest again. “Ye canna build a life upon a lie, lad. ’Twould be like building a castle on shifting sand, ye ken?”
Grant brushed aside Dwyn’s hand. “Ye canna allow me to enjoy a bit a peace—a wee taste of happiness? Does it vex ye t’see that I so easily choose to step away from all yer high and mighty commands?” He sorely wanted to knock the annoying demigod on his arse, but he’d made that mistake once—and learned from it. The wily little bastard might look small, but he’d easily rebounded and dished out quite a beatin’ of his own.
“Ye ken that I’m right.” Thin arms folded across his black pin-striped chest, Dwyn circled Grant like a scrawny buzzard waiting for his dinner to die. “Could ye really live in peace without telling her the truth? Worryin’ at every turn that she might stumble upon yer history and discover yer lie?”
Grant avoided Dwyn’s hawkish gaze and stared down at the ground. Damn the infernal bastard. He knew in his heart that Dwyn was right and he hated him for it. “And if I lose her? What then?” He braced himself, tensing against the answer he knew Dwyn was about to give him.
Dwyn shrugged and shook his head. “Then it was ne’er meant t’be after all.” He cleared his throat and squeezed Grant’s shoulder. “But take heart, this woman has impressed the goddesses. They look kindly on this match and have already decided that she’d more than likely give ye many fine sons to carry on your duties as a protector long after yer gone. All should work out well. If not…then ye’ll move on. Such is the way of a mortal’s life.”
“Ye say all these things so easily, as if Joanna were a pair of boots or a kilt that can be tossed aside and replaced if she doesna fit the Heartstone’s mold for a wife of a protector.” Grant turned away and took off at an angry pace down the main street of Highland Life and Legends. He needed to get away from Dwyn. Away from people. He needed time t’think.
Dwyn kept abreast of him with little or no effort even though the short strides of his legs were but a third of Grant’s powerful steps. “If she’s unable to believe our legends and beliefs and know them for the truth that they are, I swear t’ye that I’ll wipe her memories clean so it will be as though ye ne’er told her about the Heartstone and the fact that ye were born in ninth-century Scotland. She’ll no’ suffer any ill effects. Will that do ye?”
“And what about my memories, ye meddlin’ fool? What then?” Grant came to a halt, turned, and bent forward with his fists clenched, coming nose to nose with Dwyn. Was the demigod that callous? Did he think Grant’s already scarred heart could take another massive hit? “And after ye clear her mind, ye expect me to watch her go a separate way from mine? I’m supposed to…to just release her? Just watch her walk out of m’life?”
“That’s how it works, son,” Dwyn replied quietly, genuine compassion shining in his pale green eyes. “In many ways, yer no different from any other man lookin’ to be loved. If yer able t’find the right woman, yer a blessed man and yer life’s complete. If ye dinna find one, then there will always be an aching emptiness in yer soul.”
“If ye ask me, we mere mortals have a raw deal indeed.”
“Ye might say that.” Dwyn frowned and reached into his inside coat pocket. “But then again, you mere mortals experience creatio
n in such a way that no god or goddess ever can.” He pulled out a royal-blue velvet pouch tied with gold braiding and scowled down at it as he hefted it in one hand. “Immortals have eternity. We’ve no limitations. No barriers to anything.” He locked eyes with Grant, an ancient weariness suddenly shadowing his gaze. “Such freedom to discover and explore comes at great cost. Where there is no urgency, there is no excitement. Even the finest gold bauble, newly minted and polished, loses its shine and shows its flaws when one has an eternity to admire it.” He held out the small pouch and dropped it in Grant’s upturned hand. “A human’s life is short. Every minute, every experience, is fleeting, and those who know this truth find more joy in one brief moment than an immortal feels in all eternity.”
Dwyn’s words rang true, but they didna ease the gnawing worry already growing at Grant’s core. It had taken so long to find Joanna. What if she cast him aside for a lunatic when he showed her the MacDara truths? Alec’s wife, Sadie, had said that was her first thought when Alec had shown her the Heartstone and weapons and explained the druid clans. She said the only thing that had changed her mind was when the Heartstone itself had intervened and shown her the way to the truth.
“If she accepts ye for all that ye are…” Dwyn tapped on the velvet pouch in Grant’s hand. “Give her this amulet. This is your binding amulet fashioned by the goddesses to be given to yer true heartmate. Yer father gave his to yer mother, and yer brother gave his to his wife. This is the blessing ye’ve sought, lad. Believe it or no’, we all want this joinin’ for ye, ye ken? Ye were ne’er meant t’be alone—or suffer the rest of yer days.”
Joanna's Highlander Page 12
