My Lady Highlande

by Nancy Lee Badger

  This will no’ do.

  She craved the sensuous heat of skin against skin, which had to feel as pleasant as his tongue in her mouth. Without breaking contact, she grabbed fistfuls of his red shirt. She tugged and pushed, in an attempt to shove it up, and over his head.

  The kiss ended abruptly. She wrongly assumed he moved in order to allow her to bare his chest.

  It was not to be.

  Bull growled, then yelled, “No!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Bull tugged the hem of his half-lifted shirt back to his waist. How could he explain he did not wish to break the mood, but he wasn’t ready to let her see his scars?

  “What ‘tis wrong?” Izzy gazed up at him from the bed, her body relaxed, and her fingers wrapped in the hem of his shirt. Her hair, splayed across her pillow, was exquisite. Heat and desire seared his covered chest, and his erection throbbed. The golden curls beckoned him to caress them, but her eyes bore into him, questioning his outburst.

  He wanted his mouth pressed against her sweet lips, sipping and tasting, while he caressed her beautiful skin. When she discovered his scars, she would pull back, horrified. He could not see the skin the fire had ravaged, but painful twinges pulled at the healing flesh every time his muscles strained during heavy activity.

  Like when I toss a caber.

  This woman next to him, bared to her waist, gazed up at him with innocent concern. She was a stranger and if his guess was accurate, she was a friend of Dorcas Swann, the witch. That news, as well as her heavy brogue, most likely meant she hailed from ancient Scotland.

  A place I escaped from, and where I will never return.

  Not with the horrible memories of the place seared into his head, as deeply as the scars on his back. However, Izzy was here. Not there. Had she decided to live in this time? She embraced modern technology, and carried a cell phone, though she could barely drive. Izzy ate pizza and wore blue jeans. She kissed like modern women who cared little for reputations or proper behavior, and lived in an apartment with a hot tub.

  The sudden image of them making love while surrounded by bubbles, bubbles that might hide his scars, made a grin pull at the corners of his mouth.

  “Please, Bull, remove yer clothing.”

  “I…can’t.”

  “Why?”

  She waited for an answer, while he searched his brain for an explanation. How could he spell it out? Was it vanity that stopped him, or the knowledge he would have to explain how he’d been burned. If she wasn’t from the past, he could never tell her the truth.

  As he pondered his decision, she pulled his head to hers and kissed him, but the shirt stayed on.

  ***

  The shirt has to go, Izzy thought. Why was he peevish about undressing? She yearned to feel Bull’s heartbeat thud against her chest. Heat pulsed off him, penetrated the shirt, and warmed her naked breasts, but she wanted skin on skin.

  Her hand strayed beneath the cloth to his hot, hard chest. The sculpted plane was a delight to touch. His massive arms wrapped around her. As she stroked one of his rigid nipples, she wanted to glide her hand lower. Before she found the courage to proceed, his hands strayed.

  They stroked her shoulders and upper arms, then drifted beneath her breasts. His hands were everywhere, caressing her flesh, while he nuzzled the sensitive skin beneath her ear. She reciprocated with gentle kisses, as she strove to shake her timidity. Could he tell she was inexperienced? Desire washed over her, and she pushed against his chest to catch her breath.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t stop. Let’s enjoy the moment,” Bull said.

  The man was delicious, smart, and had proved to have a protective spirit. He tasted like heaven, and warmed her to her core. Feeling dizzy and breathless, Izzy yearned to continue to enjoy their mutual caresses. However, she tensed when his hand slid up her thigh. When he lowered her zipper, then pushed her jeans down over her hips, she went as still as a glacier.

  “Bull, please stop.”

  His fingers stilled, but did not retreat.

  “I fear ‘tis too soon. We are strangers, ye and I.”

  “When I have you in my arms, you don’t feel like a stranger.” He nuzzled her ear, and his warm breath made her skin tremble with a surge of longing. One moment her body was succumbing to raw need, but the next moment she was pushing him away. What did she want? Should she allow his advances? Could she live with momentary enjoyment followed by years of torment and misery? She could not.

  Not again.

  “I know nothing of ye. Do ye work, or simply help women put out fires?”

  He chuckled, and fell flat on his back, as if defeated. “I’m a teacher.”

  Gazing at his face for confirmation, she saw the pride that sparkled in his eyes, and the smile that graced his face. Teaching was a profession highly regarded in this age, and she had toyed with the idea of learning the trade. Dorcas mentioned she planned to sell her potion tent and retire. Izzy needed another job in order to pay her bills, so she had made inquiries.

  Curiosity stilled her hands. “What do ye teach?”

  “History.” He spoke the single word with a straight face, then broke out with a hearty laugh. It filled the bedroom, and eased her mind. Even so, she held him at more of a distance. One of his hands was under her hip, but the other relaxed on the linen bedclothes.

  Izzy tugged on his shirt, but he stayed her attempts again. “ ‘Tis an honorable profession. I approve.”

  “Believe me. I’m more than a teacher of history. Let me make love to you, and teach you what I know of pleasure. What are you afraid of? Me?”

  “Nay, I doona’ fear ye.”

  Bull pulled his hand back, and sighed. “Then why push me away?”

  “I want to get to know you better, first. What is the rush?” Perhaps she would come up with a plausible explanation that would make him leave.

  Gazing at the hurt in his eyes, she laughed. Pain erupted across her cheeks and beneath her eyes. She pressed fingers just above the bridge of her bruised nose.

  He tangled his big fingers into her hair, and placed a gentle peck on her forehead. “My apologies, sweetheart. I forgot. You smacked the airbag pretty good. Headache?”

  “Aye, but the ache started earlier.” The moment I met you.

  He tugged her hand from her bruised face, and kissed the tip of her nose, as softly as a butterfly landing on the purple spikes of a thistle. His saucy lips continued down, and landed on her mouth. He kissed, tasted and teased, until all the pain magically disappeared.

  “You taste so good, like apples. We don’t need the pizza,” Bull whispered.

  “Too bad, ye brute. It shall arrive verra’ soon. Please…remove your shirt?”

  She could see the indecision in his shuttered gaze, and in the space growing between them as he pushed away. His eyes closed, and she sensed his conflict. There was a story there.

  “Fine.”

  Not wanting to give him a moment to change his mind, Izzy helped tug the shirt up and over his head. She tossed it on the bedroom floor, near the door. When she pulled him against her chest, his damp flesh sizzled, sparking tingles throughout her body. His hand cupped her breast, squeezing it, lightly.

  Dizziness morphed into passion, and she sought his mouth. Lips touched, and he breathed into her, lifting her toward something she could not name. His hand strayed lower, again, but she did not stop him. For some unfathomable reason, she trusted him.

  He did not strike her as a man with a motive, as if he needed to bring her under his control. Unlike Gavin, a handsome brute who had betrayed her in a most devious way, Bull acted as if he cared for her, and not her home or property.

  Shaking away images of Gavin’s deceit, she disconnected their mouths, and gazed at the man in her bed.

  “If I can get ye totally undressed, we can share my hot tub,” she teased. What am I doing? He still wore his pleated plaid, belt, and sporran. Was not a clothed Bryce Buchanan a much safer prospect?

  He chuckled, and glance
d toward the bedroom window. The sun had lowered in the sky, lengthening the afternoon shadows until dusk colored their world in gray twilight. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “It came with this domicile. ‘Tis quite enjoyable, though I have never shared--”

  “Good to know,” he said. Growling low in his throat, he nuzzled her ear. He rose, fiddling with the chain attached to his sporran. He unhooked it, and dropped them to the floor.

  “Give me a hand?”

  Flicking her eyes to his raised forearm, she understood. He wanted her to untie the laces that held his leather braces on his wrists. She rose to the task, first one and then the other. He acted jealous of Gavin, so she decided she would enjoy wherever this led. With her senses overloaded, pleasure flowed to the secret place between her thighs. She was damp, weeping with desire.

  “I should no’ kiss a strange man in my bedchamber, but I am no longer thinking straight.” This was so unlike the younger Isobel MacHamish who had lived in Scotland, in the past. Years earlier, Gavin Sinclair had nurtured comparable feelings. Feelings too similar.

  I am older and wiser, now, and I deserve this, she thought, as she closed her eyes.

  “And I thought it was only me, who felt like the world was spinning.” Kneeling on the bed, Bull kissed her, again. He claimed her mouth, and pressed his lips to hers. Within a heartbeat, he peeled her unzipped jeans the rest of the way down her legs. Cotton undergarments, what Jenny called panties, disappeared next.

  His fingers strayed everywhere, but she concentrated on his warm lips. He tasted delicious, like sweet honey ale. Had he visited the beer pub at the games, before arriving like a hero, to save her burning tent? A thump, thump broke through her delirium.

  “I think someone’s at your door. Hate to leave you.” Bull, still clad only in his belted plaid, rolled to a sitting position at the side of the bed. As he bent to grab his shirt, a scream rent the air.

  Izzy sat up, as Bull bolted off the bed. He shot into the hall, and his footsteps tromped toward the apartment door. Who had screamed?

  Brushing her loose hair from her face, Izzy pushed off the other side of her bed. Grabbing a dark blue muslin skirt from a chair in the corner, she swept her hands across the dark bedroom floor for her shirt. She could not locate her blouse, until she remembered where Bull had tossed it.

  Stepping into the skirt, she rounded the base of the bed, ran toward the door, and stubbed her toe. Hopping on one foot while cursing a few inappropriate Gaelic phrases, she grabbed a pair of doeskin slippers. Slipping on her shirt, she followed the noise, mostly male and female shouting voices.

  Weaponless, she grabbed several potion bottles from the box on the counter. She read the labels, nodded, and stuck them inside the skirt’s hidden pocket, then headed after Bull.

  Giant hogweed could come in handy. The other…I must take care.

  She raced past the small living area. What she encountered at the doorway to her apartment stilled her heart.

  “Gavin! No!” Izzy cried. The tip of Gavin’s dirk pricked the side of Bull’s neck, but her gaze slid to the long white scars, that crisscrossed Bull’s back. Where had he acquired such gruesome injuries? Could they be the reason he was reluctant to undress?

  “Stay back, woman,” Gavin said. The foot-long steel blade shimmered under the porch light’s yellow illumination. Bull held his arms wide to prove he was unarmed. His back muscles trembled, but not with fear. His bare feet were set far apart, in a warrior’s stance, and his plaid rode low on his hips. He must have removed his socks and footwear in her bedchamber.

  Bull did not carry a dirk or weapon of any kind. Was he reading his adversary, waiting for the right moment to strike back? Unarmed?

  If he did, he could die. Gavin was deadly with a blade.

  “Stop! Doona’ harm him.”

  Gavin and Bull glanced at her, as if wondering which man garnered her stern words. Gavin lowered his blade, and stepped away. He strode down the steps and paced in a rage-filled circle in the yard. His black leather cloak whipped around his long legs.

  Bull turned to face Izzy. A trickle of blood stained his neck, and dripped down toward his naked chest. Bull did not bother to wipe away the small streak of blood. Instead, his gaze hovered on her.

  Izzy sighed with relief, then bounded down the steps.

  A movement on her left, had her glance away from a growling Gavin. Jenny, whose scream had alerted them to the danger, leaned against the barn’s open door, a hand splayed against her chest and a broom clutched in the other. Her eyes were wild, proving she had witnessed the confrontation. Had she screamed at the sight of Gavin on their porch, brandishing a weapon, or had something else put the fear in her eyes?

  “Stay where ye are, Jenny,” Izzy called out, and prayed she listened.

  No such luck.

  Jenny raced across the parking lot, stopped next to her, and pointed at Gavin. “What’s going on? Who is this creep?”

  Gavin glared at her and stepped closer, holding his unsheathed weapon at the ready. Towering over both women, the black-clad warrior loomed, dark and serious. His eyes shuttered nearly closed, as he glared at Izzy, but his attention fell on Jenny. A slight smile tugged at the right side of his mouth, as he looked her over, from the bare ankles peeking from beneath her sundress, to the low neckline that barely covered her breasts.

  “Keep your eyes up here, buddy,” Jenny said, tapping her chin.

  Gavin smirked wider, then bowed. “My pardon, lass. My eyes were drawn to yer delightful attributes.”

  Curious, Izzy thought. Was Gavin interested in Jenny? “Gavin, why are you here? I told ye to go home.”

  Gavin’s eyes blazed as he turned and glared at Izzy. “Ye doona’ understand. I want ye, woman. Can ye no’ see I have arrived in time to save ye from this rutting bastard?”

  “Rutting what?” Bull yelled, as he joined the trio in the yard. Izzy brushed fingers along his forearm, silently urging him to calm down, and keep quiet.

  “I will no’ leave with ye,” Izzy said to Gavin.

  “I shall no’ leave, until I change yer mind. We shall continue this argument in private.” His gaze hovered between Izzy’s hand on Bull’s arm, and her friend. “Who be this luscious vixen?”

  “Gavin Sinclair, this is my friend, Jenny Morgan.” Izzy had an idea. If she got Gavin interested in Jenny, he might forget all about her. Unfortunately, Jenny was not acting receptive to his favor.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Drawing a weapon on him, after scaring me to death in the barn.” Jenny crossed her arms over her chest, and furiously tapped a toe.

  “I beg yer pardon.” Gavin turned his attention to the barn.

  “How dare ye scare my friend,” Izzy said.

  “Hey! He cut me. Where’s the sympathy?” Bull accepted a fragile tissue from Jenny and wiped the blood on his neck and chest.

  Gavin slapped the flat of his blade against his open palm, gaining their attention.

  Izzy rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. “A childish response, Gavin. Still the boy, aye?”

  “I be all the man ye need, wench.”

  “Hey!” Bull said.

  Gavin waved him off, then pointed at Jenny. “I want to respond to the charges laid at my feet by this woman. I was near no barn. I entered this compound from the roadside.”

  “Izzy, I saw something. It’s so dark in there, maybe it wasn’t him?”

  “Be calm, my friend. These boys shall investigate.”

  “Who are you calling a boy?” Bull asked, as he crossed his arms to match her stance.

  Before she could berate them both, loud thumping rattled the stalls in the barn. They all turned toward the disturbance. When Balfour’s high-pitched scream erupted from the building, Izzy instinctively raced toward the terrified animal.

  “No! Nay!” Bull and Gavin yelled, together.

  Bull grabbed the back of her blouse, then shoved her toward the porch. “Stay!”

  “
I’ll no’ be treated like the master’s hound, ye big brute.”

  “Izzy. Sweetheart. Please stay here?”

  Jenny clasped her hand. “Whoever, or whatever, is in there scared me, Izzy. Listen to him. I have never felt such a malevolent vibe.”

  “Vibe? Oh, ye mean a feeling or sense? Hmm…back in…my homeland, ‘tis many an explanation. The fae, banshees, even a brownie can scare ye, when they be making mischief. Let us follow, but we shall keep back.”

  “I’ve heard of faeries, but brownies?” Jenny said, as they followed on the heels of the men.

  “Brownies are masters of mischief and some are a danger to yer life. Scottish brownies are mischievous house spirits, or so say the tales. My elderly aunt shared such stories. She assured me that once upon a time, every house had its own brownie. Usually reclusive, and sometimes lazy creatures, they would perform menial tasks in return for small gifts.”

  “They sound sweet.”

  Izzy laughed, then slapped a hand over her mouth. The men were searching for something in the barn, and Balfour was still neighing. She should keep quiet, and watchful.

  “Brownies have ne’er been called sweet before.”

  A commotion and muffled curses echoed from the barn. When the frightened animal ran through the open barn door, Jenny dropped the broom and lunged for its halter.

  “Got it!” Jenny cried. Izzy lurched toward the opposite side, and gripped the cool leather headgear. They pulled the beast to a halt between them, taking care to avoid having their feet trampled by his large hooves. With soothing words, and gentle strokes along Balfour’s neck and nose, they held the animal, and waited for it to calm itself. While Izzy held tight to the halter, and the animal’s short, dark mane, Jenny stepped closer to the barn.

  A thunderous roar reached her ears. Jenny raced toward the door, and Izzy missed grabbing the back of her shirt by inches. She followed, with Balfour beside her, and stopped where Jenny had.

  “They said to wait outside, but I have no weapon,” Izzy whispered.

  Jenny raised an eyebrow. Her friend had no knowledge of Izzy’s secrets. Her mind whirled with how to explain Gavin’s appearance, weapons, and threats. Wringing her hands would not help, yet Gavin showed true interest in her neighbor. If a relationship were to form, Jenny deserved the truth.