Highland Ruse: Mercenary Maidens - Book Two

by Martin, Madeline

  They stayed poised thus for the lifetime of a moment.

  Something brushed against the sensitive dip where her neck met her shoulders, so gentle she almost did not discern its whisper over her skin.

  But she did, and the sensation sent her heart into wild gallops.

  She leaned her head to expose her neck, welcoming the touch.

  His fingers swept down her neck, cold against her blazing skin. She gave in and sank into the pleasure of his touch.

  For she wanted so much more.

  Chapter Ten

  Kaid’s breathing came faster, filling the silence in the forest.

  His fingertips still tingled with the effect of caressing Elizabeth, the silky warmth of her skin. His body was chilled from having washed in the loch while he waited for her to return. Doubtless his fingers had been cold.

  Elizabeth had not turned away, though.

  He stared down at the exposed curve of her neck, the slender muscles straining against her skin, the sweet slope of her collarbone.

  Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, as if she wanted his kiss.

  But she was his enemy’s bride to be. She was the salvation of his people. She was a maiden.

  Everything in Kaid wanted to caress her again, to let the pads of his fingers sweep down her neck, the same as his bit of charcoal did against the lines he drew when he knew she would not see.

  He’d drawn her neck countless times, the same as her face, the sweet shape of her mouth, the complexities of her expressions. She was exquisite.

  And now she was directly in front of him with her body leaned toward him.

  His hovering fingers came down once more onto her smooth skin at the nape of her neck and traced a careful line upward to the thick light brown hair that reminded him so of honey’s sweet golden hue.

  A gasp whispered through her lips. Her skin rose with tiny prickling bumps.

  Her reaction only spurred him toward what he desired.

  To kiss her. To taste her.

  Before he could pull himself from her, he leaned forward and let his lips brush against the skin where her neck and shoulders met.

  She was warm and supple and wholly perfect.

  It was a small kiss, a tease of what he wanted to do, and it was his intention to do no more.

  Then the pull of her floral perfume intoxicated him with the promise of her sweetness, the heat of her skin lured him toward everything hot when the loch had left him so damn cold.

  He did not straighten away from her. No, he let his lips drift up her slender neck. His stubbled chin brushed the bit of her exposed back beneath the line of her gown, and she gave a little strangled sound somewhere between a cry and a moan.

  Longing surged through his body and left him ravenous for her.

  He wanted his hands on her, his mouth on her, his body on her. But he held back.

  Only his mouth.

  Only her neck.

  Only a taste.

  He carefully traced the line of her neck with the tip of his tongue. Her skin was sweet and salty, leaving him wanting more.

  “Kaid.” His name was so quiet a whisper on her lips, he almost hadn’t heard it.

  He paused, thinking she might stop him to point out how wildly inappropriate his actions were. His body pounded with desire, and his blood poured through his veins like liquid fire.

  He waited for her protests.

  They did not come.

  He licked her delicate neck once more, a languid tease of his tongue against her naked flesh.

  This time she moaned and leaned further back, until her back pressed against him.

  “Yes.” There was something pleading in her tone.

  He caught her slender waist and held her to him, scraping his teeth against her skin, letting his kiss deepen with sucks and bites.

  His cock strained with need. He ran his lips up her neck and caught the lobe of her ear in his mouth.

  She whimpered and arched her back, pressing into the part of him which wanted her so desperately.

  He wanted to spin her around, so he could gaze at her in those precious moments before kissing her lush mouth.

  But those stares, those kisses were not for him.

  She was MacKenzie’s.

  Even as Kaid reminded himself of this, he continued kissing the length of her slender neck, tormenting himself with what he could never have and yet could not stop wanting.

  Elizabeth reached behind her and gripped his arms, as if she needed them to stay on her feet. The curves of her body beneath her dress rolled back into him, and her breath came in delicate pants.

  “Kiss me,” she gasped. “Please, Kaid. Kiss me.”

  He almost groaned with the need to fulfill her request.

  She was MacKenzie’s.

  His frustration came out in a rasping growl in her ear.

  Elizabeth inhaled sharply and tried to crane her face upward, toward him. “Please, Kaid.” She writhed in his arms. Hungry, desperate, in need.

  He understood those emotions too well. They were the same as his, for he wanted nothing more than to kiss her—not as the woman he’d abducted, nor as the future wife of his enemy, but as the woman for whom his affections ran deeper than they ever should have.

  • • •

  Delilah was on fire.

  Desire singed her body and left her skin alight with a sensitivity that would almost hurt, had it not felt so wonderfully good. It tingled through her veins and pulsed in a place she’d once vowed to never let a man touch her again.

  She wanted to be touched there now.

  But not just by any man.

  She wanted Kaid, with his long, tapered fingers, graceful, capable, strong.

  What he could do with those fingers…

  His mouth moved down her neck in a maddening tease with no culmination in sight. The rasp of his stubbled jaw against the tender skin of her neck sent a fresh wave of excitement through her body.

  She wanted his mouth on hers. The affections he placed where she could not see tormented her.

  His lips were sultry and possessive on her neck.

  But she wanted him on her mouth.

  A cry of frustration sounded from her throat, and she tried to turn.

  He tightened his grip on her waist and nuzzled his face against hers, tempting her with the sweet warmth of his breath across her mouth.

  She licked her lips, as if she could capture the sensation and encourage it into something more, but he nudged her face forward once more with his own.

  He’d dragged her to the brink of helpless insanity.

  She couldn’t think—all she could do was feel.

  The crazed thrum between her legs, blazing and insistent, made her heart feel as if it were going to part with her chest and kept any air from entering her lungs.

  “Please.” Rage at her unmet desires made the word sound harsh.

  He stopped. Finally.

  Delilah panted and his hold on her waist relaxed. It was all she needed. She spun around and faced him.

  He stared down at her, his chest heaving. His hair hung in damp waves around his face, and his eyes seemed mystical in the dusky early evening light.

  She drew in a deep breath to ask him once more to kiss her when he caught her by the back of the neck and drew his face to hers.

  Then finally, finally, the soft heat of his mouth closed over hers.

  She was mistaken to assume their lips meeting would douse the fire within. It only served to intensify it.

  Delilah gave in to his hungry draw, letting him devour her in sucking kisses and nips. His unshaven chin chafed against her face, but the sensation only heightened her pleasure.

  His back was powerful beneath her restless palms, his body hot despite the leine separating them, and the glorious muscles there glided with his every move.

  He groaned and stepped forward, compelling her backward. She went without hesitation.

  She wanted this.

  She wanted him.


  The rough bark of a tree snagged the back of her dress. Kaid pressed the hardness of his body over her, and she moaned her desires like a wanton.

  In the back of her mind, she knew this was not how a lady acted.

  In the front of her mind, she knew she wanted this.

  Suddenly Kaid shoved away from her.

  She immediately felt his absence. The air was too cool without his heat, her mouth too lonely without the play of his lips, her soul too empty without the strength of his body.

  He stood an arm’s length away. “I can’t.”

  She nodded in a vigorous, overly understanding gesture.

  “I can’t,” he repeated.

  But he did not leave.

  A baser part of her demanded she beg for him to continue, to ignore the feud, the impending marriage, all of it.

  “We should go back.” Her voice was as pathetically weak as her reply.

  He motioned for her to lead the way. She stepped past him and tried not to meet his gaze lest she give in to the pull, which knew exactly what it was she truly wanted.

  His hand settled on her lower back for a brief, fluttering moment before it fell away.

  When they emerged from the trees, the camp lay as they had left it—the coach idle and empty, the horses tethered near the loch, the fire with its waning flames.

  So much had transpired between her and Kaid, and still so much more had the possibility of happening. Facing something so familiar, so mundane, left her mind spinning.

  She did not want normal when she’d sampled such passion. She wanted Kaid.

  Leasa was immediately at her side, cupping Delilah’s elbow. “Are you all right?”

  Delilah nodded. For what else could she do?

  There was no more talk—not of what Kaid had confessed, nor any questions about what had happened in the forest. Exhaustion weighed on everyone, and within minutes, the camp had settled in for the night.

  Delilah spent it all in a fit of sleepless tossing and turning on the thin cushioned seat, back in the blasted coach.

  Kaid refused to hear her requests to sleep outside beneath the stars.

  Where he was.

  He’d insisted the women sleep once more in the relative safety of the coach. And so she lay in the squeeze of the dark box and waited for the cries of his nightmares to sound.

  But they did not come.

  Though she’d been eager for an excuse to be near him once more, her heart was lighter with knowing he’d been liberated from his hurt. At least for this one night.

  And shouldn’t one of them be without torment?

  For she was not.

  Memories of the feel of his body, his mouth, his tongue—mercy, his teeth, on her. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered his touch, and her heart would catch fire.

  A sick realization crashed through her midway through her sleepless night and made the crawl of time even more unbearable.

  Despite all the passion, all the earnest desire, it was not her Kaid wanted—it was Elizabeth.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kaid wanted Elizabeth with more longing than he’d ever possessed.

  The desire ate at him and left him circling the same thoughts over and over. Did he want her solely for herself, for her beauty and the kindness that shone through her initial haughty display—or did he simply want his enemy’s betrothed?

  He tried not to let the rocking coach lull him toward the sleep that had eluded him the previous night. But it had not been the horrors at Ardvreck which had kept him awake—it had been the force of his desire.

  He had not slept. Instead he had sketched.

  Elizabeth stared at him again. He could feel the touch of her gaze as surely as he’d felt the stroke of her tongue on his the prior evening. He balled his hands into fists to hide the blackened evidence of charcoal smudged across his fingertips. The remnants had been impossible to wash off.

  The same was true for his memories. For everything in his life had been recorded through his drawings, a direct connection from his heart to his hand, as his mother had always said. It had been she who had first encouraged the drawings. For all the years he’d been so silent as a lad, for all the thoughts she knew to be swirling within regardless. She had first placed the charcoal in his fingers and watched his world bloom on the pages before them.

  Her death had been difficult for him. He’d been only ten, somewhere between lad and man. The child she bore had died along with her. But the gift she’d seen in him, that she’d encouraged, had thrived within him and kept her alive in his heart.

  Leasa sat beside Elizabeth with her sewing hanging limp in her hand and her head laying awkwardly against the wooden wall in slumber.

  She hadn’t noted the tension between him and Elizabeth, for surely she would have commented on it.

  Kaid lifted his gaze and met Elizabeth’s. She did not flinch away.

  No, she stared back at him, and in her eyes he saw the same desire he felt. It lingered for only a moment before she flicked her gaze from his, like a fire ember singeing bare skin before snuffing out.

  He should say something. Apologize. Again. “I shouldna have—”

  She put up a hand to stop him from speaking. He wanted to take the slender hand and press his lips to the warmth of her palm.

  But she was right.

  This did not need to be spoken of, especially not where Leasa might hear.

  Thick forest crowded the trail on which they rode and pulled Kaid’s thoughts from Elizabeth.

  They ought to be past the heavier forest by now. He’d anticipated more of the hilly landscape dotted with scruffy trees and patches of forest and rock. But then they’d lost considerable time while they recovered from being ill.

  “How long was I ill?” Kaid asked.

  The tension of Elizabeth’s shoulders seemed to ease. “I believe it was three days.”

  “Three?” he repeated with incredulity.

  She nodded.

  His heart thumped hard against his ribs. “And how long were the rest of ye ill?”

  She shook her head with a regretful frown. “I’m not entirely sure. Most likely an entire day.”

  They’d lost four days to being ill. At least.

  That was a lot of time lost, a lot of distance they could have covered.

  If Elizabeth delayed for too long, MacKenzie might begin to worry after her and send a party. He and Donnan were strong fighters, but not enough to fend off an army.

  “We’re going to need to get rid of the coach.” He spoke as the idea came to him.

  Elizabeth’s lips parted in surprise. “How would we travel?”

  “We’ll use the horses,” he said. “We can cover more ground that way.”

  “There are only two—you can’t expect us to ride with you both,” she protested. “All my clothes, my jewels…”

  “They dinna matter.”

  “Not to you, but they matter to me.” She made the statement without any emotion, but the words struck him regardless.

  His decision was selfish. The entire situation they were in was selfish. He was saving his people at her expense.

  Elizabeth seemed to sense his resolve. “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded. Her gaze flicked to Leasa, whose mouth now gaped open in sleep. Elizabeth leaned closer to him, and the delicate scent of her perfume carried with it more memories than he could shut out.

  She spoke in a quiet whisper. “If you care for me at all—”

  “I canna care for ye.” The statement came out in a harsh whisper. “Ye belong to another man—my enemy.”

  She straightened and gave him a brittle smile. “You’re right. How foolish of me to forget.”

  He studied her erect posture and tensed muscles of her neck while she stared out the window. Away from him.

  Even in this moment, where he understood her anger as well as his inability to do anything other than his mission, he could not help but admire her beauty and the quiet, confident strength she exuded.


  Rather than argue the matter further, Kaid rapped upon the top of the coach. It would be best to handle this now before an argument could rise. He held his hands out in anticipation and caught Leasa’s sleeping form before she could smack her face into the seat beside him.

  “What?” She looked up, her gaze bleary. “Who? Where—” Her brows lifted. “Where are we?”

  Elizabeth put a protective arm over the other woman. “We’re to change from our coach to the horses.”

  Leasa’s gaze focused and her frown deepened. “Why?”

  “Because it’s been decided by forces beyond our power.”

  Kaid did not have to look at Elizabeth to see her hard glare. He felt it, like the pointed edge of a blade poking at his neck.

  Before he could listen to any additional arguments, he stepped out of the coach and nodded at Donnan’s confused face. “Separate the horses,” he said. “It’s time.”

  Donnan winked and disappeared around the front of the coach to do as he was bid. The cheery tune of his whistling joined the clinking of iron hooks and links.

  Kaid regarded the rear of the coach where several trunks were strapped atop one another. One had been broken in the fall, and a length of rough rope secured it together. There were also several bags made from thick tapestry. Those would serve better in their travel.

  The trunks would have to stay.

  And he dreaded telling Elizabeth as much.

  She appeared at his side and crossed her arms over her chest. “I take it I can’t bring the trunks.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she stepped forward and loosened the first tie holding the pile of luggage in place. Kaid rushed forward and caught the mass before it could topple onto her head.

  Elizabeth’s cheeks were red and her brown gaze smoldered. He’d have to be daft to not see she was angry.

  “I hope you anticipate allowing me time to sort through my belongings to determine what of my life is worth keeping and what should be cast aside like rubbish.” She settled onto the rough trail beside a fallen bag. “And to think I’d already pared my entire life down to these few trunks as it is.”

  Perhaps he ought to try to explain things from his perspective, but he held his tongue. Best not to encourage her disposition.