Beyond the Highland Myst

by Highlander 01-08

  He realized he was glaring at the door and had no idea how long he'd been doing it. He shook his head, muttering a curse at his idiocy. For Christ's sake, he was Adam Black. Not some bumbling mortal lad.

  "Come in," he called, and if it came out a little more guttural than usual, he deigned not to notice. He stood at his full height of six feet four and a half inches, legs splayed, arms folded over his chest, wearing nothing but the ancient gold adornments of his royal house.

  The door opened slowly— he felt like it was opening in slow frigging motion— but then there she was, and he felt as if someone had slammed a fist into his gut.

  He was pleased to see she appeared to be suffering the same sensation.

  She froze, her lovely green-gold eyes flying wide. "Y-y-you're... n-n— " she sputtered. Tried again, "Oh. Heavens. My. Goodness." Wet her lips. Took a deep breath. "Holy shit, you're naked And oh— OH!" Her gaze dipped then flew back up to his face, and her eyes went ever wider.

  A smile of pure masculine triumph curved his lips. "Ah, yes," he purred. "And you, my sweet Gabrielle, are wearing my diamonds."

  * * *

  Gabby stood in the doorway, her heart hammering wildly.

  Two-hundred-pounds-plus of gorgeous naked man stood before her, and he was so savagely, intensely beautiful that she couldn't tear her gaze away. Had to remind herself that oxygen was good for a girl, so breathe, O'Callaghan. She looked up and down, up and down again, little breaths slamming together in her throat.

  Abruptly, she knew that after this night she was never going to be the same again. Nothing was ever going to be the same. Oh, yes, the man could define himself as the dawning of an epoch if he wanted to. There was, quite simply, before Adam and after Adam.

  He stepped forward, moving with sleek animal grace, a predatory glint in his dark gaze. He was hunter and she was food. And from the look in his eyes he was going to devour her.

  He stalked to her, towering over her, staring down, reaching out to lightly touch the choker at her neck with his fingertips. "You know what this means," he said softly, intensely. "Mine. You accept it. You're mine. No, shush." He pressed a finger to her lips. "Don't say a word. Just let me look at you. I've been waiting to see you in this dress."

  Circling behind her, he pushed the door gently closed, and she heard the metallic clicking of tumblers as he locked it. He padded slowly around her.

  "Christ, you're beautiful, Gabrielle. Do you know how badly I want you? Do you know what fantasies I've been playing through my mind about you? Do you know how many times I jacked off, trying to get rid of this bloody eternal hard-on? Knowing that the only thing that was going to help was you?"

  He padded another slow naked circle around her. "And now here you are. In my chambers. Locked in. And you're not getting out until I say you are. And I may never say it."

  He paused behind her, leaned close, front to her backside, rubbed his cock against her ass in that sexy dress. The dress looked every bit as good on her as he'd known it would, clinging to every lush curve. Felt good too. Breath hissed between his teeth at the contact; it was so excruciatingly pleasurable that it burned. He sucked in a sharp breath and yanked himself back, knowing that if he touched her again like that it would be all over.

  "And those shoes," he purred his gaze dropping down over her ass, down the shapely curves of the backs of her thighs, to her slender ankles with those little dainty straps tied around them.

  "I watched you looking at them in Macy's. You've got the sweetest legs and ass, Gabrielle. When I first saw you in Cincinnati, you had on shorts and sandals on your feet. Even your painted little toes turned me on."

  He circled around in front of her. Her eyes were wide, deliriously unfocused. Her lips were parted and she was panting softly, her chest rising and falling gently.

  He pressed the tip of his finger to her lips, pushed inside. She closed those lush lips on it, sucking, and such raw heat lanced through him that, for a moment, he couldn't move. He finally managed to withdraw his finger, sliding it slowly from that luscious pucker, then traced a damp path over the shape of her mouth, across her jaw, down her neck, to the lush valley of her cleavage.

  He should seduce her, he should woo her with kisses, he should gently entice, lead her slowly yet inexorably down the path to her ultimate and costly capitulation.

  But it was too late; he'd waited too long, and there was a thing he could no longer deny himself. A thing he'd been thinking about too much while riding today. A thing he needed. Right now. And it pissed him off, the hold it had on him, how savagely he wanted it. To know the taste of her, to have her on his tongue, captured in his immortal memory. If somehow, for some reason, she managed to stop him this night, at least he'd have gotten this.

  "For the record, Irish," he informed her tightly, just in case she got the wrong idea, "I kneel to no one." Then he dropped to his knees at her feet, shoved her dress up, gathered a fistful of silky material in each hand, and pushed her back against the door, pinning her to it by the fabric.

  Gabby leaned weakly against the door, gasping for breath. The exotic scent of him was filling her nostrils, making her dizzy. Merely looking at him naked had gotten her so intensely aroused that she knew what he was about to find— she was wet; she was so wet she was almost embarrassed by it. She was ready right now, she didn't even need a kiss, or any other foreplay, for that matter. She certainly didn't know if she could survive what it looked like he was about to do. She just wanted him inside her. When he'd circled her like some big dark beast, talking to her, telling her how much he wanted her, she'd nearly begun begging.

  And now he was on his knees between her legs, her dress nicked up to her waist, exposing her to him, naked but for a lacy scrap of silk slipping between her legs.

  Oops, make that naked, she amended with a half-laugh, half-sob, as he dragged that lacy bit of fabric from her body with his teeth, tugging it down, down, teeth grazing her lightly, pausing to nip, scattering tiny little love bites over her skin, sending waves of chills skittering up her spine.

  She felt drugged, drunken, intoxicated on passion. She had no idea how she'd managed to put him off this long, or why, and was suddenly astounded at how much time she'd wasted.

  "I'm going to taste every inch of you before this night is through," he purred.

  And then he began making good on that promise, with long, hot, velvety strokes of his tongue up the insides of her thighs. Lazy sweet nips on the plump inner parts of her legs, hot, openmouthed kisses on the delicate skin of her hips. He left no inch of her skin unkissed, unnibbled.

  Then a hand was pushing her legs apart and his dark head was between them. When he flicked his tongue over the tiny bud nestled in soft folds, she grabbed great fistfuls of his silky, dark hair and shuddered, leaning weakly-back against the door.

  "Stay standing, ka-lyrra. If those sweet knees give out and you come down on the floor, I'll fuck you right there."

  She let her knees buckle instantly, barely smothering a laugh.

  "Aw, bloody hell, Gabrielle, I wanted this to last," he cursed, rolling instantly with her, catching her, going down beneath her to absorb the impact of her tumble.

  But she was beyond niceties, she'd been waiting a lifetime for this. Couldn't wait one moment more. Sprawled atop his great, big, naked body, she wriggled against him until she'd cinched his hot, hard erection right where she wanted it, the swollen ridge of him riding with delicious friction against her. God, she was so close, a few good rubs...

  "Oh, no," he hissed, instantly understanding. "You are not getting yourself there. Not without me inside you the first time."

  "Then I'd suggest," she panted, "you hurry up and get inside me."

  He made a choking sound, a husky, erotic-sounding laugh-growl. "Ah, Gabrielle," he purred, gripping her by the hips and rolling her beneath him on the soft carpet. "I'm never going to get enough of you, am I?"

  "Not if you keep going so slow," she snapped testily.

  "Spread your l
egs," he demanded. He stretched his body the full length of hers, supporting his weight on his forearms, kneeing her legs wider for him. "Lift them around my hips."

  She obeyed instantly.

  "Lock your ankles. This isn't going to be easy."

  A delirious little shiver rocked her at his words. She knew that. She'd known it the first time she'd felt him pressed up against her bottom, there in Cincinnati, the morning he'd burst through her door, and it had been one of the things wreaking havoc with her senses ever since. All of her boyfriends had been big, tall men. She liked big men, always had, liked a bit of dominance. And Adam Black was big and bad to the bone, all around. She'd told the maids the truth, sort of; he wasn't in proportion, he was larger there than a woman would expect. "Somehow. I don't think anything about you is ever easy," she managed to gasp out.

  "No it's not, but I think easy would bore you, ka-lyrra. I promise you I'll never bore you."

  And then his hand was between her legs, a finger slipping into her sleek heat, pressing in, pressing upward, searching for her barrier. Then two fingers, and she was only dimly aware when he breached the thin membrane, the fleeting pain eclipsed by the pleasure of him moving inside her. Her hips arched helplessly up, wanting more, needing, aching for all of him.

  And then his hand was gone and the thick head of his penis was nudging against her soft folds, and he was pushing himself inside her. She mewled, a whimper of distress, trying to adjust, wiggling, trying to accept, but he was too big and she was too tight.

  "Easy, Gabrielle. Relax," he gritted.

  She tried, but she couldn't; it was instinctive to resist, and they waged a silent sexual battle for a few moments, where he hardly gained another inch. Her muscles were bearing down on him, resisting the steely intrusion.

  He sucked in a hissing breath through clenched teeth. "Gabrielle, you're killing me; you have to let me in."

  "I'm trying," she wailed.

  With a muffled curse, he abruptly shifted her, pushing her legs apart and up, resting her ankles on his shoulders, tilting her pelvis up and back, ruthlessly exposing her.

  Fisting a hand in her hair close to her scalp, he tugged her head back and slanted his mouth hard over hers, taking her in a deep, soul-claiming kiss, his hot, velvety tongue probing, retreating. She was too stunned by the kiss, by the fierce, possessive savagery of it, to tense when he impaled her, which was, she realized, precisely why he'd done it.

  He drove himself deep inside her with one slow, smooth, relentless penetration, filling her so completely that she screamed into his mouth, but he kept his lips sealed over hers, swallowing the cry. He stayed like that for long minutes, in her to the hilt, thoroughly invading every soft warm crevice of her, but not moving, just kissing her, his hot tongue tangling with hers. He was so large that it took long minutes for her to adjust, to ease and accommodate. Long minutes while he stayed still, occupying his territory, not surveying the perimeters until she was whimpering against his lips, begging him to move. Now that the pressure felt good, she was feeling an entirely different kind of pressure, that needed lots of moving to sate.

  "I'm in you," he purred. "Ah, Christ, I'm in you." Then—finally— he began moving, an erotic little circular motion of his hips— not a thrusting but a slow deep rubbing inside her. Grinding himself into her, backing off just a bit, grinding again, each time nudging the tight bud of her clitoris with exquisite friction.

  His intense, slow movements abraded some crazy spot inside her she'd not even known she had, and all her muscles clenched again on him, locking, shuddering, and when she came it was like nothing she'd ever felt before, an explosion so deep inside her, so shatteringly intense, that a visceral cry was torn from her throat.

  "Bloody hell," he roared his whole body going tight. He clamped his hands down on her hips, trying to back off, to pull out, not anywhere near ready to come yet, but it was too late, the way her body was closing around him was more than he could stand and he exploded inside her.

  * * *

  Hours later, Adam propped himself up on an elbow and stared down at Gabrielle, pondering what made beauty.

  He thought he was beginning to understand. It wasn't symmetry of features; it wasn't perfection. It was uniqueness. That which one person had that no other possessed. That which was only their own. Perhaps Gabrielle's nose was like a thousand others, but they weren't on her face, with her eyes, with her cheekbones and hair. Nor were those noses graced with her many expressions, crinkling so charmingly when she laughed, flaring so haughtily when she was irritated.

  He'd run the gamut of her expressions tonight. He'd seen her demanding, aggressive with lust, eyes glittering wildly as she'd arched and bucked beneath him. He'd seen her soft, sweetly yielding when he'd taken her from behind, on her hands and knees in front of the full-length mirror in the boudoir. He'd held her head back by a fist in her long silky hair so he could watch her face in the mirror. Watch those slanted green-gold eyes narrow and gleam like a cat in heat as she purred with pleasure. Watch her full breasts swaying as his heavy testicles slapped rhythmically against her ass and thighs. Watch her watching him do it to her. He'd seen her dreamy and lost as he'd licked and lapped her to peak after shuddering peak. And he'd even seen her looking almost frightened as he'd wrung yet one more delicious shudder from her.

  If he'd had his full Fae power he would have eased her virgin soreness; as it was, he'd had to stop because she couldn't take any more. So he'd gently cleansed her as she lay sated in bed, built up the fire, then gone down to the kitchen for food, realizing they'd missed dinner. In fact, dinner had been over for many, many hours.

  He'd run into Dageus in the dim, shadowy kitchens, where the Highlander had been pilfering ice cream from the freezer. The younger Keltar twin had taken one look at him, laughed, and said, "I doona suspect we'll be seeing you for a few days, will we. Old One?"

  "You'll see me by Lughnassadh," Adam had replied with a devilish grin. "And quit calling me Old One. I don't call you Young One. Adam. It's just Adam."

  "Aye, 'tis Adam, then," Dageus had replied easily.

  As Adam had padded barefoot back up the cool stone stairs in the castle, toting a tray laden with food, his human body sore in places he'd not known a man's body got sore, he'd suffered another of those sudden sharp pains in his chest and had nearly dropped the tray. He'd had to stop and lean against the balustrade, gasping until it passed. He'd realized it was a good thing he would be getting out of his mortal body soon, because something was clearly wrong with the one Aoibheal had given him.

  By the time he'd gotten back to the bedchamber, she'd been sound asleep, sprawled unselfconsciously across the bed, her nude body gleaming softly in the firelight. She was a vision of tangled blond hair, sex-flushed skin, and lush curves, a vibrant mortal, golden glow against silver satiny sheets.

  Christ, she's amazing, Adam marveled, standing at the edge of the bed, staring down at his slumbering woman. Trailing the pad of a finger over the firm high peak of a breast. Even unconscious, her body reacted, the rosy nipple tightening. With a muffled oath he forced himself to drop his hand and back up a step, or he'd have his mouth on that nipple again, dragging the edge of his teeth across it the way he'd found she liked. And he'd hurt her, and he refused to hurt her.

  She'd responded to him with all the pure, unstinting passion that he'd sensed lurking within her. All that fire she'd freed and turned on him, openly, without restraint, wanton to the core, and he'd reveled in it, soaked it up, gloried in it. She'd made him feel things he'd never felt before. Things he could spend immortal centuries pondering and perhaps still not fathom.

  And for that gift you'll take her soul?

  He flinched, shrugged it off. What— did human bodies come burdened with human consciences? I'll give her immortality in exchange.

  You'll give her the choice? You'll tell her?

  Not a chance in hell, he retorted silently.

  If Gabrielle was to be his own private Eden, there would be no apple
of knowledge proffered. Adam knew full well what had happened to that other Adam. A little knowledge always got a man booted out of the Garden.

  He would not watch Gabrielle O'Callaghan die. He'd watched too many humans die. She was his now. She'd made her choice. She'd come to him, accepted him.

  It would take a far better man than he to let her go where he could never follow.

  * * *

  Dageus smiled as he slipped through the darkened castle, one slightly melting pint of ice cream in his hand. He'd developed quite a taste for the modern-day treat, and a liking for teasing Chloe with the cool creaminess of it against skin scorching from his kisses. Licking it from her lips, her nipples, the svelte hollow of a hip.

  They'd been making love for hours. Desire was in the air, the castle nigh smelled of romance. Tupping rode the night breeze and he was glad of it.

  For if ever a man needed the healing touch of a woman, it was Adam.

  Being possessed by the Draghar had changed Dageus in many ways, ways he was still trying to understand. He'd been systematically sorting through the vast amounts of knowledge they'd left inside his skull, extracting what could be used for good.

  One of his most recently developed skills was that of deep-listening. He'd not yet told Drustan he could do it, was still learning to control it.

  He'd never been able to manage it before, that meditative Druid regard his da had so excelled at, that listening that could peel away lies and see to the truth of a matter, to the heart of a man.

  But in the past months of wedded bliss he'd discovered a new quietude, an inner peace that, coupled with the thirteen's knowledge, had opened his Druid senses.

  He'd deep-listened to Adam Black today when they'd ridden out, needing to know if he was speaking truth about his reasons for bringing the walls down. If the Keltar were to be breaking oaths again, Dageus had to know it was for a just cause. He'd delved lightly and in that shallow penetration had learned that Adam spoke true.