The Highlander's Little Lass
Page 8
“Up on your knees,” he ordered, and with a fearful look back, she did. Bran had the trainer hid behind his back, but as soon as she got into position he settled behind her and spread her legs apart.
“Face down on the bed,” he said, and she whimpered and trembled as he began to rim her back hole with his finger.
“Oh, please, no,” she said.
“You’ll mind me, lass,” he said. “And you’ll prove to me now that ye can by holding still while I stretch your ass.”
“But I’m already s-s-so sore!”
“Not sore enough for me.” He pushed the narrow tip of the wax taper against her posy, increasing the pressure until she relented and pushed back. There were small depressions on either side past the widest part of the wax plug. As the object slid in, Bran put his fingertips in these depressions to stop it from going any further. The widest part was stretching her now, and she moaned. He knew it could not be comfortable, but even as she whimpered, he could smell the tang of her arousal, see it dripping from her pussy.
A wildcat, indeed, he thought. A wildcat in heat.
Glynis was arching her back and moaning now in spite of herself. The little hole of her rosebud was a round mouth wrapped around the wax taper, and his fingers were just grazing the welts on either side of it. Bran stared, fascinated by her capacity for pleasure and pain, and how she moved so seamlessly across the line between them.
After a few moments, he removed the taper.
“Do ye think you can be a good lass now?” he asked, his voice tight. Underneath his nightshirt, his cock throbbed almost painfully.
“I’m so sorry, my husband!” She looked back, her green eyes wide. “Please… let me make it up to you.”
“How, my child wife?” he asked.
She looked so innocent, yet so incredibly sensual, gazing back him with eyes shining with lust and tears.
“Please put your cock deep in my cunny.”
Oh, Jesu. Coming from any other mouth, the comment would have sounded like a whore’s request. But given that the plea was coming from that wee pink mouth in that innocent face, Bran could not resist. He’d just belted her ass raw and yet here he was, a slave to her desire. With a warrior’s cry, he sprang from the bed and lifted his shirt. She cried out when he grabbed her welted ass and pulled her to him. His cock slid into her with one smooth motion and she cried out again. Her sore pussy began to clench on him immediately. Bran felt his balls tingle and tighten, felt the contractions between his own legs as his cock rushed to deliver the milky tribute of his seed into the pussy rhythmically stroking him. It was all he could do to control himself long enough to stop the spasms that would end his pleasure too soon. She was still taking hers, her orgasm strong and powerful to the point of making him wonder if she were not some sort of lustful fey masquerading as a woman.
Bran began moving in and out of his little wife with long, slow strokes, and Glynis moved with him. The little stream in her valley pumped juices to coat him, and she arched her bottom up toward him, moaning in submissive pleasure. After a few moments, he could hold back no more. His cock convulsed, pulsing stream after hot stream of cum into her. He was still pumping as he lay on his side, pulling her to him. He would stay inside her until he softened and slid from her.
Her hair had come down from its pins completely, and he buried his face in the fragrant waves.
“I’m sorry I disobeyed,” she said. “I will try to be a better wife.”
He closed his eyes. “You’re all the wife I could ask for,” he said, and turned her to him. “I only mean to keep ye safe. Do ye understand?” His gaze was as intense and earnest as his eyes. “I love ye, Glynis.”
“You do?”
“Tell me ye doubt it and I’ll strap ye again.”
She smiled, a woman’s smile. “Ask me tomorrow,” she said with a seductive laugh. “I may indeed express that doubt, should that strapping end like this one. But in my heart, I’ll nae doubt ye. I know you love me, Bran McKinnon. And I love ye back.”
He continued to stroke her hair, sighing as he did. “It warms my heart to hear ye say that, and dinna think that I strapped you because I favor Duncan. He was tryin’ to get a rise from ye. No more than that. It’s his way, and best to be ignored.”
But as she lay there, Glynis knew there was much more to the situation, and feared that her husband may have an enemy in his midst that he was not taking seriously. And child wife or no, she was now more committed than ever to exposing him.
Chapter Eight: A Cunning Trap
“It’s best put out of yer head, Glynis!” Ina turned from where she was putting away the younger woman’s clothing to give her an exasperated look. “I’ve heard about enough of this. One more word and I’ll…”
“What, Ina?’ Glynis asked. “Skelp me?” She looked down at the little carved stag in her hand, a gift from her husband, and sighed. “If the laird’s strapping didn’t put this out of my mind, I doubt one from you will.”
The nanny walked over and sat down beside Glynis. When she spoke, her tone was motherly, but concerned. “There’s a reason he whipped yer bottom nearly raw, and a reason I’m threatening to do the same. Your husband is right. Ye canna make that kind of claim against his factor without consequence!”
“But I heard him!” Glynis insisted. “Right before you came. He was talking with that other one, Angus, and they were speaking of skimming money from the laird and paying lads to tear down the peace between McKinnons and McLeods.”
“And you heard him say that exactly?” Ina challenged.
“No, not those exact words,” Glynis said, rising from her chair and crossing her arms as she turned to face the nanny.
“Is it possible then, that they were speaking of something entirely different? What did the laird have to say on the matter?”
Glynis scowled. “I nae had time to ask him. He punished me before I had the chance and then afterwards…” Her voice trailed off. “It just dinna seem like a good time.”
“More’s the better,” Nanny said. “These great men are always planning one sort of thing or another. Likely what you heard regarded another matter entirely, but you applied what you know of the world and politics to their statement.”
“I’m nae stupid,” Glynis said, still feeling unsatisfied.
“And I never said you were.” Nanny Ina stood and put her arms around the girl. “But understand that things are much broader than what ye know. And your husband is right; speaking of what you don’t know can weave its own trouble. You’re the wife of a laird now, Glynis, even if he does coddle you and keep you so sheltered. Yours is a political position.”
Glynis suddenly felt tired. Maybe nanny Ina was right. Had she lost her temper with Duncan at dinner instead of with Bran, there would have been more than a sore bottom to deal with. She tried to imagine her husband’s embarrassment at having his McLeod wife at public odds with the factor his family had trusted for nearly two generations, especially if Ina was right and she’d simply misinterpreted his words. The very thing she feared—a disruption of the peace—would then be her fault. The idea of losing her husband’s respect, and possibly his love, chilled Glynis.
“I’ll try to put it out of my mind, then,” she said, deciding then to work harder to put aside her misgivings.
“That’s a good lass,” Ina said. “Now. I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise? What kind?”
The nanny brought forth the gown that Glynis had worn on her trip to Castle McKinnon—her riding gown. She stood, smiling. “He’s letting me ride?”
“Under his own watchful eye, but yes.”
Glynis could not get changed fast enough. She was beaming when she reached the stables to see Bran already astride his black horse. He was holding the reins of her small white mare, which was pawing the ground of the stable yard anxiously.
It was wonderful to be back in the saddle. Glynis felt liberated, free, as she cantered her mare alongside Bran’s gelding. The rollin
“Where are we going?” she asked as they headed into the countryside.
“There…” He pulled up his horse and pointed.
She looked at him and smiled. “The standing stones?”
“Aye,” he said, reaching over to brush a strand of red hair from her face. “You should feel at home there, my wild faerie lass.”
They let the horses graze as they walked hand-in-hand into the circle of weathered stones. Glynis held her hand against one; its surface was warm in the sun.
“They say the stones grant a boon to those pure of heart,” Bran said. He was sitting against one of the other stones, watching her. “Of the two of us, you’re far purer. Perhaps you should make a wish.”
Glynis walked over, hiked up her skirts, and brazenly straddled her husband as she reached underneath his kilt to remove a cock already grown hard from just watching her.
“I wish for ye to always be this hard for me,” she said.
Bran laughed as he shoved into her, loving the way her eyes widened. “’Tis not how it works. You’re supposed to ask for something you don’t have.”
She thought about this. “Then I wish to always be yer wee Glynis, except for those times when I need to be heard as an adult.”
He cocked his brow as he moved in her. “Seems an odd thing to say.”
She shrugged, knowing him unlikely to draw a connection between her words and their disagreement over Duncan. But the day was fair, her man was hard between her thighs, and soon the pleasures of their lovemaking pushed aside thoughts of anything else.
Bran’s hands reached underneath her skirts to grasp her firm buttocks. As he pumped into her, he coated two fingers with the juice seeping from her smooth, hairless pussy and slid first one and then two into her back passage. It was easier now. He’d been training her bottom more and more, and she was learning to relax and allow him the access he craved. Glynis knew that eventually he would want to push his huge cock into her bottom, and the thought still scared her. But it exhilarated her, too, knowing the pain would war with pleasure as it always did when he took her.
Glynis moaned as she reveled in the fullness of his cock working her pussy as his fingers pushed inside her. She pivoted up and down, and thrust her chest forward as his mouth found the breasts she freed from her bodice. A shower of spinning seeds, light as faeries, swirled past on the spring breeze as they reached mutual fulfillment and he emptied himself into her.
She didn’t want the day to end; it was the first time they’d been out of the castle together. But as she washed herself in the crystal water of a brook at the base of the hill where the stones stood sentry, Bran looked to the sun overhead and she knew he was thinking of the time.
“I suppose we have to go,” she said.
“Aye, but not because I wish it.” He put her up on her pony and mounted his horse. Glynis tried to memorize the landscape, wanting to capture and hold every detail of the magical afternoon. She was shielding her eyes against the sun when she caught sight of a speck in the distance. She could tell that Bran did, too. It was a rider, and she could see that her husband looked concerned. He’d left orders not to be disturbed, and when he realize it was Colin on the horse galloping toward them, both he and Glynis knew the news he bore would not be good.
Colin’s gray horse was panting heavily when it was pulled to a stop.
“There’s trouble,” he said.
“I suspected as much,” said the laird. “Out with it.”
“Duncan’s party was attacked on his trip back from getting the balance of rent in the Northwest.”
“Are they….”
“No, Bran. They’re not dead. But Duncan got a nasty bump on the head. And the rent was taken.”
“Who’s to blame?”
Colin looked uncomfortable as he glanced at Glynis. “McLeods.”
“’Twas nae McLeods!” Glynis’ eyes flashed as she pushed her horse forward.
“I don’t mean ye any disrespect, but the men saw what they saw,” Colin said. “Skirmishes are already breaking out.”
“Then we must stop it,” Bran said. He turned to his wife. “We must get ye back so I can be off to deal with this.” He muttered something under his breath about the McLeods, and Glynis pulled up her horse when he did. Colin had already ridden off ahead and now Bran wheeled his mount around, his face impatient.
“Did I not tell ye we need to get back?”
“It was nae McLeods!” she repeated. “’Twas your own man Duncan who arranged this! He…”
“Enough!” Bran moved his horse close to her and grasped her arm nearly enough to hurt. “Have I not already told ye this once, woman? Duncan is my factor, invested with trust he earned from my father before me! Just because you’ve a bone between your teeth does nae mean there’s meat on it!”
“I heard him making plans!” she objected. “In the hallway! A few days before the feast!”
“And you dinna tell me?”
“I tried!”
“Bah!” He shot her an angry dismissive look and then glared. “Ye disappoint me, lass.”
His words hurt more than any blow. When he moved his horse behind hers and slapped the mare on the rump, Glynis did not stop the animal as it headed for home. She did not look at her husband, who rode beside her, grim-faced.
Ina was waiting in the courtyard, and instantly could tell by Glynis’ face that something was wrong. And she knew what.
“The place is abuzz,” she said as she helped Glynis from the horse. “The factor was attacked and the McLeod are being blamed.”
Around them, the McKinnon were casting the two women spiteful glances. Bran barked for Ina to return Glynis to their rooms, and to keep her there.
“If ye set a foot out, there’ll be a skelping like none you’ve taken yet,” he warned. Glynis’ only response was a cold, hurt stare before she turned back with her nanny.
Glynis wanted to be mad at Bran, but as she allowed nanny Ina to lead her back to their chambers, she realized she was more concerned than afraid. Bran was McKinnon; it was likely natural to deny to himself that his own man could betray him. But it still hurt that he’d refused to even listen.
In the nursery chamber, she sat down on the small, simple bed her husband had made as a wedding present and held the little wooden stag he’d had carved for her—a child’s toy that was part of a set of woodland creatures he’d given her a piece at a time. Glynis tucked the little stag into the pouch of her riding dress and looked around the room. It had become a comforting place. Now it felt more like a cell. She felt claustrophobic, a feeling that only increased as the hours passed.
Nanny Ina laid out her clothes for bed as the sun began to sink behind the hills. Glynis stared out the window toward the west. Somewhere out there, Bran was riding toward possible danger. The thought of it made her ill.
“Come on, lass,” Ina said. “Let’s get ye changed. The maid’s just brought up some warm milk. Let me put some herbs in it to help ye sleep.”
With her eyes still fixed on the horizon, Glynis suddenly realized what she had to do. “Will you have a drink with me, Ina? It may help me relax.”
“I can’t see why not. I could use a bit of milk.”
Glynis turned. The pitcher was on the table, along with two metal cups. She took a seat on one side as nanny Ina dropped some of the powder from a vial of ground valerian she kept in her pocket. As Glynis watched, she shuddered and hugged her arms around herself.
“Is something wrong?” her nanny asked, concerned.
“I think I may be taking a chill.” Glynis faked a cough. “I felt a little out of sorts on the ride.”
“You should nae have gone, then.” Ina glared at the younger woman.
“Could I just have a wrap? It may help.”
“Certainly.” The nanny turned to fetch the wrap and when she did, Glynis switched cups. She smiled up at the older woman when she returned with the warm garment, and watched over the rim of her cup when Ina picked up her own. Nanny was not a sipper. She gulped down the milk, and Glynis knew it was just a matter of time.
She obediently changed and went to bed as she always did, and feigned an innocent sleep as Ina settled into a nearby chair. Soon the chamber was filled with the sounds of the older woman’s heavy snores. The valerian had done its job.
Working quickly and quietly, Glynis removed her gown and slipped back into her riding gown. It was no easy task; she’d come to rely on nanny Ina dressing her, but soon enough she was ready. She said a silent prayer of thanks that Bran had either not thought or had forgotten to station a man outside her door. The hallway was largely private in that part of the castle, and she was able to navigate it to the stairs, where she hid by a window waiting for maids to pass before heading down.
Earlier, she’d seen Duncan from the window. He’d been in the courtyard, looking for all the world like a loyal, wounded man as he’d accepted obvious sympathies from the other McKinnon who patted him on the back as he passed. Now on the lower floor, she looked out again, hoping against hope to spot either him or Angus. If they’d staged this theft and used the money to pay McKinnon men on the border to start trouble with the McLeods, then they would surely feel free to discuss it with the laird gone.
Glynis rounded a corner lit only by the glow of thick beeswax candles in wall sconces. She thought she heard footsteps and ducked into a nearby alcove. As she did, she felt a hand clamp over her mouth. She tried to scream, but could not draw the breath to do so. The hand covering her mouth was large, the arm pinning her back to a hard chest was strong. She struggled ineffectively as she felt herself pulled into a nearby chamber, where she was released and shoved stumbling to the floor. When she looked up, her eyes widened to see the very man she was looking for. Beside Duncan, his arms crossed across his brawny chest, stood Angus.
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