Claiming the Highlander's Heart

by Lily Maxton

  When she felt the first puff of warm breath against her sex, she had to rest her hand on his head, fingers disappearing into thick, sandy hair.

  And then he used his lips and she had to bite her tongue to keep from gasping. He kissed her there first, softly, reverently, then licked along her folds. His hands were gripping her thighs, digging into her flesh, and the bite of pain combined with the searing pleasure of his mouth on her sex was a potent combination.

  She wasn’t weeping, but perhaps she could understand why one would.

  “You’re trembling, lass.” His breath gusted against her wet folds, and something deep inside her clenched helplessly.

  Her hand tightened in his hair. “I’m not used to this.” Her voice was thick, hoarse, unrecognizable.

  “You should be,” he murmured. “Someone should worship you like this every single day, at sunrise and sunset and midnight, like a pagan before a goddess.”

  She wanted to laugh, or tell him he was being sacrilegious, but all she could manage was a throaty “Someone? Anyone?”

  His fingers dug into her thighs possessively. “Me,” he said. He kissed her again. “Me.” He licked deep. “Only me.” He pressed his tongue flat against the spot that brought her the most pleasure.

  And just like that, like he’d struck flint to steel, her release roared through her. She arched her back, riding the wave of pleasure, hand clenching and unclenching helplessly in Mal’s hair.

  When she sagged against him, wrung out and sated, he was already on his feet. He lifted her, sweeping her into his arms like she was a fainting debutante, and carried her to the bed.

  “You truly do have a flair for drama,” she said, amused.

  He looked down at her, smiling. “And you don’t? I remember how you charged into our camp.”

  She shook her head. “I needed to impress you so you’d let me stay. You simply do it because you want to. You are a romantic, Malcolm Stewart.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m a very practical person.” He settled her gently on the bed.

  “Because leading a group of livestock bandits in some tribute to the halcyon days of the Highlands is practical?”

  He paused. “Well, when you put it like that…”

  He kissed her, and she could taste the faintest trace of her own musk on his lips. It didn’t take long before she was arching against him again, devouring his kisses, pressing her body to his warm length.

  When he settled between her legs, she didn’t stop him.

  She was carried away in the moment, carried away by the feeling of his weight holding her down, and she thought maybe the doctor had been wrong. Maybe he had no idea what he was talking about.

  So when Mal paused to look at her, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her mouth to his ear.

  “Go on.”

  It was a mistake.

  As soon as he started to press into her, which he didn’t do particularly quickly or roughly, pain stabbed through her. It was like she was being split in two.

  Her hands scrabbled at his shoulders as she arched away from him. Tears stung her eyes. Not only because of the pain, but because of the disappointment.

  “Georgina?” Mal, wide-eyed and bewildered, pulled back, and she finally felt like she could breathe again.

  That was until his thumb traced her cheekbone, swiping away a spilled tear, and he looked down at her with concern in his eyes. And then it felt like there was a great pressure on her chest, and she didn’t know if she’d ever be out from under it.

  “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

  No. No, it wasn’t Mal’s fault.

  She’d hurt herself, by wanting something she couldn’t have.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mal’s heart was pounding like he’d just run a mile. He couldn’t get the sound of Georgina’s pained gasp out of his mind, and the sight of a single tear trembling against her lashes did funny, unpleasant things to his stomach.

  He hadn’t been sure she was a virgin, but he’d gone as slowly as he could, just in case. He’d barely even been inside her. He didn’t understand how he’d hurt her so badly.

  “I can’t,” she said, sitting up. She hugged her legs to her chest like she was trying to make herself smaller. “I don’t think it’s…possible…for me. Not without pain.”

  Mal pushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I…” She bit her lip. Started again. “I had never had a menses, and I didn’t really think anything of it. Based on what I’d been told by Eleanor and Annabel, I simply assumed it would happen later. But it never happened. I kept putting off visiting a physician, because I felt fine. I was fine. I didn’t think there was anything wrong. By the time I had my nineteenth birthday, though, I decided I couldn’t put it off any longer, so I went to see a doctor in Glasgow while I was there with my family. After he examined me, he said he suspected that I wasn’t fully developed and that I shouldn’t attempt intercourse at all.”

  Mal had been listening to her story, sympathy and concern wringing his heart like a wet rag. But by the time she had finished, a new feeling was starting to emerge.

  “He said that you shouldna attempt intercourse because it would be painful?”

  She nodded.

  Anger surged through him, hot and heavy and startling. “So you knew it would hurt you, and you still told me to do it?”

  “I… I thought he might be wrong.”

  “But he wasn’t wrong. Do you think, for a second, that I would be all right with hurting you?”

  “I thought it might not be as bad as he made it sound, and that you could still—”

  He cut her off, voice raw, nearly savage. “Who do you think I am?”

  Her lips parted. “What?”

  “Some bloody idiot who only knows one way to fuck? Who doesn’t care if it’s good for you as long as I have a hole to shove my cock inside?”

  “Mal!”

  “Tell me—is that what you think of me?”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s not what I think…I just wanted to try. It had as much to do with me as it did with you.” She looked away from him, cheeks reddening. “But I am sorry. I should have told you.”

  Mal felt the edge bleed off his fury and mingle with, of all things, amusement. Georgina was sitting next to him, as naked as the day she was born, and it was the apology that made her look away. “You’re not used to apologizing, are you?”

  She glanced back at him, her mouth twitching slightly. “No,” she said. After a moment, “I’ve never seen you that angry.”

  “That’s because I rarely get that angry,” he admitted. “Sometimes, I feel like I don’t really know you at all.”

  She rested her head against her bent knees. “You do.”

  “I didn’t even know you had a second brother.”

  “Robert,” she said. “And a sister, Eleanor. She lives in Edinburgh. You don’t know every detail, but you know me. Everything else—it’s just trappings, Mal.”

  He studied her. Maybe she was right. He knew how she felt, laughing against him as they rode across the moors at night. He knew how her hands had trembled until she’d forced them steady to sew his wound. He knew she loved her family, even if he hadn’t known their names.

  He knew she was a little reckless, a little restless, and that she had a fierce, fragile heart.

  And maybe those were the important things. Maybe she was right, and everything else was just trappings.

  He took her hand, examining the shape of each elegant, capable finger. “There is more than one way to fuck,” he said eventually. “What we just did, did you like it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s one way.”

  “But there was no…” She trailed off, looking a little embarrassed. He had to remember that for as confident as she seemed, she was still sheltered in many ways.

  “Penetration?”

  She nodded.

  “There doesn’t have to be.
What we did earlier, at Llynmore? Did you like that?”

  She chewed on her lip. “You know I did.”

  “Then that’s all that matters—that you like what you’re doing.”

  “But did you like what we did?”

  He glanced down at his erection, which was still rock hard, because even though they were barely touching, she was there next to him, and she didn’t have any clothes on, and he could see the ripe swell of her breasts, and their dusky rose tips, heaving with each breath she took. And he remembered how warm and pliant she’d felt against him.

  He snorted. “You didn’t notice? Come now, I thought you were more observant than that.”

  She pressed her mouth into her knee, hiding the curve of her lips. “I suppose I did notice. I just didn’t want to embarrass you by pointing out how obvious you are.”

  Mal laughed softly and touched her cheek, angling her face toward him. “Don’t hide your smiles from me, lass. I want all of them.”

  She leaned into him, into his kiss, resting her hand on his knee as she did.

  He let her take charge of the kiss, nearly groaning when she bit at his lower lip, and then touched the tip of her tongue to his. He did groan when she slid her hand up and wrapped her fingers around the length of his cock.

  “We were interrupted last time.”

  “Damn that scoundrel Willoughby,” Mal said. Satisfaction sparked in his chest when he kissed her and felt the curve of her mouth against his lips. Yes, he was going to steal all of her smiles, keep them safe and hidden, deep in his own heart.

  She let her fingertips trace a vein along the underside, brushed her thumb over the head. His hips jerked, trying to press harder into her palm, trying to feel more, feel her hand along every inch of him. But she didn’t quite let him. She looked a bit like a cat playing with a mouse, teasing, in control, watching his reactions.

  “Do you like this?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  Her gaze met his, and he saw the heat in her pale eyes. He could tell she didn’t just like it—she loved what she was doing to him.

  As if she knew it would drive him wild, she eased her touch away, until only one fingertip still remained.

  Damn this woman, she was going to ruin him.

  But he followed where she led, just as he’d been doing for weeks, and surged forward to kiss her.

  …

  Mal’s hands, rough but warm, callused but gentle, framed Georgina’s face. Her lips parted on a gasp and his tongue licked inside; she met him, touch for touch, breath for breath. She kept her hand on his cock, enjoying the hard satin feel of it as she smoothed her palm along its length. A bead of moisture collected at the tip, and she pressed into it with her thumb.

  When Mal groaned, she felt an answering heat, a restless ache between her thighs.

  His fingers bracketed her wrist, and for a few strokes, he stayed with her, guiding her up and down the entire length, before he pushed her hand away.

  For a second, they simply stared at each other. Mal’s mouth was bruised and red, his hair mussed. She wondered if she looked the same way.

  “Come here,” he said, but it was more a suggestion than a command, and she wanted to see what was next, so she closed the few inches between them.

  He gripped her waist, angling her so she was lying on her side, facing away from him. And then his body curled against her, scalding her with his heat. His cock was pressed against the small of her back, and he looped his arm around her waist, pulling her even closer, until they were back to chest, thigh to thigh. Until there was no part of him that wasn’t in contact with her.

  His hand smoothed down her stomach. “Do you like this?”

  She nodded, heart pounding, and his finger drifted through her curls, almost idly, until his whole hand cupped her sex. Her hips jerked in response, pressing more fully into his palm.

  “And this?”

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed against her folds, parted them, played her with a musician’s deftness, until she looked down at his fingers and saw that they were glistening.

  Then he moved his hand, and she nearly cried out at the sudden loss, but before she could pull him back, he shifted his hips, pressing his hard abdomen flush against her backside, easing his cock between her thighs. He held himself taut for a moment, his entire length pressed against her sex.

  Georgina stiffened, breath coming in little pants.

  “This?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to make you come again,” he murmured.

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Is that a challenge?” he murmured, echoing the words that were still as fresh in her mind as if he’d spoken them yesterday.

  And just like before, she said, “Aye.”

  He bent his head forward and kissed her shoulder, touch as soft as a rose petal. “I accept.”

  Georgina pushed back, into him, and he pressed forward. Her eyelashes fluttered as his cock rubbed against her sex, the head parting her folds with each slick glide.

  She hadn’t realized how good it would make her feel. How wild. Every sensation, every point of contact, increased a hundredfold. She felt his muscled thighs against her legs, the wiry hair of his chest scratching at her back, and when his fingers, still wet from her body, reached up to pinch her nipple, she had to bite her tongue so she wouldn’t whimper out loud. She had never been so aroused in her life. Had never wanted anyone like she wanted him.

  “Oh, Mal,” she whispered. She was moving her hips, trying to press down harder, trying to feel every inch of his body against her.

  Why had she been scared of this? Why had she been worried that it wouldn’t be right if they couldn’t do one specific thing?

  Every time they touched it was like fireworks exploding across her skin.

  She tipped her head back to find him, and he tipped his forward.

  He swallowed his own name, stole her breath, licked into her mouth. He took every sound, every little gasp and moan and whimper.

  His fingers curled, digging into her waist, possessive. She didn’t mind. She certainly didn’t mind when his mouth left hers and found her shoulder instead, when he bit into her flesh, and she felt a stab of pain, because a second later, his tongue flicked against her skin, soothing the spot where he’d sunk his teeth in.

  Her body trembled, poised on the edge.

  “Georgina.”

  Her name tumbled from his lips like it scalded him, and she flew apart once more. Not long after Mal followed, spilling between her clenched thighs.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Georgina was still out of breath when Mal brought a linen cloth over, dipped in water from the washstand, and smoothed it over the insides of her legs with gentle precision.

  She propped herself on her elbow to watch him, and he seemed to sense her amusement. “What?”

  “You’re very tidy.”

  He glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow. “I wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”

  She felt something inside her soften. She was the first to look away, glancing out the window at the steadily deepening night.

  It was odd, but sometimes the things he said embarrassed her more than all the things they’d done.

  “I don’t know why you ever thought you weren’t romantic,” she said lightly.

  Mal laughed and set the towel aside, and Georgina shrugged back into her dress, without bothering with the chemise and stays. Mal watched her for a moment before wrapping his kilt around himself in a haphazard fashion.

  “Are you leaving so soon?”

  “I don’t want my family to wonder where I am.” She looked down as she laced her bodice, a sense of unease creeping up her spine. It was the truth, but not all of the truth. She still wasn’t sure where they stood.

  Physical intimacy was…rather wonderful…but unfortunately, it couldn’t answer questions that hadn’t been asked.

  Suddenly, her hands were brushed aside, and
Mal began to tie the laces. She glanced up, and whatever she’d been about to say died on her lips. Mal’s expression was one he’d never worn before. Hard and sad and a little angry, too.

  “We’re leaving in two days.”

  She felt her heart stop, stutter, start again, more weak than before. Two days? She’d thought…well, she didn’t know what she’d thought. She knew he couldn’t take Rochester’s place indefinitely. Eventually he’d be found out.

  She supposed she hadn’t really been thinking about the future, at all. She’d been too caught up in the present, in Mal’s kisses and all the hot, heady things they made her feel. But in all her imaginings, since the moment he’d crashed back into her life, she hadn’t assumed their time together would be so short.

  “You could come with me,” he said quietly.

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t think I could,” she said, just as quiet. That tight little lump was back in her throat, making it difficult to speak.

  “Why not?”

  “I couldn’t leave my siblings. And you can’t go on like you are.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll get caught, eventually. No thief can be a thief forever. But you must know that already…you said you wanted to see your men settled. You never said what you were going to do once they were.”

  She wanted him to tell her that he would stop, she wanted that more than she’d ever wanted anything, but he didn’t.

  “Maybe I’ll settle down, too, eventually.” It was only partly what she wanted to hear, and the words seemed to give him pause, as though he hadn’t even considered the possibility before. “We could go anywhere in the Highlands you wanted.”

  “Except here.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again.

  No, he wouldn’t stay on Arden land. Not living side by side with everything he’d fought against. But she loved her family dearly, and she was already too far from Eleanor; she couldn’t imagine being separated from the rest of them as well. It would be too difficult a blow.

  And for what? To watch Mal tempt fate over and over again until it killed him?

  “That’s beside the point. Eventually, Mal? You were shot last time. You could have died. I don’t ever want to see you that hurt again.”