by Connie Mason
“I’m ready, Rob.” She smiled tremulously at him and let him hand her onto the wharf.
Does she just flit through life, collecting hearts as she goes along? Rob wondered. His chest constricted.
Aye, he answered himself. She does.
Chapter 21
Halfway up to the tavern on the edge of the town, Elspeth stumbled. Rob picked her up again.
“Ye dinna have to scoop me up like a bairn every time I wobble a bit,” she protested.
“Aye, I do.”
“Rob, I—”
“Trust me this once, lass,” he said as he tugged the cloak around to hide her face. “’Tis for your own good.”
He blustered into the taproom of the tavern, announcing his presence and demanding the room he’d paid for. The tavern patrons had a good laugh, assuming him an overanxious bridegroom with a shy bride in his arms. A man would let a whore walk up to the room behind him, so Rob carried Elspeth on up to the second-story chamber, following the light of the tavern owner’s tallow candle. No one would be able to say for certain that it was Elspeth Stewart who spent the night with him above the tavern’s common room.
Then Rob went back down to order their supper. He passed on the mutton, which smelled pretty wooly, and chose the savory venison stew instead. He ordered a skin of wine, a round of cheese, and as a treat, a loaf of real wheat bread instead of coarse barley, along with a dish of thick clotted cream. Mrs. Christie, the tavern owner’s wife, promised to bring up their supper tray shortly.
Rob returned to the room, feeling pleased with himself. The tavern was clean and well ordered. After a cave floor, a cramped boat, and a witch’s borrowed bed, he was finally providing suitable lodging for a lady of Elspeth’s quality.
When he opened the door, she was seated on a straight-backed chair next to the small table that held a pitcher and ewer. The light of a single candle kissed her with a golden glow.
But unlike the time he’d stumbled upon her at Angus’s home, she wasn’t bathing now. She was fully dressed, with her skirt hitched up to her hip on one side, her stocking sagging to her ankle.
She was untying the length of muslin binding the wound on her thigh.
Her eyes flared at him, and she dropped her skirt to cover herself.
“Ye need to change the dressing, Elspeth. Dinna let me stop ye. In fact, let me help ye.” He steeled himself to look at his handiwork. It was his fault an otherwise perfect leg was marred for life.
“I can manage.”
“Let me. I want to be sure ’tis healing cleanly.” He sank to one knee beside her and uttered a word that rarely passed his lips. “Please.”
She met his gaze directly for a moment and then nodded.
Carefully, he drew her skirt back up. He tried very hard to focus on the wrapped section of her thigh, but it was impossible not to notice her tender calf and the tempting crease behind her knee.
He wondered if she was ticklish there.
She’d already started unwrapping the wound, so he continued, reaching around between her legs to remove the muslin strip. His fingertips brushed her inner thigh, that soft skin so near the tempting place between her legs. Her breath hitched on each pass.
“The entry wound looks good,” he said once he dropped the soiled cloth into the ewer.
There was no hint of redness around the scab, and he could smell only her warm, healthy scent. Her body was working to repair the damage his plan for revenge had caused. But she would always bear a scar.
He shifted to check the exit wound on her inner thigh. It, too, was healing nicely. He caught a glimpse of shadowy paradise beneath her skirt, just a hint of soft nether lips and silky curls.
He was going to hell without doubt. He should have been concentrating on her injury, but all he could think was how close her delicate womanly parts were to his hands.
“We need to apply the salve Hepzibah gave me.”
Her voice pulled him back to the matter at hand. He rummaged in her bag and came up with the small jar. The unguent didn’t have a foul odor as most medicines did. There was a hint of bayberry and mint, and when he smoothed the salve over her injury, it glittered silver on her skin.
He lingered a bit over the application, spreading the excess on her uninjured parts, reveling in gliding his fingers over her flesh.
“I can wrap the fresh dressing,” she said.
“Once I begin something, I like to finish,” Rob said, taking the length of muslin from her.
He brought it around her leg several times, taking care not to bind it too tight, but making sure it was snug enough not to slip down. Her skin was incredibly smooth, unbearably soft. He tortured himself by trailing his fingertips on each pass along her inner thigh.
He noticed a subtle shift in her scent. She was no longer just warm and healthy. There was a definite hint of musk in the air. The whiff of her arousal went straight to his groin.
“There, lass.” He tied off the dressing but didn’t move his hand from her thigh. “Looks like you’ll do.”
“Will I?” She was looking down at him, her lips softly parted, her eyes hooded.
His fingers inched closer to her mound. He bent and pressed a kiss on her knee. She didn’t protest.
“Elspeth.” Her name escaped his lips like a prayer as he slid his hand the rest of the way under her skirt.
“Oh, Rob.”
She was damp and tender and swollen. He covered her with his palm, and she throbbed into it with a long sigh. He could feel her heart beating in his hand. Such a knot of caring rose in his chest, he almost couldn’t breathe.
His cock stiffened to rock hardness as he stroked her gently, teasing her curls. Her knees edged farther apart. He kissed along the inside of her leg from her knee to the crease of her inner thigh, hitching her skirt higher with each one. Then when she was totally exposed to his gaze, he covered her mound with open-mouthed kisses.
She made a soft moan and slumped in the chair, edging her bottom closer to the edge of the seat. It was a clear invitation to stay.
He invaded her with his tongue.
Was there anything more miraculous on earth than a woman’s pliant wetness?
He was drunk on her scent. He wallowed in her, in every sigh, every moan, every shiver of muscle under taut skin.
Her legs trembled. He wrapped his arms around her hips and drew her closer. He nuzzled the soft lips of her sex, reveling in her obvious need for him.
Her hands smoothed over his head, her fingers tangling in his hair. She twisted and pulled, but he didn’t mind. She was too far gone to realize what she was doing.
From a distance, there came a rapping sound.
Elspeth’s breath came in short pants as he drove her on, closer and closer to completion. He ached to feel her unravel under his hand.
The rapping grew more insistent.
Her body stiffened as her release drew near.
“I say,” a woman shouted on the other side of the door. “D’ye want yer supper or no’?”
Rob roared in frustration. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, stomped to the door, and opened it a crack. The tavern owner’s wife balanced a tray on her hip and raised her fist to pound the door again. Mrs. Christie stopped with a flinch when she saw him glaring at her.
“If I dinna answer the first time, ye’ll no’ knock again.” He filled the opening, careful to shield Elspeth from the woman’s sharp eyes. “D’ye understand?”
“Aye, my lord.” Mrs. Christie was all meekness now. “But the supper?”
“Bring it back in an hour, and be sure it’s piping hot,” he growled. “And if I dinna answer the first knock, go away and return in another hour.”
He slammed the door and turned back to Elspeth.
She hadn’t moved. She was still sitting on t
he chair with her skirt bunched at her waist and her knees sagging apart, her sweet slit glinting all pink and wet at him. The tops of her breasts heaved above her tight bodice with the frustration of being so close to release and yet denied.
She was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed.
“Rob,” she said with a sob in her voice.
“Hush, lass. Dinna fret.” He laid her down and climbed in beside her, pulling up her hem to bare her again. She was fair all over, beautiful in all her parts. “Once I begin something, I like to finish.”
***
Elspeth felt as if she’d drunk another cup of Hepzibah’s mind-altering tea. There was only bliss. Only pleasure.
But there was no sense of unreality this time. Rob’s mouth, Rob’s blessed hands on her were more real than anything in her entire life.
Then there was only need. Only aching. Only longing to be filled.
She’d die of wanting, she was sure.
And then she did.
The spasms were so intense her whole body shuddered with the force of her release. Rob covered her mouth with his, and she tasted herself, all salty on his lips. He slipped a finger inside her, drawing out her pleasure. She continued to tighten around him, unable to stop, not wanting to stop, afraid she would stop.
She surrendered control of her body and let him lead her through that dark, hot place. Then once the madness was spent, she finally stilled, jerking only occasionally, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
She felt wonderful. Even the ache in her thigh had subsided to a distant throb.
His mouth was still near enough for her to nip, to suck his bottom lip. She fisted his hair and pulled him closer for a deep kiss. She suckled his tongue and felt the hard ridge of him against her hip.
She was done wondering what he’d do if she reached under his kilt. Her hand found him, and he groaned into her mouth. She swept his length, clasped her hand around his base, and stroked. She fondled his balls.
Then she pushed against his chest.
“I want to see ye,” she told him.
His mouth turned up in a crooked smile, and he rolled onto his back, his hands laced behind his head. “Look your fill then, lass.”
“Lie still.”
She drew the bottom of his kilt up to his waist, and there it was. Licked by the light of a single candle, a long, thick, glorious rod of maleness lay on Rob’s flat belly. And below that in a nest of dark curls, his ballocks were drawn into a taut mound.
He was so fine.
She reached out to touch him, and his cock rose to meet her palm. She drew back in surprise.
“Did ye make it do that?”
“Aye and no.” Rob chuckled, and when his belly jiggled, his cock did too. “He has a mind of his own sometimes, ye ken.”
“Oh, aye?” She walked her fingers up and down his length and was rewarded by the way a muscle ticked in Rob’s cheek. “He, is it? Does he have a name?”
“Plenty of names, but none fit for polite company.”
She stroked him again, enjoying the smoothness and warmth of the skin drawn taut over his granite-hard length. “If he has a mind of his own, he needs a name of his own.”
“He’s what ye might call single-minded. With only one thought generally, and a verra simple means of expression.”
“Then a simple name is needed.” She trailed her fingertips around his balls and then traced the line of darker skin that marked the centerline of his scrotum. “What is Rob short for?”
“Robin,” he said through clenched teeth.
She found a patch of rougher skin near the head. A pearl of fluid formed at the tip of him when she teased that spot. “Then we’ll call him Robin.”
“He’ll no’ answer to it.”
“Mayhap he needs training.” She grasped him with firmness.
Rob’s breath hissed over his teeth. “He’s fearsome stubborn. There’s only one thing that’ll vanquish him.”
“What’s that?”
He grasped her wrist so she was forced to look at his face instead of his cock. “Ye dinna have any idea what ye’re playing with. A good hard swive is all he understands.”
She leaned down and kissed Rob’s lips, his cheeks, his closed eyes.
“Then that’s what we’ll have to do.”
Chapter 22
Rob sat up and gathered her into his arms. “Elspeth, leannán, I gave ye pleasure because it pleased me to do it. And with no lasting harm to ye. But this is something that, once done, canna be undone. D’ye ken that?”
She palmed his cheek and looked through his deep blue eyes to his troubled soul. She loved this man. She was sure of it. Why would she not offer him the comfort of her body?
“Aye, Rob,” she said. “I ken what I’m doing.”
“Ye only think ye do.”
His voice was drawn and tight. She sensed him struggling with himself. A thrill of power swept over her. Who could have thought she’d bring her captor to such a state of indecision?
“Ye canna say ye dinna want me.” She brushed a hand against his groin.
“No, I canna say that.”
His eyes went dark and luminous as he looked at her. She peered once more into the well of his soul and was satisfied. He would not see her shamed. She could trust him with anything. Even herself.
“As much as ye want me, Rob, I want ye back.”
“Oh, lass—” He interrupted himself to kiss her.
Elspeth realized he’d been holding back in his previous kisses. The longing in this kiss stole her breath. The deep sadness she’d sensed in him the very first time he kissed her returned and threatened to overwhelm her. That time she’d Seen a fleeting image of Fiona MacLaren.
Did Rob think on his lovely redheaded wife while his lips played with hers?
She tried to open herself to her Gift, to move out of its way, as Hepzibah had suggested, so she might discover whether Fiona MacLaren still hovered in his heart. But her senses were so overflowing with Rob, there was no room for her Gift to fill. He crowded out everything else.
She longed to do the same for him, to so fill up his soul there’d be no room for sadness.
But how? She matched him kiss for kiss, and he seemed to enjoy it when she stroked him, but she had no idea how to really please a man.
At her first sight of “Robin,” she’d been minded of her father’s stallion. Now she wondered if men were like stallions in other ways. One night, Elspeth had sneaked into the stable and hid in the haymow to spy as her father and the groom oversaw the stallion covering a mare in heat.
Elspeth had watched in awe as the horse’s huge thing stopped dangling. It grew and stiffened as he sniffed wild-eyed at the mare. Then the stallion climbed atop her, and the mare whinnied her pleasure while he pumped his great thing in and out of her and bit her neck till the blood ran, glistening ribbons down her withers.
She’d rather not be bitten till blood ran, but she could certainly arrange herself for Rob without him having to tell her what to do. She pulled away from his kiss and shifted onto her hands and knees, hoping her thigh wouldn’t tremor too much.
“What are ye doing, lass?”
She peered over her shoulder at him. “I’m getting ready for ye. I’ve seen horses, ye ken.”
***
He almost laughed at her naïveté, but the thought of lifting her skirt and being able to ram himself into her glistening slit from behind robbed him of the power of speech. Oh, to be able to grasp her hips and pound away at her, his balls slapping her thighs.
But that was not how a man takes a virgin. Not one he cared for.
He moved down beside her and lay on his side. “I’ll no’ say ye’re no’ a fetchi
ng sight from that angle, but people are no’ horses.”
She settled onto her stomach, resting her chin on her hands. “Then what am I to do? I feel your sadness, Rob, and I want to ease it.” She bit her bottom lip. “Are ye thinking of her?”
He didn’t ask whom she meant. “I’ll no’ lie to ye. When I kissed ye just then, Fiona formed in my mind for a heartbeat. She was my wife, and she comes to me unbidden sometimes, but I shoved her away for the now. There’s no’ enough room in my bed for two women.”
Her smile squeezed his heart.
He tucked her hair behind her ear and fingered her soft lobe.
“Then what would ye have me do, Rob?” she asked, rolling to face him. “I want to please ye.”
“Just let me take ye, lass, and we’ll both be pleased, I promise.” He ran a fingertip along the top of her bodice, then he plunged his hand in to cup her breast.
Her eyes closed in bliss. “Aye, take me, then. Steal my lips, my breasts, all that I am.” Her eyes opened again. “Steal me away, Rob MacLaren.”
***
Desire was a difficult dance master. The steps for removing unwanted articles of clothing were sometimes bunglesome. Laces snarled in knots. Buttons popped off. Impatience to plant a kiss on needy skin tripped them up more than once, but the reward of seeing each other in glorious nakedness was well worth the slow dance of disrobing.
“Do as I do,” Rob had told her. And he began stroking her all over. Elspeth reciprocated, reveling in the shiver of muscle, the hitch of his breath when she touched a spot that gave him pleasure.
They took turns kissing each other, planting their lips on every crease of skin, every indentation and bump. He lingered over her anklebones and toes. She swirled her tongue around his navel.
Finally Elspeth sank back into the feather tick and spread her legs. Rob moved up her body, kissing and teasing, caressing and torturing. He worshipped her breasts, nuzzling and suckling, while she sketched a benediction on his spine with her fingertips.
