by Connie Mason
Then he took her mouth. And as his tongue slid into her, his cock entered her as well.
He didn’t thrust or jab. He just filled her. Slowly. Inexorably. Assuaging the aching emptiness.
Her maidenhead shredded in a flash of pain that was gone almost instantly.
The wonder of holding him inside her was too fine, too glorious for words. They fit together with such rightness, a tear tickled across Elspeth’s cheek.
And then he began to move.
Elspeth matched his pace, and the dance began in earnest. They found a rhythm, a flow of bodies and hearts and spirits, all intermingled and jumbled together. Did she moan or he? Whose shuddering breath was that? Whose heart was pounding like a drum? It was difficult to tell as they raced toward a distant pinnacle.
She felt her insides clench around him. Once. Twice. Then she retreated from the drop.
“Come, lass,” he said hoarsely as he plunged into her. “Come with me.”
She launched her soul skyward, and her body followed. He stilled while her inner walls spasmed around him, and then his seed pumped into her. She held him while his body shuddered with the last hot pulses.
The world stopped spinning. Elspeth decided she wouldn’t care if she ever moved again.
He was still inside her, the precious connection still intact, but she began to be able to tell her limbs from his. He kissed her neck.
“Are ye pleased, lass?”
She smoothed his hair behind his ear. “Better than pleased. I’m alive now. I didna even realize I wasna before.”
They lay in contented silence even after he slid out of her. He shifted to lie beside her so he wouldn’t burden her with his weight. She stroked his spine. He drew little circles around her nipples. Then he licked one and blew on it to watch it pucker afresh.
“Are ye no’ tired of playing with me yet?” she asked with amusement.
“No,” Rob said. “And neither is wee ‘Robin.’”
When he rocked against her hip, she felt that he was stone hard again.
“I warned ye he was single-minded.”
“And persistent,” she said with a laugh. “What’s he thinking about now, I wonder?”
“I think he’s wondering if horses might no’ have a good idea, after all. What do ye think?”
Elspeth kissed him hard and deeply. “I think we ought to find out.”
***
Mrs. Christie rapped loudly on the door, but there was no answer except a rhythmic creaking. She almost pounded again, but she remembered the MacLaren’s surly orders from the last time she tried to deliver his supper.
“Verra well, my lord,” she muttered as she carried the tray back to the kitchen. “Another hour of rutting may make ye a happy man, but it willna improve this stew nary a bit.”
Chapter 23
Rob meant to leave with the first light, but it was midday before he woke with Elspeth still sleeping warm and soft beside him. He was sated and satisfied, with every knot untied and every coil unkinked. If Fiona had visited his dreams, he had no memory of it in the waking world.
His new arrangement with Elspeth was so pleasant, there was no sense in spoiling matters by living rough. A full day’s ride would see them to the gates of Caisteal Dubh and a solid roof over their heads. The money he’d put down to save the room at the inn for them had run out, so he paid for another night’s lodging. With delight unspeakable, he and Elspeth shut the world out of their little chamber.
The next day dawned drippy, and quickly bloomed into a downpour of freezing rain. Rob counted out more coin for another night and considered himself fortunate. The longer they lingered in Lochearnhead, the longer he could put off what was to come.
As long as he and Elspeth could dally and swive on the soft feather tick and talk of nothing but what pleased them, they could pretend there’d be no piper to pay for this exceedingly pleasant dance.
But Rob knew the piper would present his bill soon. And at Rob’s very gates. He climbed the stairs to their chamber, his tread slower than usual.
Elspeth was seated in the middle of their neatly made bed, stitching up the hem of his cloak.
“I dinna know when it was torn.” She tied a knot and bit off the thread with her white little teeth. “I probably caught it on something.”
“Thank ye. ’Tis a bit long for ye,” he said, settling next to her. “I’ve one at Caisteal Dubh that’ll be a better fit. And prettier too. As I recall, there’s a wee tassel on the hood and a fine copper brooch that goes with it.”
She glanced at him from under her lashes before she started on another raveled spot in the wool. “One of your wife’s castoffs?”
The question seemed innocent enough, but the hair on the back of his neck sent him a warning. The same warning that tells a wild creature a hunter has an arrow trained on his heart.
“Of course no’.” Even he knew a man didn’t put his dead wife’s clothes on another woman. Neither of them would appreciate it. “’Twas my mother’s.”
He couldn’t tell from her expression whether that was an improvement.
All of Fiona’s things were scattered with lavender, packed in a trunk, and bundled away to a room in the tower not used for anything else. Whenever he couldn’t sleep, he’d wander up there and open the trunk for the chance to imagine he could smell her unique scent over the faded floral.
Sometimes, he actually believed he could.
“Besides,” he said, “Fiona was a tall woman. Ye’d no’ be able to wear her things. Ye’d be catching the hem with every step.”
That was definitely not an improvement. Her brows drew together over her pert nose.
“I expect I come up short in a number of ways,” she said tetchily.
“That’s no’ what I said.”
“’Tis what I heard.” Her eyes flared at him.
“Ye’re angry,” he said, confused.
She smirked at him. “Aren’t ye the knowledgeable one?”
What had gotten into her? She’d been perfectly pleasant when he left her after a quick but satisfying morning shag, to see to another night’s lodging. Perhaps the foul weather accounted for her foul mood.
“I ordered a bath for us,” he said in an attempt to brighten her spirits.
“Oh, lovely. Will ye swive me in a hip bath now if I ask ye prettily, my lord?”
That sounded like a good idea to him, but the way she said it made him think her heart wasn’t in the venture.
“Elspeth, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong, he says.” She jabbed the needle through the unprotected wool with ferocity.
“If ye dinna wish to tell me…” He rather hoped she wouldn’t.
The sewing dropped to her lap. “What’s to become of us, Rob?”
“Well, tomorrow, if the weather clears, I’ve arranged for two suitable mounts for us, and we’ll ride to Caisteal Dubh.” It wasn’t a difficult journey. Of course, he hadn’t reckoned on her injury. “Unless ye think ye’ll suffer on horseback with your leg. The way willna allow for a cart, but I could drag a wooden frame—”
“No, ye big ox!” She climbed off the bed and paced the small space, her limp slight. “That’s no’ what I mean.”
He didn’t want her to fret over this part of his plan. It was his doing and his fault things had taken an unexpected turn. He’d tend to it.
“Och, I expect your father and your bridegroom are amassing a force, and they’ll gather at the gates by month’s end, if they aren’t there already and—”
“No, that’s no’ what I mean either.”
He looked at her, genuinely puzzled.
“Us, Rob. You and me. What’s to become of us?”
“Oh.” That was a piper he’d hoped to forestall for very much longer. He was more t
han happy to join his body to hers and create that delicious us. What to do once the connection was severed was a riddle he hadn’t solved. He wished his body could puzzle it out as easily as it had led him into this silken quagmire.
Her chin quivered, but she straightened herself to her full, if inconsiderable, height. “Dinna tell me ye’ve taken my maidenhead and it means naught to ye.”
“Leannán, no, ’tis no’ that,” he said raking a hand through his hair. Fiona tried to teach him to name his feelings, but he was a difficult student. Give him something solid, a sword, a handclasp, a heart-stopping swive, and the world made perfect sense. Ask him to speak the tangle of his heart, and his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth.
“Then, pray, what is it? How many ways have ye taken me, Rob MacLaren?” she said shakily. “And yet no word of love has passed your lips.”
“None have passed yours either,” he said, hoping to seize a foot of earth in this melee.
“A woman dare no’ name her feelings first. It makes her weak. Makes her vulnerable.” She fisted her hands at her waist, looking anything but weak or vulnerable.
Unless one counted the excessive shimmer in her eyes.
“Doesna it do the same for a man?”
“No.”
“Why in hell not?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If ye canna keep a civil tongue in your head, I’ll be asking ye to leave.”
“I’ll do no such thing.” He toed off his boots and stretched out on the bed. “I’m paying for the damned room, aren’t I?”
“Then I’ll leave.” She headed for the door.
He cut her off, leaning a long arm over her shoulder to hold the door shut. “Ye’ll no’ be going anywhere, Elspeth Stewart.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She glared up at him, looking like a cornered cat ready to scratch his eyes out. “I’m Mad Rob’s prisoner, just a pawn in your chess game with Lachlan.”
“Elspeth.” He leaned toward her. She’d never looked more swiveable than she did right now, her cheeks painted with ire, her eyes flashing, and the curve of her breasts straining against her bodice. “That may be how things started, but that was before—”
“Aye, before ye began…” Her mouth twitched. “…Using me…” Tears trembled on her lashes. “As your whore.”
She covered her face with both hands and wept.
Oh, Lord, not tears. Let her scream and rage and pound me with her fists, but dinna let her cry.
His gut roiled if she’d punched him in the belly. With the sharp end of a pike.
“I canna believe…I was so wrong…about ye.” She sobbed between her words, dragging in deep breaths but never seeming to have enough air.
“I’m the one who’s wrong,” he said. That was the premise of any woman’s argument, wasn’t it? If his relationships with women taught him anything, it was that the man was always at fault. “O’ course, I canna point to anything I’ve done wrong in particular, but I’m sure ye’ll do that for me once ye’ve stopped crying.”
That made her cry harder.
“Elspeth. Leannán.”
“No.” She twisted from him and slapped his hand away when he tried to palm her cheek. “Ye havena the right to call me that.”
“And ye havena the right to call yourself a whore.”
She dropped her hands and glared at him. “That’s right. I havena received payment yet. Oh! But ye did promise me your mother’s cloak and a shiny copper brooch, so I guess ye do plan to make good your debt!”
Rage boiled in him. “I’ve never struck a woman in my life, but you tempt me, woman.” He spun her around and began unlacing her bodice. It was time to change the tone. “Ye’re vexing me sore.”
“What are ye doing?” She tried to get away from him, but he held her fast, still unlacing her.
“That should be obvious. What is it ye think we’ve been doing here, Elspeth?” he said, pulling the leather over her head. Her breasts swung free beneath her thin chemise. People lied, but their bodies never did. “Have we been whoring, ye and I?”
He caught hold of her skirt and yanked at the waist. The horn button popped off and rolled under the bed.
“Rob, stop it.”
He picked her up and tossed her onto the bed, grabbing the hem and pulling off her skirt. She fought him every step.
“Is that what it seemed like to ye, when I came inside ye?” he demanded. “Were ye playing a whore’s trick when I held ye while ye cried out and shuddered round me?”
He pinned her beneath him. All the anger drained from him as he looked down at her. “It didna seem so common,” he said softly. “So mean a thing to me.”
She stopped squirming. “What was it like to ye?”
“I’m no’ a man of words, ye ken. No’ a poet.”
“I didna think ye were.” She reached up to touch his face, hesitated, then traced her fingertips along his cheek. “But a man doesna need to be poet to speak his feelings plainly. And a woman canna tell what a man feels unless he speaks of it.”
Words were just sounds, puffs of air with meaning attached, but Elspeth evidently put a lot of stock in them, so he’d give it his best.
He closed his eyes to compose his thoughts. Looking at her roused his body so, his mind became jumbled. Even with his eyes shut, he could still conjure an image of her, mouth passion-slack, brows tented in pleasurable agony.
His chest constricted, a hard lump of tenderness crowding his ribs.
“When I cover ye, Elspeth, and the glory of your coming is upon ye, ’tis like I hold your soul and ye hold mine.” He opened his eyes and met her gaze. “And the brightness of our joining would fair strike me blind, but for the life of me, I canna look away.”
Then he frowned down at her. “Does that sound like whoring to ye?”
She shook her head.
“What does it sound like?” he asked.
“Like…trust,” she said slowly. “Like…love.”
“Well, then.” He thought so, but he was no expert when it came to the shadowy realm of emotion. It steadied him to have her confirmation. “There ye have it.”
“Have what?”
“Trust and love.” He bent to kiss her, but she turned her head at the last moment, and his lips landed on her ear.
“Ye love me, then?”
“I said as much, did I no’?”
She met his gaze squarely. “No, ye didna.”
“Then let me speak plainly.” He leaned on his elbows and palmed her cheeks. “I love ye, Elspeth Stewart.”
Her smile would have lit the queen’s hall, brighter than a hundred candles.
He bent to kiss her again but stopped short.
Her eyes flew open. “What’s wrong?”
“Ye dinna love me back?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then say it,” he dared her with a grin. “A man canna tell what a woman feels unless she speaks of it.”
Her heart shone in her hazel eyes. “I love ye, Rob MacLaren.”
He kissed her, softly and sweetly. Then he cast her a wicked grin. “Prove it.”
***
Mrs. Christie banged on the door to the guest suite. She’d lugged the copper hip bath up the steps with no help at all from that lout of a husband of hers. The water was aboil in the kitchen and ready for her to start the multiple trips it would take to fill the shallow tub.
Good thing the MacLaren was paying them so handsomely.
She rapped the door again before she thought better of it.
The door opened a crack, and she saw Mad Rob’s brilliant blue eyes peering out at her. And the rest of him that she could see was naked as Adam.
She hadn’t brought in the hip bath yet, so that could only mean the MacLaren and the woman with hi
m were…
Merciful Saint Brigid! And in the middle of the afternoon.
“Mrs. Christie, what did I tell you about knocking on this door?”
“Aye, my lord, I’ll leave the tub in the hall and return in an hour to fill it.” She turned to pad back down the stairs.
“Mrs. Christie?”
“Aye, my lord?”
“Make that two hours.”
Chapter 24
The rain ended during the night, and the next morning dawned brisk and clear. It was one of those rare November days in the Highlands, when the sky was robin’s egg blue and the sun was more than a cold disc in the southern sky. It was a liar’s day, a day that banished all thoughts of the coming winter by aping the appearance of early spring.
Elspeth rode a gentle mare with an easy gait. She was more comfortable on her own mount and figured it was a measure of Rob’s trust that he’d given her one. Strange to think that only a few weeks ago, she’d have bolted away from him as fast as she could go. Now she followed behind him along trails only he could see, through passes where the peaks rose around them on all sides, over ridgelines and then back down. They stopped frequently.
“To rest your leg,” Rob said.
But Elspeth sensed that he was drawing out the journey for other reasons. That he was reluctant to return to his home with her in tow.
“Are ye ashamed to bring me to Caisteal Dubh?” she finally blurted out.
He grimaced at her. “Why would ye say such a thing?”
She wondered whether he was loath to bring another woman into the home where he’d lived with his wife. “Ye dinna seem to be in a hurry to get there.”
“Ye’re right about that. If we dinna hurry, we’ll no’ run into an ambush,” he said, and she noticed for the first time that his gaze scoured the forest and rock outcroppings as they went. “I’m no’ ashamed to bring ye to my home. I only wish it were under different circumstances, ye ken.”
“Ye’re the one who stole me from the altar,” she reminded him.
“And ye’ll never let me forget it.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Never in a hundred years.”
