The Taming of a Highlander

by Elisa Braden

  A frown. “When?”

  “Whilst you were searching McKenzie’s quarters. She knocked, and I thought it was you.”

  “What the devil did she say?”

  “She recognized you in the corridor.” Kate swallowed. “I think she made certain we wouldn’t be discovered. I expect she still has feelings for you.”

  He scoffed. “Aye, well. Fat lot of good that did me last time round.”

  She blinked at his cavalier tone. “Y-you knew that she …?”

  “Cecilia came to see me at the warehouse in Leith an hour before the exciseman was shot. So, aye. I’ve nae doubt she kenned what would happen. Mayhap if I hadnae rejected her, she’d have warned me of his plans.”

  Her chest tightened. “How can you not hate her for what she allowed him to do to you?”

  “Cecilia is damaged, lass. She was damaged long before she met Lockhart or me.”

  “I don’t care. I hate her.”

  A small smile tugged at his mouth. He stroked her hair and her cheek. “I can see that.”

  “Keep her away from me. If I see her again, I shall rid her of that appallingly colorless hair and demonstrate my facility with a sgian-dubh. She’ll need a veil then, by God.”

  He chuckled. “My ferocious Kate. I like this side of ye, lass.”

  She laid her cheek atop her knees, loving his smile. A piece of her despair wisped away.

  “Now, then,” he said. “I’ve a notion ye were upset by somethin’ else she said.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Kate—”

  “No, really.” Her mouth quirked. “She was jealous. She wanted to hurt me. That’s all.”

  His eye narrowed and flashed. “Hmm. Ye willnae mind lettin’ me tup ye before we sleep, then.” He stripped off his shirt.

  Blinking, she sat up straight and scooted away, shaking her head. “Wh-what has one thing to do with the other?”

  “Dinnae lie to me,” he snapped. “Ye havenae been up here weepin’ because she said somethin’ that doesnae matter. And I willnae let ye sleep until we settle on what’s distressin’ ye so badly.”

  “I’m just tired, Broderick. Please, can we change the subject?”

  “No. We cannae.”

  “Everything she said was predictable. I could have written it myself.”

  He crossed his arms. “Aye? Recite it to me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Why?”

  “Just … stop, Broderick.” She rolled forward onto her knees, intending to leave the bed.

  He grasped her waist and dragged her close. “Did she claim I loved her? Because I didnae.”

  “No.” She shoved at his chest, wriggling to free herself. She shoved and struggled, succeeding only in making herself hot and breathless. In the end, the plaid fell away, and her breasts flattened against his chest while his arm banded her backside. She writhed and shoved again, arousing her nipples and lowering the neckline of her shift several inches. “Let go of me!”

  He held her fast. “Tell me what she said, and I will.”

  Her hands clawed into his chest. “God, you are infuriating!”

  “Say it.”

  Incoherent rage surged. “I. Don’t. Want to!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I say it, I’ll know it’s true! And I can’t bear to know for certain, you arrogant, impossible Scot!”

  “Nothin’ that’s true should distress ye, lass.”

  She screamed through gritted teeth and pummeled his shoulders with impotent fists.

  He squeezed her tighter and braced her nape, his eye flashing like lightning amidst thunderous black. “I’ll nae tolerate yer pain, mo chridhe. Ye must glow for me. My heart. My light. ’Tis all I have to keep me sane.”

  She collapsed in his arms. Buried her face in his muscular neck and slid her tired arms around him. An inarticulate whimper escaped her throat. “You read her poetry, Broderick. You touched her like spun glass.”

  He stroked her back, her neck, her hair. “What else? Tell me.”

  “She won you to her bed in an afternoon.” A sob. She was choking. “I—I had to beg you to kiss me. I had to dose your whisky with Mrs. MacBean’s stoat tonic.”

  Firm lips kissed their way from her temple to her cheek. They caressed and coaxed as strong hands kneaded her shoulders, back, and nape. “Good thing that wasnae what ye gave me, wife,” he whispered while pressing tiny kisses beside her ear. “Ye wouldnae have walked properly for a bluidy fortnight.”

  She clung tighter, his hands and lips and heat draining some of the ache in her chest. “I only wish you considered me worthy of Gaelic poetry.”

  His hand slid down to lift her shift and caress her bare backside. “Nah. Ye dinnae.”

  She caught her breath as long fingers pressed, slid, dipped between her thighs, and sank inside her sheath. First one. Then two. “Broderick,” she moaned, her fingers digging into his nape at the shocking pleasure of his invasion.

  “Shall I tell ye why?”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Before I met ye, I had ways of seducin’ a lass. Most of ’em were pure rubbish.” He ran his tongue along her throat, then captured her lips for a long, deep kiss before continuing. “A few bonnie words in Gaelic worked well enough. But my head had to be clear to recall the lines, ye ken? Likewise, I took care to handle a lass gently lest my strength frighten her away.” He kissed her again, his fingers pulsing inside her, winding her tighter. “No chance of clear thinkin’ with you. I cannae recall my own sodding name until ye scream it for me.”

  Her head fell back as pleasure climbed and climbed. She groaned.

  “Aye, ye feel it, too. Comes on like a storm.” His mouth dragged across her throat, suckling and nibbling. Suddenly, his fingers withdrew. He lifted her, stood, and lowered her onto the bed. Then, he shoved her shift above her waist and stared down at her with molten intensity. “I cannae hear. I cannae think. I cannae touch ye like glass, my bonnie Kate, because I’m so bluidy mad for ye, ’tis like havin’ my ballocks in a vise. Thank God ye dinnae mind too much.”

  He dropped to his knees beside the bed. Then, he dragged her toward him and draped her legs upon his shoulders. “I feel yer skin,” he rasped, smoothing his palms over her knees and thighs. Her hips and belly. “I hear ye breathin’ and watch ye blush, bright as berries.” He angled his head down and kissed her inner thigh. Licked her skin. Inhaled on a deep draw. “I smell yer scent. Sweet. So sweet, mo chridhe. Makes me hungry.”

  She arched her back and used her legs to pull him closer. “Broderick. I need you so much.”

  “Aye. But I’m nae done explainin’.” He shot her a wicked grin as his fingers began to play. “Ye had to beg me to kiss ye because I kenned this was how it would be. Once I had ye, I’d never stop. Never be satisfied.” He teased her swollen nub with the tip of his finger, pressing in tiny pulses. “I’d want to drive ye to the same depths of madness I feel. Just so I wouldnae be alone, here in the dark.” He spread her folds and placed his open mouth directly upon her center.

  Pleasure exploded in a riptide as he suckled and laved her, ravishing her senses and making her scream his name. Broderick. Over and over and over. She tore at her shift. The blankets. His hair. When he growled and refused to let up, she arched and begged.

  Finally, he raised up, his lips shining, his skin flushed, and his eye filled with the fires of Hades. “Mayhap, one day, I can be easy.” He kissed her inner thighs. First one, then the other. The kisses were soft, almost reverential. “I’ve tried to restrain myself. Nae more than thrice a day, I said, like meals or whisky. Because I ken how it frightens ye, what’s between us. But if I gave ye a moment’s doubt about what ye are to me, mo chridhe, let me set ye straight.” Very gently, he eased her legs down. Then, he dispensed with his trousers and stripped away her shift. Finally, he settled on top of her, heavy and hard, holding some of his weight on his elbows but otherwise, not
giving her an inch.

  She moaned as heat pulsed everywhere his skin touched hers. The roughness of his chest hair against her breasts. The weight of his belly pressuring hers. The width of his hips spreading her legs. The silken stalk seeking to fill her. Every part of him was pure, arousing pleasure. As usual, the sensations overwhelmed her every lucid thought.

  “Aye, my bonnie Kate.” He kissed her brows and played with her curls. “Ye feel it. Then, ye fight it. But ye shouldnae be afraid. Because I’ll always need ye more than ye need me.”

  She shook her head. “No. Don’t you understand?” Her hips writhed to force him closer, bring him inside. “I love you. I love you so much, I would die for you. And the pleasure is too strong. It makes me think you could love me, too. But I know that’s not true. I know you don’t.”

  “But I do.”

  “No. You didn’t want to marry me.”

  He chuckled. “Aye, lass. I did.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  “How else could I have brought ye to my bed, ugly monster that I am?” He kissed her. Raised her knees up on either side of his hips. “How else could I plant my bairns in yer womb? One or two, remember? I wanted more. Ye looked at me with a spark that said, ‘Ye might be big, but I’ll handle ye just fine, Highlander.’” He grinned. “God, it felt like I’d been struck by lightnin’. I wanted ye enough to set fire to stone.”

  He slid his hard length along the seam of her folds, drawing forth long, aching, exquisite sensations that drove her mad.

  “More than that, I wanted ye safe from everythin’ that comes with bein’ my wife,” he whispered in her ear. A kiss. A caress of her nipple. Another stroke between her thighs. “So, I fought it, the way ye’re fightin’ it now. But ye might as well fight the tides. ’Tis too strong, mo chridhe.”

  “But I’ll always love you more,” she despaired, cradling his beloved face and tracing the scars along his brow and mouth. “You own my heart, Broderick. I’ll never have yours.”

  “My heart? Christ, woman, dinnae ye realize yet?”

  “Realize what?”

  With a single thrust, he forged inside, driving a pleasured gasp from her throat. “’Tis you, Kate Huxley MacPherson. I didnae have a heart before ye wandered into the dark and decided ye belonged here.” He began thrusting rhythmically, forcefully. “Do I love ye? Aye.” More thrusts. His hand tangled in her hair. He lowered his head and breathed deep. “I love ye. But that’s a weak fucking word for what I feel, Kate.”

  She heard him, but more than that, she felt him. The hard desperation of his thrusts. The need grinding in his muscles. The gravel-and-caverns rumble of his voice. She felt the truth in him trying desperately to plant itself in her.

  Suddenly her chest expanded like a sunrise, hot and bright and splendid.

  He loved her. And not just a little. He loved her more than he could express. The same way she loved him.

  Her pleasure magnified tenfold. She grasped his nape in both hands and brought his mouth to hers. Slid her tongue inside and demanded his in return.

  He grunted his surprise, his hips quickening. Hammering. Harder and harder.

  “Yes, my darling,” Kate purred against his mouth. “That’s it. Give me everything.”

  “Bluidy hell, lass.”

  She laughed, her joy spilling over and joining the glorious pleasure of her husband’s deep, pounding thrusts. “I love you, Broderick MacPherson.”

  “Aye,” he panted, his muscles straining. “I can feel it. Ye’ve stopped fighting. Ye must come soon. I cannae last. Yer laugh sets me afire, mo chridhe.”

  “Do you want to feel me come around you?”

  “Aye,” he growled.

  The sound sizzled through her veins, spiraling along with the pleasure in their joining. “Then, make me, husband.”

  His eye flared with a kind of madness. He rolled them both until he lay on his back and she sat astride him. His hands slid up to her breasts and thumbed her nipples. “Ye favor ridin’, aye? Take yer pleasure and give me mine.”

  Uncertain at first, she learned that if she braced her hands on his chest, she could sink down upon him slowly and deeply. The rich pressure inside, along with the angle of his penetration, had her gasping. Trembling. Poised on the edge of an abyss. Her body shocked her by welling up into an incandescent explosion. It took mere seconds in this new position for the pleasure to peak. But it didn’t stop quickly. Oh, no. It went on and on and on in a glittering cascade.

  “Ye light my sky, mo chridhe.”

  She beamed down at him, seeing now what she’d missed by thinking she was alone. His wonder. His love. His heart, shining back at her. She collapsed into his kiss. Moved her body to pleasure his. Caressed him. Kissed him. Showered him with every drop of affection she’d been holding back out of fear.

  As his peak drew near, she whispered what she wanted to try next.

  It made him roar her name. Gravel and caverns. A man claimed. And a reassurance that whatever else he might be, whoever else had come before, he belonged to Kate, now. Her forever man had found his way home.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Broderick watched as a brand-new Kate spun in the center of the morning room. He’d thought her enchanting before. Now, she glittered like a sea of diamonds.

  “What do you think, my darling?” she inquired innocently, smoothing her hands over the blue velvet of her gown as she grinned over her shoulder. “Too elegant for a day of shopping with one’s husband?”

  The gown nipped in at her waist, flowing across her hips and backside in a way that made him want to tear it from her body so he could devour her whole. “Bonnie,” he rasped, swallowing against a dry throat. “Ye dazzle me.”

  She laughed—crack, hitch, and tumble—then rushed to him and threw her arms around his neck. After a deep, long kiss, she sighed. “I could spend the next month making love to you, and it would still be insufficient. You are positively delicious.”

  His head spun. His chest heated. Expanded. The old Kate had intoxicated him. Freed from doubts, confident in his love, this new Kate held him in thrall. He hadn’t understood the difference it might make until he saw it for himself.

  She was happy. Beaming, shining, sensual. In the three days since he’d taken her to the club, she’d showered him with constant touching, frequent singing, and adventurous lovemaking that left him speechless.

  Two nights ago, she’d insisted on taking him in her mouth. The walls still resounded with his roars. Last night, she’d explored his body so thoroughly, he’d begged for mercy. She’d grinned up at him from between his thighs, her eyes glowing with sensual fire, and crooned, “Not until you give me everything, Broderick MacPherson.”

  His knees were still weak.

  He’d won her heart, but the need to please her in all ways remained fierce. Taking her shopping had been her idea, but it was a good one. Christmas was less than a fortnight away, and she’d mentioned wanting to find gifts for her family. After some maddening wifely persuasion, he’d agreed, provided they take precautions for her safety.

  Now, she kissed his chin, sighed, and pulled away to fetch her bonnet. The deep brim shadowed her face even before she lowered the blue lace veil.

  He hated covering her bonnie face, but it was better than her being spotted by Lockhart’s men.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded and slipped on her gloves, then took his hand in hers. For a moment, she paused, her eyes scarcely visible through the lace. She drew him down and traced a gentle finger between his brows. “Everything will be fine. Don’t worry so.”

  He cupped the small of her back and breathed in her lush, flowery scent. It reminded him of something he’d been meaning to give her. “Wait here a moment. I have a surprise for ye.”

  “Oh?” Her eyes lit up. She tossed back her veil and bounced on her toes. “I adore surprises.”

  “Aye. So I’ve been told.”

  He retrieved the small bottle fr
om one of his trunks and quickly returned to the morning room. “Here. Now, ye’ll have nae need to wear a scent purchased by another man.”

  She shot him a dubious look from beneath her lashes. “Broderick. Francis gave me that perfume. He is not another man. Precisely. I mean, he is a man, but you know very well he hasn’t those sorts of feelings toward me.”

  He crossed his arms and nodded to the bottle Mrs. MacBean had prepared for his “bride” before she’d even arrived in Scotland. “Open it.”

  “Really, darling.” She loosened the cap. “We had Francis and George to dinner only last … night.” Her nose flared as she caught a whiff of the scent inside. Her eyes closed and she breathed deeper. “Oh. Oh, my. It is … heavenly. Tuberose and jasmine, bergamot, clary sage and …” Another breath. “You.” Her eyes flared open and fastened upon him with a powerful lust. “It is us. Together.”

  “Aye. Are ye surprised?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “She did say ye’d love surprises.” He grinned and shook his head. “The auld crone willnae let me hear the end of this one.”

  “We’re going to be late for our shopping excursion, husband.”

  “How late, lass?”

  She drew him down for a kiss and whispered against his lips, “Very.”

  Two hours later, he entered their first stop on the shopping excursion, a music shop on Princes Street, and found his wife chatting animatedly with the proprietor. As planned, he’d sent her inside separately with four of his men posing as footmen. If she were seen with him on the street, Lockhart would have no trouble identifying her. Targeting her. That must not happen.

  Blast, he needed to find the blackguard. He and his brothers had already enacted their plan to choke off his funds. McKenzie had shuttered the Second Circle Club and fled Edinburgh. John Huxley’s contacts here in the city—along with a few well-placed allies of Broderick’s—had acted swiftly, seizing the club’s assets and sending its members into a panic. A dozen or so had been cooperative, providing evidence of Lockhart’s blackmail. Lockhart would be left with only the funds he had on hand, which would run out eventually.