His mouth devoured hers once more as he carried her back to the bed, lowering them both slowly downward. There was an urgency in his touch as his hands roamed over her naked body, caressing, teasing. Enflaming. Through her lashes, she continued to watch him. His eyes were closed, his face taut. More devastating than ever. She stroked his smooth, broad shoulders, her hands pale against his dark skin. His hand covered her breast again to emphasize the difference. The feminine. The masculine. Then slipped down over her belly to disappear between her legs.
Her eyes fluttered closed as his fingers found her wet core. Tris growled with animalistic pleasure as he plunged his finger into her body. His finger curled within her and she arched against his hand. Pleasure streaked through her until she was soaring. Seeking what only he could give her. The pressure escalated, building to a hedonistic pleasure/pain.
She couldn’t take it. It was all so much. Too much. This wild emotion caged within her threatened to consume her. Love. Desire. Yearning.
His lips closed over a nipple and sucked hard. Brontë fisted her fingers in his hair with a helpless whimper, urging him on with wordless encouragement.
“By God, but I want ye, my love.”
TRIS COULDN’T DENY his thickly worded confession any more than he could the love that bound them. She wrapped her legs around him and drew him snug against her lithe body. The response elated him. He longed to take her, lose himself in her. Wanted her breasts filling his palms for the rest of his life, wanted her body beneath his for eternity. He wanted to lose himself in her. Forget everything but her. And pray tomorrow never came.
He lifted himself over her, their hearts pounding in sensual, urgent rhythm. A groan vibrated through his body as he came inside of her. One of her own expelled in tune with his, singing the same passionate tune. It shook him then, as it always did. He trembled with the force of it, his arms quivered under his weight.
Beneath him, Brontë gasped and a tender smile lifted his lips and his heart. “Breathe, my love. We’re only getting started.”
She cried out as he began to move within her. Her cries became moans until once again she was gasping for air. Pure, elegant rapture held Tris in its grasp. He ran a rough hand over the silky flesh of her bottom and tilted her against him, lifting her leg higher as he plunged deeper and deeper. Each stroke wrenched more emotion from his heart, wringing him dry. Paradise beckoned but he’d be damned if he went there alone.
He kissed her neck, licked and nipped at the tender skin there. He whispered words of worship and encouragement against her damp flesh, urging her to come with him.
“Tris!”
Her body pulsed around his member as he drove forcefully into her one last time. Time suspended as she hugged him desperately against her. She contracted around him, and his cry of release echoed hers. They soared together into the bliss of oblivion. Spent, he collapsed on top of her.
“I love ye, lass.” To say it aloud was a pleasure almost as profound as the rapacious release that had just stripped him bare.
How long he lay there, Tris wasn’t certain. Or how long he might have if Brontë’s quavering breath hadn’t drawn him back. Levering himself onto his elbows, he tried to look down at her. Her limbs remained tightly bound around him, her face buried against his neck. Smoothing her tangled hair back from her face, he urged her to look at him.
“My love, are ye weeping?” He swept the pad of his thumb across her soft cheek catching the moisture, then followed the gesture with a brush of his lips. “What is it?”
Her chest lifted against his as she drew in another shaky breath and released it with a shuddering sob that shook him. “I can’t bear to lose you. I just can’t.”
“Och, my love.” Anguish pulled at his heart. He kissed her forehead, her brow; memorizing the silky, tingling feel of her against his lips. The taste of her. The smell. “I will spend each day longing for nothing more than to hold yer hand once more and for all the years of my life.”
“Tris...” Her voice cracked as did his heart.
“Ye will take my heart wi’ ye when ye go.” The truth merely served to swell the ache in his chest. “Ye will always be mine.”
“And you are mine. Forever,” she whispered against his cheek. “I love you, Tris.”
His heart sang like a tune with the sweet lyrics of her words. “Shush now.” He kissed her, tracing his tongue along her lips. “Let us have this night. The morn is soon enough to dwell on the rest.”
Running a hand along her thigh and up to her lush bottom, he began to move within her again. Her sweet gasp caressed him, and he grinned down at her. “Ye dinnae think I was done wi’ ye, did ye?”
He never would be. Lip to lip. Tongue against tongue. His body gliding over hers. Her honeyed heat holding him. His heart shaken by the force of their connection.
It left him panting, weak. All powerful. He’d never known anything like it. Would never get used to it. It would tear out his soul to lose it forever.
They’d find a way around it. He would fight for what was his. What was meant to be his.
“Forever, my love,” he swore. “Let’s get started on it, shall we?”
Chapter 36
BRONTË AWOKE IN THE pre-dawn light to the gentle stroke of Tris’s hand as she snuggled against him. Down her shoulder, to her waist. Up over her hip and down her thigh, then back up again. While sensual, the caress wasn’t sexual. Simply his enjoyment of the contact, an appreciation of her curves.
His lips brushed the nape of her neck, a sensuous tickle. With a contented sigh, she slipped off to sleep again.
When she woke again, he was asleep next to her. Ordinarily he was the early riser. For once she was the one fully aware and not at all groggy. Then again, he’d had a long and trying day. Seeing what he had and absorbing it all had to have taken something out of him.
Thinking to let him sleep, she slipped out of bed, pulled on a sweatshirt and boxer shorts and padded down the stairs. Her grandmother’s room was still quiet, unusual as well. Starting a pot of coffee, she dug her favorite caramel macchiato creamer out of the fridge and considered the contents, wondering what to feed her hungry man for breakfast before...
Before she took him home.
Not a problem to entertain before caffeine.
Filling her cup and doctoring it appropriately, she carried it to the living room. The sun was bright this morning, setting the rich colors of Granny’s garden alive. The sight beckoned her. Opening the door, she paused and went to the front hall to fetch her purse, then took it outside with her. Granny had a rickety wicker patio set so splintered it was a wonder they hadn’t disintegrated to sawdust. Brontë had added a pair of padded loungers when she’d first moved here. She sat in one and set her coffee cup on the small table next to it. Pulling Hazel’s diary out of her purse, she ran her hand over the cover with a silent prayer in her heart.
Opening it, she latched onto random tidbits here and there. The ramifications of her interference in the past had never been profound. Now Brontë could feel the consequences of her presence begin to sink in. She found the source in Hazel’s new sense of positivity for the future. An attachment to her extended family that kept her from the isolation of past renditions. Though by her generation, there were few personal links to the MacKintoshes, Brontë knew of them with fondness. It all derived from Hazel’s extended years of relationships with the clan.
In the diary, she found more details. Births outweighed deaths in the prolific family. Hannah married after a few years, though no one had been pleased by her choice. A scoundrel after her fortune by all accounts but she’d been adamant that she would see it done. One page lamented Laurie’s enduring bachelorhood. The still unnamed keeper of his heart having wed another leaving him bereft.
Finding the page she’d marked prior to her departure yesterday, she read on from there, skipping the news about her and Tris’s mysterious disappearance. All that would be erased the instant she took Tris back home. The entries regarding Ph
ineas remained the same. The three children grew with leaps and bounds — there was no mention of another baby in the next two years bringing their run of a child a year to an end.
Dorian wrote often from his post on the western front. Unharmed, she was thankful to hear. He’d been promoted to colonel and moved on to the command headquarters. Off the battlefield, for the time being. Other family members joined the fighting as war gripped the country and the years passed. Her brow tightened as did her grip on the book as she read the names of those who volunteered. His three young cousins, all barely in their twenties. Two of Hannah’s brothers, the eldest held back as an heir to a title without a child of his own, as was Laurie and his stepbrother, the future Earl of Glenrothes. In America, Hazel’s brother Ellis had joined the war effort.
Then the conscription began in Britain in 1916, as Brontë had known it would. One by one, all the men were drafted into service. Right down to Hazel’s young brother Mal, only nineteen years old when the draft began in the US in 1917. Unable to watch them go and do nothing, Henry had taken a commission into the King’s Army and...
She slammed the book shut.
Her wish hadn’t been for Henry to meet with some new tragedy in the years after Wyndom’s attack. She didn’t want any further harm to come to him, however she’d selfishly considered the idea that if the years held further trials, she could convince Donell to let her continue on in her role as his champion.
Even if he did, how was she to conquer a challenge like this? As Granny had pointed out regarding her father’s death on D-Day in World War II, changing the mind of a man set on defending his country was an impossible task.
“Brontë?”
Tris called for her from inside. Retrieving her now cold coffee, she went back in.
He was dressed, all tucked in and proper. Tackling his growing beard hadn’t been possible here so he was deliciously scruffy looking. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, my love.” He kissed her, long and sweet until she melted against him with a sigh. The urge to convince him to stay with her washed over her again, yet as quick as a tide receded. What would she do if he went back only to be killed in the war effort? How could she keep him from it? Run away to Siberia to avoid conscription?
He lifted his head. “Is that coffee?”
She nodded and led him to the kitchen, shaking her head as he patted her ass along the way. Pouring him a cup, she made herself another as well and dosed it up with more of the sweetened creamer than normal. She needed it.
“What are you reading?” he asked once they were seated at the table.
“Hazel’s diary.” She couldn’t refrain from jumping to the dark moment of the plot. “Henry’s going to sign up for the war.”
Not that the implication of his voluntary enlistment needed to be said, she was surprised when Tris nodded. “We had been discussing it since Dorian made the decision to join. Henry was hesitant given his lack of an heir.”
New baby and problem solved.
Brontë frowned into her cup. “You have to stop him. Convince him not to do it.”
The corner of his mouth tipped up in a sad smile. “How am I to do that when I had every intention of joining the effort as well?”
“What?” Surely, she hadn’t heard him right. The look he shot said she had. “This is serious, Tris. This is the war to end all wars. The great war. It went on for years. Millions of people lose their lives. Almost all of your cousins are drafted into it.”
“I’d wager the rest volunteered.”
She shook her head. Not, did they live? Did they die? “Can you be serious a minute?”
Tris took a long drink of his coffee, his expression hooded. “Do we win?”
Her hands flew into the air in exasperation. “That is not the point.”
“We do then.” He looked pleased by the prospect. “Even if I weren’t casting about me for purpose, the needs of my country would have called to me. I dinnae ken what things are like in this time, but there are things worth fighting for, lass. And dying for. King. Country...You.” Tris caught her hand and pulled her around the table onto his lap. “A Scot doesn’t give up without a fight and I’ve determined I won’t either.”
She reached out for the book. “But the diary...”
“Bugger the bloody diary, lass!” He took it from her and threw it aside. “I say we burn the bloody thing rather than let it rule our lives. Face the days ahead without continually fretting over what’s to come. The future will be what we make it.”
“We let the people we love die then?”
“Hell, no!” He laughed and squeezed her tight. “I didn’t say we would give up the fight, did I? We’ll face each day, right the wrongs when needed. We’re going to keep your device and I’m going to keep you as well.”
“Aye, right. Is that what ye’re thinking now?”
THEY BOTH JUMPED IN surprise at the old man in the doorway, Tris so badly he nearly dumped her off his lap. “What the feck?” Tris swore. He’d picked that one up from her over the past several weeks. He gaped in shock then frowned in confusion. “Auld Donell?”
Brontë stared between them in surprise. “You know him?”
“He owns the house between Henry and I on Moray,” he told her, setting her back on her feet and rising to stand at her side. “Though I haven’t seen him about in years.”
“I’ve been busy, lad.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You have no idea.”
Donell looked at her, his pale blue eyes assessing. “Ye dinnae do precisely what I meant for ye to, lass.”
“I kept Henry safe and I want to continue doing so,” she said defiantly. “Phineas, too. They didn’t threaten Hazel’s life, but that doesn’t mean either one of them is safe.”
“Phineas?” Tris echoed. “What are ye talking about?”
“Nay,” Donell answered her. “Their vision of the future is narrow. It has nae occurred to them yet.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I want to fight it. Fight that evil.”
Donell crossed his arms as well and mirrored her frown. “One thing I’ve learned through all my trials is that there is no fighting evil. Nae defeating it with defense and might. I’ve tried.”
That took some of her wind. Her arms fell to her sides and she unconsciously reached for Tris’s hand. “We’re to let it run us down then?
“Nay, lass,” he said, going to the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee. “I said there’s nae defeating evil. I’ve tried it before. Years of maneuvering and manipulation to bring about the one who would defeat the tyranny that had taken over the world. What I dinnae see then is that a dictator who stokes fear in his followers cannae be defeated. He feeds off the fear of his people, validates their hatred, excuses their discrimination, nurtures all of it until it grows beyond control.”
“What do ye do then?” Tris asked. “Take him out before it happens?”
“Kill him, ye’ve made a martyr of him,” Donell told them, sipping his coffee. “Kill him and ye’ve given his followers a cause to raise their banner to and perpetuate his evil for all time. Another will rise in his place. Where there is a breeding ground of discord there will always be someone ready to lead it. Though my initial solution seemed to work for a while, my efforts failed in the end because I dinnae ken that simple truth. Do ye hae any of those lemon cakes left?”
Bemused by the abrupt change of subject, she went to the pantry and pulled out the pastries. Whatever hopes she’d had for a hearty breakfast were gone with his news. “What can we do?”
Donell selected one of the cakes and munched on it as if this were an everyday conversation. “One of yer fellow Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said something that has resonated wi’ me of late. He said, ‘Darkness cannae drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannae drive out hate; only love can do that.’” He paused with a solemn nod. “What one cannae defeat, one maun overcome. Raise up a voice to counter him. A movement of opposite ideals.
Fight darkness wi’ light. Hatred wi’ love. Give the people someone else to multiply their hopes instead of their fears. What ye’ve accomplished for me is only the beginning.”
Brontë traded a puzzled look with Tris. “What?”
“I’ve got plans. Grand plans,” the older man went on. “As wi’ any great offensive, there is a defensive counterstrike. A movement by those who would see progress toward a goal undone. Ye’ve seen it, and been a victor in one wee battle in the war to come. The man ye kent as Wyndom willnae be the last.” He looked at Tris with a wink. “Ye always were a canny one, lad. Spirited, too. I kent ye’d be the one to step up. Dinnae ye say as much a moment ago?”
“I said there are things worth fighting for.”
“Aye.” Donell nodded. “And so there is.”
“Aye, right, there is. However, ye’ve been remarkably circuitous and lacking in detail in explanation of exactly what it is yer fighting for,” Tris pointed out.
“I’m fighting to save the world, lad. The future of us all.” Donell’s tone indicated that should have been abundantly obvious.
Tris looked down at the old man he towered over with a renewed determination akin to that she’d seen on his face before Donell’s surprising appearance. “Ye’ll no’ be taking back yer device from Brontë. She’s going to keep it...we are going to keep it for a cause that is just and right as yer own.”
Donell’s grin was so broad it deepened the wrinkles on his face into folds. “Of course, ye are. Isnae that what I’ve been saying all along? Yer cause goes hand in hand wi’ my own. Ye’re just the sort of man I want to assist me. With a proper ally at yer side, that is, aye?” He turned to her with a wink. “Ye wanted to be a part of a noble cause, aye? Bring a new meaning to be being a warrior for social justice.”
She gaped at him. “You mean...?”
“Aye, I’d no’ send ye off to find yer heart only to rip it away from ye. I’m nae monster.” He turned to Tris. “I ken ye’ve always had a mind to make a difference in this world. This is yer chance. One ye can take on together.”
A Scot to Remember Page 32