Pirates of the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 1): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance

by Heather Walker

  He snatched her up so her feet dangled off the floor. He crushed her against his chest, kissing her, and her hair fell around his face. He needed her so bad, he couldn’t stand it. He carried her that way to his bedroom, where he sat down on the bed. She clung to him, coming to rest straddled over his lap. Her whole being sizzled with desire. She hadn’t waited three hundred years for this the way he had. For her, the moment of their parting in the boat happened less than a day ago.

  She broke away from his kiss to rest her head on his chest, and her hands went to work on him. She unbuttoned his shirt and burrowed inside against his skin. Her breath warmed him, and her delicate fingers traced every curve of his muscles. She touched his sides up to his armpits, and her mouth nibbled down his sternum to his nipples.

  He struggled to breath.

  She circled her tongue around his nipple. Wicked sharp lightning bolts of sensation stabbed through him. He couldn’t tell what that sensation was. It felt so good it hurt. The warm wetness washed over him with such majestic, crashing waves they threatened to unseat him from his moorings. Fiery explosions burst in front of his eyes. He blinked, and his head swam. He gasped.

  Could he really hope this pure ecstasy with his perfect mate could last even a few years, much less forever?

  Ree tore her mouth away, and when she looked up at his stricken face, he hardly recognized her. Untamed wildness smoldered in those eyes like never before. Her eyelids drifted half-closed, and her mouth gaped open with a silver trail of saliva stretched across her mouth. She ran her tongue over her lips.

  He swooned in an unstoppable tide of molten desire. She dropped on her knees in front of him and looked up at him drunk on passionate, ravenous hunger. She peeled off his shirt so he sat bare-chested before her.

  For the first time in the millennia that he’d spent on this Earth, he fell completely under the sway of a woman. No woman he’d ever met in all his long life had taken possession of him like this. He had only to look into her burning eyes to see the truth. She owned him. She possessed him as never before.

  She tugged his belt loose and unzipped his pants. As hard as he was before, that was nothing compared to how her powerful hands set him on fire now. She slid his pants off, her hands steering him where she wanted as she took all his clothes off. She guided him like a mother guides her child. She knew what was best for him, and she would see him cared for and brought to the best possible place.

  Once she got him undressed, she stood up straight and undressed herself before his eyes. Her magnetic gaze held him spellbound while she took off her jacket and unbuttoned her shirt. She made every move in such delirious slow motions he couldn’t stand it. He ached to touch her but wanted to wait for her to give him permission.

  She shrugged off her shirt and bra, then unfastened her pants and kicked them off. She stood before him in her underwear. The black Velcro straps held her prosthesis to her knee, the same way he remembered. She stood before him for one eternal moment, presenting her intoxicating form for him to see with a faint smile playing on her lips beneath those commanding sharp eyes.

  He reeled in the blast of realization thundering through him. She wanted him to see her. The woman who once shrank from looking at herself in the mirror now displayed herself before him without a trace of reserve. She was proud of herself and her body. She’d broken the barrier. Nothing would ever hold her back again.

  Once Ree gave him a good look at her in all her glory, she kicked off her panties and stripped off the straps holding her false leg on. She put it on the floor with her clothes and sank to her knees in front of Ned.

  She kissed his thigh, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to touch her. He laid his hand against her cheek, and she kissed that too. Without meaning to, he slipped into a Scottish accent. No other language made sense to speak to her like this.

  “Oh, lass,” he breathed. “Ye dinnae ken how I love ye.”

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll never leave you again.”

  He wanted to sob, but before he could do anything, she bent forward and her hot mouth closed around his swollen manhood. He tried to cry out, but his throat wouldn’t obey. He couldn’t breathe. He stared down at her head moving over him. His mouth hung open in a soundless howl of mortal ecstasy.

  His hand still rested against her neck. Such heavenly ripples of pleasure gushed up his body to his heart that he threatened to fly apart at the seams. He wanted this, and yet he wanted so much more. He wanted to stop her, and at the same time, he never wanted this to end.

  What had he ever done to deserve this cosmic bliss of gentle fulfillment? This went so far beyond his body filling her mouth and her inner chambers to find satisfaction from centuries of loneliness. No, this connection between them came from somewhere beyond anything he could possibly understand.

  He’d never believed much in religion. The culture he came from used religion to bend the masses to serve the immortals. Religion was a tool to gain a certain end. It belonged to the serving hordes. The immortal master race never had much use for it.

  Now, for the first time, his soul screamed in gratitude to whatever universal power that had brought Ree into his life. He never would have experienced this ecstasy of union if he hadn’t spent thousands upon thousands of years alone.

  All of a sudden, he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He fell back on his arms and let all that mind-blowing sweetness pour out of him, into her mouth. Far from drawing back, she worked faster than ever. She couldn’t possibly want this. He refused to believe it. How could he release himself like that and leave her unsatisfied?

  When the eruption passed and he slumped forward in defeat, she raised her head. The glistening moisture on her lips fed that volcanic power seething inside her. Tearful sobs bubbled out of him. He wanted so much to fulfill her, and he had let her down.

  She never gave him time to mourn the loss. She eased him back on the bed and climbed on top of him. He tried to touch her, but she forced his hands above his head. She gnawed up his stomach to his mouth.

  An instant later, he lost himself in her kiss and tasted the salty concoction on her lips and tongue. That was him, his essence, that he tasted.

  She consumed him, and her slippery flesh stroked along his rigid length. Before he knew what hit him, another catastrophic wave of blistering hunger took hold of him. He barely scratched the surface of her buried core of passion. She wouldn’t let him fall apart yet. He knew that.

  Her delicious breasts brushed his chest. He would give anything to touch her right now, to take one of those heavenly orbs in his mouth and worship it until she heaved in climactic release. She kept a firm hold on his wrists, leaning her weight on them until they hurt, but he refused to complain. He submitted to her in every way, and that alone excited him beyond anything he’d ever known.

  No woman he’d ever met let herself go the way she was now. She ground her delicate petals against his shaft until she lubricated him all over. She shoved her breast into his mouth, and he died of happiness. She yanked against it and whined in his ears. Her hips stroked harder on his package. All of a sudden, she let go of his wrist, took hold of his tool, and steered it into her puffy soft channel.

  He stared up at her in surprise. How could she, just like that? Once she got it inside, she sat down on it in slow, circular movements. She let it glide all the way in, and her eyelids drooped in primal satisfaction. She eased back to sit up on his hips and rocked her pelvis back and forth with him deep inside her.

  “God, lass!” he murmured. “Och, aye, dinnae stop.”

  Her eyes slid open, and she locked her gaze on him. “Don’t ever stop calling me that.”

  “Aye, lassie,” he replied. “Ye’ll always be me own lass. Och, dinnae stop. Ye feel so good.”

  She pumped her hips against him, and his shaft slotted in to its very limit. This was what he wanted all along, and now he had her. He could bow down and worship the goddess of his heart.

  Now that she’d let go
of his hands, he dared to touch her. He clasped her hips and copied the driving rhythm caressing his length to another overpowering crescendo. She sank her fingernails into his chest until the pain translated down into his groin. He flexed his abs to drive his lance deep into her. She threw back her head and closed her eyes to heaven. Her deep groans rose in pitch to quick, howling squeaks.

  He couldn’t stop devouring her with his eyes. He couldn’t see enough of her glowing all over in carnal pleasure. The closer she came to climax, the more creamy juice flowed out of her. He couldn’t thrust hard enough to satisfy her. She slammed down on top of him, deeper and deeper, until he thought he would split her in half.

  All of a sudden, she burst into a frenzy of movement. She pounded on top of him so hard he wanted to stop her. She kicked her hips forward in rapid fire grinding thrusts. His balls ached from the pressure when she suddenly stopped in mid-stroke and hovered there without moving.

  Then the orgasmic torrent crashed over her. She convulsed from her face down to her foot, no longer controlling her own movements as one catastrophic climax after another took her. Her inner muscles contracted along his shaft, and she screamed to the skies in blessed fulfilment.

  The intensity overcame the last shred of Ned’s resolve, and he tumbled into the abyss of rapture along with her. His soul spurted into her through his prick. He didn’t care. She could have him. If anything of him remained when she got through with him, he was all hers.

  Chapter 34

  Ree lay back on Ned’s bed with her head pillowed on his shoulder and flipped the pages of the book while he stroked her hair. “To be combined with the Elixir of Longevity found in the Compendium of the Order,” she read aloud. “So it’s not enough even to figure out what this recipe involves. We have to find the Elixir of Longevity as well. Where do you think this Compendium of the Order might be?”

  “I have no idea,” he replied. “We can ask Malcolm. I’m sure the Falisa know where it is.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a look around that bookshop myself,” she told him. “I’ll bet the place was a treasure trove of useful information.”

  “Now that we know the spell to send you back in time, maybe you could.”

  “Don’t even joke about that,” she exclaimed. “I’m never going back.”

  He met her gaze, staring at her with narrowed eyes. “You could go back and forth at will. You could go, take a look around the bookshop, and be home in time for dinner.”

  She flipped the page back the other way. “Brandywine tundra beetle. Mila’s an expert on zoological physiology. I wonder if she knows what beetle it’s referring to.”

  “How will you ask her without tipping her off to what you’re working on?” Ned asked.

  “I wouldn’t have to tell her what it’s for,” she replied, “but I’ll tell you one thing. We would stand a much better chance of making this formula if we took all four of them into our confidence.”

  He lay there in silence for a long time before he answered. “I don’t like taking mortals into my confidence. I won’t tell you not to. I just hope you take a good long look before you leap. You could destroy your whole working relationship with them if you told them.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know, and I wasn’t going to take them into my confidence. I was just thinking it sure would help. The five of us together have as much information as any eighteenth century bookshop—maybe more. The others are experts at chemical formulas. You have no reason to think it could ruin our working relationship. It could be the smartest thing we ever did.”

  “How exactly do you propose to tell them?” he asked. “Are you going to tell Ellen you went back in time to 1740 and got in a fight with a bunch of raving Highlanders and a secret society from ancient Phoenicia?”

  She laughed. “It does sound ridiculous when you put it that way. No, I wasn’t proposing telling them anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they start to suspect anyways. I’ve never kept a secret from them before, especially not Ellen. She’s got a nose for any kind of mystery. She already sees me acting funny. After that meeting with Malcolm, she’ll want to know what’s going on. I won’t be able to put her off for long.”

  “What will you do?”

  She turned over to look at him. “I could show her.”

  His eyes popped open. “Show her! Are you nuts? You mean take her back through and let her see it all for herself, and meet me there and all that? I can’t believe you would even suggest it.”

  “If I have to convince her, it’s the quickest, most certain way to show her it’s all real. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I’m sure you knew that when you sent me back.”

  He combed her hair out of her eyes. “Actually, my darling, it was you who convinced me to send you back. I don’t think I would ever have come up with an idea like that on my own. I didn’t even know the Falisa had that spell until you told me.”

  She flipped over and started turning the pages of the book again. “All those convolutions of time confuse me too much. I’m with you. That’s all that matters. Now tell me what you know about the wicknot root.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” he replied. “You would have to ask Hamish MacNeill. He knows.”

  “Four saukniweiss rounds of eldervane,” she read. “There must be an expert on eighteenth century medical terms in this town. I would need a translator to decipher this.”

  “I thought you said your friends possessed all the information of the whole bookshop.”

  “They do, but not the translation between these terms and modern terminology,” she replied. “Besides, these are Scottish terms, and we know about American plants.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “What was Malcolm telling me about one of Ben Harris’s contracts offering me a cover to work on the formula in the company labs?” she asked.

  He climbed out from under her and swung his legs onto the floor, then picked up his pants and rummaged in the pocket until he found his phone. He punched the screen and leaned back against the headboard.

  He navigated to a certain page and handed her the phone. She beheld a document on the screen and read a cover sheet with the City Council letterhead at the top.

  Dear Miss Sanchez,

  Please find attached the contract details for Southern Industrial Pharmaceutical and the first-round experimental clinical trials of their Prometheus formulation. Southern Industrial has applied for a grant with the City Council to fund this project in partnership with UCSF Medical School. UCSF will screen and select the subjects for the trial phase.

  In the meantime, the City Council contract assigned to Primary Industries will conduct a series of third-party safety tests in your laboratory. The trial will not go ahead until you complete these tests to the City’s satisfaction. The City will also assign you an independent supervisor to oversee the tests and complete an unbiased report on your procedures and your progress.

  I trust all this meets with your approval. Let me know when you approve the project or if any of the attached details require changes to meet your policies and procedures.

  Yours faithfully,

  Ben Harris

  Ree held up the phone. “This is addressed to Mila, so what are you doing with it on your phone when we haven’t seen this ourselves?”

  “Ben hasn’t sent it yet,” Ned replied. “He sent it to me for approval before he sent it out. This Prometheus formulation is the front project for the Cipher’s Kiss. It gives you and anybody else you choose the funds and the cover story to work on the formula without raising suspicion.”

  She handed back the phone. “When will we get it?”

  “Ben has already broached the subject informally with Mila. She’ll bring it up at your next board meeting. You’ll sign off on it, and then you and she and anybody else can get to work. You can even ask her about the beetle if you like. All the information we have will go into the kitty.”

  “We aren�
�t supposed to make the formula,” she pointed out. “We’re supposed to test something that’s already made.”

  “Maybe that’s something you’ll have to take her into confidence about.”

  “I’ll have to, since she’ll oversee the testing process,” Ree remarked. “Who’s the supervisor?”

  “Louis Kirk,” he replied. “He’s a plant, and Ben has also planted him at Allied Chemical overseeing one of their front projects for the formula too.”

  Ree jerked around to stare at him. “Are you serious?”

  “What’s so surprising about that?” he asked. “Do you think we would leave a project this big to chance? When you have thousands of years at your disposal, you have time to maneuver your people where you want them to gain the greatest strategic advantage.”

  She sank into his arms. “I guess so. I’m just not used to thinking like that.”

  “When you left Scotland, we knew we could never complete the formula until you were born, at the earliest. That gave us all the time we needed to position our men in key areas to be ready for you when you came back.”

  She looked up to gaze at him. “I still find it all so hard to believe.”

  “Not half so hard as I find it.” He cupped her chin to kiss her.

  Ree let the book fall on the bed next to her. As unbelievable as the situation was, this kiss, these lips, these arms wrapping her with his warmth—these were all startlingly real. Her love for him would never fade. It would never die, just like her body would keep living after she took this formula. When she looked into his eyes, she saw it all to the ends of eternity.

  The Angui would need other women to make immortal too. Why not her friends? Why shouldn’t she confide in them, on the outside chance they would join the Angui in their struggle along with her? She wouldn’t have to watch them die. She wouldn’t have to watch an unbridgeable chasm open between herself and the people she loved the most.