“Now comes the good part, Catriona.” He stepped closer to the edge of the bed’s high mattress. “I’m going to touch your breasts again.”
And he did, letting his fingertips glide across her bared skin, skimming the upper swells, then tracing ever-smaller circles round and round until he reached her nipples. He looked down at her as he rubbed and toyed with her nipples, each touch sending jolts of intense pleasure streaking straight to the center of her.
“O-o-oh, don’t stop.” She squirmed on the bed coverings, wanting more, but not knowing what. “Please, don’t stop, James. Please.”
“So you like this?” He leaned down to kiss her, slow and leisurely this time. He slid one hand into her hair to grip the back of her head so that he could deepen their kiss, plumping and kneading her breasts with his other hand. “Open your mouth, lass,” he breathed the words against her lips, then rewarded her with a bold sweep of his tongue, deep inside her mouth, when she did as he bade her. Again and again, he let his tongue twirl and tangle with hers, slowly, languorously, as they shared breath and sighs.
When he broke away, standing again, she felt bereft.
“Dear saints, don’t stop kissing me.” She reached for him, but he stepped back, just beyond her grasp. “It felt so good. You’re right—all of it feels better than—”
“It feels good because I…” He shut his eyes, breathing deep. “It’s good, lass,” he began again, “because we’re no’ just in the water now. We’ve been swept into the ice floes.” He looked at her again and his face was fierce, almost savage. “I’ve wanted you, wanted this, for years. You’re mine now, feuds be damned. And, by God, I want to pleasure you from now into eternity.”
“And you are.” Catriona was sure she couldn’t take much more pleasuring. Her entire body was already aflame, quivering with the most wondrous sensations. Then James reached down to slide his hand along the side of her hip and she nearly shot off the bed.
He grinned, looking down at her. “That’s my sweet lass, so responsive…”
She bit her lip, staring back up at him. Waves of deeper, more intense tingling began washing through her, each new crest seeming to pool low in her belly, near to her thighs. When she drew up her knees and started to rock her hips, his smile turned devilish.
“Open your knees for me, Catriona.” He touched each knee lightly, gently urging them apart. “I want to look at you. And I can only do that if you let me. Will you? Can you open your legs wider? Just a bit more, so I can see all of you?”
“Oh, God!” Catriona writhed on the bed, his words making the pleasure almost so good it hurt. “I—I can’t stand it, James, I can’t…”
“You can, and beautifully.” Locking his gaze on hers, he let his fingers glide up her inner thigh. “Just feel, lass, feel me touching you now.”
And he did touch her then, teasing his fingertips oh-so-lightly across the soft curls of her femininity. Then—she cried out—tracing one finger right along the very center of her.
“Agggh!” She lifted her hips off the bed, sure she would burst apart any moment. “Oh, James, please…”
“I will please you, aye.” Now he did stretch out beside her, rolling her gently onto her back but keeping her knees spread wide. “This is what you need.” He let his fingers play over her, teasing and tantalizing. Then he touched a circling finger to a spot that sent bolts of intense pleasure spiraling everywhere.
She reached for him, but he’d moved down on the bed. Raising his head to look up at her, he licked the very place he’d been rubbing so exquisitely. He held her gaze and began flicking his tongue back and forth over that one little spot until she couldn’t stand it anymore. The fiercest sensations yet crashed over her, sweeping her away in a maelstrom of delight that dimmed everything around her except James and the delicious intimacy.
“That’s enough.” His voice was harsh as he pulled away from her. “I’ll no’ be—”
“You will, too.” Catriona reached for him, curling her fingers firmly around his still-hard need. Her own need still felt tender and swollen, the hot melting inside her banishing caution.
“I’ve wanted you longer than you know”—she guided him to her, thrusting her hips until he swore and began to push inside her—“and now I’m of a mind to show you how much.”
And she did, seeking his lips, then sighing contentedly when he slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her fiercely. He reached down between them, stroking and rubbing her as he finally thrust deep.
“Odin’s balls!” He stopped at once, dragging his mouth from hers, his entire body tensing above her.
“What?” Catriona froze, mortification sweeping her. “Am I… is it, not good?”
“No’ good?” He stared down at her, his eyes dark with passion, his face set in tight, rigid lines. “Sweet lass, were it any better, you’d unman me.”
Catriona relaxed, relief washing through her. She clung to his shoulders, shifting her hips against the stinging tightness inside her. But the pain wasn’t as great as she’d heard, and the intimacy of it—feeling James’s hardness so thick and hot inside her—sent rippling waves of pleasurable heat spreading through her.
“Don’t stop now.” She gripped him harder, digging her fingers into his shoulders. When he still didn’t move, she lifted her hips, rocking against him until he swore again and began thrusting slowly in and out of her.
“Sweet Christ!” He grabbed her chin with one hand, cupping her face and kissing her roughly. He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth, matching the hot rhythm of his strokes. Faster and faster, each plunge of his body into hers rushed her closer to the hot, whirling pleasure that threatened to darken the world around them.
She started to slide, shattering as she slipped into the darkness. From somewhere distant, she heard him groan and call her name. “Catriona,” he’d cried, then more fervently, “his love,” in Gaelic.
At least, she thought that’s what he’d said.
Already, he’d pulled away from her. But just as he rolled onto his back and she would’ve snuggled against him, someone else called out for her.
“Catriona!” Alasdair’s worried voice came from afar, muffled by the heavy oaken door.
“I know I saw her come this way.” It was a female’s voice this time—Isobel’s—and drifting just past the bedchamber. “Perhaps she’s gone to one of the other guest chambers and not the one I readied for her?”
“Could be.” Alasdair was all reason, as always. “Aye, that’ll be it. Where did you say…”
The voices faded, Alasdair’s and Isobel’s footsteps dimming as they moved down the corridor.
James had moved, too.
And he’d done so with such speed that Catriona hadn’t even seen him leap from the bed. But he had, obviously, for he was dashing about the room, snatching up her clothes and throwing them onto the bed as quickly as he plucked the garments off the rush-strewn floor.
Catriona sat up, not liking the look on his face. “What are you doing?”
He glanced at her, the horror in his eyes chilling her. “I’m saving your good name, is what I’m about!”
She blinked. “My name?”
She’d believed he’d be offering her his.
After this, what they’d done together. She’d even been secretly practicing the sound of Catriona Cameron. She’d run it through her mind again and again on the long ride from Blackshore.
Now…
“Make haste, lass.” James had her shoes now, waving them at her. “There’s a secret passage behind thon tapestry.” He gestured with her slipper. “It leads down to the corridor you already know but opens into the castle guest chambers on the way.
“Isobel prepared one for you.” He dropped to his knees before her, grabbing one of her feet and shoving it into her shoe. “It’s the third door you’ll pass. I’ll take you there now and no one will be the wiser. But we must—”
“Hurry, I know.” Catriona yanked her other shoe from his hand and crammed her foo
t inside. “But I’ll find the room on my own, thank you. And”—she snatched her gown from the bed, pulling it on as she marched for the door—“I’ll go the same way I came.
“I, you see, am not shamed by what we’ve done.” Grabbing the drawbar, she yanked it free. “I wanted to be on those ice floes with you. And now…”
“Catriona!” James strode forward, reaching for her. “You dinnae understand. I only want to—”
“Have your pleasure”—Catriona whipped open the door, sweeping out and slamming it hard—“and now you have. But you won’t again.
“Not ever.” She fastened her bodice laces as she hurried down the corridor, blotting her ears to the angry curses coming from behind James’s closed door.
He’d spoken of ice floes.
If he dared glance at her again, she’d teach him about blizzards.
Chapter Eleven
Early the next day, James stood near Castle Haven’s stables, wondering why the kinsmen he’d encountered since rising hadn’t crossed themselves when he’d strode past them on his way to the bailey. There was surely a mad glint in his eye. His shirt and plaid were rumpled and his hair snarled into a tangled mess. After a night spent tossing, turning, and pacing his bedchamber, his temper had been too frayed to bother with his usual careful ablutions.
This morn—for the first time in all his days—he’d appeared before his men looking like a bog monster who’d just crawled up from a peat mire.
He also felt like one.
How could he not, after what he’d done?
But other than morning greetings, no one paid him any particular heed. The bailey bustled as always. Even the breaking of his fast had proved no different than any other. Catriona had passed the meal in suspiciously good spirits. Over bannocks and watered-down wine, she’d accepted Hugh’s moony-eyed praise with smiles and easy banter.
She also looked more enchanting than any female should at such an unholy hour. And—he couldn’t help but notice—she’d accoutered herself as if preparing for battle. James knew whose head she wanted on a pike.
And if she hoped to tempt him, she’d succeeded.
She’d plaited her hair into two shining braids that hung to her waist, even twining silk ribbons into the strands. Her rich green gown fit snugly to the hips and dipped low in the bodice, revealing the creamy swells of her breasts. James couldn’t swear to it, but he was fairly sure that the crests of her nipples peeked above the gown’s edge.
Fierce need had gripped him when he noticed. His mind had leapt from her pert rosy nipples to the swollen bud nestled beneath her soft and fragrant feminine curls. At once, he’d recalled the sleek flesh of her inner thighs, remembering how she’d parted her legs so he could stroke her there. And all that had happened afterward.
Then he’d sat at his own high table, making converse, while his vitals swelled and tightened so uncomfortably that he’d had to stifle a groan.
And if that wasn’t enough to set him on his ear, her gillyflower perfume wafted around her like a delicately scented cloud, bewitching every masculine nose within ten paces and making him wonder if she’d soaked the gown in scent after she’d stormed from his bedchamber.
Worse, she’d granted him no more notice than a politely muttered “I bid you good morn.”
She’d treated him like air.
Alasdair proved congenial as ever, not tossing a single narrow-eyed look his way.
And therein lay his problem.
The reason he’d spent a sleepless night. And why he now drew a tight breath and clenched his fists. His men and everyone else filling the bailey must’ve lost their sight. If they hadn’t, they’d see a different man when they looked at him this morn.
He’d breached every code of honor he lived by.
Not just offending a guest beneath his roof, but insulting a woman. A lady. And one who was the well-esteemed sister of a feuding clan chieftain. Worse, he’d forced his kisses on her, however willfully she’d provoked them.
He’d stolen her innocence.
And wedding her to make it right would only unleash a worse calamity on her. She’d already seen the Doom of the Camerons. The specter’s visitation could only mean Catriona was marked for tragedy. If—his gut seized unpleasantly—he forced nuptials on her.
He’d surely lost his senses.
Tipping back his head, he glowered at the low gray sky. Praise God the day was dark and overcast. The angry clouds suited his mood. As did the smell of cold, damp stone and the more pungent aroma of the nearby horses, standing patiently as they waited to be mounted.
Now wasn’t the hour for brightness and light, the scent of spring meadows.
Not when he’d sinned so grievously he should be sprouting horns and a tail. And ravishing Catriona was only the beginning of his perfidy. The sad truth was, given the chance, he’d not change his behavior.
The only thing he regretted was his unexpected reaction to tumbling her.
He’d found heaven in the sinuous warmth of her sweet, silken curves. And he could still feel the magnificent rounds of her breasts crushed to his chest, her nipples taut and thrusting against him. His fingers itched to again squeeze her deliciously plump bottom. And he knew he’d never lose the urge to run his hands over her naked flesh. Sinking into her, moving in and out of her tight, molten depths, had shook him with a force of passion more fierce than any he’d ever known.
“Damnation.” He clamped his mouth in a hard, tight line and closed his eyes, willing the torrid thoughts to vanish from his mind.
But rather than fading, another wickedly vivid image of her parted thighs flashed before him. And this time when he recalled her triangle of glossy red curls, he could almost smell the rich tang of her womanhood, taste her muskiness on the back of his tongue…
Your opinion of yourself is grand.
Her taunt rang in his ears, shattering the rousing vision and minding him how much she’d erred.
He didn’t see himself as grand. Not since yestere’en, anyway.
Now he wasn’t wont to consider what he thought of himself. He certainly didn’t wish to ponder how low he’d fallen. Or that she’d claimed to want him. He suspected she believed herself in love with him. He’d seen the starry look in her eyes. If so, she was on the path to sorrow. That rode him harder than all else. Feeling wretched, he left his post by the stables and paced to the castle well and back. If anyone noticed his agitation, so be it. His mood was foul for a reason.
It wasn’t every day one of the proudest, most revered chieftains in the Highlands turned into a despicable, lust-crazed beast.
Yet he’d done the inconceivable.
He’d become the devil raging. A blackguard who’d hoisted the skirts of a highborn virgin, taking his pleasure and aching for her still. The lascivious, heated images were branded on him, whirling across his mind. Furious, he turned to pace again and—
He found himself facing her brother.
“MacDonald.” James jerked a nod, guilt shafting through him. A strange buzzing roared in his ears as the bailey turned unnaturally quiet, as if the world narrowed to just him and Alasdair.
An annoyingly perceptive bugger whose eye he could scarce meet.
James swallowed hard, hoping his gulp wasn’t audible.
Alasdair glanced at the hills beyond the curtain walls and then took a deep, lung-filling breath, surely enjoying the chill, pine-scented air.
“A fine day, it is.” He returned James’s nod amiably. His face bore no sign that he knew of James’s disastrous encounter with his sister.
Even so, James could feel his face reddening.
The tops of his ears burned like fire.
It was a worse kind of shame than he’d felt when, as a young laddie, his father had caught him peering intently betwixt the wide-spread legs of a bonnie kitchen wench, his busy fingers exploring her mysteries.
Curiosity about women had sent him to the kitchens that day.
He cared about Catriona. A horrible voice deep ins
ide him raged that he loved her.
Alasdair stood looking about, unaware of his turmoil.
James cleared his throat. “I trust your quarters were comfortable? My sister, Lady Isobel, gave you our finest rooms. They would have been commandeered by Sir Walter and his worthies, but”—James threw a glance at the tower, a great hulk of wet, glistening stone on the other side of the bailey—“Isobel told them the last visitors to sleep there were lice-ridden mendicants.
“She swore the poor friars scratched all night.” James hooked his thumbs beneath his sword belt, remembering. “The Lowlanders believed her when she claimed the chambers have been infested ever since, wholly uninhabitable.”
“Hah—God save us! Your sister is resourceful.” Alasdair grinned, looking for a moment as if he were a friend and not a foe.
A good friend, perhaps even one a man would want at his back in battle.
On the thought, James felt another twinge of guilt, wishing he hadn’t mentioned sisters. But Alasdair hadn’t blinked, his expression still showing no signs of suspicion.
“You’ve borne our visit well.” Alasdair reached out and clasped James’s arm, gripping tight. “My men and I thank you.” He looked to where his escort already sat their mounts, a dozen sturdy Highland garrons. “I believe my sister has no complaints, either.
“Indeed”—he glanced toward the tower, clearly waiting for her to appear—“she’s vowed to show you an even more lavish welcome if e’er you return to Blackshore. As I shall, as well, you can be sure.”
Before James could frame an answer, a stir across the courtyard drew their attention. Catriona had just stepped through the hall’s massive oaken door and was crossing the cobbles, head high and hips swaying. She cut a swath through the bustle, making for the little cluster of mounted MacDonald guardsmen.
James’s heart began to pound.
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