"She's not for you," Aidan growled, and the bearded man's smile fell away. He was still stammering an apology when Aidan closed Margaret's wrist in his hand.
"I need to talk to you."
"I was dancing," she said pointedly.
He scowled at her.
"Do not be stubborn with me right now, Margaret, I am in in no mood for it."
Margaret was becoming acutely aware of the eyes that were turning toward them. In a moment, it would be a scene, and she couldn't stand that. For a little while, she had been like everyone else, something she had never had before, and she was loath to lose it.
"All right," she said, turning to Aidan. "Let's go."
As he led her away from the torchlight of the dancing area, she wondered all over again what in the world she could have done now. How many more ways could she and Aidan hurt each other, and would they ever get tired enough of it to simply stop?
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chapter 35
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Aidan's rage had chilled into something cooler by the time he finally found Margaret. It had not helped in the least to find her in the arms of some shepherd, but by the time he had finally brought her away from the rest of his clan, he thought he would be able to speak to her without exploding, without saying the first hurtful thing he could come up with.
No. I need to be calm, because I need answers. That is what I need, and that is what I am due.
He took her to a point above the festivities, up the steep hill that led to the slopes of the mountain. There were stones the size of cottages that close to the cliffs, and he pulled her behind one. It was the most privacy they could expect without actually returning to the castle.
Even with his heart twisted up like a wet rag, something in Aidan responded to Margaret's beauty in the moonlight. There was still a part of him, even after everything that had happened, a part of him still wanted to lean in and kiss her. From the way she squared her shoulders and glared up at him, however, he could tell that would hardly be welcome.
“Well?” she demanded. “What do you need to rake me over the coals for now?”
“How much did my father give you?”
Even in the moonlight, he could see her go pale.
She opened her mouth to say something, and then she closed it again. For a moment, Aidan thought she would not speak at all, and then she spun away from him, lunging back down the slope. He caught her in his arms, her back to his chest, and he almost had to lift her off the ground to stop her from spilling down the slope.
"Margaret!"
"Why are you asking me this?" she cried, an there was something so terrible in her voice it made him ache. "Why do you have to do this now?"
The hurt in her voice pounded in his ears and enraged him. How in the world could she sound so hurt now? She had made her decision ages ago, and he had just now found out about it.
"Because I want to know how much it took," he snapped. "I want to know what your price was, how much my father gave you to leave me. Was it a great deal, or was it only enough to buy a new dress? I had no idea he had done such a thing, Margaret, and now I'm told that it was a bribe that sent you away?"
For a moment, she went limp in his arms. Afraid she had actually fainted, Aidan turned her around, desperate to look in his face. The moment he did, however, her hand came up and turned his head with a stinging blow, making his ears ring. Aidan reared back, letting her go, but it didn't matter because this time, it looked as if she had no interest in running.
"You want to know how much your father gave me, Aidan? I can tell you that without thinking about it. He gave me nothing! He came to my mother's cottage on MacKinnon lands, as stealthy as a cattle-raider, and he caught me on my own. He promised me the price of three young heifers if I would turn you away, Aidan. It was enough to set me up prettily in my own place on the glen, on my own and with nothing to bother me, you know that."
Aidan felt as if his heart would stop. Some part of him hadn't wanted to believe that his father had actually done such a thing, but now he could see it, see his father appearing and bargaining with Margaret when she was only sixteen, offering her everything she might have wanted. He couldn't imagine her turning him away, but...
"Promised you. But gave you nothing? Did he die before..."
"Oh, Heavens have mercy on your thick head, Aidan!" Margaret said, her hands fisted by her sides and tears in her eyes. "I turned him away! Fool that I was, I turned him away because I thought he was right! I do not need to be bribed to do the right thing, and I am glad to say that is something your father went to his grave knowing!"
"I don't understand, Margaret. Tell me this plain."
She swallowed hard, wrapping her arms around herself. Instinctively, Aidan reached for her. Even now, all he wanted to do was to take her into his arms, to comfort her even if he was the one who had caused all of this pain in the first place.
"He told me that I was no fit bride for the future Laird of Clan MacTaggart. He told me that as a bastard-born English girl, I would never be the woman you needed, never raise you fit children or stand by your side in times of war and famine."
Aidan could feel a different kind of rage rising up inside him. His father, before he died in battle some years ago, had been a good man, but no one would ever have called him gentle. He could be almost frighteningly set in his ways. His friends and enemies alike had called him an old boar, ready to charge at the first thing he saw that displeased him. Apparently, he had gotten wind of Aidan's courtship of Margaret, and he had decided to take matters in his own hands.
If he were alive and in front of me now, I do believe that I would strike him down. But Aidan could not trouble himself with dead men now, not when Margaret stood before him.
"Margaret... Meggie... you must know that is not what I thought."
She offered him a wry glance.
"I know. But your father thought it. And he was right. And so, he offered me money to go away, money I would not have touched if I were dying, that I promise you."
"But you went anyway."
She shrugged, and in that moment, she looked so small and exhausted that it made his heart ache.
"My own father came for me by coincidence not long after that. I did not want to go, but I felt it wise. If I had stayed..."
She trailed off, but this time when Aidan took her hand, she did not pull away.
"What would have happened if you had stayed, Meggie?"
"I would have let you convince me," she said, looking away. "I would have let you make me think that being with you was fine, that it would not have hurt you and everything you have worked for."
"You would have married me."
She couldn't respond with more than a nod.
"Yes. Let me go now, Aidan? You have everything from me."
"No. I have not. Not by a long shot."
She gasped a little when he pulled her toward him, but he covered her mouth with his own, drinking that gasp out of her body. She trembled against him as if there was something in her that wanted to flee this, wanted to get away before they could hurt each other more, but then she relaxed into him, her fingers digging into his arms and drawing him close.
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chapter 36
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Margaret knew all the reasons she should never have touched Aidan MacTaggart or allowed him to touch her. Things never ended with a single kiss for them, never halted with just a moment of passion. They were like matches touched to dry tinder. Once they were in each other's arms, nothing would tear them away.
In that moment, Margaret didn't care about the past or the future. She didn't care about what the morning might bring or who she and Aidan had to be. Instead, all she cared about was how good he felt kissing her, how strong his hands were on her body, how she could feel his manhood pressed hard against her, already straining toward her.
"Heaven ab
ove, what you do to me, woman," Aidan murmured, and she might have laughed. It was nothing compared to what he did to her, nothing compared to how he could make her feel as if everything inside her had been replaced with fire.
After the initial passion and need of their kiss, Aidan gentled, taking his time, kissing her mouth as if this night would be all they were allowed to have on earth. Margaret lifted up her chin so he could kiss her more thoroughly, and when he drew back, her mouth tingled, sending a tide of pleasure through the rest of her body.
"I could kiss you for the rest of my life and not be satisfied," she said.
Aidan laughed, slightly shaky.
"I want you so much it terrifies me," he confessed. "I don't know what I might do if you were taken from me."
Margaret didn't want to think about what that might mean. The only thing that mattered was Aidan holding her now, Aidan kissing her, Aidan touching her with a kind of need that made her want to cry out for more. She started to pull him down to the earth, but he shook his head.
"The ground's hard here. I do not want you to get hurt."
"Then what should we..."
She moaned in surprise when he pressed her against the rock that sheltered them, pressing her hands to the stone on either side of her head. With her back to him, she could not see what he was doing, but she could feel him stepping close to her, his chest to her back, could feel his warm breath on the nape of her neck.
"This is home," he murmured. "This rock, this cold, and you. You belong here, Meggie. You belong with me."
She opened her mouth, unsure if she was going to argue with him or agree, but then he brushed away the stray strands of her hair, nuzzling her nape. It made her sigh when he just used his lips, but when she felt the sharp edge of his teeth against her nape, she shuddered at the sudden sharpness her pleasure took on.
"Oh... oh, Aidan..."
"Stay still, Meggie," he said, his voice soft but unmistakably commanding. "I want you just like this, and if you are good for me, oh, I will make you feel so fine..."
A sweet note to his voice took any of the threat out of it, but Margaret couldn't resist a gasp when she felt him take hold of her skirt, hauling it up inch by inch.
Oh, how I must look, she had a moment to think, but then it didn't matter at all because Aidan was leaning down to run his hand from her knee up to her hip, tracing the muscles there and making goosebumps break out all over her flesh. She blushed when she cupped her buttocks, murmuring how good she felt, and she had to shut her eyes against the pleasure when he reached down low between her legs.
"Aidan... what are you—?"
"Making you feel good, my darling. That's all I want, I promise..."
She pressed her hands hard against the stone as his fingers explored her with a tender thoroughness. Aidan's broad body shielded her from the cold, and his fingers lit a warmth in her that made her close her eyes with need.
The relentlessness to his touch bordered on obsession, and she gave herself over to feeling whatever he wanted her to feel. The pleasure in her swelled higher and higher, and just when the tension grew as taut as a fiddle's string, just when she thought that surely, she could not go much further without snapping, Aidan drew back, pulling away and leaving her gasping for fulfillment.
"Aidan!"
Before Margaret could say anything else, however, he was touching her again, stroking her slick channel, running the edge of his thumb over the very center of her pleasure, kissing the back of her neck and swearing to take care of her...
She gave into it again, trusting him, reaching for her pleasure with a kind of need that did not know how to calm itself, and then he drew back again.
"Aidan! Aidan, please, you can't, I'll surely die!"
Aidan laughed at her, but there was a kindness to it that made keen.
"No one ever died from lack of this, though you may think you will. All right, my love. Let me take care of you."
She wished she could pull back from him just as he pulled back from her, pulling away, denying him with that same cool smile, but it wasn't in her.
She gave herself up to the pleasure, willingly submitted to his touch, and this time, this glorious time, he gave her what she had wanted.
Margaret cried out with pure need and sweetness, her body seeming to shatter into a thousand pieces. She clung to the stone wall, and at the same time, all she could feel was Aidan's fingers touching her, his body shielding her, his voice murmuring sweet things in her ear, calling her his.
As soon as she found her breath, however, she looked over her shoulder at him, not moving.
"What about you?"
He shrugged.
"It can wait..."
"No. It can't."
Instinctively, Margaret pressed her hands against the stone, leaning forward and pressing back against Aidan at the same time. Her skirts were still hiked up around her hips, and she knew exactly what it was he was seeing, what he felt.
"Take me," she said, her voice thin but true. "Aidan, I need you so..."
If anything would have spurred him into action, it was that. In another breath, he was unsheathing his manhood, and another moment after that, he was pressing deep inside her. There was no pain at all, and he sank into her to the hilt, only pausing for a moment before he started to thrust.
There was no teasing now, nothing taunting or held back. Instead, it was almost primal. His need for her overcame everything else, and he was crying out her name, one hand tangled in her hair even as he thrust into her over and over again.
The pleasure inside Margaret curled around the sensations he was giving her, and she floated above herself, feeling Aidan's passion, listening to his words and understanding deep in her soul what they meant.
He was made for her. He was perfect for her, and nothing else in the world mattered at all.
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chapter 37
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Aidan roared when his climax hit him, hanging on to Margaret so tightly he knew he must have left marks on her body. One part of him regretted it, but the rest of him exulted in giving her marks, however light, that told the world that she belonged to him.
For several long seconds, he stayed completely still, listening to their breaths slow, waiting for their hearts to stop beating so quickly. He had pulled her hair down from its braids, and now he smoothed it gently over her shoulders. It took him a little longer to pull away from her, letting her skirts drop down decently over her bared flesh.
Aidan realized with only a small amount of shock that he wanted to take her again. He would never get enough of her, never be tired of being close with her, and he took a deep breath before helping her stand.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I hadn't meant to take you at all.”
“Why ever not?” she asked, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Aidan fought down the urge to kiss her mouth. In the dim light, he could tell how dark and swollen her lips were, and when she licked them, he wondered if she was thinking the same thing.
“Because I wanted to give you pleasure,” he said instead. “There has... been entirely too much pain for you, hasn't there? Because of me. Because of my family. Please, Margaret. I had no idea what my father offered you, or what happened when you turned him down. Did you think I had?”
“No! Never. It was only that... I knew your father was right.”
“Never,” Aidan said, echoing her. “He would never be right, and if I allowed him to oppose my will like that, I would not have been the clan head he raised me to be. I loved my father well, but he was a hard man, and I refuse to let him rule over me, over us, from beyond the grave.”
Margaret shrugged, and it occurred to him how very long she had been living with the truth of this. How very long she must have believed she was unworthy.
Aidan's father was dead, but if the old man was in front of him right now, he might have struck him.
�
��It does not change anything,” she said.
Aidan took her hand, bringing it up to his lips.
“This changes everything, love...”
She was still for a long moment, reaching to touch the stone that had supported both of them during their passion.
“I remember when I first met you,” she said softly. “Do you remember that as well?”
Aidan couldn't help but laugh, holding still as she brushed the ball of her thumb over the scar under his eye.
“How could I forget? I was dripping blood like a stuck pig, your mother was cursing at me for being a stubborn fool, and then you came in. Everything was... better when you came in.”
He hadn't had a word for it back then. The fighting had come terrifyingly close to Doone Castle, edging up on MacTaggart lands. He had been fighting, like every man had been fighting, and he had never been so terrified and exhilarated at the same time. His father had sent him to get his face stitched up after a fight with an English soldier, and he had been so impatient to go be with his men that nothing else had mattered.
Then... Margaret had appeared.
She came in with fresh bandages for her mother, her eyes down, but when she looked up at him, it felt as if a part of his soul had left him through his eyes, and it belonged to her after that.
“I thought you were handsome,” Margaret said, almost shyly. “Difficult, perhaps. Stubborn, certainly too stubborn for your own good. But even covered in blood and kicking like a goat, you were handsome. And something in me... it knew. It knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was something to fight for.”
He drew her close then, brushing his lips over hers. There was always a passion between them, but this felt more like a promise.
“There is still so much between us, isn't there?” she murmured unhappily. “Who you are, who I am...”
“And less of it matters than you think, darling. We are in the North now. I am not some English lord who will examine you for clean limbs and a dowry before I look into your eyes. You are not some English girl who needs to be sold off to save her family's land. We are in Scotland, and you are home.”
The Highlander’s Lost Bride (The Highlands Warring Clan Mactaggarts Book 2) Page 17