Falling for the Highland Rogue

by Ann Lethbridge

  His nipples were pale and tightly beaded. She raised herself up on her elbows and teased them with her tongue and teeth. He hissed in a breath of pleasure and an expression of pain crossed his face.

  Then his hand came to her breast, cupping first one, then the other, lifting each one in turn as if to measure the swell, then sweeping his palm across the sensitive tips, bringing them to little nubs of hardened flesh. So painfully sensitive.

  He lowered his head, nuzzling with his mouth into the softest part, kissing and licking and deeply inhaling. A low growl of pleasure issued from deep in his throat.

  A growl stirred things up inside her. Flutters and trembles and shivers raced through her in a succession of little thrills.

  A delicious sensation. But more was required and soon or she would go mad.

  She shifted, moving to bring the hardened peak to his lips, and he took the top of her breast in a hot wet open-mouthed kiss and then suckled.

  Her hips arched off the bed. She twined her arms around his neck, pulled herself upwards and swirled her tongue around his ear.

  He gave a moan, grabbed a ragged breath as his mouth let go of her breast and his knees nudged her thighs apart. He closed his eyes in a grimace of pain. ‘I canna wait any longer. I am going to...’ he muttered, his voice hoarse with strain.

  He rose up on one hand, looming over her, his broad shoulders obscuring all, his gaze fixed on her face. He took himself in hand and drove home. Large and hard and hot.

  His thrusts were steady, pressing into her, each stroke edging her a little higher in the quest for release. His hips and hard buttocks moved beneath her hands, the muscles rippling. Her limbs felt languid, while inside she was as tight as a coiled spring. Bliss beckoned, just out of reach.

  ‘I’m sorry, lass,’ he said, his face a picture of agony. ‘I canna wait any longer. I—’

  The deep groan came from somewhere in the depths of his chest. His neck corded and the tendons stood out. His arms shook with the effort of holding his body up, while he pounded into her, his gaze never leaving her face. With her legs, she clasped him around the waist, crossing her ankles at his back, holding on to his shoulders. He drove into her again and again, each stroke ending with a slight twist of his hips that sent a sharp jolt deep within her, until her vision darkened at the edges and all she could see was the sheen of sweat on his face and the grimace on his lips.

  Nothing existed, but the feel of him and the tightening within. And the way he looked at her.

  And then it was happening. The violent falling apart. A shattering explosion. Small cries filled the air. Cries of gasping pleasure. Hers.

  Dimly, she heard him breathe her name. Never had it sounded so sweet. And then he was shuddering. Filling her with his hot seed. The life that would never come to fruition.

  A sadness filled her and mingled with the aftermath of pleasure and joy. Never had she been so shaken to the depths of her being by any man. Not even her first. More astonishing was the expression in his eyes as he took them both over the edge. The awe along with the lust.

  It was as if it was all very new to him, what they had done together. It somehow felt fresh and wholesome.

  Rather than tainted.

  A swelling softness filled her heart. Beneath the adventurous rogue was a good man. A man she could have loved if things were different. She could almost see them in a small house, here in the Highlands, roses at the door, children running wild in the hills and dales. Glens, they called them. A farm, perhaps. Sheep. Almost.

  Yes, he wanted her, of course, but not that way. What decent man would? This was lust. No, those old dreams of hers were just that. Dreams. She had her life mapped out. This was a small diversion, that was all.

  Vaguely she felt him collapse beside her and pull her close within the circle of his arms. Such a warm comforting feeling.

  The questions would wait. For a while.

  Chapter Ten

  He wanted to do it again. Logan came to full consciousness as hard as rock. Right now. With her.

  Charity lying lax at his side, sleeping so sweetly, he could not bear to wake her. Ignoring his baser urges wasn’t so easy when he could feel her soft curves pressed into his groin and one of her breasts filling his palm. Her hair lay over his chest like a silken veil and he let his free hand wander through her tresses. Long and silky and wavy like a field of oats in a breeze.

  Ah, what would she think of him, when she awoke? At the end he’d been out of his head with lust. He, who prided himself on his control. He wasn’t even sure she had also.... He’d make sure next time.

  She stirred. Her shoulders tightened as she became aware of her surroundings. Of him, of his state of arousal. He should have moved while he had the chance, but he had been enjoying the feel of her against him too much.

  He could not hold back his soft groan as she shifted, inching away from him. She stilled, as if waiting for something to happen. Did she think he would ravish her without her consent? He loosened his grasp around her shoulders. She twisted to look up at him, her smoky eyes searching his face.

  Boldly and with a feeling of great tenderness, he kissed her forehead. ‘It is awake, you are?’

  To his surprise, she smiled back, shyly and blushing. And it made him feel as proud as a stag. He grinned at her.

  She raised up on one elbow, her hair surrounding them like a curtain, looking down into his face. The expression on her face was one of puzzlement. He tensed.

  ‘That was your first time, wasn’t it? Your first time with a woman.’

  His gut pitched like a ship in a storm. He almost groaned out loud. He raised his gaze to the canopy above his head and closed his eyes. ‘It was that clumsy, then?’

  Silence. He opened one eye to look at her. She wasna’ laughing, thank goodness, but she had a puzzled expression. ‘It wasn’t bad. Quite the opposite. It was just that...’ She hesitated and he tried not to wince in anticipation of what she would say. ‘It was wonderful. Truly. But...a woman knows these things.’

  ‘Wonderful, was it?’ He wanted to crow like a rooster. As it was he couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

  She struck his upper arm with her fist as if she thought she could hurt him. ‘I am right, am I not?’

  He combed his fingers through her beautiful hair, sweeping it away from that hard-angled face and met her gaze full on. She thought what they’d done was wonderful. And so did he. He let out a short breath. ‘You are right.’

  Shock filled her gaze. Perhaps even horror. ‘How can that be? A man of your age...’

  ‘I had some thought of keeping myself for the woman I would marry, ye ken.’

  She placed a hand flat on his bare chest. Her fingers were cold. Her eyes narrowed. ‘And you chose to break your vow with me? I hope it was worth it.’

  The bitterness in her voice with the underlying hint of pain shook him out of his feeling of satisfaction. Why did she sound so insulted?

  He tilted her face up to see her expression. She kept her lashes lowered, her gaze fixed on the hand stroking the hair on his chest, grooming it with her fingers. Tugging at it a little harder than seemed necessary. He covered her hand with his.

  ‘It wasna so much a vow. Ours is a small village. All of the girls eager to wed. I made the mistake of kissing one of them once and the knot was almost tied. She needed a father for her unborn child.’

  ‘You didn’t marry her?’

  She sounded shocked. Judgemental. Like the rest of the people at Dunross. He felt the sting of their black looks all over again. ‘It wasna mine. Not that anyone believed me until her father discovered that I was not the only boy she’d been kissing. My best friend was bolder than me. It was his child and he married her.’

  ‘A lucky escape, then.’ Her tone was dry.

  ‘I suppose you could sa
y that. I wasna so popular with the people in the village after that. The mothers who had daughters, at least. I suppose they thought there was no smoke without a fire.’ He’d been pretty well ostracised for a time, the folk thinking that Ian had paid Craig to marry Maggie in Logan’s place. Maggie hadn’t exactly helped matters in that regard.

  He remembered his feeling of utter panic when he thought Ian would force him to the altar and shuddered.

  Both Maggie’s treachery and the clan’s suspicion had been a bitter pill to swallow. So he’d decided then and there that the lasses were not for him. That he would seek his excitement elsewhere. Until now.

  Not that he was considering marrying Charity. Was he? Just because... But he could remember his brother’s words to Drew all those years ago. A Gilvry does not debauch a lady and not marry her. Not and keep his honour.

  Most would not consider Charity a lady. Not by a mile. Yet... Yet he wasn’t so sure he was ready to let her go back to her crude Irishman. The very thought of it made his stomach curdle.

  As if she sensed the churning of his thoughts, she pulled her hand out from beneath his and ran her finger down his jawline. ‘You are in no danger from me,’ she said softly. ‘I am not the marrying sort.’

  ‘And if we made a child?’

  She patted his chest. ‘Not a chance.’

  A feeling of relief shot through him. He curled his hand around her fingers and brought them to his lips, pressing a soft kiss into her palm. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I took precautions, of course.’ There was an edge to her voice.

  ‘You expected this?’

  She rose on her elbow, looking down at him. There was amusement in her face, but in her eyes there was a darker emotion. Regret? Sadness. ‘Of course. A woman of my sort—’

  ‘Do not say it.’ The spurt of anger came as a surprise. Was that not just what he had been thinking? He shook his head, at himself. At her. ‘You are a lady. You should be treated as such.’

  She laughed softly. ‘What a good man you are, to be sure.’ She snuggled back against him. ‘I had no idea that Highlanders were so sweet.’

  ‘No doubt you thought we were savages.’ He was feeling a bit of a savage at that moment. He wanted her again. He wanted to make it better this time. Better for her. Surely it was too soon?

  ‘Is it very wild, where you live?’ she asked. ‘Your brother and sister-in-law seemed to say as much.’

  ‘About as wild as it gets, I would say. For Britain. What you see around Edinburgh are only the foothills compared to the mountains to the north.’

  ‘I’d like to see them one day. It must be difficult, bringing whisky through the mountains.’ She tilted her head, her breath falling on his throat in a pleasurable little tickle as she spoke. ‘I suppose you are only able to do so when the weather is good. I imagine there is quite a bit of snow in winter?’

  ‘Is that what O’Banyon is worried about? Our ability to deliver?’

  ‘Can you blame him?’

  It wouldn’t be the first time their customers had wondered. ‘It is not so easy in winter, but it can be done if you know the passes.’

  ‘There must be a great many routes through the mountains to the border. And you know them all?’

  ‘Not so many as I would wish. The Great Glen forces me to come a whole lot closer to Inverness than I would like, no matter what time of year it is. All the trade must come close to the road there and the revenue men know it.’

  ‘Is there no other way to go?’

  He’d probably said more than he should have, but no more than was common knowledge. That part of the way south was always touch and go. But his men knew their work. ‘There are a few. But they are not easy ways in winter with a string of loaded mules.’

  ‘And you sleep under the stars and travel the empty wilds as free as a bird.’ Her voice sounded dreamy. ‘Like a character in Sir Walter Scott’s novels.’

  He chuckled. ‘Not near as romantic, I’m afraid. It’s mostly cold and wet and dirty, with a bunch of men sleeping around the fire or packed like sardines in a friendly crofter’s barn. I dinna think you would like it.’

  ‘And once you cross the border? There can’t be many friendly crofters then.’

  While her questions sounded innocent enough, a sort of idle interest, he knew the answers were not only for her benefit. He didn’t like the idea of lying, so he had skated around the truth. Given her enough, but nothing that McKenzie wouldn’t already know or guess. And his routes to the border were no one else’s business but his own.

  This last question, though, pushed a little harder than he liked. And yet it was important. O’Banyon had to know they had a plan. A good one. ‘There’s a man Ian knows, just over the border into England. He will keep wagons ready for us. When we travel through from there to London we will look like any other merchant on the road. We’ll be making good time, then.’

  ‘You would trust an Englishman?’

  ‘Ian trusts him and that is good enough for me. Besides, the man used to be a pirate of sorts.’ Not to mention that he was a lord and his wife was Lady Selina’s best friend. That information was not for anyone to know.

  ‘Why do you do it? Why live a life of crime? Why not just farm your land?’

  That’s what they all thought, these Sassenachs, that the Scots liked being outlaws and criminals. ‘The English Parliament forces us to it.’

  She made a sound of surprise. ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘Their law is unjust, Charity. What is legal for an Englishman is illegal for a Highlander. Should we not all be equal under the law? We have the same King. The same Parliament. Should we not have the same rights? And if we do not, should we be bound by such injustice?’

  ‘Should you not work to change the law?’

  ‘Now you sound like Niall.’

  Once more she raised up to look at his face, a crease between her brows. ‘You do not agree with your brother, then? Or is it the danger you enjoy?’

  He rubbed a strand of her hair between finger and thumb, feeling its silky softness with a kind of wonder. ‘I will admit there is some satisfaction in outwitting your enemies.’ A smile tugged at his lips at the thought. ‘But I would not be unhappy if the law was changed.’ He wouldn’t know what to do with himself. But that was another matter. It would be safer for his brothers and their families and what man wouldn’t want that for those he held near and dear. ‘In the meantime...’

  ‘In the meantime you will risk your life.’

  Ah, there it was. The worry of a woman. Hadn’t Maggie nagged at Craig until he stopped coming on the road with Logan? And wasn’t that when he’d started acting all grim and sour? No fun any more. Why should a woman change a man to suit herself? Happy as his brothers were with their wives, they had also changed. Why could a woman not just accept a man as he was? ‘I do what my family needs me to do. But I do not take unnecessary risks. My men rely on me to bring them home safe.’

  Och, now he sounded defensive.

  ‘So what would you do, if the law changed?’

  It was something he’d asked himself more than once. He sighed and rubbed at his stubble. ‘I’ll decide when it happens.’ He looked up at her lovely face, at the high elegant cheekbones, the small nose, the full lush lips. Such a lovely face, but with a hardness born of life’s hard knocks. ‘What about you? Is this the life you want?’

  Her eyes widened with surprise, as if no one had ever cared enough to ask. Her expression softened and those purple eyes turned inward as if seeing something else. She blinked and the softness was gone. He wondered if he had imagined it. ‘What else would I want?’

  He frowned, sweeping her hair back from her face, the better to see into those mysterious eyes of hers. ‘A home. A husband. Children.’ Wasn’t that what most women wanted? Wasn’t tha
t why he avoided the tricky little things, because they’d have you married with or without your consent, if they could?

  ‘Men, decent men that is, don’t marry women like me,’ she scoffed. ‘And why would I want one man when I can have my pick any day of the week?’

  He didn’t like the sound of that at all. ‘And Jack?’ he asked, wishing he hadn’t. But the idea of her and Jack made him feel ill.

  ‘Jack is business,’ she said.

  ‘And this?’ He waved an arm around the room. ‘Is this business?’ The idea that it might be was a solid lump in his gut.

  A pouting smile curved her lips. ‘This is sex. What else could it be?’ She kissed his mouth. Pressing her lips to his, sweeping the seam of it with her tongue until he let her in.

  His heart thundered and she rolled on top of him, pressing her thigh between his, his shaft trapped deliciously between them and her woman’s flesh hot and damp against his upper thigh. She raked at him with her nails, tweaked his nipple, first one, then the other, making him buck beneath her and grind his hips against her belly.

  Yet there was nothing loving in this. She was colder than ice. It was, as she had said, just sex. But that was not how it had felt earlier.

  He clasped her shoulders and held her away from him. ‘Charity,’ he growled. ‘What are you doing?’

  She glanced down at his groin. ‘Evidence suggested you wanted more.’ She pulled out of his grasp and slipped off the bed, standing naked beside it. She curled her lip and glanced down at his swollen shaft.

  He could not stop himself from looking at her bounteous breasts, the dip of her waist, and the flair of her hips, and the dark-gold curls between her long elegant thighs. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

  But when he looked up at her face, her eyes were as cold as winter. She gave a hard little laugh and went to the table. ‘I gather once is all a boy like you can manage,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she poured herself a glass of wine.

  Anger blazed inside him at her taunt. Furious, intent on proving her wrong, he leaped from the bed and was beside her before she could take more than a mouthful.