By the time the last of the bandages fell away, her heart fretted in her chest like a trapped dove. The urge to race out of the sickroom was countered in strength only by her determination to see this through.
He growled, “Be done with it, lass.”
A pulse in his neck throbbed. With his mind closed to her and his face turned toward the hearth, she could only guess why he behaved so. The not-knowing was like an itch she couldn’t scratch.
So by desperate instinct she tried once more to read his mind. She pressed as close as she dared as she took some grease on her fingertips and ran them slickly down the wound. His ribs expanded and contracted, the muscles tensing under her hand. In his mind she felt a similar flex in the wall of his thoughts. She tumbled into that soft darkness, like plunging into the depths of the sea, a muffling of sound and sensation, and a warmth—
“Damn it, lass.”
He twisted with a grunt. He wrapped his good arm around her waist and hauled her full across his lap. A muscle moved in his cheek as his gaze devoured her. She thought this was easier than I expected just before he rasped his lips against hers.
Black spots before her eyes became black stars exploding in her mind and all thought—any thought—every thought—burned to ashes.
She’d been kissed before, by a boy her age whose mind told her that he’d welcome a few moments behind a cottage. The boy’s kiss had been clumsy, his hands greedy, and his leapfrogging thoughts so crude that she’d shoved him away before he’d dared to explore where he hadn’t been invited.
But this merging of lips bore no resemblance to that awkward moment in the shade of the cottage wall. She tasted Lachlan’s mouth and slipped her fingers into the warmth of his dark, dark hair, and realized this was what she wanted since she came upon him wounded and half-drowned upon the strand. This wanting was a force beyond her control, like the tide tugging at her knees. Suddenly she understood the passion of poor lonely Deirdre of all the old stories, meeting handsome Naoise upon the road, then casting aside her duty to king and clan all because of the desire that flowed between her and her dark-haired, ruddy-cheeked warrior.
Lachlan tilted his head and nudged her lips apart. She parted her lips at his wordless command and sensed the vibrations of a moan rumble through him. He captured her tongue and drew it into his own mouth, slipping his against hers in a way that made her quiver and tense all over.
Then, like a flash in the darkness, she heard her name whispered. It was a thought-whisper, not a sound, for all she could hear in the room was the crackle of the peat fire and their mutual breathing. His thought was like a comet shooting through the darkness. Her heart gave a little leap in her chest.
Then his hand slid down her cheek. His fingers grazed her throat. She knew where that hand was going, even before he plunged it beneath the hem of her gaping tunic and took her breast in his warm palm.
She broke from his kiss with a gasp. She arched her neck as all sensation focused on the tightening nub of her nipple against the heat of his skin. His hair, as soft as thrice-brushed linen, feathered against her neck. His kiss was a spark in the hollow of her throat. He shifted his grip then flicked the pad of his thumb over her taut, aching nipple.
She forced his face level so she could look into his eyes. He kept rolling her nipple as his gaze moved from her hair to her lips. She sensed he understood her expression with a clarity far greater than she could glean from his mind. Sitting on his lap, she felt as open and vulnerable as if she were lying naked, splayed on his pallet, her hair spread across the pillow.
There—another flash of revelation in the darkness—that was what he was imagining right now. It was the same thought that filled her senses. This merging of thoughts was a new and strange sensation and she slipped into its current. She toed off her leather shoes, one slipper after the other dropping to the floor.
“Cairenn.”
A soft voice in the darkness, a real voice this time, for his breath brushed her skin.
“You’re in all my dreams,” he said against her throat. “You’re in all my waking thoughts.”
She kissed him to quiet him. She didn’t want to get caught up in words.
“You, and this place,” he said, hoarsely, between kisses. “You’ve both bewitched me.”
The word bewitched rasped through her consciousness. “There’s no witchery in this, Lachlan.”
“Then I have no excuse but my own weakness.”
“And mine.”
He tugged on the neckline of her shift. She lifted one shoulder to let the neckline slide down. His breath warmed her skin. When he pulled back from her kiss, she glimpsed her naked breast set free of her neckline just before his head blocked her view.
The touch of his lips on her breast was like a torch set to a bonfire. She buried her fingers in his hair to control her own shudder of pleasure. He kissed her nipple, open-mouthed, hungrily, and she sensed the teasing graze of his teeth. All the while his hand slid across her body, down her hip, over the top of her thighs and across her knees.
Wool and linen feathered up over her knees. Cool air bathed her thighs. She wanted to say, take me to the pallet, so they could have what they both wanted. She wanted to say, let’s lie upon the floor, but then his fingertips grazed her inner thigh and words became impossible to form.
Through her mind flooded images of all the times she’d gazed unwittingly into the minds of young lovers—seeing their memories of rolling caresses and fleshy entwinements. It seemed she’d always known the mechanics and the variations of the coupling, but she’d never really understood the intensity of all of it until now, this very moment, as she couldn’t help but part her thighs to make a straight path for his fingers. He boldly took the invitation and ran a fingertip inside her cleft.
With her lips pressed against his hair she again sensed his thoughts like a series of shooting stars streaking through a dark night, a series of thoughts that matched her own.
I want to sink inside her.
I want you inside me.
I will have her.
Take me.
His fingers settled on a spot and made swift little circles. Her hips quivered and then moved to match his rhythm. Arched on his lap like this she couldn’t move as much as she needed to, and beneath the yearning grew a vaulting frustration. She became conscious of the hardness of his sex pressed against her hip. She wanted to touch him, give him the same pleasure he was giving to her, let him know that she wanted to join him the way men and women were made to be joined. She tried to push off his lap—to the pallet, to the floor—to any place where she could open her thighs for more than just his fingers.
But he ignored her wriggling and slipped his slick finger deep inside her.
“Lachlan.”
Her cry was a question. His answer was to lower his head and suck her nipple back into his mouth.
His thumb circled the top of her cleft while his finger plunged in and out of her and his lips suckled her breast. Sensation flooded her body while her inner muscles clenched. She’d finally broken through the barriers of his mind to know what he wanted—and she wanted more than anything to give that to him—yet what they were doing right now would not bring him the pleasure he needed—
—but it would bring pleasure to her, she thought, as her head fell back, as her body knotted, as her mind went blind.
CHAPTER TEN
When her sweet body finished throbbing around his hand, Lachlan cupped her sex, trying not to think of what it might have felt like to have her body throb like that around his cock. A cock that now stood upright in his braies, with nothing but linen between it and Cairenn’s soft, curved bottom.
She reclined in his arms while her lungs worked like bellows. The lass with her slimness and pale-milk skin gave off an air of fragility, but holding her so close, he felt the tensile strength of her long, lean body. Her tapered thighs, the firmness of her belly, the fierceness of her grip. His fingers could still feel the imprint of the moist pressure he
’d felt inside her. Where she’d gripped him, his shoulders would bear bruises tomorrow.
How easy it would be to slip off the stool and onto his knees, spread her across the warm hearthstones, and sink himself deep. She would welcome him—he felt acquiescence in every quivering line of her body. She would wrap her slim ankles around his back and her arms around his shoulders and make little, heaving gasps with every stroke. He could bring her to the height of pleasure again and himself, as well, and for a while—a short, brilliant, welcome stretch of oblivion—he could believe that in her arms lay peace and a life of unfurling happiness.
But he resisted the urge, just as he resisted the temptation to place a kiss on the pale, wet nipple within his lips’ reach. Instead, he shifted her weight to set her head against his shoulder. Already his troubles were rushing back to him—his father dead, his duty awaiting him. If he took her the way he ached to, he would only add another helping of guilt.
At least his conscience—and her virginity—were still intact. No sooner had the thought passed his mind when she slid her hand toward his cock.
She whispered, “I want to touch you.”
“Don’t.” He seized her hand as his cock strained. “Don’t do something that you’ll regret when I’m gone.”
“I know you’re leaving, Lachlan.”
He leaned back to see those half-lidded eyes, those swollen lips, now curving in a sad little smile.
“My father,” she said, flattening her palm upon his chest, “is even now negotiating passage for you on that galley.”
He frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I’m telling you now.”
Now, he realized, after she’d already offered her body up to him. That meant she knew he’d have denied her kiss if she had told him the truth earlier.
Then a more alarming thought intruded. “Your father shouldn’t be doing this. He can’t be sure of the loyalties of those men.”
“It’s not a matter of loyalty,” she said. “The sailors and the captain of that galley, they talk about the MacEgans’ troubles like they’re gossiping. It’s like an overturned wagon on the side of the road: People like to gawp at it before moving on. It’s not personal, so they don’t care.”
“But if they hear my name—”
“They won’t hear your name. When you board the galley, you’ll be Brochan of the Western Isles. Da made up a story: You’re a sailor who was knifed in an alehouse brawl in Galway, left behind with the doctor to heal and wait for passage.”
He took a deep, swift breath. Soon he’d be on a ship back home. Soon he would find the man who’d plunged a knife in his back. Soon he would find the man who’d killed his father.
My father, dead.
The thought, like a knock of an iron mallet. Whenever it surged, a darkness crept over him and dimmed his sight and senses. How his palms itched to feel the murderer’s neck between them.
“When?” He tightened his grip on her wrist when she hesitated. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Shock sent his thoughts skipping toward the future. Tomorrow, he would head back to Derry, and from there to Loch Fyfe. But what to do then? Which allies could he trust? Perhaps none, perhaps not even his Irish cousin Angus O’Donnell in Derry. Best to sneak back to Loch Fyfe himself and see who’d seized the chieftaincy. Yet he couldn’t just walk through the gates and present himself as the one true heir. His enemy was smarter and slyer than either he or his father had imagined.
My father, dead.
No, he thought with a flinch. He had to hold himself back, seek information, and flush out the enemy before the enemy even knew he was alive—
“Lachlan.”
Her call seemed to come from very far away. Her hand had slipped from his grip. She placed it on his cheek and that’s when he met her soft, green eyes.
She whispered, “Take me with you.”
The sight of her swollen lips and the scent of her skin should have sent more blood to his loins, but her words worked on him like an ice bath. Suddenly he was back in the room with this soft and willing woman, hoping to un-hear what she’d just asked of him.
He never should have kissed her. He never should have rubbed his cheek against her breast. He never should have stroked her into pleasure and made her believe that he could offer her more.
He was a stupid, mindless ass.
“Cairenn.” He pressed her away, half off his lap. “You’d best find your own bed.”
Her face contorted with confusion.
“I’ll be gone from this place in the morning.” His heart clenched. “And I won’t be coming back.”
She pushed off his lap. He let her go. Her skirts tumbled down her long, bare legs. She took a few uncertain steps backwards and then ventured a hand toward the mantel to steady herself.
He could not look at her for the wrong he was doing.
She whispered, “You’re walking into your own death.”
“That I already know.”
He focused on the flames flickering in the hearth. In the burning coals he searched for absolution for taking liberties he wasn’t worthy of from a woman who deserved so much better.
“But,” she whispered, “you don’t have to. I can help you.”
“Your heart is kind.” His heart twisted. “But where I am going I’ll be in constant danger.”
“You don’t understand—”
“There’s much you don’t know.” He tried to fill his mind with the duty that called him, not his yearning for the woman standing before him. “Your father thinks he solved my problem by giving me a false name. But I can’t be Brochan forever. The ruse will be over the minute I step foot in Derry, or Scotland. Too many men on both sides of the water know me, and I don’t know whom to trust.”
“There’s much I can do—”
“I’ll be living like an outlaw.” He dared to look at her, but she hadn’t yet covered that sweet, swelling white breast, so he looked quickly away. “I’ll be camping in wild places, alone. Stealing from travelers. Lurking in alehouse shadows to listen to the talk. It could take me months to know who my enemies are, and, more importantly, who are my friends—”
“I’m the one who told Da about the Derry men.”
He frowned. “Told him what?”
“That those sailors are trustworthy.” She tugged at her sleeve until she’d covered the breast he could still feel like a soft pressure against his mouth. “I’m the one who knows that they have no bad intent.”
“You can’t know such a thing.”
“Yes, I can.” She all but dropped onto the stool on the other side of the hearth. “I know, Lachlan, because I can read minds.”
He heard the words but didn’t understand them. Not all at once. He heard them, and he knew what nonsense they were, but it took him a few moments of contemplation to figure out what she was really trying to do.
When the assassin’s dagger had first plunged into him, Lachlan, in the heat of a brawl, had felt nothing but pressure. Then came a cold, sucking feeling. Then warmth spread across his back—the blood pouring through—before sharpness registered, a slicing pain so agonizing that it had driven him to his knees.
Looking at the hope upon Cairenn’s face, he felt like the tip of that blade had just reached his heart.
“I speak the truth,” she stuttered into the silence, knitting her fingers together and apart. “I can gather your friends and identify your foes, and tell you the truth in their hearts in an instant. You won’t have to be an outlaw living in the rough. I can find out what you need to know. I can identify the man who killed your father.”
“Lass,” he said softly, “you’re calling yourself a witch.”
“It’s not witchery.” Her winged brows drew together. “Why does everyone call what they don’t understand ‘witchery?’ Accusations of witchery can get a body burned at the stake. Is that what you’d accuse me of?”
“I know no other word for what you claim you can do—”
/>
“It’s a gift I’ve been given. I did not ask for it. I did not want it. At least…not until now.”
How Elspeth would have adored this creature of vivid imagination, if Lachlan could have brought her home.
“It’s not so strange,” she said, clearly sensing his doubts. “I know much about the Derry men I could not know otherwise: I know they work for a man called Angus O’Donnell. In that galley, they’ve got a hold full of Spanish wines they’ll be bringing to his warehouse on the hill beyond the village. The captain, Eoin, has a wife and three daughters, as well as a mistress in Galway. He sails constantly to get away from all of them. He spends sixteen pounds a year on their dresses alone—”
“Enough, lass.”
Alehouse gossip, no more. If his heart wasn’t so heavy with mourning over his father’s death, and if his shoulders weren’t crushed under the weight of duty, and if he didn’t feel so guilty over what had just happened between them, then he might have given in to her wishes and taken her away with him—just because of the length she was going to, for the chance to live by his side.
Oh, lass, what a wonderful, loyal wife you will be, to some better man.
Instead, he said, “Are you determined to come with me?”
“Yes.”
His heart turned over. There was only one reason why a woman would leave her home and her family for a man, but if he heard those words fall from her lips, he’d be lost.
“I will take you with me,” he said, a sigh slipping out of him as if it squeezed from the weight of his guilt, “but only on one condition.”
In the blink of an eye she was on her knees at his feet, reaching for him. He seized her wrists to hold her still.
“Cairenn,” he said. “Tell me what I’m thinking right now.”
Her excitement hardened to an unnatural stillness. She stared, wide-eyed, as the light of the flames flickered over her hair. He watched emotions flash across her face: Dismay, disbelief, panic.
“You’re thinking that I’m out of my mind,” she said, her voice a quaver. “You’re thinking that I’ve made this all up. You’re thinking that I’ll say almost anything to get you to take me away.”
Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3) Page 8