Seduced by the Highlander

by Julianne MacLean

  Still bleary with sleep, he moved his hand slightly and explored the engaging, provocative contours of her thigh, before journeying upward to the alluring curve of her slender waist. His thumb stroked across the smooth ridges of her rib cage, and he bided his time, waiting for wakefulness, while he resisted the urge to cup her whole breast in his palm.

  Her blue eyes fluttered open, and she blinked at him sleepily, without uttering a word.

  “I should go now,” he whispered, wanting her with a dangerous urgency that thundered unbearably through his mind. He moved to sit up, but she reached out to stop him.

  His eyes narrowed, for he could feel the tide of his self-control shifting while desire drowned out the more rational part of his brain that was warning him not to stay. Not to let go.

  “Please don’t leave yet,” she pleaded in a velvety voice that touched him through the darkness. “Why not let me help you? Surely there are ways I can give you pleasure without evoking the curse. Just tell me how to touch you. Tell me what feels good.”

  He had no control over his erection, which responded quite favorably to her offer, while the rest of his body flooded with alarm.

  Even in the murky shadows of the dawn, her beauty was pushing him over the edge, and he was painfully aware of her full, moist lips begging to be kissed.

  “It wouldn’t be wise,” he whispered in a voice that shook.

  “Why not?”

  He swallowed over the torrent of passion building up inside him. “Because I say so. It’s taken me a long time to learn how not to feel certain things, and it’s best if I maintain that discipline.”

  “But why should you suffer like that, if I am willing to give you pleasure without asking for more? All you have to do is lie back and tell me what you like.”

  Her provocative words fed his engorged desires, and he shifted uncomfortably. She brushed a hand over his knee with a light and feathery touch, inched her body closer, testing his resolve. His heart throbbed lustily, and he clenched his jaw, fighting against an overpowering onslaught of physical sensation, as she slid her warm hand up under his kilt and massaged the thick muscles of his inner thigh.

  He was overcome suddenly with a surprising rush of despair, for this represented all that he could not have—physical intimacy with a woman he wanted desperately.

  And she was not just any woman. She was this woman, and he wanted her with a frenzy that made him shiver. His breath caught in his chest.

  “Just relax,” she whispered as she slid her hand farther up and finally reached his aching manhood. He was tempted in that spiraling moment of ecstasy to grab hold of her wrist and yank it out from under his kilt, but he resisted and instead let his eyes roll back in his head.

  Pleasure trembled through him, potent and penetrating, while she stroked his heavy balls.

  Senses attuned to her slightest movement, he listened to the sound of her mouth—her tongue licking across her lips—and uttered a deep groan of need. It took every ounce of strength he possessed not to rise up, seize control, and flip her over onto her back.

  Catherine sat up just then and swung a leg over him, straddling over his knees and raising his kilt to expose his erection. Their eyes met. He was hungry for her. He wanted her with a recklessness that was burning through him like a fireball, out of control. He knew he should stop, but he could not refuse what she offered. He would take it. He would take all of it.

  Carefully, she unfastened his brooch and slowly slid his tartan off his shoulder. Next she tugged his loose shirt out from under his belt. He raised his arms, and she pulled his shirt off over his head, then proceeded to remove his kilt. Everything was done with steady, measured movements. She did nothing in a hurry, and soon he was completely naked. The cool air upon his body inflamed his passions, and again he had to struggle to remain on his back when he wanted to rise up and take command of the situation, to undress her, to touch her.

  Still straddled over him, Catherine bent forward to kiss and lick the quivering muscles of his stomach. Her tongue probed insistently into his navel, and the muscles in his legs began to shake. He brushed her hair to one side, out of the way, and rose up on an elbow to look down at her in the muted light.

  To see a woman’s head down there, so close to the core of his need, was enough to make him explode before she even touched him.

  Ach! He wanted to tumble her onto her back right now and plunge himself into her hot, downy wetness! But he smothered those urges and reminded himself that if he had the will to resist all forms of sexual pleasure for three years, he could restrain himself from making love to this woman now.

  Her lips found his mouth and she kissed him deeply, luxuriously, sighing with her own pleasure at the damp heat of their mingling tongues.

  Lachlan reached up to hold her face in his hands, thrusting his hips forward, knowing there was no danger of penetration, for she was up on all fours above him, a safe distance away from his genitals.

  “Tell me what to do,” she whispered.

  Her eagerness aroused him further, and he shivered with need.

  “Do what comes naturally, lass. Just remember, I can’t be under your shift when I come.”

  She nodded, and her thick, gleaming hair swept across his face. Lachlan stroked it back, so that he could see her eyes. She leaned forward to kiss him again. Her lips were damp and swollen with desire, and as her tongue met his, he understood consciously that this was dangerous for both of them, but the blinding force of his need could not be ignored. He wanted her with a fierce abandon that was beyond anything he’d ever known before. He had proven himself remarkably formidable over the past three years, but this was not the same.

  Catherine dragged her mouth from his and eased back onto all fours while she kissed down the front of his neck and stroked her hands up and down his bare torso.

  Kissing and licking his nipples with the silky flick of her tongue while her hands strayed downward to his thighs again, she smothered him in breathless, flame-hot kisses.

  He lifted a knee and bumped into the sweet luscious haven between her thighs, the place he wanted to touch and penetrate, but could not.

  In the next moment, she licked her palm and wrapped it wetly around him. Lachlan gasped and twitched beneath the skilful stroke of her hand. It had been so long since he’d been touched. He wasn’t sure he could survive the pleasure of it.

  She stroked him with a firm squeezing grace, then began to pump furiously, fast and quick. It was more than he could take. He felt like an untried adolescent. Something took hold of his senses. He lost all control, forgot who and where he was, as a blistering orgasm began to tremble and quake through his body. He tried to grab hold of Catherine’s hand to slow her down, to hold off the crashing wave of fulfillment—because it was too soon, too fast, and he had never surrendered to a climax so quickly before. But almost immediately he found himself writhing on the bed of fur, clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth in abandon.

  Abruptly he sat up, then flopped back down again and shot his seed onto his stomach in an explosion of lust that brought him right off the ground.

  His eyes flew open, and he looked at Catherine to make sure she was not in a position that might risk her safety.

  Thankfully she was not. At some point she had rolled off him, and she was now lying beside him.

  “There, you see?” she said in a teasing, seductive voice. “There are some things we can do.”

  “Aye, darling,” he wearily replied, dropping his head back down, feeling dazed and delirious, still shuddering with sensation. “And you did them very well. I never came so fast in my life. If news of this gets out…”

  She smiled. “I promise it will be our secret.”

  He admired her beguiling beauty in the morning light and yearned to feel again the pleasure that had accompanied his surrender just now, but feared he might become addicted to it.

  She reached for a towel in the supply pack.

  “I need to go down to the loch and swim
for a bit,” he said, watching her face while she took great care in wiping his stomach.

  “But it’s so cold.”

  “I’m a Highlander,” he said. “I’m accustomed to it.”

  And the shock of it would do him good.

  She tossed the towel into the washbasin, then laid her head on his shoulder again.

  For a long time after that, they lay together in the quiet dawn, just holding each other.

  When the morning grew brighter, Lachlan reluctantly rose to his feet. Peering out of the shelter to make sure no one was about, he bent to pick up his shirt. He donned his tartan and buckled his belt, often glancing down at Catherine to make sure she was not offended by his hasty exit.

  She did not appear to be. In fact, she seemed quite pleased with herself.

  “You are the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I cannot tear my eyes away. I love to look at you.”

  Her words filled him with a mixture of joy and unease, for he felt the same way about her, but he was not accustomed to such intense feelings and knew not what to do with them. In the past, if a woman spoke in such a way, he would simply kiss her on the cheek and thank her for her charming words, and tell her in return how lovely she was, before backing out of the room with a teasing smile.

  He was about to leave now, but found that he could not summon such superficial endearments. He looked down at her, his expression serious and honest.

  “I love to look at you, too,” he replied. “I love everything about you.”

  She stood up, approached him slowly, and wrapped her arms around his neck. The tenderness of her embrace touched his heart, and he fought an irresistible impulse to change his mind about leaving and carry her back to the bed of fur.

  “How soon will we reach Edinburgh?” she asked, dropping lower, for she had been standing on her toes. “I want more than anything to meet my sister, and I promise you, when I do, I will demand that she set you free. If that does not work, I will get down on my knees and beg. I will do whatever it takes.”

  He cupped her cheek. “I appreciate the offer, lass,” he said, “but I can handle Raonaid myself.”

  “I want to help.”

  He shook his head at her. “I thought I was to be your champion, delivering you to safety, but it seems you wish to be mine.”

  “Yes, I want to be everything to you. I want to take away all of your torment. If only you would let me.”

  But could he? For more than ten years he had lived a life of shallow flirtations and emotional solitude, never giving his heart to another. He had held true to a vow that Glenna would be the only woman he would ever love, but that seemed a very long time ago now. It was another life. So much had changed. He had been with many women, few of whom he remembered, but he would never forget Lady Catherine Montgomery.

  In this moment, he did not want to let her go. He would have to of course, for he was still cursed, and everything that existed between them seemed to be in a state of anarchy.

  “Will you come to me again tonight?” she asked, still resting her hands on his shoulders.

  “Tonight we will reach Killin and take a room there. You’ll be more comfortable.”

  “But will you come and stay with me?” she pressed. “I don’t care what the others think. Can you not command them to secrecy? Or perhaps you could climb through my window.”

  All of a sudden, he felt lighthearted and adolescent again. “You’re a wild one, aren’t you? Have you always been so keen for adventure?”

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “I am a mystery, even to myself.”

  He pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “And you think that meeting Raonaid will solve everything.”

  Perhaps he was jaded, but he was not so sure.

  “I can only hope.”

  He couldn’t help himself. Slowly, he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. It was not a kiss to satisfy his lust, however. It was a tender show of affection—and his desire to simply dissolve into her tranquility hit him very hard.

  He stepped back and held her away from him. “I will scale the walls if I have to,” he said, referring to their upcoming sojourn at the inn and feeling rather shaken by his readiness to make such a promise. “But I must go now. Go back to sleep for a little while.” He backed out of the tent and felt the dawn’s chill on his body.

  It was a good thing. He needed it.

  Running a hand down over his face, he experienced a flash memory of the orgasm and wanted very much to reciprocate. There were many things he wanted to do for Lady Catherine, and he would do at least some of them tonight.

  He turned toward the loch and took off in a purposeful jog.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Edinburgh

  Raonaid raised the hood of her cloak over her head as she stepped out of Murdoch’s coach and collided with a rainy, blustery wind. The gusts whipped through her skirts and tugged at the empty basket she carried. Usually the streets of Edinburgh were bustling with activity at this time of day, but the foul weather had kept most sensible folk indoors by their fires.

  Raonaid, however, wanted something, and when she wanted a particular thing there was little anyone could do to stop her. This morning, she desired cod from the fishermen’s market and sugar for the cake she intended to serve the men that night, for Murdoch was planning a private gathering at the manor house, for a few select men of influence.

  The mist and rain swept fast across the cobblestone street. Raonaid leaned into it as she walked, uttering an oath of pain when a wooden pail rolled into her path, clattering noisily across the stones and hitting her in the anklebone.

  Suddenly it became tangled in her skirts. The ground flew up to meet her. Her front teeth went through her bottom lip and pain shot down to her toes.

  Struggling to recover, she rose up on all fours and looked down at the cobblestones, glistening with wetness. The wind and rain pummeled her face. She touched a finger to her bloodied lip, then watched the blood drip onto the street.

  Immediately the stones began to move like waves in the ocean, and a dizzying sensation swirled through her brain.

  Familiar with the experience—though she had never had it with cobblestones before—she focused her eyes and blinked repeatedly, willing the vision to grow clearer, while she watched the movement of her blood mixing with the shiny water, trailing jaggedly through the grooves and deep spaces between the stones.

  Shadows came to life, and the cobbles twisted and swirled. What she saw held her captive, fixed to the ground, while the vision played out in front of her eyes.

  Then it was gone, as quickly as it appeared, vanishing into the street.

  She glanced up. Murdoch was standing over her. He pulled her roughly to her feet. “You saw something, didn’t you? What was it? Tell me. Will the Stuarts rule again? Will I be a part of it? How soon? Tell me!”

  She staggered sideways, feeling nauseous and weak. “That’s not what I saw.”

  Murdoch shook her hard, then paused a moment, his eyes flashing with impatience, before he pulled her into his arms. “Take your time, darling,” he said. “Then tell me everything you remember.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut against the driving wind and rain, Raonaid rested her head on his shoulder.

  A sense of calm came over her, and she stepped back. Murdoch regarded her peevishly.

  “I saw Lachlan MacDonald,” she told him at last, still astonished by the clarity of the vision.

  He frowned. “Angus MacDonald’s cousin? The Laird of War at Kinloch? The one you cursed at Kilmartin Glen?”

  She nodded. “Aye, but I cannot tell you what I saw.”

  Turning away from him, she pulled the hood of her cloak tighter around her face, shielding her eyes from the storm.

  “Why not?” he asked, following her across the street.

  Wet and shivering, disturbed by the vision, she ran faster toward the coach. “It does not concern you, Murdoch! Leave me be, or I swear, by all that is holy,
I will curse you, too!”

  She reached the coach at last and pounded her fist on the door. Murdoch came up behind her and tore it open. It swung on its hinges and banged against the outside wall.

  Raonaid tossed her empty basket into the coach, grabbed hold of the rail, and hoisted herself into the dry interior, sheltered at last from the wind. She sat down and wiped the water from her cheeks while Murdoch climbed in and sat across from her.

  They stared at each other tensely. His dark eyes studied her with displeasure, but she would not tell him of her vision. He could never know the truth—that what she had seen was Lachlan MacDonald, his enemy as well as her own, making love to her while she cried out with boundless rapture.

  * * *

  Catherine woke to the sound of water dripping with heavy wet plops onto the roof of the tent. Drawing the woolen blanket over her shoulders, she rose and padded to the flap to look outside, hoping that the weather would not slow their journey, for she was impatient to reach Edinburgh and meet her sister.

  She untied the ribbons of the tent flap and scrutinized the morning rain. A light mist rolled smoothly along the mossy floor of the glade. Everything was shiny and dripping wet, but at least it was not a torrential downpour. Not yet, at any rate. It was a soft, gentle rain—not nearly enough to deter Catherine from venturing onward.

  Voices and footsteps interrupted the tranquility. It was Lachlan and the cook, Gawyn, their tartans pulled over their heads to keep dry.

  “Ah, look,” Gawyn said cheerfully. “Her Ladyship has awakened. Did you sleep well enough?”

  She and Lachlan shared no more than a passing glance as he led her horse closer to the tent and tethered him to a nearby branch. In that brief moment, however, she saw in Lachlan’s eyes a secret desire and her heart fluttered with anticipation.