by Shayla Black
Thankful for his slumber, she leaned closer, touching a trembling palm to the ridged plain of his bare abdomen. She drew in a sharp breath at the feel of his hard flesh and swallowed to conquer the urge to abandon her plan in the face of her pounding heart.
He moved not at her touch, and she continued on her quest, easing another hand beneath his thigh. The intimacy of her actions seeped into her. She’d never touched a man thus. Had never been this close to one.
Nor had she ever been abducted by a murderer.
Averyl forced herself to concentrate on his identity and nefarious plan…not the curious breathlessness she felt at the feel of his skin. Yet the warmth of his big body penetrated her anxiety with something stronger.
Bringing her hands closer together, nearer the codpiece, Averyl held her breath, trying to ignore the feel of Locke’s warmth upon her fingers. Another inch, mayhap two, and the pouch would be free. She resisted the notion that Locke could hear the thunderous rhythm of her heart.
Her captor shifted again, giving her access to his pocket. Yanking it to her chest, Averyl slipped her hand into the scratchy wool, still warm from the most male part of his body. He had a good amount of coin, judging from the jingle within, but she resisted the urge to take any. She would find a way to Murdoch’s side without resorting to Locke’s thievery.
Averyl reached, her fingers stretching. Finally, she felt a cold length of metal. She closed her palm around the long object and lifted it from the pouch. The slender beam of moonlight beneath the door told her ’twas a key.
Clutching it, she made to rise. Her captor shifted into her, throwing her off balance. Averyl fell to her back with a quiet thud.
She tried to find her feet, but Locke draped the length of his battle-hardened arm over her stomach and rolled toward her, half of his big body covering hers.
“Averyl?” came the sleepy inquiry again, a whisper.
She lay completely still, save for the drilling of her heart. She must think of a way to leave his slumberous embrace without waking him—not of the scents of sandalwood and something muskier that clung to his skin.
Slowly, she inched away, grasping the key in one hand, eyes tightly shut. Locke tightened his hold about her and sidled closer, until more of his massive chest eclipsed her, pinning her to the floor beneath him.
He turned his head away from the door, toward her. His eyes remained closed. “Hmmm.”
At his soft moan, her skin erupted with chill bumps. Heat swept through her. Why, under his touch, did she no longer feel her fear of the dark?
Shaking away the foolish thought, she chastised herself. Locke merely slept, clutching his captive, the vessel of his revenge. He did not seek to protect her, and she must escape while defending herself against the dark’s demons.
Averyl frowned, wondering too why he had not awakened.
Knowing she did not have time to solve that mystery, she lay still until his breathing deepened once more. Just as she moved to make good her escape, Locke’s hand lifted from the curve of her waist upward.
His warm fingers covered her breast.
She gritted her teeth to rein in a gasp. The foreign sensation, like a flare of lightning, erupted within her. A hot and cold ache pervaded her as her flesh tightened and her nipples pebbled beneath his touch. An urge to arch to him in offering blinded her for a moment. If he could give so much pleasure in his sleep, what measure could he give when alert?
Nay, she would not think so…wantonly. The moment’s surprise merely masqueraded as pleasure. She would learn if he slept still, then find a way to flee.
Easing from his touch, Averyl turned her face to his. He breathed deeply, evenly, with closed eyes. Did that not mean he slept still?
“Averyl,” he whispered sleepily again.
She stilled as he wrapped his hand about her nape and drew her close, so close. Breath trapped in her chest, she felt his other hand slide up her waist, to cover her breast again. She jumped, startled—and found her mouth an inch from his.
Assailed by the woodsy musk of his scent, the feel of his nearness and intimate touch, she froze in shock. And wonder.
He settled his mouth over hers. Soft, warm lips covered her own. Mingling breaths, a rush of sensation, an explosion of wonderment. His mouth swept over hers lightly, lingered and nipped, tasting of nightly ale and manly allure.
Averyl drew in a deep breath. The room seemed to spin about her. His lips, so tender… An utter puzzle. Could one so evil really taste so pleasing? Touch as if gentle?
He groaned, startling her. Averyl broke the kiss and eased away, then scrambled to her feet. Her lips tingled, and she placed cold fingers against them, aching for another taste of tenderness.
Nay. She must concentrate on escape.
Praying he did not awaken, she backed away through the hated dark, heart pounding, until her legs encountered the bed. Smothering a gasp, she scurried about the room, gathering her satchel and a quilt from the bed. She shut the door softly behind her, hoping the sound would not wake him.
Barefooted and shaking, her heart drumming, she sprinted through the obsidian night, up the steep hill to the gate, hoping to leave behind the demons of the dark—and her captor.
Her trembling fingers inserted the key and turned it. The gate swung open. Freedom was hers! She had naught to do but master her childhood fear, find Locke’s boat, and cast away from his prison isle. And she might be hours away before he woke to find she’d fled. She would be with Murdoch soon. They would wed. Abbotsford would be safe.
With a low cry, she burst through the thick shrubbery, into the night, a wild animal suddenly freed from its cage. At the top of the hill, she drew in a deep breath of pungent salt air and glanced above at clouds of ashen gray that obscured the moonlight to a faint ghostly glow. Averyl clenched her fists as a damp sheen of fear bathed her face.
She must forget the villains and ghosts, and remember Locke’s boat. Aye, it was most important now. She must have it to return to the MacDougall.
Averyl listened to the sounds of crashing waves about her, pelting her from all directions. Where would he hide it? A cave, most like. A dark, black hole hiding the unknown. She cringed against the dark.
Then she squared her shoulders, vowing that for escape, she’d endure the pitch cavern. Staying could only be more dangerous. With Locke, she feared for more than her safety.
She rummaged through her satchel for footwear. Dresses and shifts she unearthed, but naught resembling her shoes. Knowing she did not have enough time or light for a more thorough search, she tossed the blanket about her shoulders as protection from the chilly darkness and headed for the shore, scanning all about for blood-thirsty ghouls. If she must search the perimeter of the island, that she would do.
Upon reaching the rocky shore, Averyl found a scrap of sandy soil and began walking, guided by the milky reflection of the weak moonlight on the silver water. She scanned the land for anything that resembled a boat or a place to hide one, vowing she had not come this far and risked Locke’s wrath for naught. Nor had she succumbed to the bewildering pleasure of a kiss she had enjoyed far too well to be thwarted.
CHAPTER FIVE
Drake rolled to his back and stretched, delicious languor flooding his limbs. Ah, such sweet dreams of Lady Averyl, of her fine berry lips beneath his. Her warm breast in his palm. He clutched the dream tight, clinging to the fantasy.
He reached for his pillow and encountered scratchy wool. His fingers followed the garment to its end, only to find his open codpiece.
Bolting to his feet, Drake’s gaze sought the bed. Rumpled. And empty.
“Averyl!” he shouted as his fingers dug into the pouch in his grasp. Coin after coin he withdrew until the pocket lay empty. He cursed and made a quick search of the remainder of the cottage, only to have his fears confirmed.
She’d taken the key and her satchel and fled.
Pulling on his
hose and tunic, Drake wondered how he could have let the vixen past him. Had he been so weary from three sleepless nights that deep slumber prevented him from hearing her escape? He thrust on his boots. Perhaps his wanton dream of Averyl had hindered him from waking as she escaped.
Or had that been a dream?
He touched a finger to his mouth, determined to learn the truth. If she had used her wiles to escape him, he would make her regret it. His father had proven clearly the depths to which a man’s soul could sink in order to win a lady’s favor. He would not be manipulated by her perfumed flesh. Aye, Averyl churned his blood. That he would not deny, but never would he allow his loins to transcend logic.
Making his way outside, Drake sprinted toward the ravine’s fog-enshrouded gate. He must find Averyl—before she found his boat and made good her escape. But his dream of her, soft and willing in his bed, would not leave him. Nor the certainty she had used her mouth and his lust to manipulate him.
Troubled by the circle of his thoughts, Drake cursed when he found the gate flung wide. He surged up the steep incline and bolted to the top. There, he halted.
The moonlight dodged in and out of the clouds. Scowling, Drake knelt and searched the moist earth until he saw the faint tracks of small bare feet. Frozen feet by now, no doubt. For even though ’twas summer, the night air held a chill.
With urgent steps, Drake followed the soft imprint of Averyl’s footsteps. As he assumed, she had headed to the shore.
For twenty minutes, he tracked her, gut churning with apprehension. Ordinarily, he would not believe anyone could so quickly find the cave in which he’d hidden his small boat. Secreted behind rocks and trees, he’d carefully chosen the spot. Still, Averyl had proven herself no ordinary woman.
Soon, the sand with Averyl’s tracks skirted around an outcropping of boulders destined to endure nature’s icy pounding for eternity. The moon disappeared once more beneath a black strip of angry sky, snatching the milky moonlight away. Blackness oozed where the muted light once reigned.
Skirting the rocky shore, he climbed slowly upward through the onyx dark, past the ancient standing stones. At the edge of the heather-dotted cliff, he found Averyl bathed in shadow, a small mass huddled beneath a white blanket. Her hair whipped behind her like a sail in the screeching wind as he approached. Her satchel lay next to her, on its side.
Relief zipped through him. On the heels of that came fury. He needed her here, as much for her own safety as the success of his plan. She must understand that.
Drake stepped toward her, forming a tongue-lashing in his mind. Then the wind carried her cry to his ears.
Why did that cry bother him so? More this time than last?
Did she know he approached and seek to win his sympathy? ’Twould be like a woman…all except Aric’s Gwenyth. She would flail a man with her dagger tongue before showing him her tears. But with the fair Gwenyth settled happily into married life with his friend at Northwell, Drake did not believe he’d meet another woman with so forthright a manner. Particularly not a Campbell.
Drake crouched behind Averyl, ready to berate her. Before he could speak, her tresses whipped up to graze his cheek. She smelled of salt and those damned white flowers. He doused pleasure with anger.
“You cannot escape, Averyl. Give me the key.”
She gasped at hearing his voice and turned. Drake expected many reactions, a struggle, a scream, another run for freedom.
Never did he expect she would throw her arms about him and press her small, trembling body against him.
Hesitantly, he drew his arms about her. She burrowed closer against him. An urge to protect her bolted through him, and he frowned against it.
“What ploy is this, little witch?” he whispered into the wind. “Do you seek to confuse me?”
She shook her head wildly. “I am frightened.”
“Of me?” he asked, puzzled.
Her sob pierced his vexation. She sounded so distraught, so afraid…
“The dark frightens me even more than you,” she confessed in trembling tones. “Please do not let aught hurt me.”
The hard rock of fury in his gut began to melt as the urge to protect blasted him once more. He drew her tiny chilled body against him. She’d been out here minutes, perhaps hours, fearing what she could not see, and trusted him to save her?
He stroked the soft waves of her golden hair. “No harm will befall you whilst I am near.”
She nodded and relaxed against him.
For long moments, she said naught, only clutched him as if he were the rope preventing her from a death drop over a cliff. He held her only to ease her fears. He did not feel pleasure at her trust, nor arousal at the firm mounds of her breasts against him. He noticed not the silken slide of her tresses through his fingers. At least for no more than a moment or two.
Ach, what a fool. He did notice that—and more, like sounds of soft breath rushing from her ripe mouth, the satiny skin at her nape. He could scarce do naught but notice.
“How did you come to fear the dark?” he asked, breaking the dangerous spell of silence about them.
“You will think me foolish,” she demurred.
“No fear is foolish if it truly frightens you.”
Averyl bit her quivering lip, then drew in a deep breath. “I… When I was six years, the MacDuffs lay siege to Abbotsford. M-my mother took me from my bed, up into one of the towers for safety.” She clinched her hands in her lap and pressed her lips together. “At-at the top, darkness abounded. A pair of rough hands wrenched me from her grasp. I heard her scream…but could see naught.” After another shaky breath, she pressed on. “Hours passed while I cried her name into the silence. Come morning, sunlight revealed that she’d been strangled.”
A pang hit him in the chest. A new urge to hold her assailed him, and he gave into it, much against his will. She’d been no more than a wee lass when such tragedy occurred. Little wonder she’d clutched onto him as if her life depended upon it.
“You will be safe here,” he whispered. “This I vow.”
“Thank you,” she whispered into his neck.
Drake continued to hold his captive, swallowing against an odd need to hold her. Kiss her. Had he sampled that mouth once before? One simple taste would tell the truth.
“Averyl?” he called as the wind whispered around them.
She lifted her face to him, and the moon broke free from the imprisoning black clouds. Silver light illuminated her pure ivory features, the bright hazel eyes. Drake felt his loins tighten as he lowered his mouth and took hers.
She stiffened and froze. Drake softened his kiss, despite the surge of hunger gnawing at him.
He tasted the sea’s salt on her lips, as well as a hint of wine and something uniquely her. Something delectable.
Something familiar.
Though he had solved the mystery of his dream, Drake held fast, savoring her lips, again sweeping his mouth over hers. To his surprise, her mouth turned pliant against his own. If her kiss was a ploy, so be it. He would feel the pleasure before her machinations came.
But such thoughts were dangerous. His mother had nearly killed his beloved sire with her honey-laced cruelty. He must not forget that.
Drake tore his mouth away. “I did not dream of another kiss, did I?”
Even in the muted moonlight, he saw Averyl flush pink. She wiggled free from his embrace, and he released her.
“I— In my search for your key, you reached for me…”
Was that so? In his dream, he had been the one to seek her mouth with his own, to seek satisfaction in her body, true. If their mouths had truly mated before she fled the cottage, had he been responsible, not her manipulation?
Drake swallowed his uncertainty. He was not an uncertain man, and though her reply made sense, he did not like that answer, one that meant she haunted him in his sleep.
“You did not find my boat, I
take it?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Nay, as you can well see.”
Her bitter tone incited that ill feeling in his gut again. Though ’twas not guilt, he vowed. Still, he had taken her from her family and future. ’Twas up to him to ease her plight.
“I recall long days in Murdoch’s dungeon,” he said softly. “Freedom was a fantasy. But on many days a ray of sunlight would penetrate the cracks of the castle walls. I would oft concentrate so hard on that light, on my remembrances of the outdoors, I could imagine myself there.”
In the moonlight, her eyes grew wide with recognition. “Aye. When the clouds parted, I could see land, could imagine it beneath my feet, yet not reach it for the sea.”
“The Mull of Kintyre is but four miles west.”
Averyl shivered, and Drake draped his arm about her again. She stiffened until he drew her small icy feet in his grasp. Her sigh shivered its way down his back.
How could he feel anger, protectiveness, lust, and remorse within the span of minutes? Had he gone mad, or did Averyl bewitch him?
“Where have you put my shoes?” she asked, allowing him to keep her feet in his grasp. “I found them not in my satchel.”
“I hid them for just this reason.” He shrugged an apology.
Did he feel contrite? Nay, ’twas lack of sleep. Naught else. Certainly not her allure. Or his conscience.
“’Tis time to return to the cottage, Averyl. I mean you no harm, but neither will you escape.”
“So you merely mean to destroy my future and Abbotsford?”
Drake shoved aside the damned ill feeling her words engendered. “Murdoch will pay for his sins. You are his currency. Accept that, else we will spend many more nights here, playing this game you will not win.”
* * * * *
The thud of footsteps outside the cottage woke Averyl. She sat up in bed, expecting Locke to stroll into the dwelling with the knowledge of their kiss glittering in his dark eyes.
Flushing at the remembrance, she lowered her head into her hands with a sigh, then batted a hand at the sleep-mussed hair lying in a tangle about her. How could a tyrant without care for anyone but himself, without feeling at all, rouse her blood? Soothe her with his unexpected understanding of her fear?