Highland Surrender

by Dawn Halliday

  She’d risked coming to him three times. Latching the inside bolt so no one could come into her bedchamber, she slipped down the secret passageway and sneaked across the courtyard.

  The chances of someone discovering her absence from her bed were slim to none. The most dangerous part of the venture was crossing the courtyard. She always came very late, when most of the castle residents slept, and she wore her dark cloak with the hood covering her hair. If someone chanced to see her, they likely wouldn’t recognize her.

  Though she took every precaution she could, she still worried that Uncle Walter would find out about her nighttime escapes to Rob. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from going to him. Even as her mind argued against the folly of taking such a risk, she couldn’t prevent her feet from carrying her down those secret old steps or from rushing across the courtyard to the stables.

  She needed this. She needed Rob. He’d taken the crumbling pieces of her soul and begun to rebuild them.

  Stroking his fingertip over her cheek, Rob smiled. She loved how his smiles came more frequently, more easily now.

  “I want you again. Once more before you go.”

  He slid his hand over her waist and over her thigh, lifting her leg over his hip. Positioning himself at her entrance, he slid into her. She sighed in pleasure as he took her in a slow, gentle glide. She didn’t take her eyes from his face, nor did he break his gaze from hers.

  They rocked together, smoothly connected in body and spirit. Their connection filled her with contentment, wiped away all the feelings of emptiness that had pervaded her soul since her family died.

  His hands roamed her skin, stroking her lips, circling her neck, grazing over her nipples, and raising the fine hairs on her arms. She explored him too, his solid chest, the tight male nipples, the shadow of coarse hair covering his jaw.

  Finally, he caught her wrist in his hand, jerking her gaze back to his face.

  “Turn over,” he rasped, his eyes dark in the dim glow of the fire.

  Without releasing their intimate connection, he guided her to turn onto her side, away from him, simultaneously tugging her buttocks to his pelvis, locking her against him. She groaned softly as he glided through her wet, willing flesh. The angle of penetration made him press over the most sensitive places inside her, and sweet, sharp sparks of pleasure resonated through her.

  His hands scraped over her the area of skin still sensitive from the flogger, and then cupped over the hot flesh of her shoulders.

  “You’re so tight,” he whispered. “So tight all around me.”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes, glorying in how her muscles clenched over him. Separate from her control, her body squeezed him, as if to grasp him and keep him there forever.

  “Elizabeth,” he whispered. “Elizabeth.”

  She came in a shuddering onslaught of emotion, her body shaking against his. He held her tightly through it, keeping them solidly connected, keeping her safe as she flew out of control.

  Before she settled back to earth, he groaned long and low. “I can’t . . . I can’t stop it.”

  He pulled out of her, pressing his shaft between their bodies. He drew her back against his hot, hard chest and shuddered his release.

  There they remained for several long moments, until their breath evened. Then he released her. “Go now.”

  She knew he wanted her to go about as much as she wished to leave him—not at all. She sighed, but when his arm lifted from her waist, she heaved herself from the bed and dressed.

  At least she’d take the evidence with her. His seed, now partly dried, still covered her body, front and back. It represented his possession, and she gloried in that. She wouldn’t wash it from her skin until just before she came to him tomorrow.

  He sat up and watched her dress in silence. When she’d pulled the cloak over her shoulders, he reached out his hand, and she went to him.

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, Rob.”

  Both of them left so much unspoken. There wasn’t much time remaining before her marriage. How could she continue to go to him when she was married to Cam?

  She couldn’t.

  Quickly, she obliterated the thought. They’d agreed to take this one day at a time, never to think of the future, but to live solely in the present. That was the only way they could survive.

  If she considered a future without Rob, she’d drown in a vat of misery within a matter of seconds. She didn’t want to dive into that vat. When those thoughts hovered on the fringes of her consciousness, she pushed them away and focused on something else.

  Rob pressed a kiss to her palm. “Go.”

  Pulling her cloak over her shoulders and her hood over her head, she slipped down the stairs. When she closed the heavy stable door behind her, she turned toward the keep.

  A menacing shadow blocked her path.

  Elizabeth’s heart leaped to her throat. Slowly, she raised her eyes until her gaze clashed with the man’s dark, furious face.

  “It’s about time,” Uncle Walter said. “I was wondering how long we’d be here before you gave in to corruption and vice.”

  Once Ceana had drawn Cam into her cottage, she couldn’t keep her hands off him. Within moments, she’d stripped him of his coat, breeches, and shirt. He groped at her arisaid, fumbling to unclip the pin holding its edges together, and then he yanked awkwardly at her shift.

  Soon they were both naked, and the door to the cottage still stood wide-open. Ceana glanced at it, but then focused her attention on Cam. She didn’t care if anyone saw them. It had been days since she’d seen Cam. Days.

  She kissed him. Down from his jaw to his chest, lower. She paused at his erection, taking its length in her hands, stroking, pressing her lips to it, opening her mouth and taking it, as deep and as far as she could. Oh, how she loved sucking him. It was her favorite thing to feel him harden and pulse beneath her lips. She loved his taste, the way his hands tangled in her hair.

  As soon as he touched her, she lost the ability to think. Cam took over her mind, possessed it with a fiery need for him. He drew her close, closer, nudging his velvety cock deeper into her mouth until she felt crisp hairs against her lips.

  Ah, he tasted so good. She swallowed him deep, and he groaned in unison with her.

  “God in heaven,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “Mmm.” She wrapped her fingers around his steely shaft and began a steady rhythm, pumping with her hand and mouth, guided by the pressure of his fingers on the back of her head.

  Under her tongue, he grew harder, larger, until he filled her mouth completely. She wanted all of him. He was close; she could feel it. The vein on the underside of his cock bulged, the lust flowing through it about to explode.

  She moaned with every pump, feeling her lips and tongue resonating over the sensitive skin of his cock. He was long, hard, beautiful. So masculine, pumping in and out of her mouth. She devoured him.

  “Oh. Hell.” His fingers tightened in her hair. He took over, thrusting deep, pushing her hard, but never too much. He gave her as much as she could manage while still gleaning breathtaking pleasure from the experience. And then he tightened, froze, and exploded. In wave after wave, his cock pulsed, and his seed splashed over the back of her tongue. His male, salty essence overwhelmed her senses. Closing her eyes, she swallowed convulsively.

  Working carefully, she milked him of every drop. And when she could coax no more from him, she looked up at him from beneath her lashes. His face shone with a sheen of sweat.

  “I . . . I have to sit,” he murmured. Gently, she pulled away. Staying in her crouched position, she watched as he stumbled until the backs of his knees collided with her bed; then he flopped onto his back and threw his arm over his head. “Good God, Ceana.”

  She grinned. “Are you quite well? Do you require a healing tonic?”

  His only response was a muffled moan.

  Rising, she went to join him in bed, burrowing into the crook of his arm. His skin was
hot, his body long and hard. She pressed her cool flesh against him, sighing at the perfection of the fit.

  They lay together in silence for a long while, both awake, their breathing deep and contented. With her fingertips, Ceana lazily traced small circles over his torso.

  “Ceana?”

  She shifted to look up at him and saw that he’d moved his arm away from his eyes and stared intently at her.

  “Aye?”

  “Marry me.”

  Elizabeth’s uncle wrenched her inside and shut the door behind them with a definitive click. She stumbled forward, then regained her balance and spun to face him.

  It had begun. That quiver of terror deep within her.

  Uncle Walter had punished her several times in the past. But none of her transgressions had ever come near to equaling the one she’d been caught in tonight.

  Bitsy . . . Oh, why hadn’t she run away when Elizabeth had told her to?

  “Well, Lizzy.” Her uncle leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. A cold, deadly steel chilled his voice, freezing the nerves at the base of her spine. “Imagine my surprise when, unable to sleep, I took a walk around the grounds and saw you sprinting toward the stables.”

  She stared at him.

  Uncle Walter rubbed his fingers over his sagging jowls. “ ‘Is she going for a ride at this hour?’ I asked myself. So I followed you inside in order to discern what, exactly, your intentions were.”

  She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

  “I saw your skirts moving as you ascended the stairs. Then I heard you speaking with that . . . servant.” His lips turned down in an expression of disgust. “When it became clear that you intended to engage in carnal relations with that man, I turned on my heel and commenced to wait.”

  She stared at him. Why hadn’t he stopped her and Rob before their encounter? As soon as the question crossed her mind, she knew the answer. Uncle Walter didn’t want anyone else to know about her punishments. Heaven forbid anyone think her different from the pristine English girl he’d raised her to be.

  It would be a secret between the three of them. As it always had been. As everything was.

  She clenched her teeth, forcing them not to chatter. Fear froze her, made her unable to move, to speak. Her mind churned. She must do something—anything—but she could not.

  His face darkened. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You little slut.” He shook his head. “Tell me, was this your first? Or have you been sneaking about for years, tupping your inferiors in the cellars at Purefoy Abbey right under my nose?”

  Again, she didn’t respond, and he took a menacing step forward.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  Her throat was so thick, she could scarcely breathe. Spots swam in her vision.

  “Well, Lizzy. You’re not stupid. Foolish and impulsive, perhaps, but not stupid. You know as well as I do that anything you say won’t help you now.” He sighed. “I pray your husband won’t find a sudden need to return to England to pursue a career in politics. But I have no reason to believe that will be the case. I believe . . . yes, I believe you’ll be quite safely out of my way.”

  She knew it was why he’d agreed so readily to her betrothal to Cam—it had given him the opportunity to ship her off to the far end of the kingdom, where there would be a smaller chance of her embarrassing him. Exposing him. Now he intended to finish off his lie of a life by finding a woman to take to wife and beget an heir upon without any risk of Elizabeth revealing the truth.

  She hated him. She hated what he did to her. In his presence, she was so weak. Her insides had turned to jelly. Her knees wobbled. She despised herself for her weakness.

  Why couldn’t she fight back? Why couldn’t she sprint away like a gazelle and slip behind the tapestry and downstairs, through the kitchens, and across the courtyard, into the safety of Rob’s arms?

  Uncle Walter’s voice was flat, emotionless, but his pale blue eyes boiled with hatred. She knew he hated her. Despite her usefulness to him, he’d always hated her. Because she knew everything about him. She was the only soul in the world who knew how evil he truly was.

  His gaze sharpened on her. “You know what you have done is beyond the pale. This punishment must be very severe. As severe as the punishment young William endured for you.”

  Nausea rose in her throat. William—her little brother. Thirteen years ago, Uncle Walter had killed him as she’d watched.

  Tonight, he intended to kill Bitsy.

  “No,” she whispered, amazed at how calm her voice sounded. “I’ll do anything. Please don’t hurt Bitsy.”

  “You must be punished.”

  “Please, Uncle. Punish me, not her. She didn’t do anything. I—I don’t care if you hurt me.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “Perhaps that’s part of why I’ve no wish to do it.”

  “I don’t understand.” He’d so easily hurt her parents, her brother. Why not her? Why keep her in a state of purgatory for so long? Had he left her in this world for the mere pleasure of watching her suffer? How was it possible that anyone could be so cruel?

  “It hurts you much more to watch.”

  She glanced up at him and found his icy pale eyes studying her.

  He tilted his head. “You’re all I have left of my brother. So precious. I couldn’t hurt all that remains of him, bless his departed soul.”

  “You’re a liar,” she whispered. “You wish to punish him through me. I am all that is left of him, so I am all that is left to hurt. And I was a child, an easy target, a simple way to wreak your revenge. You knew he’d wish me to be happy, to be alive, and you did whatever you could to stifle that. Why did you hate him, Uncle? What did he do to you to make you so vengeful?”

  His lips twitched and then lifted. “What does it matter? We’re almost finished with our time together, Lizzy. This, in fact, is likely to be my last opportunity to punish you. So I’m going to make certain I do it well. It shall be a punishment you’ll never forget.”

  She tried once more. “No. Please.”

  He sighed. “And then I’ll have to do something about that man who dared to touch you.”

  She couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. Strangling fear gripped her throat.

  He raised his hand, and his fingers curled round the door handle and began to turn it.

  “Wait!”

  His hand stilled. Keeping his grip on the door handle, he turned to face her.

  “Tell me one thing, please,” she whispered. “Why? Why did you hate my father?”

  He shrugged. “It’s nothing you could understand.” He looked past her, his eyes distant. “He was the first son, the prodigal son, the beloved boy who could do no wrong. He had it all, from the very beginning. I had nothing—not because I deserved nothing, but because I wasn’t born first. I deserved it, though. I deserved the dukedom and all the riches that were destined for him. I was smarter than him, a far better leader. What stupidity is it that demands a firstborn son inherit when it is more logical that the superior son should acquire everything?” He shrugged. “I merely corrected a wrong, Lizzy.”

  “You’re mad.”

  He shook his head, his expression somber. “No. I’m quite lucid and quite aware of my actions and their consequences. Your parents and brother dying when they did was convenient, but to have you die too . . . No, and after such a miraculous recovery from the pox—that would have been far too convenient. How much better to prove to the world what a benevolent, noble man I was, first to take you under my wing and raise you, and then to marry you to a peer. It was a brilliant plan.” The lamplight caught in his eyes, making them glitter as he turned toward the door.

  “Now wait here, Lizzy, dear. I’ll return shortly.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “What?” Ceana asked dumbly.

  “Marry me.”

  She went still. “You know that is impossible.”

  “Nonsense.�
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  “You’re marrying Lady Elizabeth. You can’t just walk away from that.”

  Cam slid an arm over her waist, keeping her pressed against him. “I can, and I will.”

  “You wouldn’t do that to her,” Ceana said in a quiet voice. “She’d be ruined. Disgraced.”

  “I wouldn’t throw her to the lions. I have an idea . . .” His voice faded.

  “You’re a dreamer, Cam.” He shrugged lightly, and she sighed. “In any case, talk of Elizabeth is beside the point. You know I cannot marry.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Pulling away from him, she rolled onto her back. “Well, it is the truth.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just the way of it. MacNab women don’t marry.”

  “What nonsense.”

  “No,” she said, utterly serious. “It isn’t.”

  Lying beside her, staring up at the ceiling as she was, he thrust a hand into his hair. “Do you expect me to simply accept such an obtuse announcement?”

  “Aye.”

  “Well, I won’t, damn it! I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  All the breath whooshed out of her body. She stared helplessly up at the beams crisscrossing the thatched ceiling. God forgive her, but she was in love with him too. A MacNab healer besotted with an Earl of Camdonn. They had to be the two most divergent souls to ever have fallen in love.

  There were so many reasons for them to stay apart. Their differing social classes. The requirements he’d have of a spouse—a countess. And the thought of her as a countess was laughable even to her. His need to maintain stable political ties with England. His betrothal to Elizabeth and his duty to protect her reputation and future.

  Cam, her beloved dreamer, thought to overcome all those obstacles and marry her.

  God help her if all of it didn’t make her love him more. She turned to him and studied the sharp planes of his face. Such a beautiful man. A good man. Why did so few see it in him?

  He rolled to his side and those deep, compelling eyes fixed on her face. “I want to be with you, beside you, always.”