by Allie Mackay
Her heart stopped, terror making it impossible to breathe. The pit dungeon loomed right in front of her.
She closed her eyes, unable to bear watching the world disappear, but just before she could slide over the edge, someone grabbed her, hoisting her into the air. The brute force of her rescuer’s grip caused her collar to cut into her throat, choking her even as relief made her giddy, set stars spinning in her head.
She gasped, fighting for air, and the man loosened his hold. But for one ghastly moment, she dangled over the sea pit, its yawning blackness staring up at her until her rescuer hurled her across his broad and well-muscled shoulder.
Sputtering, she hung upside down, her lungs burning and her breasts bouncing against the man’s back as he strode out of the cave. At least that’s what she hoped he was doing. Her eyes stung too badly to know for sure.
And the blood rushing into her head made her dizzy.
She drew a shuddery breath. “Thank you. So much. But you can put me down now.”
Ignoring her, the man only grunted. Then he promptly tightened his hold on her. She tried to break free, but his grip was like iron. He even splayed a hand over her buttocks, his grip grinding a certain part of her against his shoulder.
Her face flamed. This was not the time or place for that kind of stimulation.
“Hey, watch the hand!” she protested, trying to squirm free. “Better yet, put me down.”
She might have been talking to a wall. Instead of releasing her, he merely shifted her in his arms and continued on his way. Out of the sea cave and along the base of the cliff, his every purposeful step causing his fingers to press more intimately into her private parts.
Heat shot up her neck, scalding her cheeks.
He practically had his hand between her legs!
Unintentional or not, his fingers kept sliding over her. An intimate rubbing that really bothered her. Especially when one of his fingers probed a particularly sensitive spot. Mara jerked, riptides of tingles streaking across her most tender flesh.
“Put-me-down,” she seethed, blocking the sensations caused by his questing fingers. “Now.”
When he didn’t, she knew what she had to do.
She hadn’t grown up on Philly’s meanest streets for nothing.
“I’m sorry – I know you saved my life,” she said, even meaning it.
But enough was enough.
So she opened her mouth as wide as she could and sank her teeth into his back.
“Owwwwwwww!” He froze and she twisted free, kicking him in the shin for good measure.
She stumbled away from him, keeping her hands fisted and raised, ready for attack. Not that she expected one. Not now, with the bastard hopping on one foot and clutching his leg.
Feeling just a tad guilty, she squinted at him, trying to clear her eyes to get a decent look. Burning eyes or no, she didn’t miss the bejeweled dagger thrust beneath his wide, leather belt.
It was him!
The hot Scot.
And looking as if he’d stepped out of one of her father’s favorite books on Highland clans. Big, strapping, and plaid-hung, he also looked wet, windblown, and fierce.
“You!” Mara glared at him. “How dare you follow me around!”
“Dinnae push me, lass.” He glowered back. “You’d no’ like seeing me in a temper, and I wasnae chasing after you. It was my folly to think you in peril,” he wheezed, holding tight to his shin.
“Your folly?” Mara set her hands on her hips. “You do have a strange way of expressing yourself. I’ll give you that. Who are you anyway?”
“Sir Alexander Douglas,” he stammered, his sea green stare piercing her. “Knight of the Scottish realm.”
Mara blinked. This was worse than she’d thought. And not because he professed to be a knight. Everyone knew knights were dubbed all the time.
Especially famous singers and film stars.
No, it was the way he’d made the claim that gave her the willies. Or even his old-fashionedy Highland garb.
He’d said it as if he meant he was a real knight.
A card-carrying medieval one of the shining armor, big sword, and war-horse variety.
Mara swiped back her hair. “You’re mad.”
“Aye, that I am,” he hissed, letting go of his leg. “In ways that can be very dangerous for you.”
“Don’t come any closer!” she warned when he began limping forward, his plaid flapping in the wind. “Leave me alone and no one will have to know I saw you.” She inched toward the cliff steps. “Just go away.”
“By Odin’s bluidy arse!” He stalked after her, his brow darkening. “Do you think I wish to be here?”
“I only know that you are – and that I don’t like it!” she shot back, her pulse frantic.
Then, resorting to a trick she’d learned in Philly playgrounds, she scooped up a handful of sand and threw it in his face.
“Fires of Hades!” he roared, grinding his fists into his eyes. “Black-tailed she-bitch! MacDougall hell-spawn!”
Mara didn’t wait to hear more.
Spinning round, she raced up the steps as fast her soggy-shoed feet would carry her. Never in her life would she have hung around and waited for him to calm himself.
Even so, once she gained the wall-walk, she peered over the edge of the parapet.
Her nemesis was nowhere to be seen.
He’d vanished again, most likely returning to the sea cave. Not that it mattered. She now knew how he’d gained entry into her room. If he tried such nonsense again, he’d be in for a surprise.
She’d bar the door to the battlements.
If only she could erase his image from her mind. The tingles he summoned with a single glance, a mere rub of a circling finger.
Crazed or not, he took her breath away.
And was the first man to ever excite her.
Too bad he didn’t have all his marbles. Imagine a man thinking he was a knight.
The Sir Lancelot and King Arthur kind.
Mara blew out a breath. She’d never heard anything more ludicrous.
Delicious as the notion might be.
Chapter Five
The instant the flame-haired hellcat scrambled over the top of the cliff, Alex re-materialized on the sandy, rock-strewn shore. Seabirds screamed overhead, almost as if they were laughing at him. He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, supposing they were. “So much for chivalry,” he muttered, glaring at the wheeling birds.
He knew better than to look anywhere else.
He especially wouldn’t turn his gaze on the cliff path leading up to the parapets.
If he did, he’d still see her. Her breasts bouncing and her shapely hips wig-wagging as she’d hurried up the perilous stone steps. For truth, even the tumbling spill of her bright, coppery hair remained emblazoned across his mind. Each curling strand had gleamed and shimmered in the morning sun, begging a man’s touch.
How irksome that his fingers itched to do the honors.
“Hell’s bells and damnation!” He squelched the urge, stared out across the water to the jagged line of the Inner Hebrides, the great hills of Mull, serried and blue on the horizon.
You are mad, she’d accused him.
And wasn’t that the way of it?
Alex breathed deeply, filled his lungs with the bracing sea air. “Split me, if she hasn’t hexed me,” he groused, squinting in the slanting sunlight. He raked a hand through his hair, set his jaw against his ill temper. Truth was, he knew exactly what ailed him. He’d been too long without a woman.
Centuries too long.
Even so, he wasn’t about to let a MacDougall female’s ripe curves and swinging tresses goad him into foolishness.
His back hurt where she’d sunk her teeth into him, his shin throbbed, and his eyes burned like fire. Those were the things that mattered. Not how his tarse had filled and lengthened when he’d felt her full breasts pressing against him as he’d carried her from the sea cave.
He still
couldn’t believe the viciousness of her attack.
But his savaged body told the tale.
The vixen had done more damage to him than the boldest knight would dare.
Marveling at her cheek, he kept his gaze on the isle-dotted sea, the rise of the sparkling swells. In another time, his heart would have leapt at such beauty. He’d even been known to compose verse about the glories of Scotland’s magnificent Western Sea.
This morn, he could think of naught but her.
She was obsessing him no matter how swiftly he tallied up her faults. The many ways he should have done with her and be glad of it. The ice cold blood in her veins and her tainted lineage. It shouldn’t surprise him that she’d unsheathed her claws, coming at him like an outraged feline, riled and hissing. How could he have thought such a she-demon needed rescuing?
And that wasn’t the worst of it.
She’d mocked him.
He’d seen the disbelief on her face when he’d told her his name, revealed his knightly status. His scowl deepening, he scooped up a piece of driftwood and hurled it into the surf. Alone the name Douglas should have impressed her. Hardly a greater, more noble race of men had ever strode across the heather.
Leastways in his day.
Yet she’d gaped at him as if he’d declared the moon was about to fall from the heavens.
He blew out a hot breath, curled his fingers around his belt. Truth was, he’d never told a falsehood in all his overlong life.
Not even to a MacDougall.
A Douglas had too much honor to lie. Neither did they make war on women. To be sure, he knew of knights who took occasional ease from an unwilling lassie, and even some who’d raise a hand to their own lady wife.
But not him.
He abhorred such behavior.
The mere thought made his gut clench. Such villainy simply never crossed his mind. Not once in all the years he’d been cursed to guard his bed.
Frightening MacDougalls had always been enough.
Until now.
Like it or not, this MacDougall required more effective means of persuasion.
Not that he would make good his threat to skewer her with his sword.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t ponder the possibilities. Occupying his mind with such pleasing wickedness kept him from dwelling on the more base instincts she roused in him.
Of course, there was one tactic he hadn’t yet tried on her.
The brilliance of it elated him.
Feeling better already, he stretched his arms over his head and flexed his fingers. Soon he would go to her. For the sake of his dignity, he would repeat exactly who he is and his reason for being here.
If she still didn’t have the good grace to believe him and relinquish his bed, he would simply tell her that he was no longer of this world.
He’d declare in the King’s good English that he was a ghost.
A discarnate soul cursed to walk amongst the living.
That should rattle her, sure enough.
Just imagining her reaction let a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He could see those amber eyes of hers widening in fear when she realized she stood before a spirit. He doubted even her boldness could withstand such a shock.
She’d be wise to then pack her bags and go.
He didn’t care where.
He just hoped that, before she went, she wouldn’t again treat him to a teasing glimpse of her nakedness. If she dared, he wouldn’t be made responsible for his actions.
There were only so many things a man could endure.
Viewing a tempting morsel like the current MacDougall in all her flaming, bare-bottomed glory and not having a piece of her was not one of them.
Alex tossed another bit of driftwood into the sea, and smiled. Something told him his days of playing the monk were coming to an end.
He just hoped the anticipation didn’t kill him.
***
“A maniac?”
Murdoch’s tufted gray brows shot upward so fast, Mara thought they might fly off. “Havers, lass. There might be a few chancers hereabouts, they come up from the south, the most of ‘em. But a full-crazed Highlander?”
Mara nodded. “If his buttery-soft burr wasn’t Highland, then I speak with a Texas twang.”
Murdoch scratched his chin.
He’d been pacing in front of the library’s tall, mullioned windows, his kilt swishing just above his knobby knees. Now he stopped to stare at her.
“A Highlander,” he repeated, sounding doubtful. “We can be a cross-grained lot when riled, I’ll admit. Stubborn as the day is long. But mad?”
“Mad as a hatter.” Mara folded her arms, sure of it.
Murdoch shook his head, reached to flip on a wall sconce. “Just dinnae fash yourself,” he said, stepping away from the soft, golden light. “I’ll ring Malcolm’s mum’s croft and have him and a few lads scour the gardens and woods.”
“He won’t be there.” Mara flicked a glance at the high ceiling and tried to bite back her agitation.
Murdoch didn’t believe her.
“He was down at the shore,” she reminded him, her face heating as she remembered the lout’s slip-sliding fingers. The way he’d rubbed her.
Intentional or not, his touch had affected her, breaching intimate boundaries that shouldn’t have been crossed under such circumstances. Yet they had been, and the shock of it had been intense, even stealing the breath from her lungs.
Clearly a cause was that she’d never enjoyed hot, mind-blowing, sheet-gripping sex.
Actually, she couldn’t recall any man touching her so intimately, making her stomach flutter, the rest of her…
Mara bit her lip, feeling the tingles even now.
It was his Scottish accent she was sure. A deep, smooth Highland burr drove every woman wild. Especially Americans, and she certainly wasn’t immune.
Still…
She didn’t like it at all.
Murdoch was watching her oddly, his quirky brows drawn in a line across his forehead. “The lads will find him, for sure.” He gestured toward the windows. “Like as no’ he’s in the wood, making for the Oban road.”
Mara straightened her spine, willed her discomfiture not to show. “I last saw him where the cliff steps end on the strand.”
Murdoch shrugged. “That may be, but he willnae be there now, will he?”
Bent with age but bristling with authority, he eyed her from beneath a particularly nasty-looking stag’s head, the most moth-eaten such trophy to grace the library’s book-lined walls. Every one of the body-less abominations seemed to be watching her, their glass-eyed stares warning her not to dispute the old man’s opinion.
“See you, lassie, any Highlander with a whit of sense wouldn’t linger on that wee shingly bit o’ shore with such a storm coming down,” he declared, proving his wisdom.
Mara had to agree.
Behind him, beyond the vast, shadow-hung library, the day had turned dreich, sunless and gray. Bursts of gusting rain pelted the window’s mullioned panes, and wet, howling winds rattled the shutters. Somewhere, a loose one banged against a wall, and if the low, drifting mists were any indication, the sun wouldn’t be showing itself again that day.
“Ne’er you worry.” Murdoch stepped closer to the windows, looked out at the streaming rain. “If the blighter is still out there, he’ll be found.”
“I hope so.” Mara couldn’t keep the doubt from her voice. “The man is dangerous.”
Shamelessly seductive.
Another hot little rush shot through her and she swallowed, wished his image would stop haunting her. His rich, husky burr and the wicked things it did to her.
Mercy, a girl could climax just listening to him!
She frowned. Whether the strapping, green-eyed Highlander was ripped straight from her most secret fantasies or not, he was also amazingly rude. Quite possibly deranged.
No, quite likely deranged.
Her nerves tightening, she took a seat in a windo
w nook, careful not to disturb Scottie and Dottie, Ravenscraig’s Jack Russell terrier pair. The little dogs favored the cushioned coziness of the alcove’s twin-facing benches and were snuggled together, having made a nest of old plaids and tasseled pillows.
Smart doggies. The library was chilly, and growing icier by the moment.
So cold, she took a plaid from the opposite bench and draped it across her knees. Far below, the white-capped Firth of Lorne tossed and churned, the wintry look of the leaden waves making her shiver. Freezing as she was, she may well be bobbing about in the firth rather than sitting here, tucked into a woolen plaid and with a well-doing log fire crackling in the large, green-marbled hearth.
She bit her lip, puzzled.
The cheery flames didn’t spend a shred of warmth.
But they looked nice.
Like the ghastly stags’ heads and the many gilt-framed portraits of tartan-draped MacDougalls, the open fire gave the room a delicious feel of previous centuries.
Almost as if she’d stepped into a time-warp.
And to her, even a pretend glimpse at the faded elegance of such long-ago days was worth a few shivers. So she drew her feet up beneath her and forced a smile for the kilted steward.
“Just please tell Malcolm and the others to be careful,” she warned. “The man thinks he’s a medieval knight.”
To her dismay, Murdoch hooted. “Are you sure he wasn’t telling you a tall tale?”
“No.” Mara shook her head. “He was serious. I’m quite sure he believes it.”
“Well then!” Murdoch looked down, flicked a bit of lint off his kilt. “Malcolm can just tell the laddie we aren’t in need of knightly services.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Och, lassie, I dinnae doubt you.” He glanced aside, watched old Ben amble in and plop down on the hearth rug. “I’m just after thinking the lad found you fetching and meant to impress you.”
He looked back at her. “Like as not, he’s in Oban this minute, nursing a broken heart o’er a fine dram.” A mischievous smile lit the steward’s eyes. “It’s a rare Heilander what don’t have a wee bit of the romantic in him.”
Mara pressed her lips together. Her Highlander was pure walking sex. Not a Gaelic poet. A sensual machine. Virile and way too physical, he was a breathtakingly beautiful man filled with arrogance and dark urges she’d best not think about.