His own future was anything but certain, but when he was done with her tonight, he would leave her no doubt that she belonged to him for as long as that future held.
Duncan was staring at her with the strangest expression on his face.
Jeannie reached up to put a hand on his cheek, rubbing her palm against the stubble of the dark beard that shadowed his jaw. He looked so serious. “What is it? Did I do something wrong?”
A slow smile curved his mouth. It landed like a blow across the chest. For a moment he looked like the boy she’d lost her heart to.
“Nothing is wrong, though I hope you don’t intend to take a nap.”
He was sitting on the edge of the bed leaning over her, and she let her gaze travel over the broad muscled chest and down to the prominent evidence of his arousal. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You mean we aren’t done?”
“Do I look done?”
She bit her lip playfully. “Hmm. I can’t tell.” She lifted her gaze to his, seeing his blue eyes turn dark. “Perhaps I should touch and see?”
All signs of playfulness fled. “God, yes,” he groaned.
She reached down between their bodies and circled him. Her hand looked so small holding him, her fingers weren’t even able to close around him. His skin was hot, but velvety soft and rock hard at the same time.
He showed her how to stroke him, how to bring him pleasure. She loved to watch the way his stomach muscles clenched as her rhythm quickened. To watch the emotions play upon his handsome features. She scooted closer, pressing tiny kisses along his clenched jaw, on his neck, on his chest. She loved the taste of his skin. The warmth. The crisp, clean saltiness.
She heard his breath hitch as her mouth dipped lower. As her tongue slid over the steely defined bands lining his stomach.
Her hand paused. What would the rest of him taste like?
She lifted her gaze to his, his expression more fierce than she’d ever seen it. Every muscle in his body seemed clenched tight. He read her silent question and nodded. Barely. He seemed unable to move.
He pulsed, a pearly drop seeping from his tip and she licked it off with her tongue, tasting him. He swore, and nearly jumped off the bed, his body shaking with pleasure. She lowered her head and pressed her lips around him, taking the heavy head of his erection in her mouth. He groaned, clenched hard, then lifted his hips to slide deeper into her mouth. Her senses filled with the tangy male essence of him. Everything was deeper … darker … more intense.
She closed her eyes and gave over to the powerful sensations, exploring him with her mouth, with her tongue, sucking him deeper and deeper down her throat. His responses—the groans, the stiffening of his body—were her guide. With each stroke she grew more confident. The knowledge that she was driving him mad with pleasure only increased her own.
“No more,” he said, lifting her head from him, his voice rough. “I need to be inside you.”
Gently, he laid her back down on the bed and slid beside her, skin to skin. She snuggled against his warmth, savoring the incredible sensation of his long, powerful body stretched against hers.
He lowered his head and kissed her, coaxing with deep sensual strokes of his tongue. His hands possessed her body, the hard calluses of his palms marking her. There was no part of her he left untouched. Her breasts, her legs, her arms, her feet. He left her warm and whimpering for more.
His hand slid between her legs, as his mouth held her in a deep kiss, his tongue and finger acting in perfect unison.
She pressed against his hand, against his body, dissolving into a pool of fire. Sensation pushed to the edge of every nerve ending, waiting to be set free. She couldn’t think, lost in the throes of passion so thick and heavy it was like trying to see through a dense mist.
He moved over her, positioning his hands on either side of her shoulders, the plump head of his erection poised at her entry. Holding her gaze, he slid inside her slowly, inch by inch, possessing her with his body, with his soul.
It was too intense. Too powerful. The tightness in her chest too much.
She gasped when he’d reached the end, then gave one final nudge and held her there. Letting her feel him. His weight. The incredible sensation of him inside her … filling her. Making her complete. With his eyes, he forced her to acknowledge the connection that bound them together. Not just their bodies, but something far deeper. Something elemental. Something that could not be put into words, but that she could see reflected in his piercing gaze.
Her heart welled up, overcome by an emotion she’d never thought to feel again. An emotion so intense it frightened her as all that she had to lose became clear.
Then he started to move, thrusting with long deep strokes. Strokes that reverberated through her body from head to toe, each staking a further claim. It was the most erotic, intimate moment of her life.
No other man could make her feel like this because no other man existed for her.
Duncan didn’t think anything could feel more incredible than Jeannie’s soft, pink mouth stretched around the head of his cock, her tongue stroking him, her mouth sucking him deeper and deeper into her throat.
But he was wrong.
Raw lust was nothing to the emotion that gripped his heart as he sank into her inch by incredible inch. Her eyes pulled him in. Deeper and deeper. To touch her soul.
She was so warm. So wet. So sweetly tight. He’d forgotten how it felt to be inside her. How her body felt under his. She was so tiny and soft he worried that he would crush her, but she pulled him down, seeking the connection of skin on skin. Her breasts were crushed to his chest as he thrust high inside her, her nipples raking him.
He closed his eyes, sensation showering over him in a warm, tingling wave.
He thrust again, groaning. It felt too good. The pleasure too intense to contain. Her body clenched around him like a fist, pumping, milking.
She moaned and lifted her hips, meeting him, circling in a slow, delicious dance.
Blood pounded through him, concentrating at the sensitive head. Sensation coiled at the base of his spine in a hot pulsing fist. He was going to explode.
Sweat poured off his forehead as he fought to hold on. He thrust high and hard, forcing her …
She cried out, calling his name as her body racked with the spasm of her release. The sheer ecstasy on her face pushed him over the edge. He drove into her one more time and stiffened, then jerked with the force of his own release as pleasure crashed over him in a hard, earth-shattering wave.
He stayed inside her until the spasms ebbed and the last drop of pleasure had been wrung from him. But even then he was reluctant to break the connection. Only the knowledge that he was probably crushing her forced him to slide from the warm embrace of her body. Rolling to the side, he gathered her up in his arms, cradling her against his shoulder. The night air cooled his heated skin.
They were silent for a while. After what had just happened it seemed fitting. Words would be lacking.
Her finger weaved absently through the thin triangle of hair below his neck, following the thin trail down to his stomach. He could tell she was thinking.
“Did you mean it?” she asked, gazing up at him.
He didn’t need to ask what she meant. “Aye.”
“What made you realize that it wasn’t me who took the map?”
He twirled a lock of silky red hair in his finger, letting it fall in a soft puddle on his chest. “It wasn’t any one thing. I suppose I started to see beyond the ‘proof and listened to my gut. Your reaction had a lot to do with it. I realized how much my leaving had hurt you. You acted wronged, not guilty.” He felt a hard burning in his chest as the ramifications of what he’d done hit him. “God, Jeannie, I’m sorry.” He heard her voice in his head begging him not to leave and tried to shut it out. By all rights she should hate him. “I should have trusted you. I should have given you a chance to explain. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Why were you so quick to find me guilty?”
/> She wasn’t asking about the specific evidence against her, but the more difficult question of why he believed it. He thought back, remembering. He’d been so young, barely a man, still making his way in the world and couldn’t quite believe he could be that fortunate to find someone like her. “I’d seen you with your father, and knew how much you loved him, knew the loyalty you felt to your family. You were young, beautiful, and could have had your pick of any man in the Highlands. Part of me couldn’t believe you’d give that all up for a bastard with nothing to his name.” He made a harsh sound. “Who didn’t even have a name.”
She lay perfectly still. “I saw the man you were. I believed in you, Duncan, not in your birth. Did I ever give you reason to think it mattered to me? Did I ever make you feel like you were anything less than the most wonderful, amazing man I’d ever known?”
The anger in her voice took him aback. “Nay,” he admitted.
She relaxed, her body easing into his once again.
“Why believe me now?” she asked. “What’s changed?”
“Me. You. We aren’t the same people we were then. I guess I didn’t give either of us enough credit. I didn’t see what you did, that we make our own destiny not by our birth, but by our actions.”
Jeannie peered up at him, a strange look in her eyes. “Do you really believe that?”
He sensed there was something behind her question—something important. “Aye, I do.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded. She was quiet for a few minutes, lost in thought. Finally, she said, “What can we do?”
He cocked an eyebrow, a wry smile on his lips. “We?”
“I want to help.”
He’d been waiting a long time to hear those words. “Could you persuade your brother to allow you to go through your father’s papers?”
She shook her head. “It wouldn’t help. Little was left after the fire.”
His stomach sank. “Fire?”
She nodded. “After Glenlivet when the king marched north, seeking vengeance against those who’d fought against him, he razed many castles, including Freuchie. The great hall and my father’s solar were destroyed. When he died, I went through what remained. There was nothing from around the time of the battle.”
Duncan swore. The chance of finding any documentary proof had been slim, but now it appeared to be nonexistent. His only option appeared to be tracking down the men who might have been involved. But the idea of questioning his brother didn’t sit well.
“You’re thinking of Colin?” Jeannie said.
He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Remind me to be careful what I think around you.” She grinned. “Aye, it’s difficult to conceive that Colin could have anything to do with this.”
“It’s hard staring at the sun all the time.”
He gave her a wry look. “I’m not perfect, Jeannie.”
“To a younger brother you might have seemed as such.” She bit her lip. “Colin said something of the like once. I didn’t think much of it then, but jealousy can drive people to do horrible things. I wonder though if there could be more to it.” Resting her hand on his ribs, she propped her chin on the back of her hand. “What do you know of your mother? You never talk about her.”
He stiffened. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said flatly. He tried to ignore the wounded look in her eyes. But it felt as if he’d just failed some test. She’d wanted him to confide in her—to share feelings that didn’t exist for a woman he’d never known. Hell, he’d rather have his teeth pulled.
But he knew he was treading a treacherous path, this connection they’d established was tenuous. So he took a deep breath, forced the tension from his body, and splayed himself open for her digging. “She was a MacDonald. Nursemaid to the chief’s children. She left me with my father when I was but a few months old. I assume my birth caused her great shame and she was eager to be rid of me. I’m afraid it wasn’t much better for my father. The Campbells and MacDonalds were engaged in a bloody feud at the time. My grandfather hated me on sight.”
She pressed a kiss to his chest. Strangely, it helped. Perhaps because he knew she could understand. “Your father must have cared for her greatly to risk his clan’s wrath.”
He shrugged. “I never thought about it, but I suppose you’re right.”
“Did you ever try to find her?”
He kept a tight rein on his anger and managed to say calmly, “No.” He might have come to terms with his birth, but that didn’t mean he’d wanted anything to do with the woman who’d abandoned him. He gave her a measured look. Did his parentage matter more to her than she’d let on? “Why are you asking me about this?”
She shrugged her naked shoulders. “Just curious.” Her nose scrunched. “I wondered if there was more to the story, that’s all. Your father never said anything more about her?”
“Nay—” He stopped and frowned.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She got that look again and he sighed, resigned. “Something my father said right before he died.” He recalled his words: Mother … Find … MacDonald. “He seemed to want me to find my mother, but he was delirious with fever.”
He saw the excitement leap in her eyes. “What if he did know what he was saying? What if he wanted you—”
“Nay,” he said, cutting her off before she could get carried away. For a moment he caught a glimpse of the spontaneous, exuberant girl who’d snuck out of the castle and joined him in a midnight swim. “I have no interest in a reunion with my mother. If my father wanted me to make peace, I’m sorry to disappoint him.”
“But what if your father wanted you to find something?”
“Like what?”
“What if your mother didn’t really leave you? Or what if there is something about your birth—”
“There is nothing,” he said in a voice that boded no argument. “Don’t look for a faerie tale, you’ll only be disappointed. I’m a bastard, Jeannie, and nothing is going to change that. I thought you accepted it.”
She pursed her sensuous mouth into a thin line. “I do. This is not about me, it’s about you. I’m trying to help you clear your name, and what if finding your mother can help?”
His jaw flexed. “It can’t.”
She mumbled something about stubborn oafs.
“What’s that?” he asked.
She threw him an annoyed look. “The isle of Islay is close. We could be there and back in a day or two.” She gazed up at him beseechingly. “What harm can it do?”
Plenty—to his peace of mind for one. Not to mention that half his cousin’s soldiers seemed to be looking for him. But she practically bubbled with excitement and he hated the idea of crushing her enthusiasm. And he was running out of options.
He gritted his teeth, every instinct resisting yet at the same time desperately wanting to please her. She didn’t know his father. He wouldn’t have lied to him. “I’ll think about it.”
She looked like she was about to argue, but then a slow smile curved her lips, a naughty gleam in her eye. She slid her hand down the length of his chest, drawing little circles with her soft fingertips low on his stomach. He hissed, his spent muscles jumping back to life.
“Perhaps I shall find a way to convince you?”
He grabbed her hand and wrapped it around him. He was already hard as she began to stroke him. Heat spread across his limbs. Each pull of her hand sent him deeper and deeper into the black vortex of pleasure.
He knew he would eventually grant her request, no matter how much he didn’t want to. He feared there was very little he would not do for her. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun in the meantime.
“You can try,” he groaned, then closed his eyes and let her.
Chapter 20
For the next two nights Jeannie did her utmost to persuade him, but Duncan was proving to be an exceedingly stubborn man. Though she was beginning to suspect it was simply that he enjoyed her efforts too much to e
ver give in. He wasn’t the only one. As she lay in bed, contemplating getting up, her body was still limp and sore from their lovemaking.
She couldn’t seem to get enough of him. Passion had been absent in her life for so long, it was as if she was trying to make up for lost time.
And always at the back of her mind was the knowledge that time was the one thing they did not have.
If he was captured before they found proof …
Her stomach turned as she fought back the suffocating crush of fear. He’d only just come back to her; she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him again.
Jeannie knew that they probably wouldn’t find anything on Islay, but right now his father’s deathbed deliria were all they had. She couldn’t explain it, but all her instincts told her that finding his mother was important. And she was far too desperate not to heed them.
They were safe at Castleswene, but Jeannie knew Duncan would not stay here long, when to do so would further jeopardize his brother’s place with their cousin. Coming here had already placed Jamie in an awkward position—he wasn’t just harboring a fugitive, but his cousin’s most wanted outlaw. Duncan and Jamie had argued about it last night. Duncan was adamant that he would not foist his troubles on his family, and Jamie was just as determined to not turn his back on his brother again.
Apparently the brothers had reached some sort of impasse. By the time Duncan had slipped in beside her, he said that it had all been sorted out.
After dragging herself from bed, Jeannie called for a bath. She did not linger. The gentle heat from the peat fire was no match for the chilly morning air. Dressing quickly with the help of one of the young maidservants, she went in search of Elizabeth Campbell. If she could not persuade Duncan herself, she would have to call on reinforcements.
She found his sister in one of the mural chambers, a small room carved out in the thick castle walls, looking out the window with a book in her lap. She had a strange pensive look on her face.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Elizabeth jumped at the sound of her voice and looked at Jeannie as if she were an apparition. She shook her head, a wistful smile on her face. “Nay. I wasn’t feeling well this morning and Patrick insisted I rest if I want to go to Inveraray. Normally I would not succumb to blackmail, but in truth I was tired.”
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