by Terry Spear
“It’s possible.” Cearnach wasn’t about to tell her otherwise. He didn’t trust Kilpatrick.
She shuddered and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Then it was good that you ran off the road, and I met you first instead,” she said.
He smiled down at her. Someday, he supposed they’d tell their children how they’d met—her version and his.
Cearnach caught the eye of Logan, the blacksmith’s sixteen-year-old son. Logan was practicing sword-fighting with another young man, but he lowered his sword and looked hopefully at Cearnach as if he wanted to join him and Elaine in the kennel.
Full of the devil at sixteen, Logan reminded Cearnach of himself at that age. Logan loved animals more than anything else and didn’t care for working in the smithy like his father did, to his father’s disappointment.
Cearnach nodded and Logan raced toward them.
“Don’t run with the sword, lad,” Cearnach cautioned him, continuing on his way with Elaine to the kennel.
“It’s not real. Just a play sword.” Logan frowned. “Laird said if you were too busy protecting your girlfriend…”
Cearnach gave the youth a quelling look meant to guard his words.
“We all know she’s kin to our enemy, the McKinleys and the Kilpatricks, but lots of people say you’re protecting her from them. So doesn’t that make her your girlfriend?” Logan glanced at Elaine and gave her a big smile, then frowned when he saw her bruised face.
“She is a friend,” Cearnach said. Mate.
“They say Vardon McKinley hit Elaine. Are you going to kill him?” Logan asked.
“No, he’s not going to kill Vardon,” Elaine said firmly.
“Someone ought to. Oran was saying that Vardon has beaten women before. He doesn’t deserve to live.” Logan swung his sword at a fake opponent. “Some of our kin said Flynn’s bothering Elaine. Do you want me to talk to him? Not that I haven’t already. I told him to leave the lass alone… or else.” He cast Elaine another big grin.
“He spoke with you?” Cearnach asked.
“Aye, said she was a bonny lass, and if you hadn’t been interested in her, he was.”
Cearnach shook his head. “If he won’t listen to Ian or me, he won’t listen to anyone.”
“Maybe he’ll listen to me,” Elaine said. “I hadn’t thought to talk to him. Not that I ever saw him.”
Both Cearnach and the lad looked at her, then at the same time said, “Nay.”
“He doesn’t pay attention to women?” Elaine asked, sounding irritated.
“Ask Lady Heather,” Logan said. “He pesters her all the time.”
Cearnach glanced down at Logan. “Did you have something you wished to speak with me about other than Flynn and the like?”
“Oh, aye, while you protect the lady, do you want me to bathe the dogs today?”
“Did your father give you leave to do so?” Cearnach asked.
“Aye. He said that I was to help you wash them.”
Cearnach opened the kennel door, then closed it behind them. Yips and happy woofs greeted them.
“One of the wolfhounds, Sheba, had pups about eight weeks ago. All the rest are adult dogs,” Cearnach said.
Elaine looked through the metal gate. “Ah, they’re adorable.”
“You want all of the dogs out at once?” Logan asked.
“Aye.”
“Do they all live out here?” Elaine sounded disappointed, and he thought about her comment concerning the dachshunds.
If she chose one of the pups to keep for her own, would she want it to sleep with her in her bed? In their bed? He had other plans for their bed.
He glanced back at her as she peered into the huge cage where Sheba lay curled up on her bed while her pups ran to the cage door.
“They’re not family pets?” she asked.
He heard the distinct dissatisfaction in her voice. “They’re like family, lass. They only come out here to sleep at night. During the day, they join the family in various activities. They’re only here right now because this is bath day, and we needed them gathered in one place. After their bath, they get to be walked and join other family members for the rest of the day.”
Logan busily opened all the cage doors. The wolfhounds were huge and ferocious-looking with their shaggy, wiry coats, bristly hair over their eyes, and chin whiskers giving them an old-man appearance. They jumped all over each other, vying to reach Cearnach to earn his attention, while others were checking Elaine out thoroughly—the newcomer to the clan.
Cearnach opened the door for Sheba. Elaine was grinning broadly as she tried to pet all the rambunctious dogs at once. Elaine looked so sweet, right at home with the dogs as the pups licked her all over in greeting. He chuckled under his breath.
Sheba rose, stretched, then trotted over to greet them.
He crouched down to pet her pups as they scrambled over each other to lick and bite him.
“They’re huge for being eight weeks old. I had a yellow Labrador retriever. Her pups at this age were so much smaller, like the difference between a young fawn and a baby moose.”
Cearnach laughed. “Aye. The adult males are taller than a man when standing on their hind legs. Come on,” he coaxed the pups as he took Elaine’s hand and walked through the kennel and into a large shower room with stainless steel benches on one side, a sink on another, and hoses hanging from one wall.
Logan greeted the dogs competing for his attention, but he was checking Elaine out, watching the way the dogs were nosing her, smelling her, brushing up against her, and how she was petting them all.
“You have what? Fifteen adult wolfhounds, ten puppies, and two poodles?” she asked, trying to count them.
“Aye. Sheba’s pups will go to good homes,” Cearnach said. “Most of them. If Ian can convince Julia, that is.”
“How do you know which you’ve washed and which you haven’t with all this chaos?”
“Logan will take the washed dogs into the drying room as soon as I’ve finished with them.”
“Do you want me to help?” Elaine asked, sounding eager.
He smiled at her. “They’re awfully”—one jumped up on him and he finished with—“rambunctious. They’d probably knock you over. Especially as the floor gets wet.”
He began to rinse one of the dogs, though two others tried to tackle the spray. The dogs bumped into Cearnach, who ignored the distractions. Then he turned off the hose and set it on its hook before he began soaping down the dog.
He glanced over to see what Logan and Elaine were doing. She was sitting on one of the benches, cuddling three puppies at once while all were delightfully licking her throat and chin and nipping at her fingers. She was grinning and chuckling. Logan was watching her, beaming.
As soon as Cearnach rinsed the dog, Logan came to take him to the drying room and whispered, “If you don’t want her to be your girlfriend, she can be mine.”
Before Cearnach could respond, Logan, serious as could be, led the wet dog off to the drying room.
Cearnach glanced back at Elaine and saw her washing one of the pups in the large sink. He smiled and shook his head. She would fit right in with the pack.
By the time Cearnach had begun to work on Anlan, father of Sheba’s pups and the last of the male wolfhounds he had to wash, Dillon, the most mischievous of the males, had spied the hose with a devilish gleam in his dark brown eyes. Cearnach knew what he was up to before the dog lunged, but he couldn’t thwart Dillon fast enough.
The dog grabbed the hose and gave it a tug, sending a stream of water Elaine’s way. The water blasted her in the chest and she squealed in surprise.
The stream of water swung wildly as Cearnach wrestled the hose away from the dog’s tight grip. The spray came back around and hit Elaine�
�s face as she tried to get out of the way.
By the time Cearnach feinted releasing the hose and Dillon loosened his grip to re-situate his teeth for a better hold, Cearnach had pulled the hose free. Elaine was already sopping wet and wiping her eyes. Logan looked on in horror, then he ran back into the drying room and raced out again to give her a clean, dry towel.
She wrung some of the water out from her sweater. She was soaked to the skin, revealing all, which for Cearnach’s consumption was fine. But for the lad, no.
“Logan, why don’t you go up to the keep and ask Lady Julia if she has something dry that Elaine can wear?”
“Aye, I will.” Logan raced through the shower room.
“Walk,” Cearnach warned and shook his head.
“Were you like that at his age?” Elaine asked, her eyes and lips smiling as she wiped the water from her face.
Cearnach chuckled. “And then some. Though I would have helped you to remove your sweater and towel-dried you.”
She laughed, then began washing the mother dog. “Not if a man older than you was watching, and he had some interest in the girl who was more the older guy’s age.”
“It would depend,” he said, joining her, unable to help his feral gaze from roaming over her sexy, wet body.
He finished washing Sheba, then rinsed her off and took her into the drying room. When Elaine joined him, he reached over and shut and locked the door.
Elaine frowned. “Logan can’t get in.”
“That’s the general idea.”
Chapter 20
Elaine eyed Cearnach with intrigue as he secreted her away in the dog kennels’ drying room. Smiling at her with lustful intent, he shifted his gaze to the wet sweater clinging to her breasts. She smiled back at him. “What do you have in mind?”
“Helping to dry you off a wee bit, lass,” he said with a devilish glint in his eyes.
All the dogs were curled up on mats, some of them mostly dry and sleeping, some licking their wet fur, others sitting and watching Cearnach and Elaine, their tails thumping enthusiastically on their beds. Cearnach drew off Elaine’s wet sweater and tossed it on a bench. She felt wickedly exposed as he towel-dried her breasts while warm air from the heater vents swirled around them. The smell of citrus shampoo and wet dog and a couple of wet shifter wolves filled the room.
“You’re nearly as wet as me.” She reached up and touched the damp shirt outlining his hard muscles. Wanting to expose his brawny chest, she’d tugged his shirt barely past his navel before he took charge.
He yanked his shirt off and tossed it on the bench with hers. She picked up another clean towel and ran it over his beautiful pecs and abs—beach-body perfect, making her think of him lying on Pensacola Beach with her, enjoying the sun and surf.
“I’ll never wash the dogs again without thinking of you in that wet sweater, or like this, half naked in the drying room.” He cupped her breasts, then ran his fingers over the extended nipples, taut and sensitive. Her breathing suspended as she gloried in the sweep of his fingers against her flesh. “There’s a room off this one for the person who stays with the dogs when they have new pups. The sheets have been changed since no one’s slept in here for the last month.”
Thank God for that! She could envision pushing a wolfhound off its damp bed to make room for two wolves who wanted to find a soft spot to make love—yuck!—or having to run back to his bedchamber in the castle in wet clothes in the chilly breeze in front of those working on the grounds and inside the stone building. Cearnach kissed her lips gently, then moved her into the room where a twin bed covered with a light blue blanket and comforter sat against a wall, a wooden table and a chair beside it. Shades were pulled closed over the one window, and she noticed a sink and toilet in a half bath off the room.
Just as Cearnach reached for Elaine’s jeans zipper, they heard movement beyond the locked drying-room door. They froze.
“Cearnach, I’ve got the lady’s clothes for her,” Logan said, trying the door to the drying room, the doorknob twisting back and forth. “Cearnach?” Then the lad grumbled under his breath, “She is too your girlfriend.”
Cearnach grinned down at Elaine. “Leave them on one of the dry benches, Logan. You can come back in half an hour and exercise the dogs,” Cearnach said.
Elaine and Cearnach waited, listening, until they heard Logan slosh across the wet floor, then slam the door to the kennels.
Cearnach smiled and shook his head.
Elaine pulled off her jeans in a hurry, worried someone else would interrupt them, as Cearnach quickly shucked the rest of his clothes. Then he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.
Pulse quickening, she smiled up at him, loving the heat of his naked chest pressed against her, the feel of his hard muscles bunching as he laid her on the bed.
He stretched out on top of her, claiming her—all that sinewy strength and virile heat rubbing against her. Kissing her mouth, slowly, luxuriously, he moved his body against hers, working his stiff cock against her mound. She groaned with feral need, wanting him inside her now.
She slipped her arms around his neck, pulling him close, holding him against her. Spreading her legs, she willed him to enter her, her tongue teasing his smiling lips, his eyes already clouded with desire. She loved his passion, the way he couldn’t seem to get enough of her, the way he loved her just as much as she loved him.
“Elaine,” he groaned as she pressed her tongue into his mouth. She felt the heat between them building, his body rocking against hers, his erection pressing against her damp heat, urgent, relentless, not entering her yet, but close.
So close.
She angled her hips, trying to capture his erection so that she could sheathe the throbbing part of him that would join them together as one.
His hands shifted again to her breasts, cupping, massaging the flesh. His fingers toyed with her nipples, making them hard and sensitive and just as needy for his touch as the rest of her. She arched against him, aching for him.
He bent his head and licked a nipple, then the other, while her hands moved down his back, stroking, touching, loving the feel of his heated skin, his hard-working muscles.
Then before he seemed ready, she bent her knees, digging her heels into the mattress, willing him to penetrate her. Cradled between her legs, he reached between them and stroked her sweet spot, harder, faster, until she was soaring toward the burning hot sun, ready to explode. Then it hit her. Shudders of fine ecstasy filled her body as her heat enveloped him.
Sweet wolf, he was everything she ever wanted in a man, someone who could give her the sun and moon and love her as she did him.
She wrapped her legs around his back, locking her ankles together, urging him to fill her with his cock, to find his own release deep within her.
He slid slowly inside her, saying her name in his sexy Scottish way, which turned her on all the more. He drove deep, trying to satisfy the savage hunger, then pulled out slowly. As soon as she lifted her hips to take him back inside her, he moved inside her again, deepening the penetration, burying himself to the hilt while he kissed her neck and throat and chin.
Her pelvis met his as they continued to rock together, the bed squeaking, their hearts beating frantically as he pinned her against the mattress. Urging him on, she felt his body working, his thick cock sliding into her. Pleasure. Rapture.
All of a sudden, he held still, buried deep, and then he increased the plunges, racing to the end. Taking her with him. A starburst of delicious fulfillment shot through her as he spilled his seed inside her, jerking with release. She sagged beneath him, satiated as the waves of contractions moved through her, loving him and the pure joy of being with him.
He pumped into her several more times as if milking every last drop, depositing a wolfish treasure deep inside her, then moving around so that she could re
st on top of him on the small mattress.
For a long while, he lightly stroked her arm as they lay there, their breathing ragged, their hearts beating wildly as they cuddled. She ran her finger over his chest. “What are you thinking about, Cearnach?”
He leaned down and kissed her head, then wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. “How I should never have lost you the first time I saw you in St. Andrews. And how I’m going to love making up so much lost time between us.”
She couldn’t agree more.
Cearnach snuggled with Elaine, nearly falling asleep on the small bed, the warm air circulating around them. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been happier. But he had to get dressed before Logan returned to walk the dogs.
He again considered that bastard Rafferty and his crew. Elaine said she’d killed a couple of them that had been guarding her, but he couldn’t stop wondering what had become of the rest of them.
She kissed his chest and looked up at him. “What are you thinking that has you frowning so?”
“Do you know what happened to the rest of Rafferty’s men?”
“I’d heard that some had died at sea during storms, some due to encountering ships that had more guns, some due to hangings. Three were murdered near where I relocated. I don’t know about the rest. If they didn’t make the newspapers, I had no way of knowing.”
“The stolen goods your uncles had hidden?” He combed his fingers through her silky hair.
“They may be long gone by now,” she warned. “What was the merchandise that my uncles stole from your ships?”
“Pearls, twenty hogshead barrels of sugar, gold dust, indigo, silver plate, emeralds, silk. All very valuable back then. Some just as valuable today.”
“Oh,” she said.
“You had no idea?”