Haunted By A Highland Curse: A Steamy Scottish Medieval Historical Romance

by Emilia C. Dunbar

  Caoimhe could not put her finger on the moment that she had begun to yearn for Niall’s touch. In truth, it had happened so gradually, and alongside the lowering of her emotional guard that, for all Caoimhe knew, she had desired the man destined to be her husband from the start. That her attraction to him had been instant and only now surfaced when she permitted herself to be aware of it. A cynic might suppose the opposite. That proximity and a lack of alternatives had twisted her view of Niall into its most positive light, desperate to seek resolution in a circumstance that she had yet to wield any control upon.

  Yet, for whatever the reason, the looming power of Niall’s frame had become, over the last few days, a protective shadow. And the strength of his limbs was now a defending shield. His gaze had shifted from frightening to focused, his stride from stomping to assertive. The little moments of truthful emotion that Caoimhe had seen over the last week had shone little speckles of light through the stranger’s mask that Niall was fond of wearing. And when one could see the holes in the masquerade, it was easier to then see the deception for what it was.

  It was that man that Caoimhe hoped would be joining her that night. The man that she had seen whispering behind stoicism and his cold indifference against all things human. It seemed to have been him upon the back of that horse that morning, murmuring in her ear of a desire to be with her once more.

  As Caoimhe stood in her chambers, she felt something profoundly feminine stretch awake within her. Like a cat sunning itself beneath a hot summer noon, Caoimhe’s female instincts luxuriated in Niall’s attentions. They sought more, with a hunger that had her repeatedly looking towards the door of her rooms.

  She had left it ajar. Expectant. Waiting.

  The room itself had seen few changes since Niall was last in it a few weeks ago. The flowers by the window had been changed, and the blankets freshly cleaned. Caoimhe had tied the blue ribbon that she had worn about her wrist at her wedding to one of the bedposts in a lazy bow, a hope that her mother’s gift would help to sanctify marital bliss. Next to the silver hand mirror on the side, Caoimhe had lit two candles, and moved them to flank the bed. It was still too warm in the year for an open fire, despite the coldness of the castle, but the candles would be light enough to see by.

  The only element of the scene set for seduction that Caoimhe could not fathom what to do with was herself. She hovered beside the bed, unsure if she should undress and await Niall beneath the sheets or allow him to remove the gown himself. Should she wait standing or lying on the bed to show her willingness for such things? Perhaps she should sit and practice her reading until Niall arrived? But then, she did not wish it to seem as if she had forgotten her acceptance of her wifely duties.

  In the end, it was a detestation of impracticalities and wasted time that had Caoimhe give herself a shake and then take to the plush chair in the corner of her room. She took up the book that Niall had found for her. It had been left on her bedside cabinet a few mornings ago and, when Caoimhe opened it, she had found poems and songs written upon its pages. Each piece was short, and the words simple enough. A perfect text upon which to practice her reading.

  Settling down with the book, Caoimhe was warmed by the kindness of thought that must have gone into Niall’s choice of tome,and was content to wait for her husband to conclude his business downstairs before he joined her.

  Though she did not recall falling asleep, Caoimhe remembered little else of the evening until a familiar scent tried to lull her into conscious thought. Her fingers curled around well-formed linen and held on to the solid strength beneath. She breathed in deep and felt the flexing of powerful arms around her, adjusting to her wakefulness.

  The last time that she had been held in Niall’s embrace, she had been stiff. Her muscles had locked in tension. She had turned inwards, as if to reject the hold around her. Now, her current state had her reacting on instinct more than thought.

  Her body curled in towards his, seeking the warmth of his skin. As her nose met tunic, she smelled the open air caught in its weave, and the smoke from the hearth that would have been lit in Niall’s study. Beneath it was the woody, earthy scent of the man himself. It warmed her lungs, transforming her body into a state of languid serenity, and had her entirely surrendering to the path that Niall carved between the chair and the bed.

  Despite all of her attentions to him, Caoimhe hadn’t noticed her own state of total undress until her bare skin touched cool sheets. Some of her confident ease was lost as her hands naturally flew to cover herself. There was a rumbling shadow of laughter in the air, as Niall smiled down from above.

  “A little late for modesty, Wife,” he told her, before reaching to slowly prise one of her arms away from her chest, exposing the breast beneath. His gaze was complimentary in its interest. “And no need for it, either.”

  This was not what Niall had intended.

  As soon as he had entered Caoimhe’s rooms, worried when she had not called a summons in response to his knock, Niall had left all thoughts of intimacy at the door. Caoimhe had been fast asleep in her chair, a little book having fallen to the floor. Her hand was still outstretched across her thigh, fingers reaching, as if to save it.

  Despite having come to her rooms for just what he had promised her at the stables that day, Niall had finally gotten to see Caoimhe’s face devoid of fear or tension, and he had been loath to spoil it.

  Regardless of what people said, Niall was no monster; he tired of the way that Caoimhe seemed to be frightened of him. The way that she would tense in his presence or avoid his gaze when he drew too close. Now, he had the chance to see her as she was when such worries left her. How her brow was clear and soft with youth, how her jaw was an elegant and sweet little curve from ear to chin. When they weren’t thinned with anxiety, Caoimhe had pretty lips. They were pleasantly shaped and a pretty pink hue that beckoned him with their pliant softness.

  Yet, he had had no intention of disturbing her. A protective instinct he hadn’t been aware that he possessed had reminded him of what it must have been like for her, to uproot her whole life and rearrange her world around a husband that she had not truly chosen for herself. The entire experience had to be draining. Exhausting.

  Niall’s intention had been only to undress her for bed, to see to her comfort beneath her blankets, and then to leave her to her slumber. He could have gotten a maid to do away with her clothing, to save Caoimhe’s blushes. But something in him had claimed ownership of the task.

  She was his wife. And he would see to her needs.

  Niall realized his mistake and knew his resolve to be under threat when his wife had moved in his arms. She had drawn closer to his chest, and her exhale had broken over the heated skin at the nape of his neck. He’d been shocked at her ease with him, hot over her shape against his, and humbled by her trust. Something had shifted, deep in his chest, and Niall had worked hard to ignore it as he settled Caoimhe into her bed.

  There, Niall swallowed, still intending to leave her, to let her rest. Only, Caoimhe made the fatal mistake of hiding herself from his view.

  Men liked to look, and Niall was no less male than any other.

  As soon as she attempted to shield her body from his gaze, Niall wasn’t going anywhere.

  He took her arms, his fingers looping around her wrists and pressing them to the mattress on either side of her head. He leaned down over her, his gaze lost in hers for a moment.

  There were no words said, just a meeting of their minds. Caoimhe’s lips seemed swollen and becoming. The pulse in her neck had sped up. Lowering his stare, Niall continued to revere his wife in a way that the haste and awkwardness of their first coupling had not permitted.

  Caoimhe was built on small lines. Her frame was tiny, and she had not the luxurious excess of wealth to see her shape overflow it. Instead, her little, lithe muscles and pretty skin clung close to her bones. Her breasts were small but shapely, her belly soft and flat. Her hips created a pretty, shallow little valley towards her woman
hood, and her legs were long for her shape. Long and slender. She was an elegant little creature. Delicate and sweet.

  In that moment, Niall felt that bizarre male complex. His fingers tightened around Caoimhe’s wrists, and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth with the need to taste her own. When confronted with something so sublime and so fragile, there was an overwhelming desire to protect it, to hold it safe and secure. And yet there was that errant flicker of contradicting violence. The desire to crush and to break. To test the strength of the small, dainty thing with a little roughness. It was the natural, rebellious desire to smear the painting.

  In only a few minutes of looking upon the woman that was now his own to claim, Niall was ready to break his vow of retreat. Suddenly, the desire for her to sleep, and be well, was replaced with a more powerful arousal.

  Very slowly, Niall loosed Caoimhe’s hands and moved away so that he might undress. Her commitment to staying where she was, exposed to him alone, was the final seal in his new determination to see each of their passions reach their conclusion that night.

  Reaching up and over his head, Niall was quick to discard his tunic and underlayers, standing beside the bed a moment later in only what God had given him.

  Caoimhe’s eyes fell to the only part of him that had been hidden the last time they had been together. This time, the candles still burned and offered her a clear view of his shape and being. Her lips parted, and her stare grew wide. Belatedly, Niall realized that this was likely the first time that she had seen any man so entirely bare.

  He found something very pleasing to him in that. An exclusive monopoly on the mind, memory, and experiences of the woman before him—not just of her body.

  With a look as old as Eve herself, Caoimhe's wide gaze came to his and softened. Her lips curled into a private, little smile, her thighs coming together as if she felt something urgent between them. And then she was reaching out a hand towards him, fingers soft and tapered, seeking a connection with her husband that had been missing for them until now.

  Niall needed no further encouragement.

  He joined her in the bed and pulled the sheets over the two of them so she would not catch a chill, and then sought her lips with his. Just as they had been earlier that day, he interwove their fingers upon the bed.

  The first time they had been together as man and wife, Niall had found his release, but it had been hollow at best. There was little satisfaction in being with a woman that lay prone beneath him, turned frigid with worry or suffering fleeting flickers of pain.

  This time, it would be entirely different.

  Where self-consciousness had stolen Caoimhe’s desires and rendered her still the last time, his familiarity with her nakedness now permitted a shedding of that modesty. Her hands were less concerned with hiding her body from view than they were tentatively exploring his own. He encouraged her with a moan against her mouth, as her hands found his shoulders and ran along his arms. Her gentle touch followed the shape of his muscles and the dips and curves of his shape in a way that was almost loving.

  He returned the attention, stroking over her thighs and legs. His hands followed the supple lines of her femininity, summoning mews and breathy moans from her lips. As he reached one of her ankles, Niall met his finger and thumb around it and drew up her leg, exposing her boldly to his view. Caoimhe blushed, and Niall could not resist a soft kiss to the curve of her foot before he guided it up and over his hip.

  His wife’s eyes found his, in that moment, bright and unguarded. They shone with an emotion that he shied away from naming. Instead, he lowered himself to place a kiss just above her navel. Her soft skin tensed and Caoimhe wriggled, giggling at the sensation.

  From that moment on, there was no tension in the room save that which they built for themselves. As they kissed and touched and discovered one another, the heat rose and their eagerness turned them both breathless. When they paused, absorbed in a moment of closeness, and taking a second of connection between such hot impulses, they breathed easy sighs and kissed as if they had all the time in the world.

  By the time Niall could wait no longer, Caoimhe seemed entirely unafraid of their joining. She encouraged him with stroking hands and soft moans of approval, her hips naturally lifting to meet his. It was only as he pushed inside her body that she began to tense, to resist. Niall stilled where he was, moving to kiss, coo, and whisper words of comfort in her ear. Later, he would not be able to remember what it was that he had said, but they were gentle words as she relaxed around him. Only then did he finish bringing them together and began to move within.

  Soon, Caoimhe was moving with him. Only a little at first but enough that she found a rhythm. The sensations increased, and Niall moaned with the overwhelming desire to speed up, to thrust harder. He tried to keep his pace, to support himself with one hand while the other stroked Caoimhe with touches to her hip, her breast, her lips. He kissed her, but neither could sustain it as they moved faster, needing to pant. Niall felt the blanket fall away down his back, but neither of them stopped to fetch it. They were lost in one another, too submerged in hot sensation to worry.

  Instead, Niall could see only Caoimhe. Feel only her, as her legs tightened around his waist. He watched as her eyes suddenly shot wide, her mouth broke open in a silent cry, and he felt her reach her point of pleasure around him.

  He held her through her release, the experience clearly her first. He kissed her, touched, and petted her. Held her safe as she came down from her peak before he then rode to reach his own state of bliss.

  This time, when all was done, there was no sticky tension or harsh atmosphere.

  Neither tried to immediately escape either mentally or physically.

  Niall lay close beside Caoimhe, as they each let their breathing return to normal. They touched and brushed at one another’s skin, not willing to detach so completely from one another. He played with a few strands of her hair, noticing how they had become damp at the roots, and felt a masculine smugness that he had been the one to push her to her unladylike limits.

  It was an easy and relaxing while before Caoimhe spoke…

  “I’ve…I’ve never…” She seemed to be struggling with how to put such thoughts into words. “That’s never—”

  “I know,” Niall murmured.

  His voice was little more than that of a growling animal, like it was when he first woke up in the morning. There was something very poignant, something that hurt like a sweet pain, building somewhere low in his chest. He tried to ignore it, but Caoimhe’s innocent gaze only stoked it stronger. The fact that he was the first man to hold her, to see her prettiness for what it was beneath all her severity and concern, to have her reach her sensual peak in his arms—it pleased him more than any release of his own could have. So sharp was his feeling of ownership over this woman that it was starting to burrow deep into his chest and, for a moment, Niall forgot how to breathe.

  When Caoimhe turned her head towards him, the pretty tendon of her neck directing his gaze down towards her soft breasts, he was completely shattered at her next words…

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Whether it was the genuine nature of the gratitude, the fact that she was thanking him for such a thing, or solely the fact that it was Caoimhe who offered it to him, Niall felt something break behind his breast. It shifted, it unlocked, it sparked a pleasant chill beneath his skin. Like the fresh side of a pillow on a hot night, he felt it shiver through his limbs and then burn white hot with a fiery passion.

  Not wanting to put a name to it, not able to acknowledge it, Niall’s trained reaction to such things was to escape. For, deep in his memories, this sensation brought pain and loss.

  This emotion was not without heartbreak.

  His desire to protect Caoimhe from harm was powerful but, in that moment, those that sheltered his own heart were stronger.

  Quickly, Niall had sat up. Trying to ignore the moment of confusion and loss on his wife’s face, he threw himself swiftly from t
he bed and hurried to pick up his things. He allowed the cold air of the night to rouse him from his sated sense of peace, and his voice was sharp and punctual.

  “I shall sleep in my rooms until we know if this is needed again.”

  Niall heard the words leave his mouth. He was screaming inside his own head that they were not what he wanted to say, but it did him no good.

  They were out. Spat into the air without the opportunity for retraction.

  Niall knew he would never forget the look on Caoimhe’s face as he had shut the door upon her. Nor the slicing pain that went through his gut every time he summoned it to mind.

  17

  Coming and Going

  There was an old hopscotch game that Caoimhe and her sisters had invented when they were little. Across a squared board, sketched in the sand, they had hopped and jumped about, attempting to get from one side to the other. It was a game of strategy in which you could take a single step forward or take one step back in order to gain three later. Depending on your choice, you could risk others making it to the end faster than your slow and steady pace could take you or end up dancing about the board back and forth, never gaining ground.

  Caiomhe could not help but wonder which path her marriage had taken.

  Was she slowly gaining ground, drawing ever closer to Niall? Or was she just shifting back and forth, laboring under the illusion of progress?

  Her thoughts drifted to such things, as she wandered the dunes of long grass out by the coastline. She had tried to clear her mind, to keep her thoughts turned to whatever duties she had at hand across the last few days. She had learned a new seasoning for roasted meat from Mary and had seen to the painting in the Blue Room being renovated. She had been brave enough to mount Lady’s Breath once more and learn to hold on as she walked beneath her. Despite the idleness of a grand lady’s life, Caoimhe had attempted all that she could to fill her days and distract her mind from the more sorrowful assessment of her matrimony.