by Lynn Tyler
Will tossed Jamie a dirty look before speaking. “’Tis not your scar the lassies fear, Robbie,” he said in a voice he would use to placate to a toddler. “Truly, ’tis not that bad, just a thin white line, really. The lassies are intimidated by your countenance. Do you have to act as if you would rather beat the next man to approach you than talk to him?”
Robbie didn’t know how to reply. Both of his brothers had said the same thing over and over again. He just couldn’t figure out why the women had been throwing themselves at him before his face was scarred and why they scuttled away from him now.
His stallion began prancing nervously. Robbie signaled for quiet while he listened carefully for whatever had spooked the beast. Whinnying fretfully, his horse twitched suddenly, mere moments before a bloodcurdling scream rent the air. The scream, originating from somewhere in front of them, was cut off abruptly by the clang of metal meeting metal. Resigned to the fact he would have to rescue whatever fool would travel at night, present company excluded, he turned his horse in the direction of the noise. “Have care, lads, it could be a trap!” he called.
They quickly found the cause of all the commotion. Five men, presumably horse thieves, surrounded one slim lad. The boy was putting up a vicious struggle, hacking away at the men without pause.
He heard Jamie swear as they took stock of the situation. It was evident from the lad’s stance and the way he held his sword, he was extremely skilled. The lad ducked and dodged with an agility most men would envy. But even the most skilled swordsman couldn’t outmaneuver five men.
Robbie drew his sword and dismounted, confident that his well-trained horse would not stray. He strode toward the closest man, jamming his sword as hard as he could between the thief’s shoulder blades. Blood ran down to the hilt, making it hard to grip, but he held on, jerking up on the handle to quicken the death.
He quickly dispatched another one of the men, managing to split him from stem to stern before the warning cry went up. The lad took one slash to the shoulder and a nasty knock on the head before the men took off. The boy stared at Robbie as if the devil had come calling. The young man took one look at the thief’s insides spilling out and promptly fainted dead away.
Robbie quickly wiped off the blade and sheathed his sword before hurrying to the fallen boy’s side. He felt rather than saw one of his men kneel beside him.
“Christ, the lad is barely sixteen, not even old enough to shave. What the hell is he doing out here alone?” Will muttered.
“He did well, though,” Colin mused from behind them. “Not many men could take on five thieves at once, let alone one only half grown.”
Robbie merely grunted in response. While he was irritated at yet another interruption, he had to admire the lad’s skill. He briefly wondered if he should offer to foster him when a growing stain of blood darkening the lad’s tunic caught his eye. He unstrapped the satchel attached to his back and flung it to Will. “Put that in my saddlebag for safe keeping. I’m sure he’ll want it when he wakes up.” Unpinning the boy’s tartan, he threw the excess to one side, and leaving the plaid to cover the lad from waist to knee, he sliced the tunic away from his body.
“What the Devil?” Robbie exclaimed as he saw the boy’s chest. His chest was bound tightly with several strips of linen from his armpits to halfway down his ribs. Wanting to ease the lad’s breathing, he cut through the bindings.
The strips of material fell open to reveal the most magnificent pair of breasts he had ever seen. Though they were badly marked and reddened from the constraints, he could see they were high and flawlessly round, not overly large but big enough to fit perfectly into his palms. The moonlight made it difficult to discern the color of her nipples, but he could see well enough to watch as they stiffened rapidly in the cool night breeze.
Suppressing his sudden urge to lower his head and suckle one into his mouth, Robbie tore his gaze from her chest and met his brother’s shocked eyes.
“Sweet Heaven,” Will breathed reverently. “A lass.”
“Aye,” Robbie agreed grimly. He gripped his tunic and pulled it over his head, pressing it over her wound to stem the bleeding. “Put your eyes back in your head, lad, and fetch me my spare plaid.”
He covered her with her plaid as best he could before cautiously raising the linen to check on her wound. It appeared to be fairly shallow and was bleeding only sluggishly now but even the smallest of wounds could become infected. He poured water over it, cleaning it as well as he could with his limited supplies.
The lass twitched as the cold water hit her skin, and her eyes fluttered open. Robbie saw a moment’s worth of confusion flit across her face before it bloomed into full-blown panic. She scrambled away from him, pushing herself up into a sitting position. Grabbing for the knife that was strapped to her thigh, she held it aloft threateningly. “Do not come any closer,” she warned.
Wanting to reassure of his intentions, he raised his hands. “Easy. I will not hurt you, lass,” he said quietly, as he would to a skittish horse.
Her eyes widened when she realized he knew her true sex, and she glanced down at her bared chest. She sucked in a great gulp of air and jumped to her feet, her loosened tartan slipping to pool on the ground at her feet. She ignored the falling plaid and took up a fighting stance.
She stood fiercely, her chin tilted defiantly, ready to fight. With the moonlight shimmering eerily off her pale skin, the girl reminded Robbie of some sort of warrior goddess of old. She hissed another warning at him, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was naked as the day she was born.
Robbie eyed the knife in her hand warily. Even an unskilled child could inflict a lot of damage with it, and he had seen enough to know she was far from unskilled. He took a step toward her, speaking softly as he moved. “Put the knife down, lass. You are safe with us. The highwaymen have fled.”
Robbie saw the indecision flicker in her eyes, and that was all he needed. Taking advantage of the opportunity her momentary hesitation provided, he leapt forward. He caught her wrist, forcing her to drop the knife. She screeched like a wild cat and clawed at him with her free hand. “You will wake the dead, woman!” he roared, yanking her against his body to prevent her from twisting out of his grasp and gripping her other hand.
He yelped when he felt her teeth sink into his chest and managed to swing his hips to the side just before her rising knee could connect with a very sensitive place. “Damn it, lass! Would you stop?” he shouted, jerking away from her as she swooped in to bite him again. “You are going to further damage your wound!”
She froze against him at his words. “My wound?” she whispered, her breath puffing, warm and moist, across the skin on his chest. She seemed to melt into him as his words sank in. She dropped her forehead to rest against his chest as she began to gasp for breath.
He tensed for an entirely different reason. He had been far too long without a woman if this little hellcat could drag a response out of him so easily. “Aye,” he said roughly. “The bastard got a slice in before he met his maker. It is just a small wound really, but we should have a care of it nonetheless.”
Her breasts were heaving against him as she fought to catch her breath, their softness emphasized by his hard chest. He could feel her nipples scraping across his skin, forcefully reminding him he was holding a gloriously nude woman in his arms.
She turned her head slightly to look at her shoulder, her short dark hair brushing against his collarbone. Robbie barely swallowed the groan the tiny, unintentional caress caused, his hands switching from restraining to stroking.
She stood passively in his arms, allowing him to soothe her. All the fight seemed to have drained out of her, and he knew it was only a matter of time before fear and exhaustion caught up with her.
Sometime during their struggle, Will had delivered the requested plaid and a tunic he recognized as Jamie’s. Robbie glanced down at her as she began to shiver, concerned to see her complexion pale so completely, she looked almost like a specter
in the moonlight. He needed to treat her shoulder and get her warm. “If I let you go to see to your shoulder, will you behave?”
Her nostrils flared briefly with a spark of temper, making him wonder what they would look like heated with passion as she rode him with abandon. Her sigh broke into his fantasy, and he looked at her to find her nodding. God’s blood, he was disgusting. The lass was frightened and injured and here he was lusting after her. Shaking his head at his behavior, he reached for the little bundle of clothing, relieved to find a pile of relatively clean linen strips he could use as a bandage.
Robbie treated her shoulder quickly and helped her don the clothing, wincing sympathetically at the faint lines of pain creasing her face.
She held herself stiffly and at attention, as if she would flee at the slightest provocation. Well, maybe she wouldn’t flee. If the fight she had put up mere minutes ago was any indication, he would have a banshee on his hands again. Perhaps he should have a care of his cock tonight. While he hadn’t made use of it much lately, he rather fancied his penis. He wouldn’t want to go to his new bride a eunuch.
Leading her back to his men, he was grateful to see they had started a fire. Robbie urged her to lie down by the fire and left to speak quietly with the others. “We will stay here until morn,” he confirmed, nodding in thanks for the fire.
“What is she doing out here alone?” asked Colin Gunn. Colin was his best friend and was the only one not trying to talk him out of his decision to marry. He hadn’t said anything at all, really.
Robbie shrugged and gazed thoughtfully at the girl, whose shaking was visible even from this distance. “I will ask her in the morning. It is best if she sleeps right now.” With that, he gathered up his saddle blanket and walked back to the little hellcat.
“How are you feeling, lass?” Robbie asked as he sat on the ground beside her.
“Cold,” she whispered, huddling into a tight ball.
A sudden need to protect and provide for this small female swept over him. The immense desire to wrap her up in his arms and cradle her against him was pounding through him. He literally ached to hold her close.
The shock of her experience seemed to be settling in, and she shook violently “I am so cold,” she repeated fretfully.
He lay down beside her, spreading the blanket over them both. “Hush, loving,” he murmured when she stiffened, “I will keep you warm.”
“That is exactly what I am worried about. My brother-in-law showed me how to render a man’s privates useless and I will not hesitate to do it should I find myself in a questionable position.”
Robbie positioned her so that her back was to him, her head pillowed on his upper arm. He draped his other arm around her waist and pulled her close, pleased to note her shivering slowed almost immediately. “I assure you, banshee, you are completely safe with us. We are men of honor and will not defile a maiden, even if she does insist on keeping the dead awake with her constant chatter. Now go to sleep.”
“I do not seem to have much choice in the matter, do I,” she snapped.
He tightened his arm around her when she began struggling to free herself. “No, you do not. Now, quit your caterwauling and sleep.”
Grumbling, the little hellcat shifted around, muttering about behemoth men and how they should all be careful of her dagger. He fought the small smile of amusement that tugged at his lips. She seemed to have run out of actual temper and was now just making herself and her stance known.
She slowly relaxed against him, snuggling closer to his warmth as sleep stole over her. His body reveled in the sensation of this small female melting against him, and he held her as if he had been holding her for years. This was what he had been missing all these years. What would it be like to fall asleep like this every night? How would it feel to wake up to a small bundle of woman in his arms every morning?
Robbie closed his eyes and tried to imagine his life as a married man. He pictured his keep full of laughter, the sounds of the little footsteps of his children echoing off the walls, and a wife who looked at him with affection, desire, and love in her eyes.
Lord in Heaven, he wanted that life so badly. The only problem with this new vision was that his dream wife was not a faceless Jocelyn MacKenna but this sweetly ferocious woman.
Robbie kept as still as possible, not wanting to break the spell as he pondered his new problem. Now that he had held this woman in his arms, would he ever be satisfied with Jocelyn MacKenna?
Chapter 3
It was the cacophony of sound that woke Jocelyn. A storm had to be brewing in the distance for the thunder was loud and often.
She wrinkled her nose and nuzzled into her pillow and inhaled its unfamiliar scent. It smelled of pine and wind and musk. Not an unpleasant smell. A very appealing smell actually. She made a note to ask Catriona what she had done differently with the bed linens. This would be a wonderful scent to wake up to every morning, except for the strong horse-like odor she caught every time the blanket got near her face. That was something she could do without.
The painful object digging into her hip was something else she could do without. While Jocelyn was used to the straw from her mattress poking at her through the material, this was a different matter entirely. It was as if someone had slipped a rock into her bed. Sighing irritably, she shifted closer to the warmth emanating at her front. Her leg slipped over something large, and her knee nudged against something smooth and hard.
Frowning, she reached down under the blanket and under a bunched up wad of material to move the strange object out of her way. Her fingers closed around a hot, hard length. Curiously, she trailed her fingertips to the base. Still unable to identify it, she grasped it lightly, sliding her palm up to the tip, which only served to wring a long, drawn-out moan from her pillow.
It suddenly dawned on her that pillows didn’t moan. Her eyes snapped open just as the warm bulk she was resting against shifted in his sleep. God’s blood, she was sprawled over a vaguely familiar man.
Her arm was wrapped around his muscular middle, and her leg draped over his thigh while her head rested comfortably on his chest, tucked under his chin. She froze, unsure what to do, afraid that if she moved at all he would wake and find her stretched across him with her hand intimately wrapped around him.
Jocelyn almost groaned as the events of the previous night came flooding back. She remembered the attack and her rescue by a group of men. She remembered waking up from a dead faint and wielding her dagger at the man currently holding her in his strong arms. Sweet Lord, it had been so easy for him to disarm her. She had tried to fight him, but he had been too strong and her body had quite simply given up. Soon she had been standing in his arms, naked as the day she was born, depending on him to care for her and keep her safe. Something in the manner in which he’d held her assured her he meant her no harm. If he’d wanted to hurt her, he’d have done so immediately instead of treating her wound. Still, she’d kept up her prickly, downright combative behavior.
She had never been so embarrassed in her life. She hated being vulnerable, and these men had found her in her most vulnerable moment. It mortified her that she had fainted like a girl, never mind the fact that she was a girl. She had been treating the villagers’ aches and pains for years. She had certainly seen her share of blood in the past. Farming could be dangerous work. A misplaced swing of a scythe or an out of control animal could do a lot of damage. It was just that she had never seen a man gutted before her eyes.
She was thankful though. If it hadn’t been for the man next to her and the other men, she would have died by the hands of those horse thieves or worse once they discovered she was actually a female.
The man shifted again and murmured in his sleep, throwing off the blanket. His kilt had ridden up past his hips, leaving his lower body vulnerable to her gaze. Strong fingers gripped her hand and held it in place as he gently rocked his hips into her palm. A virgin she may be, but she was far from innocent, and it occurred to her exactly what was
happening. Her hand was wrapped around his cock, and he seemed to be deriving a great deal of pleasure from the combined stroking, if the breathless moans he kept uttering were any indication. She stroked her fingers over him experimentally, enjoying the way he felt in her hand. He was hot, all soft velvet and damp silk over an iron rod. The sensation stirred strange feelings between her legs.
One of the other men grunted. She pulled her upper body away from the man and looked around, relieved to see the other still fast asleep. Suddenly aware that what they were doing was not exactly proper, she shifted her gaze from the hard length in her hand to the man’s face. His eyes were closed, and his features were drawn tight in an expression of agonized ecstasy. She allowed him to continue their caress. She certainly wasn’t one to follow proper social protocol, after all. She recalled peeping on one of her sister’s sleeping quarters one night while she was visiting her and her husband. Her sister had been handling her husband’s cock the very same way Jocelyn was stroking this huge man. Her brother-in-law had shouted and had spurted some kind of liquid all over his belly and chest. The look on his face had been one of complete and utter satisfaction. She wondered if she could give this man the same conclusion.
Jocelyn examined his face inquisitively, her eyes roving over him hungrily. He was a beautiful man, really. It had been too dark last night to get a good look at him. But now, in the first rays of morning light, she was able to view him properly.
He had high cheekbones, a strong but crooked nose that looked as if it might have been broken a time or two, a square jaw covered in a few days’ growth of beard and a full, soft mouth. A long, white scar ran from his temple, down his jaw and ended at his collarbone, though it didn’t detract from his masculine beauty. If anything, it served to make him more unique. And God, he felt good. His body was all bronzed skin stretched over hard muscle covered with a fine pelt of hair that tickled the bare skin of her thigh where her plaid had ridden up.