Highland Song

by Young, Christine

  The trap she had inadvertently set for him.

  Perhaps she did owe him something more than a kiss simply because she had very nearly caused his death. But she didn’t owe him her body. She wouldn’t let him rape her.

  "All right then, I'll kiss you again," She said petulantly.

  Touching both her hands to the side of his face, she pulled his head down so she could kiss him. She put her lips over Slade’s, and this time she didn’t shy away. Instead, she increased the pressure of the kiss gradually, learning the smooth pliability of his lips in a silence that was eclipsed only by the frantic pounding of her heart.

  When Slade made no move to participate in the kiss, Lainie hesitated, wondering what she should do next. Even though Slade didn’t believe her, she had told him the truth about her innocence. Except for her encounter with Bertram, she’d never kissed a man or been so close to one. And her time with Bertram had been far from gentle or pleasant. He had grabbed at her, and she had not been able to fight free. In the end, he had stolen her innocence. If there had been any enjoyment in the experience, it had all been one-sided.

  But Slade didn’t act like Bertram, and Lainie had agreed to the kiss. She just didn’t know what he wanted her to do. The newfound knowledge bewildered her almost as much as the realization that kissing Slade affected her in a completely surprising and different way than anything she had ever thought could be possible.

  She enjoyed the kiss.

  "Slade?"

  "Don’t stop. I’ll get an honest reaction from you yet," he murmured, his lips so close to her own she felt his breath whisper across her face.

  Shyly, Lainie’s hands crept around Slade’s neck. She was getting tired of holding herself off the ground. Yet she was still afraid to trust him completely. But she finally let him support her. The pressure of her arms around his neck increased.

  "Hmmm, that’s better," Slade said in a husky voice. "So you were pretending."

  Pretending what, she wondered?

  His lips were only a breath away from hers. The warmth of his softly spoken words sweeping across her cheeks sent shivers of sensation over her. For a moment, her breath stopped then came back quick and achingly hard. Arching her body to close the remaining distance between her mouth and Slade’s, Lainie knew pleasure she had never believed existed.

  The first caress of his lips was familiar, as was the shimmer of delight that swept through Lainie when their mouths touched. Each time their lips brushed together the intensity of the sensation grew, shortening her breath even more. He was barely holding her and he wasn't forcing her.

  "I dinnae ken," Lainie whispered. "What is happening? What are you doing to me?"

  Her lips were so close to his that each word was a distinct rush over Slade’s mouth. It was the same when he spoke to her, each word a soft caress.

  "We’re kissing. What is it you don’t understand?" he asked.

  "I dinna ken that your lips on mine would set me on fire."

  Lainie felt a current rush through Slade and she wondered at his response to her words. Suddenly his arms were sliding around her. She tensed, expecting the same to happen now as it had with Bertram.

  Slade made no move to force her. All he did was hold her so she could stay close to him. He was so gentle his actions amazed her. Slowly she relaxed, letting the pleasure of the moment sink into her. She didn't want to analyze what was happening here.

  "I’m a patient man, but even I have limits. When am I going to get that kiss you promised?" Slade asked dryly a touch of humor in his words and a hint of a smile on his lips.

  "I’ve kissed you more than once, I've kissed you twice. What is it you want?" Lainie said indignantly and slightly insulted, wishing she understood what exactly she wasn't doing right.

  "And I think you haven’t kissed me at all," his hands running the length of her back, tracing each vertebrae, seducing her.

  "Then, tell me, what is it I've been doing?"

  "Teasing," he said bluntly. "Enjoyable, but not exactly what I had in mind, and you know it as well as I do."

  Problem was, she didn’t. "I can’t read minds. I don’t have any idea what you want me to do, and I dinna ken how that was teasing," she spoke back, annoyed that he hadn’t been as disturbed by the lazy, gliding kiss as she had. “I kissed you, don’t tell me I didn’t.”

  "I know what you are. You’re a fake and a phony with fast hands who won’t deliver the one thing you promised--a real kiss. You tease a man until he’s tortured to near death then dance away as if you'd given everything a man would want."

  Lainie opened her mouth to argue with him but then wondered what a real kiss would be. Then she remembered what he had told her about kissing. He had said he liked a kiss hot and deep. She shuddered as a ripple of pleasure pulsed through her. And she remembered what he’d told her to do with her tongue. He wanted her to put it deep inside his mouth. Just thinking about it sent a surge of heat through her.

  “Is this what you want then?”

  Before Lainie could think about it and change her mind, she brought her lips against Slade’s open mouth and touched his tongue with her own. The strange sensations she felt fascinated her. Curiously, she traced the tip of her tongue over his once more, exploring the shape and texture of his mouth, enjoying every moment. And she learned how smooth and soft the underside of his tongue was.

  She was completely absorbed in her explorations, fascinated by the taste and texture of the man she kissed. Slade’s arms tightened around her, but she didn’t care. Her breath quickened. She realized his breath had quickened too. She knew he was seducing her more thoroughly as each second passed and with each erratic beat of her heart. And she knew that Slade’s taste and warmth were more intoxicating than French brandy.

  Lainie didn’t question the mounting need that overshadowed everything else. She tightened her arms around Slade’s neck in an attempt to get even closer to him, seeking more. More of what she wasn’t sure, she just knew she didn’t want this to end.

  Unexpectedly the ground pushed up hard behind her. She was on her back again, and Slade’s big body covered her heating her from the inside out.

  Lainie didn’t protest. She was too caught up in the pleasure of the moment to realize the liberties she was giving him and where this might lead. She ran her fingers through his hair, enjoying the thickness, texture and warmth of it.

  Slade moved and arched against her, silently telling her he liked the feel of her nails against his scalp, his neck, the bunched muscles of his back. He liked the taste of her too, sweetness and a heat that grew greater the more he tested it.

  "I like your kisses hot and deep," he whispered close to her ear. The whisper sent heated waves of pleasure pulsing through her.

  Slade continued his exploration of Lainie’s mouth while his weight settled between her thighs, separating them until he could press the ache of his arousal into the softness that was heaven sent to receive him.

  She arched against him, pressing herself even closer. He wanted to groan at the primitive savagery of his response. But he didn’t want her to retreat. This was almost the kiss she had promised.

  He had never meant to get this aroused. He had only meant to tease her into admitting who and what she was. He had not bargained for losing control. He hadn't lost control since he was an untried boy.

  But it was too late. She would understand exactly how much he needed her when she felt that hard ridge of flesh pressing against her. And she would understand exactly how to use it against him to get whatever she wanted. He could play her game though. While playing her game, he meant to find out how far she would go before she tried to stop him.

  Slade’s hips moved again, pressing more intimately against Lainie’s yielding body. A sweet fire blossomed in the pit of her stomach, making her moan. Intuitively, her arms stretched around him, pulling him closer. He rewarded her with a sensual movement of his hips, his body withdrawing and returning to hers in the same ancient and primal dance of his t
ongue moving within her mouth.

  Long fingers slid from Lainie’s shoulders to the fastening of her shirt. He pulled the shirttails from her breeches and stroked from her waist to her ribs then back again, not stopping until one breast filled his hand. His thumb moved, discovered the velvet hardness of her nipple, and tested it with a sensuous, twisting pressure.

  Lainie gasped. Her body arched toward Slade, begging for more of the same.

  With a rough deep sound of conquest, Slade did what Lainie silently begged for, he increased the caress, capturing her nipple and rolling it between his fingers, inhaling the cries that rippled from her lips into his mouth. When he reached his limit and could resist her no longer, he tore his lips from her and traced a path of heat down her neck and across her collarbone then downward to her breast, seeking the small bud that ripened to fullness at his caress.

  The mercuric heat seeping through the thin shirt to the naked flesh beneath it shocked Lainie back to her senses. Stunned, tentative about what just happened between them, she fought for control, only to have that meager power ripped from her when his mouth tugged on her nipple and fire ragged through her body.

  His nimble fingers moved to the laces holding the shirt together and they came undone, threatening to bare her in an intimacy she had only known once before.

  "Slade," Lainie gasped, meaning to say no, but unable to get the single word uttered. The pleasure so intense she wondered when it would turn to the pain she remembered.

  Slade’s mouth covered hers and his tongue thrust deeply into her mouth, making it impossible for her to speak. The hungry contact sent her world spinning away from her, leaving only Slade’s heat and strength as an anchor to hold onto.

  Before he looked at her again, she was clinging to him, her need to protest overshadowed beneath the heady pleasure he gave her.

  In one smooth movement of his arm, Slade ripped Lainie’s shirt from top to bottom, revealing the creamy curves and tight coral tips of her breasts. His breath rushed out with low sound of desire. Her skin glistened where his mouth had just been, and each rapid breath she inhaled made her breasts shimmer invitingly. She had seemed so slender, so like a young girl, that he hadn’t expected her to be so much a woman.

  Without understanding what drove him, Slade bent down to kiss Lainie once more.

  "Slade, I have to tel--"

  Lainie made a small sound that was part fear and part fire.

  "Hush. There is nothing to tell, Lainie. I know everything I need to know," he said as he ignored her attempt to speak. Slowly his hands slid beneath her back. Then his arms tightened around her, and she was arched like a bow in that instant before he opened his lips and began to suckle and tease the nipples he had aroused.

  A low moan tore from Lainie. She shivered as lightening tore through her body and she arched more deeply into Slade’s hungry mouth.

  "What are you doing to me," she asked brokenly.

  "Only what your body is begging for. Nothing more."

  His only answer was to turn his head and bathe the other nipple in the same fiery heat of his lips and tongue.

  For Lainie the sensation of pleasure was even more violent. Another cry tore from her as her body arched to meet the demands of the man who held her with such fierce care.

  Then Lainie felt Slade’s hand between her legs.

  Panic and violent fear overwhelmed everything he had created, driving out pleasure, quenching the inferno he had so painstakingly built with the icy knowledge that Slade wasn’t going to stop short of raping her.

  "No," the cry tore from her lips in fierce intensity as she tried to twist away from the man she lay beneath. "No, stop. You can’t do this to me. I’ve paid the price you asked. I kissed you the way you wanted me to kiss you. Didn’t I? Please, please stop, Slade. Please. I beg ye." Her fists hit his back as she pleaded with him.

  Confused, her words sinking in, Slade slowly and very reluctantly lifted his head. The enduring sensual release of Lainie’s nipple form his mouth caused a wave of helpless response through her.

  He inhaled a long deep breath, closing his eyes to rid himself of the tension her words caused and to stop the involuntary groan rising in his throat. The hand he had pressed between her legs was surrounded with the kind of inferno he had never elicited so quickly from another woman. He did not want to stop. He had never before felt anything with this intensity.

  He moved his fingers, memorizing Lainie’s passionate and honest fire, bringing a moan that wasn’t fear from her lips. The sound was pure pleasure.

  "Tell me why I should stop, little fox." Slade asked with a low husky voice never taking his gaze from her eyes. "You don’t really want me to stop. I know your kind. You want me to take you just as much as I hunger for you. But you're still playing a game with me. You don't need to do that."

  His fingers flexed again, and again she cried out in pleasure. She had not realized his hand had crept inside the loose breeches she wore. There was no barrier to dull the sensation of his hand curved possessively and intimately around her.

  "I’m playing no game with ye. Ye dinna ken anything about me, Slade. Please stop."

  Lainie grabbed Slade’s wrist, trying to drag it from between her legs. She couldn’t. He was bigger and stronger than she was, he had taught her that. Just like Bertram he could take whatever he wanted.

  "You promised me ye would stop if I gave you what ye wanted--an honest kiss," Lainie said her voice edged with fear. "Wasn’t that an honest kiss?" she asked.

  He watched her and for a long moment did not answer her.

  "Ye know it was." She told him.

  "Aye," he said hesitating.

  The pain and desperation in Lainie’s voice could not be denied. Nor could the sudden stiffness of her body and her nails digging into his wrist be denied as she tried to pull his hand away from her.

  Yet at the same time, he was hard pressed to retreat from the inferno surrounding him, seducing him. She was a seductress. If she told him no now when they both wanted each other so damn much, she must have ice in her veins.

  "If you were honest, I’d be deep inside you right now and we’d both be burning up. Sweet Jesu, Lainie we would be so damn hot. And you’d enjoy every second of it."

  "Is rape the only honesty ye ken?" Lainie demanded. "Seducing a woman into sex, taking what ye want without a thought to the woman's pain?"

  "I wasn’t taking anything you weren’t willing to give."

  "I’m not willing. Are ye going to force me, Englishman?"

  Slade inhaled a long slow breath, and fought for the control he always prided himself on having. He called himself every kind of fool he could think of for wanting the little treasonous spy he been sent to bring to trial. He had never thought that another little tease would ever get the better of him.

  '"I don't force women," he told her through clenched teeth.

  "Then get off me."

  He remembered another time and a girl who was called Anna--Lady Anna. The sexual knots she had tied him in still haunted him. He’d wanted to give her the world and all she wanted was a fling before she married the richest man--the Earl--her daddy could find for her. She’d teased him with promises before she ever let him touch her. Each time the passion grew hot and intense she would fasten her bodice with calm fingers, smile at him and leave.

  "Give me a good reason," he told her smoothly.

  "Because I don't want this," she said.

  Slade couldn’t turn the passion on and off. Not at first. But he had learned. He hadn't expected Lainie MacPherson to bring him to a passion he couldn't walk away from.

  "I didn’t promise to stop," Slade said coolly. "I told you we’d negotiate what came next. Offer me something that is as fascinating as this."

  Slade’s hand moved, pressing against Lainie, caressing her. She squirmed and tried to push his hand away.

  "French brandy and perfume. Set to anchor just north of Dundee," she told him.

  "You’re a spy. You can do bette
r than that."

  She shook her head. "Weapons on board."

  "We’re at peace right now."

  "There are always those who resist."

  Slade shrugged and leaned close to Lainie. "You’re my fortune, when I deliver you to Bertram."

  "My journal, the one you took. It’s no good to ye without the code," she said quickly, knowing what she said to be a lie. Her journal was personal, nothing else.

  He paused, watching her. She had teased him with her kisses but now she wanted only to be free of him. Yet there was genuine fear in her eyes. He had done nothing to elicit that. She was afraid of him--or of his lovemaking--and the notion irritated him. He wanted to understand why.

  Angry with himself and the fear he saw in her sky blue eyes, Slade withdrew his hand and moved away from her. He refused to be seduced into wanting a woman more than she wanted him. That was the kind of mistake he would make only once in his life.