Highlander's Guardian

by Joanne Wadsworth

  “I need to wash up. I’m grubby from my ride.”

  “Then make it quick.”

  She crossed to the water basin, unfolded a cloth and dipped it. With her foot braced on the wooden chair, she lifted the hem of her sark, draped it over her bent knee and cleaned her ankles of the mud splatters from the trail.

  “There’s something I need to speak of.” Colin sat in the chair, took the cloth from her and propped her foot in his lap. Gently, he wiped around her calf and over her knee as he tracked upward. His warm breath whispered across her flesh then puffed hotly along her inner thigh.

  Toes curled into his soft leather trews, she held his shoulder. “I’m listening.”

  “With my coming mission being a dangerous one, I need to know you’re safe. You are to return to Dunvegan with Rory. I’ll come for you there, as soon as I’m able.” His golden gaze lifted to hers, so hungry and needy. “I also cannae take the risk of getting you with child, but if you wish, I would still love to give you pleasure this night.” He lowered her leg, lifted the other and stroked higher, until the thin white cotton bunched across her most private parts. “Your pleasure will bring me pleasure.”

  “If it involves more of this kind of touching, then aye.”

  “I promise it will.” He caught her around the waist and pulled her across his lap.

  Straddling him, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I trust you.”

  “Dinnae let go.” He eased her hem higher and pressed the cool cloth against her entrance. A pulse skittered to life where he touched her and she rocked forward with a low moan. ’Twas past time for them to deepen their bond.

  “I want your hands on me, and mine on you.” She caressed his glorious chest. “Everywhere.”

  “Aye, everywhere.” He tossed the cloth onto the side table and slowly removed her sark, one inch at a time until she sat naked before him. With his finger, he traced around her beading nipples. “You’re so beautiful.”

  “Oh, everywhere is good.”

  “Tell me if I go too fast.” He clamped her bottom and kept her tight against him as he sucked her nipple deep into his mouth.

  She leaned into him, desperate to rub against the hard length of his erection thrusting upward and tenting his trews. “It seems I like fast.”

  “Delicious,” he moaned and drew the tip deeper.

  Wicked tingles raced through her body, but needing to touch him too, she tip-toed her fingers down his chest and toward the trail of hair disappearing below his waistband. “Can I do to you as you’re doing to me?”

  “Later. I want to touch and taste all of you first.” He lifted and carried her to the bed, his need burning in his gaze. Carefully, he slid her onto the soft brown fur, eased her breasts together and dipped his head. The raspy stroke of his tongue across the sensitive tips sent a bolt of pleasure to her core.

  “You’re over dressed, Colin.” She fumbled with the ties of his trews. “Take these off.”

  He eased onto his elbows, gripped the loosened waistband and shoved the leather down his thickly muscled legs and off. His cock bobbed free and brushed his belly, one very large cock with a plump head darkening to a delectable plum color. Sweet heaven, ’twas just as well he wasn’t intending to consummate their vows after all. Surely he must fit inside her, except she wasn’t exactly certain how.

  “What are you thinking, feeling?” He knelt between her legs and his balls drew tighter and higher into the thatch of dark brown curls covering the apex of his groin.

  “I’m no’ nervous, but there’s something else.” She squirmed back to make more room for him.

  “Nay, stay.” He caught one ankle, dragged her back down and feasted his gaze on her below. “If it’s fear you have, then when the time comes, I’ll fit inside you, right where I belong.”

  “I may fear but I also want, desperately.” She squeezed her eyes shut as a myriad of emotions tumbled through her. This was the moment she’d been waiting a lifetime for and she didn’t want to miss a moment of it.

  “Look at me, Annie.”

  She opened her eyes.

  “Touch me if you wish. I need to feel your hands on me.”

  Aye, that’s what she needed to. She ran her thumb across his warm lips. His body was all hard angles and heat, and she adored it all, but his soft mouth drew her. Dizzy, and a little breathless, she murmured, “I love you.”

  “As I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you exactly how much.” He lifted her right foot, massaged her calf then trailed upward, kneading with delicious strokes to her knee before he set her foot down and did the same with the other. “I want you to relax. Elbows down and rest back.”

  She laid her head on the pillow, her trust in him absolute.

  He raised her legs and hooked them over his shoulders until her bottom lifted off the bed and she lay fully exposed to him. “You’re beautiful, so pink and lush.”

  “I’m also yours.”

  “Aye, mine.” Grinning, he swept his hands up her inner thighs, parted her folds and plunged one finger deep inside her. She bucked as pleasure ricocheted outward from her core and hardened her nipples further. “I see you like that.”

  “I have a feeling I’ll like everything you do.”

  He stroked her harder, faster, rubbing his thumb across her nub until she arched into his touch. “Are you ready for more?”

  “Aye,” she panted, “but more of what?”

  “’Tis best I show you.” He added a second finger then dipped his head. Surely he wasn’t going to—

  He licked her flesh in the most intimate way then thrust both fingers in. Such exquisite torture, and such a deep and delicious rhythm. Every flick of his tongue and stroke of his fingers had her striving for something beyond her reach. Whatever it was, the sensations kept building, higher and higher.

  “Colin.” Before she lost her mind, she searched and skimmed the hard length of his cock. She caressed his hot flesh and instinct took over. She pumped him in time with how he stroked her until he moaned, long and low. Although she needed more, to have his mouth on hers, to have the glorious length of his body pressing down on every inch of her. “Please, kiss me.”

  He lifted up, took her mouth in a hot kiss even as he continued to stroke his fingers into her so perfectly below.

  She wanted to let go, take whatever beckoned so close and claim it, but not without him. Stroking him harder, she teetered on the verge of a precipice she wanted to fly from.

  “I cannae hold on, Annie.” He flicked her clit and she tumbled over the edge and soared. Her core rippled with wave after wave of pure bliss and a bright rainbow of colors burst behind her closed eyelids in the most stunning display.

  Colin roared, his seed spurting across the bed sheet, his own release coming hard on the heels of hers.

  * * * *

  Sensations had stormed through Colin as Annie had come around his fingers. She’d taken his cock in hand and given him unexplainable pleasure, just as she’d done with her responsive body. And when she’d come, his own release had pounded through him. He’d shuddered in her hand and followed her over into the poignant abyss of no return.

  He slumped on top of her, completely spent.

  “Nay, dinnae sleep.” She caught his face between her hands and pulled his mouth back to hers. Her kiss, so sweetly seductive, stirred his shaft back to life. “I’ve never felt the like afore. ’Twas magical, as if you took me to another realm.”

  “I was no’ sleeping, just resting.”

  “Rest is for later.” She kissed him again and he kissed her back. She was so alluring with her beautiful creamy skin and luscious pouty lips. It had been almost impossible not to lose all control and bury himself deep inside her.

  “You are going to be the end of me.”

  “I hope so.” She pushed him onto his back and crawled on top of him. Every inch of her glorious body was on stunning display as she sat across his hips and stretched her arms high above her head. As she wriggled agai
nst his groin, rubbing her slit over the base of his cock wedged between them, her breasts swayed, heavy and full and demanding his attention. “Oh, this feels so nice.”

  “Aye, and you’re giving me wicked thoughts.” Slowly, he grazed a finger from between her breasts to her belly, and as her breathing quickened, he trailed lower.

  She glanced at his hand and smiled. “I tingle below.”

  “You may be too sensitive for my touch. Tell me if you are.” He swirled through the pale blond curls covering her entrance and rubbed her nub.

  Gasping, she squirmed back. “Aye, too sensitive. Mayhap, I might have a turn to love you the way you just loved me.” On her belly between his legs, her breasts falling softly either side of his balls, she slid her hand around his cock.

  Oh hell. If she took him in his mouth, he’d lose it.

  Peeking through her long lashes, she raised a brow. “I take it I can do this since you put your mouth on me?”

  “Aye, but it isnae a good idea.”

  “Why?” She dipped her head, and in one long teasing stroke, licked him from root to tip.

  He groaned. “I’m sensitive too.”

  “Too bad. I need to touch you.” She cupped his balls and caressed them, then with a grin, settled her lips over his head and took him deep.

  “Annie.” He lifted his hips, his cock hardening impossibly further as her sweet mouth seared him. Such torture, yet he couldn’t for the life of him stop her. He cradled her head in his hands and held on as she bobbed up and down. “You learn too fast.”

  “I have a good teacher, and you are delicious too. I had no idea.” She sucked harder and he pushed deeper inside her mouth. He got lost as a sexual haze consumed him. Nay, he needed to remain in control and he certainly couldn’t come before he’d seen to her pleasure again first. She needed to experience all he could give her, no matter the short amount of time they had left.

  Hands on her waist, he lifted her up onto her knees, scooted down on his back on the mattress and planted his head between her thighs. Underneath her, he tapped her bottom. “Open wider for me.”

  She gasped but widened her legs. “I wasnae done.”

  “Too bad.” Hmm, where did he start? Her inner flesh, lit by the glow of the flickering flames, sent a golden wash over the pink. And that tiny nub lay temptingly plump and awaiting his touch. “I need to get my fill of you. Brace yourself, scamp.”

  Blood pounding, he took her clit between his lips and sucked. He lavished attention on her until she moaned and rocked her hips then ground down on him.

  “I feel too hot.”

  “Just how I want you.” He reached up and tweaked her nipples, the tips so incredibly hard and pointy. He needed a taste of those too. He flipped her onto her back, rose overtop and adored every lush inch of her breasts.

  “Colin, too much, too much,” she murmured, her back arching as she pressed those sweet morsels even deeper into his mouth.

  “Or no’ enough.” He teased his teeth over each sensitive tip then swirled with his tongue until fire raced through his blood.

  “I cannae hold on.”

  Neither could he. His cock was hammering at him for release as it jabbed the inside of her thigh. So close. An inch to the right and he’d graze her hot flesh. Nay, he had to think about the days ahead and his promise to her.

  He moved away, pressed his cock hard into the soft hollow near her hip and stroked a finger through her heat. She bucked against him and his balls tightened, his cock twitching. She was so wet and he wanted.

  “Colin.” She cried out his name as she thrashed underneath him, then she came, her inner muscles clamping down and dragging his fingers in.

  “You’re mine, always mine,” he growled as he came in a hot rush.

  “Aye, as you’re mine,” she murmured, her eyelids drifting down.

  Chapter 5

  Curled on her side, her bottom snug in the curve of Colin’s groin, Annie woke more content and rested than she ever had before. She wriggled around and squinted as the late afternoon sunshine streamed through the wooden shutters over her narrow window.

  With a hand shielding the glare, she smiled at her new husband who still slept so soundly. A beam of sunlight played over the wispy blond ends of his brown shoulder-length hair and across his high cheeks. His chin, sharply defined with a deep cleft in the center, held such rugged appeal. She kissed the delectable indent then nibbled along his bottom lip. His breathing changed, and even though he showed no other outward sign of having awoken, he clearly had.

  “Do you intend to sleep the day away?” she teased him.

  “I’m enjoying your touch too much.” He opened his eyes and his molten gold gaze melted her.

  “You are a temptation beyond aught I’ve ever known.” She hooked one leg over his and pressed her breasts against his chest. The fine dark hairs tickled her nipples and made them stiffen. “Take me with you when you leave with Lachlan. You know I can ride fast.”

  “Nay, if you got hurt, it would kill me.” He wrapped his arms tightly around her. “Naught has ever felt so right holding you, loving you, but the day is disappearing and I must ensure I have all that is needed in place for this eve. Arthur will be wondering where I am.”

  “Then you must go.” She hated the thought of letting him leave, but she couldn’t hold him back from his preparations, not when his life could very well depend on it. She rolled away, rested her back against the headboard and pulled the bed sheet up. “Will I see you at the masquerade?”

  “Of course you will.” He shuffled out, dressed and strapped on his weapons.

  “What will you be wearing?” She’d had a gown specifically made for the ball, one a little too risqué, but nevertheless perfect for the masque.

  “I procured a monk’s habit afore I arrived.” He slid his hand underneath the sheet and caressed her leg. “I want you to enjoy yourself this eve, and no’ to worry about me.”

  “I will worry, but I also have faith you’ll succeed in your mission.”

  “Aye, I have you to come back to and that knowledge will spur me on.” His fingers skated higher then he groaned and stepped back.

  “Could you find me a clean sark so I too can dress?” She lifted her arms and the sheet slithered to her lap.

  He glanced away, raked a hand through his hair and strode to her trunk. With her undergarment shielding his gaze, he returned and slid it over her head. “You’re a vixen.”

  “Aye, but your vixen.”

  He perched next to her on the bed and pulled his boots on.

  “Promise me you willnae take any unnecessary risks.” She crawled in behind him and massaged his shoulders.

  “I give you my word.” He pressed back against her. “Lachlan will be freed, then Arthur and I and the two men who’ll be joining us will ride hard and fast for the Isle of Mull. Once all is calm, I’ll come for you.” He caught her hands, brought them around his neck and kissed her palms.

  “Once you’re gone, I’ll have to tell Rory of our handfast,” she whispered in his ear. “I’ll have no choice.”

  “’Tis my responsibility to tell him.” He caught her around the hips, swept her onto his lap and took her mouth in a slow and tender kiss. “I wish I’d claimed you three years ago.”

  “I wish you had too.”

  “I love you, Annie. Never doubt that.” He stood, set her on her feet and slung his satchel over his shoulder. “Bar the door.” He slipped outside and took a piece of her heart with him as he did.

  “I love you too,” she breathed into the still chamber, her heart an aching mess as she slid the bolt home. “And I want a lifetime with you.”

  * * * *

  Colin’s gut gnawed in the most vicious way as he strode down the passageway toward his chamber. ’Twas pure torture leaving Annie, as was the thought he might have missed his chance with her. Unbelievably, he had James MacDonald to thank for spurring him to action.

  “Captain.” Arthur caught him up as he walked into his r
oom. “I’ve just returned from the city.” He closed the door, dropped his traveling bag on the end of Colin’s bed, flipped the top leather flap and pulled out a black hooded robe and plain white mask with eye cutouts. “I realize you intended to dress as a monk, but I spoke to a merchant and discovered many of the men attending this eve would be wearing garb such as this. I procured three identical costumes, one for you, myself, and Lachlan. The dark fabric will shield our identities when we take the tower, as well as when we ride out.”

  “Good thinking. Leave a robe and mask for me. I’ve no problem wearing that instead.”

  “I also visited a healer and purchased a vial of sleeping potion. She insisted ’twas very potent. One drop in a man’s ale will send him to sleep for an hour.” Arthur removed it from his pocket and passed the vial across. “I’ll spike the ale and have it delivered to them.”

  “Aye, there are few men who’d turn down a celebratory drink.” He handed it back. “Ian and Murdock will meet us at midnight at the rear of the stables. I’ll collect them while you see to the ale.”

  A knock sounded and he opened the door.

  Annie’s maid stood with a tray in her hands. “Mistress MacLeod requested I bring a meal to you.”

  “Then give her my thanks.” He motioned for the lass to set the steaming bowl of stew and the trencher of meat on the side table. “I have a request in return. I need a single white rose delivered to your mistress. Tell her ’tis a gift from me.” Every time he’d sailed from Duart to Dunvegan, he’d always taken her a rose from one of the wild copses she and her mother had planted along the forest trail near their home. She adored white roses.

  “There are some bushes with late blooms in the garden. I shall fetch one and take it to her immediately.” She bobbed her head and closed the door behind her as she left.

  Arthur chuckled. “’Tis grand to see you so smitten.”

  “I only wish I could court Annie proper. Instead I’m leaving her when ’tis the last thing I wish to do.” He stripped off his tunic in favor for a good luck charm. He donned his darkest shirt of coal black with exquisite embroidery around the cuffs and neckline. Annie had made it and stitched it herself, a gift for his last birthday. He touched the fine sapphire-colored thread she’d sewn in a swirling Celtic design around a tiny symbol of a castle tower and the words Virtue Mine Honor, his clan’s motto. “Annie and I spoke handfast vows this morn.”