by Allie Mackay
“Please, I can’t wait much longer. Kiss me. . . .” She grabbed his face, kissing his cheeks, his forehead, and his throat, before locking her fingers behind his head and pulling him close, moaning as she kissed his mouth with a fierceness she couldn’t control.
“Sweet lass.” He kissed her with equal hunger, plundering her lips with deep, openmouthed kisses, his tongue thrusting greedily. “The plaid ...” He broke away long enough to throw a meaningful glance at the pallet only an arm’s length away. But instead of moving onto it, he brought his hands up between them and cupped her breasts, plumping, weighing, and squeezing them. He rolled her nipples between his thumb and fingers until she cried out and seized his wrists, pulling his hands from her breasts.
“I will shatter. Please, wait.” She was trembling, on the verge now.
And still they kissed, their mouths locked tightly together, their breath mingling, as their tongues swirled and glided. Then—Margo didn’t know how it’d happened—they were rolling on the earthen floor, their arms and legs entwined, their bodies pressed so close that their heat scorched the cold, damp earth.
The ancient smell of a thousand summers rose around them, warm and beguiling, blending with the faint tang of lost seas as the driftwood burned, and the sharper musk of their own desire.
Intense pleasure stormed through Margo in thick, unstoppable waves of concentrated ecstasy so powerful she couldn’t bear to tear her lips from Magnus’s even to gasp a breath.
“Lass, I must have you.” He drew her onto the pallet, settling her on her back, running his hands over her breasts and her belly. Still kissing her, he let his hands glide deeper, smoothing down the tops of her thighs and back up the insides, cupping her sex and squeezing in rhythm with their stroking tongues.
Margo was floating.
She’d known he’d be a grand lover.
But this . . .
Need pulsed deep inside her, a surging tide so demanding she stilled, opening her legs wide and reaching for him, closing her hand around his iron-hard length, so large, hot, and silky smooth beneath her fingers. She stroked and caressed, rubbing him in the same deliberate way she ached to feel him sliding in and out of her.
As if he knew, he rolled on top of her, positioning himself between her thighs. He reached between them, bringing himself where he needed to be. Then, inch by inch, he eased into her, until he was deep inside, filling her completely. He pulled back and reentered several times, letting her adjust to him.
“Margo. ” He pushed up on his elbows, holding her gaze, seeking her center with a finger, and rubbing her there as he began moving slowly in and out of her.
“You feel so good, lass, sweeter than all my dreams.”
“O-o-oh . . .” Margo arched back against the plaid, wrapping her legs around him. She ran her hands up and down his back, tunneling her fingers through his wonderful hair, her sex clenching around him as he began thrusting harder, faster, and deeper.
The incredible pleasure crashed over her, its force stunning her as wave after wave of her release flooded her, taking her breath and hurtling her onto a dizzying sea of shattering peaks.
And still she clung to him, everything female in her thrilling to hear him shout her name in his own release, then glorying in the same triumph when he collapsed atop her, his body still jerking inside her, spilling hot seed.
It was, in a word, epic.
And Margo was sure she’d never move again, for her limbs felt weaker than wet noodles.
But some barely coherent part of her feared that such a mind-blowing orgasm would attract her usual bad luck as surely as if she’d marched down the street with a target on her back.
It wouldn’t surprise her to wake up and discover she’d been napping aboard her Newark-bound flight, her vacation over and everything a dream.
It seemed a possibility, considering how good she felt just now.
So she lay very still, almost afraid to breathe.
She was afraid to crack her eyes.
“Mo ghaoil. My dear.” Magnus rolled onto his back and pulled her against him, proving that he, at least, still had the strength to move. He settled her against his chest and shoulder.
The Gaelic endearment speared her heart. Longing filled her chest, along with fierce, soul-splitting joy.
Whatever happened now, she’d have this night to remember.
No one could erase their bliss.
As if he wished to strengthen it, Magnus slid his hand up her side and over her breasts, lightly flicking her nipples with the tips of his fingers.
Margo purred, arousal beginning to stir again.
“M’mmm ...” She snuggled close, after-pleasure stil heavy inside her. Magnus’s fingers circling her nipples made the blood simmer and pulse anew between her legs. It was a luxurious feeling, totally decadent.
And thank goodness, so real.
That reality was underscored by Magnus’s arm wrapped possessively around her. And the hiss and popping sounds of the driftwood fire that filled the little cothouse.
She hadn’t gone anywhere.
And no medieval Cub Scouts had arrived to dash cold water on her pleasure.
Life might be getting good for a change.
“Margo.” Magnus’s tone told her that wasn’t so.
“There was another reason I brought you up here.” She stiffened, all her senses snapping to high alert.
“I wished to speak with you alone, away from the ears of my men.” He was skimming his fingers across her breasts in a series of slow, tantalizing circles.
It was a delicious, deliberate exploration, the caresses both soothing and incredibly sensual. But Margo didn’t like the tension humming between them.
Dark emotions poured out of him, staining the air.
She slipped out of his arms. “Then tell me.” He caught her wrist, frowning. “I will. But stay here with me.” He pulled her back down beside him. “I told you I’d explain Redpoint. That is what you must know.
Your life might depend on it.”
Oh, great.
She’d managed her first voyage on a medieval dragon ship and now she had to survive Redpoint.
The mere place-name sounded ominous, after she’d seen Magnus and his men run around Gairloch with blood dripping from the tips of their swords.
“So what happens at Redpoint?” She wished she didn’t have to know.
She did reach for her discarded chemise, pulling it over her head before giving Magnus her full attention.
Somehow she wasn’t up to hearing bad news while naked.
Magnus took one of her hands, meshing their fingers. “I’ve planned an ambush at Redpoint.” He didn’t mince words. “Six of my best cattle beasts will graze along the shore, attracting a few Viking ships that will rush in, expecting an easy provision raid.
“When they do”—he brought her hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips—“my men and I will attack from the cliff tops, firing their ships and fighting their warriors on the strand. Afterwards, the ease of their slaughter will act as a warning to others of their ilk to keep clear of this coastline.”
“And if they beat you?” Margo looked at him.
For a moment, she thought he was going to smile and tell her no Viking could defeat him.
A slight tug did appear at one corner of his mouth.
But then his face cleared and he frowned. “That is why we’re having this talk. Should aught go wrong, Calum will look after you. He won’t be joining the fight, so he’ll get you away—”
“I’m going to be there?” Margo felt her stomach clench in knots.
“You must be at Redpoint.” He turned over her hand, kissing her palm. “I will nae leave you on your own here. No’ even on Sea-Raven, guarded. You’ll no’ be too near the battle, but above the fighting, on the cliffs.
You needn’t watch. Just promise me you’ll stay with Calum if need be. He’d see you back to Orla’s, where you can stay until he can escort you to my home, Badcall Castle.
> “If that happens, my aunts, Agnes and Portia, will welcome you. They can be difficult.” He slipped his arms around her, drawing her back against his chest.
“Aunt Portia fancies she knows herbs and healing and often mixes bad cures and potions for folk, sometimes causing more havoc than good. And Aunt Agnes can be forceful. She’s a bold woman, and likes to bluster.
But they mean well.”
Not at all happy, Margo bit her lip. “If I’m going to see Badcall, I’d rather go there with you.” She remembered what Orla said about Magnus needing to learn there was more to life than vengeance.
“Why don’t we go to Badcall directly?” The idea seemed brilliant. “Surely you killed enough Vikings at Gairloch. And what happened with me . . .” She paused, still puzzling at the power of the Cursing Stone. “That wiped out a lot of Vikings.” It had.
But he seemed to have forgotten because he was shaking his head.
“There you have it.” He pulled her closer into the shelter of his body, keeping his arms clasped around her. “If Gairloch hadn’t happened, I’d leave the six cattle here at Badachro and sail with you for Badcall at first light. But too many Northmen and their ships vanished that day and they will be missed.”
“Oh.” Margo was beginning to understand. “You want victory at Redpoint so that word of the battle will spread. The Norse will then believe you annihilated the Vikings at Gairloch in a similar fight?”
“You are a clever lass.” He kissed the top of her head. “Redpoint has been planned for a while. We brought the cattle down weeks ago. Even my dog, Frodi, is here. He is old and came in a litter with the cattle. I wanted him along because no other dog is better trained for such affrays. And Frodi loves a good adventure. After the fight, he’ll be treated by a journey home on the Sea-Raven.”
“The cattle, too?” Margo hoped they wouldn’t be on the ship.
She loved dogs. But the Sea-Raven was horror enough without six bellowing cattle on board.
“The cattle stay here, dinnae you worry.” Magnus had surely guessed her alarm. “Three of the beasts will be brought back to Badachro. The other three will be my gift to the fisherfolk at Redpoint for letting me site my ambush in their cove.
“I’d only hoped to give the Vikings a warning.
Now”—he took a breath—“they must be made to believe I sent the ships at Gairloch to the bottom of the sea. I’ll no’ have them swarming these coasts, looking for stranded war bands or searching for the Cursing Stone.”
“The Cursing Stone?” Margo’s stomach clenched.
She didn’t want the stone turning up again, zapping her back into the twenty-first century. “I thought we agreed it’d vanished on its own?”
“We did. And I am sure that it has.” His answer confused her. “Orosius believes so.”
“But?” Margo hated buts.
“Donata might yet be after the stone.” His voice hardened. “She is known to consort with Vikings. If she enlists their aid, hell would be unleashed on us. I’d sooner act first and put out word that I burned a great fleet of Viking warships at Gairloch, leaving no’ an ash in memory.”
Margo considered. “What if the Vikings don’t believe you?”
“They know my reputation.” Pride rang in Magnus’s voice. “They will no’ doubt the story.” Margo wasn’t so sure.
She also knew he was leaving something out.
Her.
If Donata rallied Vikings to help her search for the Cursing Stone, she’d also tell tall tales about a “mysterious blond woman” who’d possessed the wonder stone. Margo wouldn’t be safe anywhere.
Magnus was trying to protect her.
And to do so, he was going to plunge right into another Viking battle.
The thought chilled Margo to the core.
Chapter 17
Two mornings later, Magnus stood closer to the Redpoint cliff edge than most men would dare. Even his warriors held their distance. Unfortunately, a rustle of skirts warned that Margo had difficulties staying where he’d left her. He’d placed her out of sight, behind a thicket of broom and whin bushes, well away from the precipice.
Now...
He shoved back his hair, listening intently. Then his heart began to pound when, along with the telltale rustling, he caught a trace of clean snowy air and roses on the morning wind.
There could be no mistake.
His men were even swiveling their heads, exchanging glances and under-the-breath mutters.
Their eyes, for the moment, weren’t on the oh-so-important horizon and whatever enemies might appear there.
They were gawking at Margo.
Furious, Magnus turned.
She was nearly upon him. “I can’t see from behind those bushes.” She made that sound as if it was a problem. “Perhaps I can—”
“You’ll stay where I put you.” Swift, fierce heat raced through Magnus’s veins. He could feel his brows sweeping low in a fearsome scowl. “That spot was chosen so you wouldn’t see anything. And so that no one will see you.
“Just now”—he took a step toward her—“every ship between here and the horizon will spot your bright head. Your hair blazes like the sun.”
“My cloak has a hood.” She was already reaching for it.
Magnus stopped her with a quick grip to her wrist.
“The thicket, lass. Go back there now, stay with the villagers waiting there, and dinnae show yourself again until I come for you.”
“But—”
“I’ll no’ have you distracting my men.” Magnus’s head was beginning to pound.
Several of his warriors were already edging near, bending their ears. Their appearance proved his words.
What red-blooded man wouldn’t have his head turned when she paraded past? High color slashed her cheeks, her eyes flashed blue sparks, and the wind tossed her shining, sun-bright hair about her beautiful face. Most damning of all, her lips were fetchingly kiss-swollen.
Magnus eyed those lips, remembering how heatedly they’d kissed through the night.
Would that he was plundering her mouth now.
Instead, it annoyed him to see that Orla’s woolen cloak fell in a much more appealing manner than Orosius’s heavy bearskin mantle. Margo’s new clothes drew attention to the full curve of her breasts and the ripeness of her hips. Charms made all the more evident because the wind molded the cloak’s folds to her feminine shapeliness.
His men couldn’t help but stare at her.
Even so, he glared at them.
“Just be careful.” Her mouth set in a disapproving line. “I remember what I saw at Gair—”
“You’ll be seeing none the like here”—he took her arm, urging her away from the cliff edge and back toward the thicket—“if you stay behind thon bushes.” When she stood in place, her blue eyes starting to spark again, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her hard. It was a rough, bruising, no-quarter-given kiss that he hoped would keep her too stunned to argue with him.
“Now go.” He set her from him, sharply aware of his men’s stares.
“There’s been enough of this vengeance stuff,” she said—or so Magnus thought—before she turned and strode away, her back straight and her shoulders rigid.
Magnus scowled after her.
He waited until she disappeared around the thicket, and then he went back to the cliff edge. His men still lingered a good distance behind him. He stepped closer to the edge than before. He was too steady on his feet to slip. And his anger appreciated the challenge.
He also didn’t worry about being seen, for the deep shadows of a large, broken-stoned outcrop hid him well. And even if it didn’t, he and his men had prepared the strand below with care. No Norse raider intent on easy plunder would waste glances on the soaring bluffs that hemmed the little cove where such ripe pickings beckoned.
It was a fail-proof plan.
Peering down at the beach now, he flexed his fingers, and then rolled his shoulders, waiting.
Cook smoke
curled lazily from the clustered hovels of the fishing village, and drying nets hung from stunted, wind-bent trees at the far end of the curving strand. Magnus said a silent prayer of thanks that the Redpoint fishers’ huts were bunched at the south edge of the cove. Their boats lined the sand directly beneath Magnus and his men. That was a shame, but boats could be replaced and he’d do so gladly. No one stirred at this early-morning hour, but somewhere a dog barked, the sound making him smile.
The bark meant that Calum and Frodi were in place on the strand, out of sight behind the thatched cottages, but doing their job. Which was to keep the six fat cattle—some of Magnus’s best—from getting bored and wandering away from the cove and up onto the more tempting grazing grounds beyond the dunes.
The beasts wouldn’t be seen there.
And Magnus wanted them noticed.
Just as he hoped that the pile of sand-filled barrels near the cottages would be mistaken for a generous supply of plump, brine-soaked herring.
Viking warriors had ravenous appetites and the need for food was as great as their constant hunger for gold, women, and easy-to-capture slaves. Knowing how they treated the poor souls who fell into their hands made his gut clench and—for what seemed like the thousandth time since climbing onto the ridge—he narrowed his eyes to scan the horizon.
He was eager for a good bloodletting.
But the waves still stretched bleak and dark, a rolling sheet of beaten gray.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and a mist dampened the air, but he welcomed the day’s wetness. Later, after the killing, a good rain would wash the Norsemen’s blood from the cove’s dark red sand.
“The sea is quiet.” Ewan lifted his head from where he lay in the grass. “Nothing’s moving except the tide and”—he tore his gaze from the water long enough to glance at Magnus—“maybe those thick clouds gathering in the west.”
“They’ll come.” Magnus slapped his sword hilt; there was no doubt in his mind.
He could smell the Vikings’ taint in the air as surely as he could still taste Margo’s rich, womanly sweetness on the back of his tongue.
His sword, Vengeance, also knew the Northmen were coming.
Magnus could almost feel the blade’s readiness to sup blood. There was no denying the sword’s thin-as-air quiver when she smelled battle.