The horses would help them travel with more haste. Soon they would be at Ardvreck Castle, and then it would be better if she did not like him, perhaps even easier if she hated him.
Even if, he knew, in the depths of his heart, he could never hate her.
• • •
Finery piled around Delilah in stacks of pricey rubbish.
All the beautiful items she’d ever wanted, all finally within her grasp as she played a woman far above her station, and all being taken from her.
She’d whittled down her belongings to the necessities—the steel-laced bodice, false-bottomed shoes, lock picks for her hair, a jeweled ring with a secret compartment, and all the other wonderful inventions Percy had sent her with.
It was a shame to leave so many beautiful gowns, all tailored specifically for Delilah. All the lush velvets and brilliant silks. They’d made her feel, for at least a moment, like someone better than herself.
Someone who mattered.
She turned from the clothing, which Leasa packed back into the trunks with great care. A futile effort.
Delilah would never see those gowns again.
She took her two meager bags and dropped them at the men’s feet. “I refuse to take less than these.”
Kaid met her stare head-on. “Ye know why we’re doing this.”
Donnan hefted the bags with a grunt and gave her a carefree smile despite the weight. “I see ye made good use of the space ye had.”
All too soon, the bags were strapped to the horses and Leasa and Delilah sat in front of Donnan and Kaid.
Delilah made a point to not look at the coach where it lay nestled against a cluster of trees. This became harder as they rode away, and all her worldly dreams that had finally been hers disappeared from view.
Likewise, she tried not to notice how Kaid’s body swayed against hers, how his legs cradled her own over the horse’s large body, how his arm encircled her waist.
Try though she might, the awareness of it left a splash of heat spreading over her cheeks and down her chest. She tried to shift forward, but it only resulted in her wriggling her bottom against him and his arm squeezing her tighter.
They rode thus in silence every day with only Leasa and Donnan’s quiet conversation humming in the background along with the thud of the horses’ hooves on the ground. Of course they traveled much faster—too fast.
Eventually, the thick forest gave way to rolling green hills dotted with large boulders and small patches of brush. It was beautiful, and it meant they were further north than she had anticipated.
They’d been on the road with Kaid for approximately two weeks, including the time they’d been sick, which put their entire journey at a total time of two months.
Delilah would have to stall for another two weeks to allow Elizabeth time to arrive safely before she could expose Kaid and Donnan.
Her burden had grown heavier with each passing day. It nipped at her patience until her nerves were frayed, and she was so lost in the chasm of her thoughts, she no longer heard Donnan and Leasa’s chatter.
Kaid was doing what he had to do.
And she would do likewise.
• • •
One more day of travel and they would arrive at Ardvreck Castle.
Kaid nodded toward the cluster of trees in the valley of several large mountains. It would be decent cover for the night.
“Here,” he said to Donnan.
He slid from the horse and tried once more to help Elizabeth from its back. As always, she refused.
They’d all fallen into a routine these last few days. Elizabeth set up camp with him, or rather watched while he did, while Leasa and Donnan gathered the firewood.
The weather was colder—an embrace of home. Kaid’s mind was sharp, his heart thumping with all the familiarity of being where he truly belonged. Sleeplessness did not hold as tight a grip on him as it once had. The images still surfaced in his mind, the horror, but there were moments he was able to sleep more than before the valerian root. Apparently his nightmares had ceased, as the women had issued no complaints of them.
All since he’d stopped taking the valerian.
The very thought of the small vial left his jaw clenching with want of it. Even still after he knew the benefits of stopping it. Even now when he was so much more clearheaded. He pushed it from his thoughts and untied the sleeping blankets from the back of the horse.
Elizabeth stood beside the horse, her gaze fixed on the magnificence of the mountain beneath a clear sky.
“Do ye like it?” he asked.
She didn’t turn to him. He hadn’t expected her to. She’d been cold to him ever since they’d abandoned her items, but he sensed her silence was something far more than anger at her lost items.
“This is my home,” he offered.
He should be glad for her indifference.
It was for the best.
“What will you do with us?” she asked, her voice hard. “Lock us in the dungeon while you wait to hear from Laird MacKenzie?”
“Ye’ll be guests in my home,” he said. The room had been set for her arrival before he’d even departed.
“Regardless of the politeness you’ve extended, it’s quite obvious we are not guests but prisoners.” She lifted her chin in the pretentious manner he despised so much.
He frowned at her. “I’ve tried to explain—”
“That changes nothing.” She spun toward him, facing him as if he were an attacker. Her body was tense, her gaze bright with passion, and her cheeks blazing.
Perhaps it was those things, or how the sun spilled over her and turned her hair into curls of gold, but she was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her.
“Elizabeth, I—”
“It’s unfair.” Tears shone bright in her eyes and twisted at his heart. He’d never seen her cry before. Even that night in the woods, when he’d known she’d probably cried, he hadn’t seen her. He knew now how very painful it was to behold.
Especially when he was the culprit.
“All of this is so unfair.” The tiny freckle next to her cheek stood out to him as it always had: not as an imperfection, but as the final note of beauty on an already exquisite face.
He stepped closer and opened his arms to her.
She shrugged him off.
“Elizabeth.”
“Don’t.”
But he couldn’t stop himself. He stepped forward again, toward her.
This time her hand flew toward his face, but he caught her wrist. “Dinna hit me,” he warned.
“Let me go,” she gritted out through her teeth.
Her other hand came at his face, but he caught that one too. He held her for a moment, her arms pinned.
And then he kissed her.
Chapter Twelve
Kaid should not have kissed Lady Elizabeth Seymour.
Every warning within him told him what he already knew—how the hard press of his lips to hers would reignite the passion between them.
He’d spent the last several days trying not to think of her sweet taste, her throaty moan, her perfect beauty, her cheeks flushed with passion.
But he did kiss her, and now desire licked through his body like a flame across tinder.
He caught her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked.
Elizabeth gasped, but did not jerk away.
He still pinned her arms, keeping her at his mercy and yet not forcing her into anything, as was evidenced by her lean into him.
Her face tilted up. “Please,” she whispered against his lips.
Last time he had denied her and left days of regret stretching between them.
This time he would not make the same mistake.
He swept his tongue against the tip of hers, and tingles of pleasure danced across his skin.
Her moan vibrated against his mouth.
Desire tightened through him, demanding more.
She pulled at her trapped hands. He felt the tug and resisted at first. Holding her
wrists grounded him, tethered his passion, keeping it from spiraling out of control.
She wrenched once more, and this time he let them slide free from his grip.
Her hands found his chest, his back, his stomach.
He groaned at her exploration and gripped the nape of her neck, leaning her face slightly back to deepen their kiss. Their panting breaths tangled, as did their tongues and their desperate limbs—entwined passion with something deep and primal.
His cock raged with the need for release. Elizabeth’s body stretched against him, and the pressure of her hips to his sent pleasure tightening through him.
His touch roamed her body, seeing with his hands what he could not with his eyes. Though she was strapped into the thick layers of corsets and skirts and gown, he knew her to be beautiful beneath. The slender waist, the curve of her bottom no amount of petticoats could hide, the fullness of her breasts heaving atop her bodice.
He kissed a trail down her neck and flicked his tongue across the top of her bosom. The flesh was firm and sweet, and he wanted nothing more than to yank down the bodice to reveal the pink of her nipples.
Elizabeth’s knees gave. It was the slightest of staggers, but enough that he feared for her staying upright. Together they eased to the ground, their hands and mouths still greedy in exploration.
He slipped his fingers under her skirt, desperate to discover if her calves were as shapely as he thought them to be.
Her skin was smooth beneath his touch.
Like a starving man at a feast, a taste was not enough. Everything fled his mind but the need for more, more, more.
His caress crept higher, over her slender left thigh which eased aside at his stroking encouragement. Her hips arched against him, and he knew she would be wet with desire long before he touched her.
The knowledge should have satisfied him well enough. And perhaps, had he not spent the last several days trying to ignore his longing for her, it would have.
But the ache in his cock, the fog of want in his brain, it was all too overwhelming to deny.
Almost trembling with the force of his need, he caressed the juncture between her legs and loosed a groan from the deepest part of him.
She was slick and hot and swollen with need. His fingertip brushed the engorged bud near the top of her sex, and a cry rasped from her throat.
The longing was almost excruciating where it strained with an unbearable, pulsing throb at his loins.
Her hips rocked in time with the roll of his thumb.
Stop.
The voice in the back of his head wasn’t loud.
And it was far too easily ignored.
He slipped a finger inside her and let her heat clamp around his digit. Another groan eased from the back of his throat. If only that were his cock, locked in the heavenly squeeze of her.
Stop.
Louder this time. More insistent.
He hesitated.
Responsibility rushed forefront to his mind.
His people.
And then Elizabeth’s delicate hand slipped under his kilt and wrapped around his cock.
All thought slipped away like the wisp of smoke from a snuffed candle.
His cock lurched in a pleasure so intense, he had to close his eyes against it.
When he opened them, he found Elizabeth beneath him, her legs parted against the tangle of skirts. “Please,” she whispered.
He should have said no. It was on the edge of his mind to do so when her fingers stroked over the length of him again.
Want.
Need.
Now.
He lowered himself to one elbow and eased the heavy fabric of his kilt aside so the tip of his cock nudged against the sweet wet thatch of downy hair.
His mouth went dry.
He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but knew he had no chance of stopping now.
Especially not when Elizabeth curled her hips against him and whispered the word once more.
Please.
He flexed his hips forward and sheathed himself in the wet heat of Lady Elizabeth Seymour.
And discovered she was no virgin.
• • •
Delilah had never known real love.
But now, as Kaid stared down at her, tingles of pleasure sparkled through her, and every thrust brought a new understanding of how it would truly feel.
Her mind was wild, sensing, savoring, wanting.
His mouth was on hers and his hands gripped her bottom, guiding her as much as he held her steady. Her body was on fire, the blaze stroking with each flex of his hips.
She held onto him with one hand, and to the ground with the other, her fingers absently digging into the soft earth beside her. As if she might tumble off if she let go.
All the while, a simmering friction was building, building, building.
It made her breath come in gasps and a cry gather in the back of her throat. She knew she shouldn’t make any sound, but everything in her wanted to.
His mouth moved to her neck, her ear. The scruff of his unshaven chin prickled her neck, a delicious contrast to the heat of his mouth on her ear, the flick of his tongue.
Oh God. It was all too much.
Her body tightened, drawing toward something she knew she wanted.
Euphoria gripped her tight, squeezing and letting go. She felt herself clenching in time with the waves of pleasure, overwhelming her senses and leaving her in a luxurious daze.
Her dagger.
She blinked hard as the thought broke through her bliss.
Her mind still fogged with lust, her body still arching and moving with Kaid, she loosed the dirt in her hand and ran her palm down her right leg where her hidden dagger was strapped to her thigh.
The heavy skirts still lay over it like a shield.
Kaid seemed to swell and grow hotter insider her. A wanted distraction from the thought of her hidden blade. She let herself be pulled into the fog of desire once more.
He watched her, his clear, blue stare a fascinating view into the extent of his pleasure. Seeing his enjoyment while she experienced her own sent another winding tightness through her. A cry slipped from her mouth in anticipation.
He held her face in his hands, all the affection she’d never known shining in his eyes. “Elizabeth.”
Delilah stiffened at the sound of the other woman’s name, and Kaid gave a hoarse groan of pleasure.
Elizabeth.
Kaid’s mouth brushed hers, but she no longer felt the warmth of his kiss.
In fact, everything in her had gone cold.
It wasn’t she, Delilah, whom he made love to with such passion, such love—it had been Elizabeth.
Delilah had known better, of course. She’d been fooling him the entire time, after all.
Why, then, did it make her feel so empty inside?
The threat of tears prickled warm and certain, but she snapped the emotion shut inside her.
She would not fall into sadness as she’d done the last time she fancied a man in love with her. She was stronger than that now.
The hollow twinge in her chest grew, and she nurtured it. She wanted the cold nothing, the lack of feeling.
She still had a job to do.
Kaid stared down at the woman he thought her to be with love he didn’t know was fake, but this time Delilah did not allow herself to be moved by it.
Elizabeth.
Anger tightened through her. She slipped her fingers between the folds of her skirts, grasped the hilt of her concealed dagger and whipped the blade up toward his neck.
He jerked, the way any warrior might do, then gave a confused little smile, as if he were embarrassed at having darted back from a blade. “What are ye doing?”
“I’m abducting you, Kaid MacLeod,” she said in a cold voice. “The same as you tried to do to me.”
The confusion was replaced with a furrowed brow.
She shoved him off her and got to her feet. Pleasure thrummed still between her legs, but sh
e refused to acknowledge it. Her skirts swept back into place. Aside from the possibility of grass in her hair, one might never know she’d just been rutting on the ground.
Kaid slowly rose, his arms held defensively in the air. “I dinna understand.”
“I’m taking you in to be punished for the crime of abducting a lady with the intent to blackmail.” The words should have eased the ache in Delilah’s chest. Why, then, did they seem to make it more tender?
“Ye lied to me?” There was something in his gaze. Hurt.
Delilah grit her teeth.
She knew why he’d done what he did. She knew how well he’d treated them, how apologetic he’d been—how awful he felt.
But none of it mattered.
She had to remind herself again and again.
“Kaid.” Donnan’s voice sounded somewhere behind Delilah.
She spun to find him standing near the horses with Leasa at his side. Even Leasa stared at Delilah as if she’d lost her mind.
“I’m taking you both to Killearnan to face punishment for your crimes.” Delilah nodded pointedly at Leasa to indicate it was time.
Leasa nodded back, but the movement was uncertain. She hadn’t been given instruction on any of the plan. No doubt she wondered what she ought to do to help.
It would all have been easier, of course, had Delilah told her. But with Leasa’s open honesty, not only might she have loosed their secret, the burden would have been too raw for her to bear.
“How do ye intend to get us there if ye dinna know the way?” Donnan asked with a confident grin.
“I know more than you think,” Delilah replied in flawless Gaelic.
Kaid straightened and gave her a look that made her blood cool.
As if she were a stranger.
And then he lunged at her.
Chapter Thirteen
Even after Elizabeth’s betrayal, Kaid still did not wish to harm her.
He caught her around the waist, intending to pull her to the ground and safely remove the dagger from her hold. She darted back with the reflexes of a cat and easily slid free of his grasp.
He swung his arm toward her in an attempt to catch her again. This time, she didn’t evade his attack, but ran into it.
Highland Ruse: Mercenary Maidens - Book Two Page 10