After the Storm

by Tia Isabella

  Thomas nodded as he moved to lift himself off of Maya’s body. He sat atop her in a mounted position, glancing down as he prepared to hoist his body completely from hers.

  And then he couldn’t.

  He could scarcely breathe, let alone move.

  Maya, he realized, was naked.

  Chapter 6

  Maya met Thomas’s eyes and realized that his scowl was no longer there. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t worried…

  He was turned on.

  If the glazed over look in his gaze hadn’t given away his state of arousal, then the rock-hard and thick protrusion at her belly most certainly did.

  She didn’t want him to want her. Nor did she want to feel attracted to him herself. She needed or desired no complications in her plan to escape back to her own time.

  Still, it was difficult to pretend that his nearness didn’t affect her. She’d found him savagely handsome since the moment he had arrogantly dismounted before her several hours ago. She’d found him provocative since she had cracked open the first ancient document that told the tales of his prowess in battles.

  Maya sighed in resignation. Physically, she wanted him. More than she’d wanted a man in her entire life. A thousand times more than she had ever wanted Nick.

  Ah, what the hell…

  She slowly drew her arms up from the stone floor of the bedchamber and wrapped them around Thomas’s neck. She parted her lips and looked expectantly up at him, telling him without words how she felt.

  Thomas blinked when he realized that this beautiful woman lying beneath him wanted him as badly as he wanted her. His flesh grew painfully swollen with the knowledge of it. He cursed himself for his weakness, knowing full well that he couldn’t make love to her. If he loved this lady the way his body wanted him to, he’d never let her go and that would cause a thousand complications he didn’t desire to have.

  Even so, he wanted to know the feel of her, the taste of her on his lips. Just a kiss. One kiss would hurt no one.

  Thomas cradled Maya’s head in his arms and slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He brushed gently across her upper lip then just as sweetly across her lower one. He lingered at her lower lip, taking it between his teeth and sucking softly on it.

  Maya’s breath caught in her throat. The feelings he stirred were beyond anything in her experience.

  Thomas mentally groaned. This wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Although he would not make love to Maya, he would at least know the taste of her kisses fully. His mouth left her bottom lip to suckle on her upper one, then came back down to taste from the lower once more. At the sound of her whimper, he abandoned all caution and slipped his tongue between her slightly parted lips. He kissed her hesitantly, uncertain as to how she would react.

  Maya moaned as her belly began to coil in need. She couldn’t believe it. The man had scarcely touched her, yet she wanted him with a desire she didn’t begin to fathom. She needed more, and fast.

  She grabbed Thomas by the nape of his neck and pulled his face down to cover her own. She strengthened their kiss with an animalistic passion, darting her tongue in and out of his mouth to mate with his. They kissed intimately and passionately for endless minutes, neither of them willing to release the other.

  Thomas’s erection grew stiffer. Maya’s reaction to his kiss was more provocative and heady than he could bear. He was torn. His mind shouted at him to regain his sanity and get off of her compliant body. His heart and his flesh demanded otherwise.

  Thomas continued to raid her mouth with his tongue as he eased his hands between their bodies and branded her flesh with the same possessiveness with which he had claimed her mouth. He stroked first her throat and then her shoulders, gradually making his way down toward her breasts. He continued to kiss her as he cupped a plump breast in each hand and teased her nipples into puckered points.

  Maya gasped in shock and delight. Perhaps she had wrongly assumed that this “primitive” Highlander would know nothing of pleasing a modern woman’s body with the skill in which he did, but now she was forced to discard that notion completely. His fingers gripped at her nipples with a firmness that was unspeakably pleasurable. He caressed them between thumb and forefinger, elongating them more with each upward stroke.

  “By the saints, how I want ye.” Thomas trailed his hot tongue from Maya’s mouth to her chest. He cupped the fullness of her breasts once more and drew them as close together as possible for his mouth. He hastened from one nipple to the other over and over again as he suckled, unable to decide which one he wanted more, so choosing neither and claiming them both with a frenzied passion.

  Maya groaned and thrashed her hips against Thomas, wanting him to possess her fully. She reached down and rubbed his chest, teasing his nipples into the same state of arousal as her own. His chest was sleek and well muscled, with just enough black hair coating it to run her fingers through. She thought she was going to explode if he didn’t take her soon. “Please, Thomas. Please. Make love to me.”

  A knock sounded on the door, causing Maya to groan, and not in a good way. She wanted to kill whoever was on the other side of it.

  “Milady, ‘tiz Matilde. I am here to help ye wiz yer bath.” She knocked again. “Milady?”

  Maya sighed in disgruntlement then cleared her throat. She raised her voice in order to be heard from behind the chamber door. “I shall be ready in a while, Matilde. Please come back later.”

  No more sounds came from the hall, so Maya rightly assumed that the servant had taken her leave. She took a breath of satisfaction and smiled up to Thomas. She wrapped her arms around the laird’s neck and looked at him expectantly. “Shall we take up where we left off?” she whispered.

  Thomas blinked as if he had been snapped out of a trance. This had gone too far. Had it not been for Matilde’s interruption, he would have made love to Maya without thinking twice about it.

  He narrowed his eyes at the woman beneath him and threw her arms from around his neck as if they burned him. “Ye are a bewitching little wench, are ye no’?” He smiled coldly at her widening eyes and taunted her further. “I suppose ye thought tae seduce me and get with my bairn tae trap me?” He shook his head and sneered at her. “It willna happen.”

  Maya gasped, recoiling from him immediately. She couldn’t believe this was the same man that had touched her so tenderly only moments beforehand. The betrayal she felt was easily readable in her gaze. Twice now he had done this to her, turning on her like a rabid dog. “Get out,” she whispered, more hurt in her voice than anger. “I will leave tomorrow. Just get out.” And when he made no motion to leave her—“Now!”

  Maya’s words upset Thomas, though he didn’t understand why. He should be glad she wished to leave him. He should be, but he wasn’t. He shrugged indifferently, refusing to show her otherwise. “So be it. I’ve wenches aplenty tae see tae me here.”

  “Then go to them,” she breathed quietly as she rolled to her side and drew herself up to her feet. Maya walked to the bathtub without looking back and climbed inside of it to soak. She felt tears burning behind her eyelids, demanding to fall, so she kept her back to him in case they did.

  Thomas’s shaft thickened from the sight of Maya’s rounded buttocks lowering into the wooden tub. He sighed as he shoved an agitated hand through his hair. He was wrong and he knew it. The lady had never tried to trap him. He was the one that had barged into her bedchamber. He was the one who had discarded her clothing and kissed her thoroughly. He was the one that had taken her breasts to his mouth and suckled. Him. ‘Twas all his own doing. “Maya, I–”

  “Forget it, Thomas,” she interrupted with no emotion in her tone. “It doesn’t matter. Just leave. Please.”

  He hesitated. After a drawn out moment he nodded in surrender, though she couldn’t see it because her back was to him. He gathered himself together, walked briskly toward the chamber door, and disappeared through the other side of it.

  Maya let out a deep breath and indulged her eyes in their ne
ed to shed tears. No man had ever made her feel so lowly before. Not even Nick. Thomas’s harsh words were a thousand times more painful than Nick’s infidelity ever was.

  She drew her knees up to her chest and quietly cried. She had to get out of here. She needed to get out of here. But how?

  Chapter 7

  Thomas rode swiftly northeast, flanked by a handful of his men at either side. He’d been gone from the keep for nigh unto a sennight delivering the widows Mary, Judith, and Matilde to the Hamilton clan. The Hamiltons had been good allies to have before the Bruce came to power, for if a Sassenach wanted to attack the MacGregors, they would have had to get through the Hamilton lands first.

  Not that a Sassenach had ever tried to attack the MacGregor’s stronghold. The English were brave mayhap, but not stupid. The Highland terrain was too overwhelming and deadly to a man not used to it. Especially as far to the north as Thomas’s stronghold was situated.

  Still, the Hamiltons had been good allies, so even though the buffer their lands once provided was no longer needed as much in Bruce’s Scotland, Thomas would continue to reward their alliance where possible.

  The Hamiltons were in need of women, so the MacGregor delivered three widows young enough to remarry and breed bairns. In exchange, the Hamiltons offered the laird grains aplenty and a few cattle, their lands being ideal for cultivating many different varieties of crops, as well as shepherding animals.

  Thomas hadn’t planned to accompany his men to see the deed done, but after his fight with Lady Maya he had done just that. The scene he’d created in her bedchamber the night of her arrival was bad enough, but the argument they had engaged in the following morning was too much to calm down from quickly. He had left the keep instead, knowing he’d need every moment he was away from home to collect his wits together.

  The morning after Lady Maya had ordered him from her bedchamber, Thomas sought her out and tried to apologize. Saucy wench that she was, she had refused to even acknowledge the fact that he was speaking to her. The MacGregor did not take well to that show of disrespect and, in fact, ordered her to talk to him.

  He should have known better. Maya did talk to him after that, if one was to call it such. Indeed, she talked incessantly for an hour’s time, blistering his ears with all manner of ugly words. Thomas couldn’t be certain what “butt-head” was, but he suspected from the way her eyes flared when she said it that ‘twasn’t a good thing.

  Maya had demanded that he let her go home, which of course he wouldn’t do. She then proceeded to demand why, which, of course, he could not tell her because he himself didn’t understand his own emotions much of the time. He left the keep after that, stormed out of it in fact, leaving bad feelings between them in his stead.

  Thomas rode his mount silently, not paying attention a’tall to the conversations going on around him. His men were in a fine mood, anxious to see the looks of awe on the clan’s faces when they rode in with so much grain and a few other spoils in tow.

  Normally, Thomas would be excited too, but today he couldn’t be. He would see Maya in less than an hour’s ride and he wondered what would take place between them when he got home. He also wondered if she had tried to escape whilst he was away.

  The MacGregor sighed as he opened his hand and eyed the necklace sitting on his callused palm. He had purchased the stone and gold chain, among other trinkets, as a peace offering to Maya at a fair he and his men happened upon on their way back from the Hamiltons.

  From first glance he could see the large stone, which the merchant had called a ruby, being worn by no other woman than Maya. The stone was brilliant and fiery, just as its soon-to-be mistress was. He only prayed that ‘twould be enough to coax her into forgiving him for his careless words and deeds.

  And still, after nigh a sennight, the laird had no idea what had possessed him to behave to Maya as he had that night he’d first found her. He had bullied her on the battlements, yet in the end she had clung to him. He had barged into her rooms, yet she hadn’t thrown him out. He had growled at her and threatened her, yet when he kissed her she had reacted to him in passion instead of hatred or even fear. He had teased her body into want and she had accepted him eagerly rather than turning away from him.

  And he rewarded her by hurting her feelings at every turn, causing her prickly defenses to lash out.

  Thomas shook his head, completely vexed with his sorry self. He probably was this butt-face she had accused him of being. Had he kept his mouth shut, he would know what ‘twas like to be buried deep inside her yielding flesh. He would know the taste of the whole of her body. He would know the look upon her face as she trembled in his arms and came in need. He would know the heaven of possessing her instead of the hell he’d subjected himself to these last seven days by being away from her and wondering what making love to her would be like.

  Thomas rolled the massive ruby between his large, callused fingers and sighed. He hoped that the stone would bend her mood enough to make her agreeable to him once more.

  * * * * *

  “Damn it.” Maya set down the tapestry she’d been working on with Sara and her new maid Lena. She scowled.

  Sara chuckled. “Don’t worry, darling, you’ll get the hang of it.”

  “I don’t know that I want to get the hang of it.”

  “Well you better. It’s not like there’s anything else to do around this place and your two escape attempts met with a bitter end if you will recall.”

  Maya frowned at that reminder. Realizing her choices were sewing a tapestry or being bored out of her brain, she took a deep, dramatic sigh, then picked up her end of the tapestry again.

  Her new maid Lena, Matilde’s replacement, gave her a speculative look before asking any questions. “I dinna ken, milady. Dinna ye sew back home?”

  Maya glanced over to Lena. She was a cute girl, quite young, and possessed a bubbly, vivacious personality. Lena had asked Maya’s permission to become her new lady’s maid within minutes of Matilde’s departure. The girl appeared so excited by the prospect of it that Maya never would have told her anything but yes. She couldn’t understand why someone would actually aspire to caring for her, but there it was. “Not really.”

  Lena chuckled. “I vow I canna see how ye could do otherwise. I would expire from boredom did I no’ sew. Had ye other entertainment in the Tampa clan whilst yer men were away?”

  Maya snorted. The most painful bikini waxing on planet earth was more entertaining than this sewing business. She was about to say so, but subdued herself, realizing that it would only serve to open up another can of worms.

  Besides, it was time to start using her brain again…the brain encased in her extremely thick skull.

  This was the fourteenth century for goodness sake. This was what a fourteenth century woman did—she sewed. Tragic though it might be, constantly spewing venom from her mouth wouldn’t change that fact of life. In fact, the venom might cause her some problems. Problems like the ones she currently had with Thomas.

  She thought her tongue would have been too frightened to keep on goading Thomas, yet goad him she had, she morosely recollected. She was determined to watch her mouth from now on. And preferably before she ended up murdered at his hands.

  Sara smiled while she stitched Robert the Bruce’s armor into the tapestry, having gotten the knack for sewing right off the bat. “I can hardly wait to see Dugald again. John the Elder said they’d be back either tomorrow or the next day.”

  Maya rolled her eyes as she gave forth a half-hearted attempt at stitching the Bruce’s boots into the cloth.

  Sara pinched her lips together as she put down her sewing. “Please don’t make fun of me, Maya,” she muttered.

  Maya’s eyes rounded then settled to their normal size. “I’m sorry.”

  Sara nodded, but said nothing. Eventually she picked her stitching back up and resumed her work.

  The three women stitched quietly for a few minutes more until Maya gave a snort of laughter. Sara and Lena l
ooked at her as if she’d lost her mind, which made her laugh again because she probably had.

  “What the hell is so funny?” Sara asked in bewilderment.

  Maya shook her head, trying to find the right words to describe her mood. “It’s just…it’s—”

  “It’s what?” Sara asked in exasperation when she didn’t continue.

  Maya shrugged her shoulders and grinned. “It’s just that I think I’m jealous of you.”

  Sara’s eyes flared in astonishment. “Whatever for?”

  “Dugald is the perfect man. If we end up stuck on this godforsaken mountain, you couldn’t ask for a better mate to be stuck with. My prospects, however, are nonexistent.” She laughed again, only this time her chuckle was anything but humorous.

  Lena shook her head, denying that allegation out of hand. “’Tis no’ true, I assure ye. My lord Thomas does love ye much. He’s just yet tae realize it is all.”

  Maya shook her head in bemused exasperation at her maid, setting her needlework down in favor of crossing her arms over her chest. “How did you come up with such a wild conclusion? The man is awful to me. He growls and barks at me in one breath, pulls me toward him for a kiss the next, then pushes me away with all his might yet the next. I’d call that a mix of lust and hate, not unrealized love.”

  Lena shook her head again, as certain of her romantic conclusion as she was certain that the grass is green. “I may only be fifteen summers, but I ken my laird better than ye. He’s my cousin, ye realize? That he tries tae push ye away is a good sign tae my thinkin’, for he’s never shown such passion toward a woman afore.” Lena giggled. “The servants find it verra amusin’ that my lord willna allow ye tae go home.”

  Maya frowned. “Forgive me if I fail to see the humor in the situation.”

  “Humor?”

  “Uh…amusement.”