A Highlander's Temptation

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  Darroc tried not to groan.

  She slipped from his grasp and hurried forward, nipping into the cave before he could stop her. “Damnation!” He sprinted across the rocks, following her into the hermit’s dank, foul-smelling sanctuary.

  “It is the shrine!” She whirled to face him, her eyes bright. “See, there’s the altar.” She pointed to a low stone slab, incised with a Celtic cross and covered with bird droppings and what could only be splatters of centuries-old candle wax.

  A narrow ledge nearby was surely the hermit’s sleeping bench. Formed naturally by the rock of the cave, the ledge now held nothing but a scatter of pebbles and a smear of mold. But even in the dimness, it was clear to see where St. Egbert made his fire, the roof above still blackened with soot.

  “I—do you mind if I say my prayer now?” Her voice cracked on the words and she brought a hand to her mouth, biting her forefinger.

  “Sweetness, what is it?” Darroc slid his arms around her, pulling her close. “Do you want me to leave? I can wait outside.”

  “Nae.” Arabella shook her head, embarrassment scalding her. “I want you here with me, but…”

  She glanced aside, blinking hard to keep her eyes from misting. “Now that I have you, my reason for beseeching St. Egbert’s benevolence no longer exists. And now”—for someone who didn’t believe in magic and superstition, she feared to tell him what was bothering her—“I am worried that I might jinx us if I ask for something more.”

  She was especially concerned about performing the Giving Stone ritual. But having come so far, she also feared she’d anger the old gods—if there were any—if she didn’t pay homage to the stone.

  Darroc was staring at her, his fingers stroking her hair. “Perhaps you should tell me what you wished to pray for.”

  “A man.” She blurted the answer before she could bite her tongue.

  “A man?” Now he was really staring at her.

  She nodded. “But not just any man.” She rushed on, sure her face glowed crimson. “I didn’t tell you, but the reason my suitors all left without making an offer was because my father chased them away. He—”

  “Your father?” Darroc’s brows snapped together. “What do you mean he chased them away?”

  “He didn’t want me to wed.” She forced the words, knowing the truth sounded awful. “Or perhaps it is more that he can’t bear to think of me married. But I so wished for a husband and family. I”—she slipped out of his arms and went to stand before the little altar—“knew of this shrine and wanted to come here and beg the saint to send me my true love.”

  “And now you have him.” Darroc joined her at the altar. “You will always have me, Arabella.” He rested his hands on her shoulders and dipped his head to nuzzle her neck. “You did not need prayers to find me and you do not need them to keep me. Your father will no’ scare me away and neither will I allow him to tear us apart. That I swear to you.”

  She reached up and placed her hands over his, needing the contact. She so wanted to believe him. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.” She spoke past the swelling in her throat. The strange little cave with its stone-carved cross and musty smell made it seem so possible that some vengeful saint or god might spring from the shadows and snatch away her happiness.

  She couldn’t voice her fears.

  But Darroc seemed to guess because he turned her in his arms and kissed her, claiming her lips with a slow and gentle sweetness that curled straight through her soul, warming her to her toes and banishing her doubts.

  “You will no’ lose me, Arabella.” He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “I told you once that I’d never walk away from a prize like you and I meant that. My word is my honor.

  “And”—he stepped back and grinned—“I say we head back down to the strand now and I shall show you exactly how much I love you.”

  But when they reached the beach a short while later, a score of beaming faces greeted them, each man’s eyes ale-bright and his spirits high. They’d also used their time alone to fill the sail screen tent with every comfort and amenity. Thick woolen plaids carpeted the sand and a tiny brazier glowed red in a corner. Someone, likely Conall, had dug a pit and built a cook fire, its crackling flames already roasting a side of beef ribs and what looked to be at least six freshly caught herring.

  A fiddle was propped against a rock and a few feet away stood a small ale cask, several battered tin cups sitting in the sand beside it.

  There could be no mistake that the men were looking forward to a long and raucous evening.

  Conall strode up to them, his mile-wide grin proving it. “So-o-o!” He looked from one to the other. “Did you find the hermit’s cave?”

  “We did.” Darroc reached for Arabella’s hand. “Though”—he laced their fingers, squeezing—“I wouldn’t recommend the trek up there.”

  Conall laughed. “No worries. I’m a seaman, not a mountain goat!”

  He was also a great cloven-footed loon who, at times, couldn’t hold his ale, Darroc decided hours later when his cousin started retelling the same no-longer-amusing tale he’d been regaling them with all evening.

  Every other man had long since returned to the birlinn.

  Most were snoring deeply, the flutey rumbles carrying on the wind.

  Conall showed no signs of tiredness.

  Until—Darroc could have killed him—Arabella gave her third voluptuous yawn and, pleading exhaustion, slipped inside the sail cloth tent.

  “I’d best hie myself back to the birlinn.” Conall pushed unsteadily to his feet. “Sleep well, cousin!” He gave Darroc a lopsided grin and then took off, weaving down the strand to seek his bed at last.

  Furious, Darroc watched him go, only turning away to enter the tent when Conall scrambled over the side of the birlinn without mishap.

  As he’d dreaded, Arabella slept deeply.

  But she’d stripped naked and her skin gleamed softly in the moonlight seeping in through the open edges of the sail screen. Even worse, depending, she’d rolled onto her stomach and the twin rounds of her buttocks proved so tantalizing that it was all he could do not to drop to his knees and straddle her, taking her from behind as he’d been burning to do but hadn’t quite had the courage to suggest.

  “Damnation.” He growled the word, his frustration deepening when she shifted on the pallet, drawing up one knee so that the sweetness between her thighs was exposed to him in all its sleek, raven-curled glory.

  Darroc’s heart slammed against his ribs and he rammed both hands through his hair. Need, sharp and urgent, flamed through him, unbearable heat pouring into his loins as he stared at her. He was unable to look away.

  His manhood ran granite hard.

  He wanted to lick her. Throw himself upon her and bury his face in all that dark, musky-scented sleekness. He ached to drink his fill of her essence until the taste of her was forever branded on the back of his tongue.

  But she slept so soundly.

  He frowned, knowing he couldn’t disturb her.

  “Odin’s balls!”

  He whipped around and flung back the tent flap, letting the frosty night air cool his ardor. Only when his hardness diminished, did he turn back and lower himself onto the pallet beside her.

  He eased his arms around her, drawing her close so that she lay along the naked length of him. Not for his passion, sadly, but because he wished to keep her warm. But he could feel her every soft breath and the slow, rhythmic beating of her heart. Privileges that filled him with such wonder and love that he soon forgot his frustration.

  They had a lifetime to love each other.

  And he’d use the advantage of the morning, taking her slow and sweet when she awakened. Kissing her endlessly and letting his fingers tease and tempt her until she writhed and moaned for him, begging him to claim her.

  But when at last the first gray light of morning began slipping into the tent, pulling him from his dreams, he found the pallet cold.

  Arabella was g
one.

  The sail screen tent was empty.

  “Damnation!” He leapt to his feet, wide awake.

  He dashed outside, naked and uncaring.

  Arabella was nowhere to be seen.

  He looked about, frantic. Cold panic seized him and, he wouldn’t have ever believed it, but his damnable knees were knocking!

  He ran around to the other side of the tent and stared down the strand at the beached birlinn. But all was still there and a chorus of assorted snores and other bodily noises came from the ship, assuring him that his men still slumbered deeply.

  Arabella would never have gone there.

  Desperate now, he began to run, making for the goat track to the hermit’s cell. He couldn’t think of anywhere else she might have gone. The thought of her picking her way up the treacherous path curdled his blood.

  He ran faster, his gaze searching everywhere. He scanned the beach and the dunes, the weird clusters of glistening black outcroppings of rock that broke the monotony of the broad, white-sanded beach.

  She had to be somewhere.

  And then he saw her.

  Or rather he saw her naked buttocks.

  Darroc froze, staring. She was on all fours, her delectable arse bobbing in the air. Disbelief slammed through him, making his jaw slip as he watched her disappear into a round hole that appeared to be a tunnel through one of the strange rock formations.

  “By the Rood!” He blinked, then knuckled his eyes.

  It could be he was dreaming.

  But then she emerged from the other side of the tunnel and he knew he wasn’t.

  He was wide awake and not believing his eyes.

  She hadn’t yet seen him. Indeed, she seemed intent on fumbling in her travel pouch, which Darroc only now noticed sitting on the sand near the rocks. He looked on as she withdrew a skin of something—milk, he quickly saw—and poured the liquid onto the sand in front of the tunnel entrance. Not yet finished, she produced a small linen sack and, walking naked along the edge of the outcropping, began shaking oats on the rocks.

  Finally, she bent to retrieve a small earthen jar from her pouch. Darroc recognized it immediately as one of the honey jars from Geordie Dhu’s larder. Still unaware she was being watched, she removed the waxed stopper and, dipping her fingers into the jar, began dabbing the rocks with honey.

  It was more than Darroc could bear.

  Naked as he was, he strode forward, not stopping until he was right behind her. “Lass!” He put a hand on her shoulder. “What in God’s name are you doing?”

  “Oh, no-o-o!” She spun around, the honey jar flying from her fingers. “I thought you were asleep!”

  “And I thought you were.” He looked at her, sure he’d never seen anyone turn so many varied shades of red.

  “I—” She flipped back her hair then and gave a great sigh. “Ah, well, you deserve the truth. This is another reason I wished to come here.”

  “Indeed?” Darroc arched a brow and tried to keep his lips from twitching.

  Now that he’d found her, the hilarity of the situation was taking its toll. As was her nakedness, which was causing twitching of an entirely different sort.

  “This”—she indicated the outcropping and its tunnel—“is the Giving Stone, a pagan shrine dedicated to women and—”

  “A pagan shrine?”

  She nodded. “Legend claims that any woman who crawls through the stone at the moment of sunrise will be granted her heart’s desire.”

  She looked down at the fallen honey jar. “The honey and oats and milk were offerings. It’s said—”

  “Ahhh….” Darroc rubbed his chin. “Yestere’en it was St. Egbert and this morn the Auld Ones.”

  She clasped her hands before her, twining her fingers. “I forgot to pray at the hermit’s shrine. I don’t really believe in pagan magic, but since I came this far and always planned to do this, I worried that if there is any truth to the stone’s powers, I might anger the rock spirits if I ignored them.”

  “And was your wish the same as yester’en?”

  “It was.”

  “And if I offered again to show you why you have no need for such prayers and charms?” He slid his arms around her, drawing her close. So close that the round fullness of her breasts were crushed against him and the tantalizing softness of her nether curls meshed with the black hair springing thickly at his own sex.

  He kissed her, his lips cold and tasting of the clean, brisk air. “What if I show you now how very much I love and desire you?”

  “I think I already know.” But she let herself melt into him. Delicious shivers rippled down her spine when he slipped a hand between them to cup her breast, his fingers toying with her nipple.

  “Och, nae, minx.” He lowered his head to nip the lobe of her ear and then nibbled his way down the side of her throat, his fingers still plucking and rubbing the crested peak of her breast. “You might know fine that I love and desire you, but there are many ways I’d like to prove it to you.”

  He dropped to his knees before her then and she suddenly knew.

  He meant to do something Gelis loved.

  Something very, very wicked that she didn’t think she could bear. He grasped her hips and looked up her, the glint in his dark eyes saying she’d guessed rightly.

  “Oh, no.” She tried to jerk free. “You can’t do that.”

  His lips curved into a roguish smile. “Ah, but I can and shall,” he purred, rubbing his cheek against her belly. “Again and again”—he kissed her maiden hair—“until I’ve sated myself on you.”

  “But you can’t—aaagh!” Arabella threw her head back when he parted her thighs and licked her.

  It felt so good!

  She began to tremble, sure she’d fall if he wasn’t holding her. Proving his word, he kept licking her, stopping only to drag hot kisses over her hips, belly, and thighs. He smoothed his hands up and down her legs as he pleasured her and she thrust her fingers into his hair, holding him close as he kissed and teased his way back to where she burned the hottest.

  “Darroc, please….” She clutched at him as he spread her legs wider, licking her more slowly and thoroughly now. He caught her gaze, his own eyes flashing with an expression that made her insides quiver.

  “I want to please you.” Still watching her, he slid one finger slowly down the center of her, then back up again. “I do not want you to ever doubt me,” he vowed, using his tongue to circle her most sensitive place as he slipped one finger inside her. “Not now”—he began suckling that special little nub—“and not e’er.”

  “I won’t. I mean I don’t—aieeeee!” She tossed her head again, crying out this time as astonishing pleasure streaked through her. Maddeningly delicious waves of tingly heat streamed out from that one tiny spot he was still flicking with his tongue.

  “That’s my lass.” He opened his mouth over her, sucking hard on the whole of her.

  It was too much.

  Her knees buckled and she sank onto the sand, breathless and spent. “Oh, dear saints.” She could barely speak, the words a mere gasp. “I have never….”

  “No’ like that, I know.” Darroc grinned at her.

  She smiled back, sure she’d never be able to get to her feet again.

  As if he knew, he leaned down and scooped her up in his arms. He carried her to the little sail screen tent, his own strides sure and steady.

  “No more doubts?” He threw back the tent flap and shouldered his way inside. “Not a one?”

  “Not even half a one.” The truth of it spooled through her, heady and sweet, as he crossed the small space and lowered her down onto the blankets.

  “Then rest if you can.” He drew a coverlet over her, gently smoothed her hair.

  “We sail for home as soon as the men have slept off last night’s ale.”

  Arabella blinked up at him, still too limp from what he’d done to her to do much more. But his words circled in her mind, pleasing her heart as much as his lovemaking had pleasure
d her body.

  We sail for home….

  He meant Castle Bane.

  Arabella sighed with happiness. She couldn’t think of anything sweeter.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The first thing Darroc did upon returning to Castle Bane was visit his notch room. To his surprise, or perhaps not, someone had made changes to the bleak little chamber in his absence. Strewing herbs, fragrant and sweet, covered the floor’s sturdy wooden planking and colorful tapestries graced cold stone walls bare of decoration for centuries. Someone had tended the hearth as well, sweeping out years of cobwebs and ash.

  A fire didn’t burn there, but a new grate stood at the ready and a wicker basket waited close by, brimming with kindling and peat.

  Only the room’s four tall windows were the same, the stone splays still cut deeply into the tower wall and the notches there as always.

  His marks jumped out at him. Bold and exact, they ran up and down the window arch in neat, orderly rows. Those made by Asa Long-Legs, saints grace her soul, also remained as they’d ever been. The scratches were still faint and barely visible, their number greater than his own but the lines painfully crooked.

  Looking at Asa Long-Legs’s notches, Darroc’s own words came back to him. MacConacher’s Isle wasn’t made for women. But he knew now that he’d been mistaken. The isle was made for women, leastways a very special one that he meant to marry as soon as arrangements could be made.

  With or without her father’s blessing.

  But first he had other business to attend to. Something he never thought he’d do but that filled him with bright hope and exaltation.

  It felt good to put the past behind him.

  Especially knowing his future held such unexpected happiness and bliss.

  Taking a deep breath, he cast a glance at the room’s open door and the only other thing that hadn’t changed while he was away at Olaf Big Nose’s settlement, banishing Black Vikings and winning his lady’s heart.

  Frang lay flopped on the floor of the landing, just outside the notch room’s threshold. The dog’s eyes were ever watchful and he swished a dutiful tail, perhaps thinking a show of some loyalty or affection might make up for his refusal to enter the notch room.