Highlander's Torn Bride (Highlander's Seductive Lasses Book 2)

by Adamina Young

  “How did you ken about this place?” Margaret asked while Alexander reached past her to shift the vines back over the opening.

  “My mother’s family lives not far from here. One of my uncles used to bring me here to camp when we were on hunting trips. He always said it was a family secret, and I havena reason to doubt it. We should be safe here,” Alexander said, reaching out to touch her once more, as he could think of nothing better to do with his hands. He trailed his fingers around the outside of her face and then down her neck, where he felt copper locks that had slipped from the braid. Then his hand slid down her neck, arriving at her collarbone and trailing outward until he reached the stiff cotton hem of her dress.

  Except, now that he was looking at it, it wasn’t her dress at all. Whereas the green would have caught and absorbed all of the soft moonlight, this dress seemed to reflect it. And, furthermore, it was far smaller than he remembered.

  “Are you only in your shift?” he asked, a bit delighted.

  “Tis a kirtle, which many women wear without another dress over it.”

  “I am not saying tis a bad thing,” he teased, and she knocked his shoulder softly with her hand.

  “Now is not the time to flirt,” she chastised.

  Alexander smiled, hoping she was doing the same. Then, his smile faltered. Why was she stripped down to her kirtle? There were so few reasons that could have explained it and the one that was most likely was the one that he feared the most.

  “Did they hurt you?” he asked suddenly, reaching for her again and pulling her toward him, as if he would suddenly gain the power to see in the dark and examine her for wounds. “Did they force themselves upon you?”

  “Nay,” she replied, grabbing his hands in hers and pulling them away from her arms, away from her. “Nothing was forced upon me.”

  The words struck Alexander, and he asked, “Did you ken the men that took you?”

  “The men that took me? Nay,” Margaret said, after a bit of hesitation. And Alexander did not miss the emphasis on the word took.

  So, you didna ken the men that took you, but you did ken someone else, Alexander thought, wishing he had the bravery to make the statement aloud.

  “Did they tell you why they took you?”

  She hesitated again, then said, “Aye.”

  “And?”

  “They wanted to separate us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s delusional,” she said, suddenly angry.

  Alexander winced. It was the wrong time for her to show him that emotion. It was the wrong time for her to use the word he.

  Whoever had been responsible for this, Margaret was familiar with him. Familiar enough to draw such a raw emotion from her. Scorn came to her easily. Cold displeasure came even easier than that. But anger like this? Anger that made her, even now, run her hands into her hair and mumble curses, that was not something he had seen from her before. And he didn’t like knowing that another man could make her behave in ways that he could not.

  Alexander reached out and set his hand against her cheek, hoping to draw her to him so he could kiss her, so he could make her forget whoever it was that was on her mind now. But she gave a sudden yelp and pushed his hand away. Alexander let his hand hang in the air for a moment, too proud to let it fully retreat to his side, and too hurt to try and touch her again.

  Margaret was still for a second. Then, she reached out, her hand moving slowly through the dark until she found his opposite hand and pressed it to her opposite cheek. It was cold under his fingers, though her breath was warm and tickled at his wrist.

  “They hit my other cheek. Tis too sensitive to touch, I guess,” she said. “Otherwise, I would not have pushed you away, you ken.”

  Alexander tried to pull his hand back, not liking the pity he heard in her voice, but Margaret’s hand was still pressed over his, keeping him against her.

  “You ken that you are my husband, so you can touch me wherever you wish.”

  Alexander stiffened in more ways than one, though he knew this wasn’t exactly the right mood for such an occasion. Yet, she was coming closer to him now, the hand that was not on his going to his shoulder and tracing lightly down the front of his shirt.

  “Margaret,” he groaned, hoping she would stop this, while also hoping she wouldn’t. He still had so many questions for her, so many things he wanted to know. Things about what had happened that night, and things about her. But, as her hand continued down his jacket, reaching the leather of his belt, those questions suddenly seemed so insignificant.

  Her hand moved along the belt until it reached his buckle, at which point Alexander felt a bit of his senses return.

  “Margaret,” he said, snatching her hand away and gripping it tight in his own. “If you start this, I donna ken if I can stop this time.”

  He froze when something soft brushed against his lips. Margaret pecked him softly before leaving a trail of kisses down and along his jaw, and then cutting back until she left one kiss on his Adam’s apple. Without moving away, so that every word was a warm touch on his neck, she said, “I do not want you to stop.”

  Alexander looked down, trapping her lips against his own once more, but this time doing more than a soft brush of tender skin. When he opened his mouth against hers, she returned the gesture. It was like neither of them could press deep enough into the other, their tongues swirling and intertwining as they fought to overwhelm the other.

  Alexander’s hands dropped to the stiff laces at her front and undid them with a practiced speed, pulling the kirtle away from her and shoving it off of her shoulders without much ceremony. Then he stopped and took a step back, leaving her hands hanging in the air where he had once been.

  Even in the dim light, he could see her, marveling at every inch of her body. Her skin was tanner than most other women he knew at court, but there was still a pale clarity to it that caught the moonlight and seemed to give her a glow. All of her, from her arms, to her stomach, to her breasts, was firm, with a few lines of muscle tracing here and there. She did not have much curve to her, but Alexander still found his eyes tracing circles over her.

  Margaret stood before him, as if shocked, for a few heartbeats before a blush formed that was so fierce as to change even the color of her chest. She crossed her arms over herself, trying to conceal herself from him. It was a fairly useless endeavor, for Alexander would find himself marveling at whatever she still left exposed to him.

  “You’re the bonniest lass I’ve ever seen, Margaret,” he said, his voice low and betraying his longing.

  “This hardly seems fair,” she said, shifting her arms again to try and cover more of herself.

  Alexander smirked, reached up, and pulled his shirt over his head, throwing it aside. He followed that by undoing his belt, and then a few buttons, dropping his kilt to the floor and stepping away from it. Now it was her turn to stare, and she seemed to be doing it without a bit of hesitation.

  Alexander reached out and took her hands, easing them away from where she was trying to conceal herself, and bringing them to rest on his shoulders before he moved his hands to her waist.

  Her breath hitched, and he could feel her pulse quicken under his touch. They hovered near each other for a few long moments, waiting for the other to finally succumb and close the gap. And, at some point, one of them did, but they went crashing into each other so quickly that Alexander couldn’t say who it was.

  Alexander tipped her back, easing her down to the ground carefully, no part of them breaking contact as they went.

  When she was on her back, Alexander broke their kiss and descended, eager to explore her, to feel all of her beneath his hands, beneath his lips. While he trailed kisses across her collarbone, his hands reached for her breasts, which were just large enough to fill his hands as he squeezed them, his thumb slipping back and forth across them while she released the first of what he hoped would be many moans.

  His lips took the place of one of his hands, kissing
and teasing her so that his hand was free to move lower. Alexander ran his fingers up along her thigh, teasing ever closer and closer to her center until she began to tremble, and he crossed the final distance. He moaned when he felt how ready she was for him, his finger slipping into her without a bit of resistance. As he touched her here, she gave a soft gasp.

  He stopped his praise of her body and moved between her legs, unable to wait anymore. He feared that if he did anything more, if he just lay there and listened to the sounds of her cries, he would accidentally spill himself all over the ground.

  “Are you ready, lass?” he asked, whispering softly in her ear, though he wouldn’t know what to do if she just now decided to reject him.

  “Mmhmm,” she replied, widening her legs a bit for him.

  Alexander bit his lip as he moved along her folds, slipping against her before, at last, he began to ease into her. She gasped, and he pressed his lips against her, absorbing each gasp and cry as he slowly eased himself deeper.

  When he reached her barrier, she winced, for he had no wish to hurt her, even if it meant he was opening her up to an entire new world of pleasure that he hoped to bestow upon her. She seemed to sense it too, as her grip on his shoulders tightened.

  Alexander pushed forward, pushing through the resistance as quick as he could with the hopes that it would make it easier for her.

  “Ah!” she cried out, digging her fingers into his shoulder with such ferocity that he was sure she would leave a mark.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, kissing her softly while he held still, letting her once again adjust around him. “It’ll never hurt again; I promise.”

  Margaret nodded, her hands moving up to entangle in his hair and draw him back to her lips. As he kissed her, he pulled back, then went forward again, each movement painfully slow. Whenever he went back, he pressed himself a bit deeper than he had gone before, until, finally, he was fully sheathed within her and, to his delight, she let out a soft moan.

  With that encouragement, Alexander began to quicken his pace, whispering, “Move with me.”

  Margaret did, her hips responding to each of his thrusts with a perfect counter. Her hands moved along his chest before reaching his hips, grabbing him hard as if she intended to hold him inside her forever, her thumbs pressing into the tender skin above his groin and making him release a few moans of his own and thrust with a bit of extra fervor. It had never been like this before. It was as if she was made for him, and he for her, their bodies so perfectly responding to the other and their hands finding those places that the other needed touched at the exact right moment.

  She threw her head back, and he could fill her starting to lose control beneath him. “Alexander,” she called out, her trembling becoming a hard massage against him as he moved.

  It was all the more he could take. With a final groan, he thrust into her and released while Margaret gasped, all of her now shivering. Alexander collapsed himself onto her, hoping to feel each of her movements as she came down from her own release. When she seemed to be finished, he rolled off of her and onto his side, and she immediately curled herself against him.

  He pulled his plaid around them though it now felt so warm in their small hiding place that he did not think she needed it. But he had to admit that he liked the feeling of her beside him, tied to him in the cocoon of his plaid. Within moments, her breath deepened, and he knew she was asleep.

  Who the hell was Margaret Gunn?

  It was a question that was becoming harder and harder for him to answer. Spoiled, independent, arrogant, insightful, sexy, and—

  Not mine, he thought with a heavy gulp.

  But that couldn’t be true, she was here beside him, wasn’t she? Someone had taken her, but she had come back. And, when she did, she had given herself to him.

  There was no way that she hadn’t felt the same things that he had when they joined. There was no way that she hadn't realized that it had not been normal, but rather something far better.

  People like them did not end up separated. They were the ones that were given songs.

  Alexander told himself all of this while he pulled her close, desperately trying to believe it.

  8

  That morning, she had awoken in his arms just as the sun began to lighten the sky.

  He had been staring at her, his thumb gently tracing along the edges of the bruise that had formed on her cheek. Margaret reached up to brush a bit of his hair from his face and, in the process, his eyes went to her arms, which were crossed with raw red marks from the ropes that had bound her. Alexander stared at them for a moment, with Margaret somehow finding herself unable to move. Then he slowly sat up and slipped out from under the plaid, saying something about how he had to go relieve himself, and she felt the swift and immediate cold of his absence in more ways than one.

  She dressed quickly, feeling slightly embarrassed as she kept finding more bruises and marks on her skin from the previous day’s adventures. Some, like the ones on her arms and legs, she knew were from Gavin and his men. Others, like a soft round mark on her chest, made her blush. Those were Alexander’s work.

  When Alexander returned, he wrapped his plaid around her to protect her modesty and led her by the hand out the forest. It took them surprisingly little time to find the caravan, which had parked itself on the edge of the forest only a couple of miles away, though Alexander explained that Jonah would have known of the rock and thought to park the caravan near it.

  Ann rushed out to meet her, tears in her eyes as she begged for forgiveness for not seeing the deception sooner. Margaret patted her head, whispering her forgiveness, though she also insisted that there were none to give. When she finally released a sniffling Ann, Alexander had left her side.

  “What is it?” Ann asked, and Margaret could only shake her head.

  With their laird and lady back, the men of the camp began to make a hearty breakfast with porridge and milk purchased from a farm nearby. Ann watched over the cookfire, lashing out at any who attempted to influence the seasoning or stir the pot without her consent. Margaret sat and watched this, her eyes occasionally flicking over to Alexander, where he sat talking with Jonah.

  “There had to have been at least thirty,” he said.

  “Really?” Jonah asked. “Unusually large force for outlaws.”

  “Aye. The lass said that their intention was to try and separate us, though,” he stopped, his eyes darting up to meet hers, “she didna ken the reason.”

  Margaret winced and looked away, ashamed of herself. Alexander must have known that she had hidden the better part of the truth from him. Lying, as much as it was becoming a habit, was not a strong suit.

  Though she and Alexander had been so close the night before, she had awoken to a gulf between them. She hadn’t understood it at first but, if he was starting to realize and process how many lies she was telling him, she could hardly blame him for taking a step back.

  When she made the first move, it had been calculated. She wanted to rid herself of the vow made to Gavin, while simultaneously binding herself to Alexander. It was going to be so clean, so scientific, so practical, just the way she liked things. But she had underestimated him and, in a way, herself. There had been nothing practical about that. Not in the way that he had touched her, or she him.

  She felt a shiver rush through her, making her tingle in places that ought not to tingle. Alec’s many nights in the brothel now made far more sense to her. Had she known that that was how she was going to feel, both more whole than ever before and also shattered in her own skin, she would have laughed in Gavin’s face at the mere suggestion of resistance.

  Ann pressed a bowl into her hand, giving her a look that Margaret expected meant that Ann was reading her mind, and she blushed.

  Alexander and Jonah ate quickly, sharing only a few small comments while they shoveled down the porridge. Half of Jonah’s comments were compliments directed at Ann.

  With a grunt of satisfaction, Alexander set hi
s emptied bowl aside. “Well, I guess we better go hunt them down.”

  “Aye,” Jonah replied, along with a handful of the other men around the fire.

  “Why?” Margaret asked, jumping to her feet.

  “Lass,” Alexander winced, standing and crossing to take her by the wrist and lead her away.

  “You do not need to go after them,” Margaret said.

  “We have to try and find them,” he replied, looking around the carts to make sure they were alone.

  “There is no reason for it!” Margaret cried, thinking of all the men in that camp. Men that, no matter how strong Alexander was, would outnumber him.

  “I am sorry, truly, but I canna just go back to Dirlot with the thought that there are outlaws out there who are so desperate to ruin the alliance forged by the queen. It could mean another rebellion, for all we ken.”

  “But that’s not—” Margaret started before she caught herself. Gavin could not have cared less about the queen or her alliances. Margaret’s abduction had been personal. But she couldn’t hardly tell Alexander that. It would raise the question of why, and then she would have to try and explain how the daughter of a laird ended up in a romantic entanglement with someone like Gavin, who was so far beneath her station.

  Alexander caught her by the chin and tilted her head up to face him. His golden eyes looked suddenly brown, as if they had been drained of their life. When he spoke, there was a slight note of sadness there, one that made Margaret stir. “Lass, please tell me if you ken anything more. Or, if you ken a reason we shouldn’t ride out there.”

  “I—” she started, but then she stopped herself and clenched her jaw. If Alexander rode out there, then there was a chance that he would get hurt. There was a chance that Gavin would kill him, something that she knew he was capable of. But, if Margaret told the truth and Alexander stayed, then what? At best, he would despise her for lying about her identity. At worst, he would have her beheaded while the queen marched an army upon her clan.