A Promise of Love (32 page)

He reached for her, as she giggled and then flushed as his hands stroked across her bodice and he whispered provocative suggestions into her ear.

"Shall we return to our room, our bed?" he asked softly.

"Is that all you can think about?" she protested, backing away from him.

“No, but it occupies a fair share of my mind,” he admitted with a smile. “But it is your fault, after all.”

“How do you see that?”

“If you weren’t so responsive, Judith, and so hot in my arms, I could a wait a few hours.” There it was, that flush he’d teased into life.

He scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a lamb and followed the track away from the village.

He suspected he would like this woman when she emerged from her self-imposed restraint, but he had not expected to be captivated by her. He’d felt compassion and pity for her, a curious understanding and an aching desire. How odd that he reveled in simply being with her. He knew when she entered a room, because the very air seemed to shimmer with her presence. He felt her pain when others spoke of children and he remembered the look in her eyes when Douglas was passed around to be cuddled. He knew by her scowl when she was in a fierce temper, or when she was hurt and hiding it. He’d seen the laughter in her eyes and wanted to replicate it every day of his life. And the blush which started at her toes and tipped her nose pink, he wanted to summon it forth, also.

He set her down inside an abandoned crofter's hut, one of those built into the side of the craggy hill, half its structure shale and stone. It was pitch dark and smelled of animals; the only light was from the chimney hole and from the open sky peering in between the gaps in the thatch. The only furniture was one sagging cot, wedged into a corner.

Alisdair closed the warped door as much as it could be shut, but anyone walking by could easily see the interior. As a trysting place, it was barely adequate. Still, when he spun her around and pulled her into his arms, suddenly neither the damp, dark smell, the sounds of mice, nor the lack of privacy disturbed either of them.

He gently placed both large hands on either side of her head, raised her face with his thumbs beneath her chin. Even in this dim light, her face looked luminous. Her eyes sparkled with remembered laughter, her lips curved sweetly. He bent his head and with his tongue traced the outline of her smile. She leaned closer to him, her hands on his arms. He deepened the kiss suddenly, mated his tongue with hers, coaxing a bemused response, a slight, hesitant moan emerging from her lips.

She extended her arms around his neck, as if suddenly needing a support. His hands slid up from her waist, pressed tightly, possessively against the sides of her breasts until they were pushed up against the wool of her bodice.

Judith heard the rumble of thunder and discounted it. There was always rain in the Highlands. Alisdair kissed her closed eyelids, swept down the fine line of her nose. His fingers slid through her hair, his fingertips pressed into her scalp, and although the touch was domineering, fierce, it was yet curiously gentle. She leaned into him, her hands braced against his chest, feeling the hardness of his muscles, the radiant warmth of his skin. It was quiet joy she felt now, not fear.

The first drops of rain didn’t disturb her. Nothing mattered at this moment, but the taste of Alisdair’s lips and the sweet, heady wonder of the hard strength of his body pressed against her. How odd that the fear she had felt for so long at the thought of a man’s touch had mellowed to a sweet, piercing anticipation.

The rain continued, not in a soft, gentle patter like English rain, but sheets of gray, transforming the path outside the hut into a muddy trench. It saturated the thatch roof, cascaded down one side of rock, a waterfall created from man’s interference and nature’s complicity. The hut, abandoned for its habit of flooding, became a wet cave redolent with the odor of dung and fur.

Alisdair pressed his thigh against the softness between Judith’s thighs, rotating, sliding, until she moved against him, willing to go where he led.

The chimney hole served as a funnel for the sheets of water that instantly flooded the hard packed earthen floor of the cottage.

Alisdair was aware of the penetrating rain but was too bemused by eager lips, by the warm, wet cavern of Judith’s mouth and the budding passion of her response to him. Although cloth denied him passage, his memory recalled the feel of her, hot, wet, willing. Still, the insistence of the irritation managed to penetrate the fog of desire. Judith stirred, the annoying sensation of being drenched by the downpour slowly penetrating the ardor of his embrace.

They separated, finally, and looked at each other.

She took a step backwards, and nearly fell in the ankle high water. He reached out an arm to steady her, pulling her back into his arms. She leaned her forehead against his sodden shirt and began to laugh weakly. His rumbling laughter echoed hers.

"Perhaps, I have not chosen a suitable spot for trysting," he admitted wryly, the uncomfortable fit of wet trousers gloving his arousal reminding him of his loss of control.

She only giggled.

"Although, it could be worse, I suppose."

That set her off again.

"How?" she asked finally, leaning against him, not bothering to brush the tears of mirth from her eyes. She was so wet, it did not matter.

"Well," he said, considering, "it could be winter."

She howled.

"Or," he whispered, "we could be naked."

She looked at him suspiciously, the laughter in her eyes softening her glance. She took one step back, stumbling on the wet length of her skirts. She fell backwards, barely missing the wooden frame of the sagging cot.

She did not, however, avoid the mud.

His laughter shook the walls of the cottage with as much ferocity as the storm itself. He knelt beside her, oblivious to his own state, and raised her up. She was coated with mud, a slippery, oozing mass of clinging odor. He sniffed her and began laughing again.

The coarse wool of her dress itched and the weight of her skirts, along with the sucking mud beneath her feet conspired to make every movement difficult. She brushed his hands away and attempted to stand, but he only pulled her down beside him.

On her next attempt to rise, he merely held onto the collar of her dress, and the old wool separated easily. So did the chemise. The sight of her, coated with mud, and spitting mad did not encourage his laughter, it diffused it.

He rose and clasped her wetly against him. His mouth searched hers, felt its mutinous contours, softened them, gentled them, until she forget her anger and allowed them to fall open under his onslaught.

He stepped away long enough to pull off his sodden shirt and fling it to the floor. Bits of leaves and grass fell through the gaps in the roof and stuck to his skin. His trousers left nothing to the imagination, especially since the bulge there seemed to enlarge as she stared.

Her rain slicked breasts slid against his chest and the mat of his hair heightened the sensation. Judith moaned against his mouth; he encompassed the sound with his lips.

Rain splattered on her shoulders and dripped relentlessly down her skin. Alisdair bent and licked each droplet that fell from her puckered nipples and felt her response in the sudden arching of her back. He stood apart, disregarding her muffled protest and stripped off his remaining clothes. He flung them into the corner, not noticing when they floated among the debris of the flooded hut.

He returned to her, pulled her close, then lifted her until her waist was level with his.

"Put your legs around me, sweet," he husked and she did, feeling herself open for him. He lowered her until she was impaled, and then he turned. The force of the rising water made it impossible to walk, but not impossible to move. She hung onto him as he continued to turn in slow circles. His motion made him move gently within her, hard and large and hot. The rain pouring down her back was only an incidental sensation, inconsequential next to the feelings he was drawing from her. He was the only warmth in the suddenly chilled, wet cottage. She leaned against his shoulder and did not notice when her teeth grazed his skin. He did and her abandon almost made him lose what control he had left. But he vowed that he would not find his release first.

He held her by the waist while she clung to him. His hands slipped upwards, the rain only aiding his passage. They were both sheeted with water. No matter how he turned, he could not avoid the torrent. His thumbs brushed her nipples, pushed in and rotated against them. He shifted slowly around, the action thrusting her down upon him even further. Each successive step intensified her pleasure, until she was whimpering against him.

He pushed her up against the earthen wall, transformed by the rain into a slick sheet of mud. Judith didn’t protest as he ground against her. It was as though she were a part of the earth and part of him. He thrust again and she could only cling wetly to him as the shudders began. When they peaked, the feeling was almost painful in its intensity.His climax came only seconds later.

Alisdair finally stirred, but only enough to cup her buttocks in his hand and move them carefully, inch by inch, onto the sodden cot. The wooden frame sagged, as he deposited Judith into the middle of one large, cold, puddle. He shifted beside her, placed his broad arm around her and pulled her closer to him. They sat, watching the flotsam of the cottage floor float around their feet and through the partially open door of the hut.

Alisdair MacLeod, chief of the clan MacLeod and the last remaining heir of a long and distinguished warrior dynasty, sat on a sodden cot with his English wife and laughed aloud. It had just occurred to him that his trousers had long ago joined the ranks of the leaves, twigs, and other debris that now floated through the ditch in the middle of the village.

Judith looked at him sideways. She could not help the answering smile on her face, his humor was so contagious. Besides, she felt too contented to be anything but amiable at this moment.

He smoothed the mud from her cheek. She smelled. Horribly. Alisdair thought it was a strange thing indeed, for him to have wanted her so, even covered with grayish mud and smelling of the barnyard. No, perhaps it was not so strange after all.

He leaned down and kissed her gently before he broke the news. "Do you remember when we walked back to Tynan naked?"

She shuddered. "In full view of the clan? Perfectly, MacLeod, in glorious detail. Such a thing is not that easy to forget. “

"I'm afraid, Judith, that we must repeat the act," he said softly, a devilish smile wreathing his lips.

She looked wide eyed at him, and then to the corner where her clothing had been tossed. Granted, he had easily ripped the old wool gown, but she would have been partially covered had she worn it. It, however, had floated away, along with the MacLeod's trousers.

"I don't believe it," she moaned.

"Believe it, Judith," he said, chuckling. "And believe this, also. The storm has stopped. Prepare yourself for another audience."

She hit him on the arm with her balled fist.

"It is very well for you to say, MacLeod, you have less to expose," she said, exasperation clouding her eyes.

His booming laugh could shake the roof down upon their heads, she thought.

"Ah, Judith," he said, still laughing, "what you have to learn about men." He stood, and she saw what he meant. The MacLeod was in a glorious state. She glanced up at him with a frown on her face.

"Cannot you comport yourself decently?"

"It does not have a string, little general," he said, smiling.

"Well, do something about it."

"There is, fortunately, only one thing to be done."

In the spirit of human kindness, she allowed as how she could assist him. Judith discovered that the MacLeod had marvelous powers of recuperation which were supplanted only by her own. She also discovered, and it was knowledge that she tucked away for later, that he could make her forget the most outrageous circumstances, such as a puddle of muddy water at the small of her back, and a steady drip of water upon her face.

The MacLeod strolled naked through his village, with his exhausted English wife in his arms. He could not help the smile that broadened his face, or his cheerful nod at the memory tinged looks of the old men. He only chuckled at the women, most of whom tossed their aprons over their faces and scurried back into their own cottages.

There was something to be said for having an English wife.

CHAPTER 31

Judith knelt beside Granmere's bed, took her frail hand in hers, and sobbed with an acute sense of loss. She bowed her head, tears slipping unchecked down her face. It had been a quiet passing, in her sleep, as quiet and devoid of fuss as if Sophie had planned it.

Alisdair's touch upon her shoulder, as he moved to kneel beside her, roused her finally. Words were without comfort, but she could be here. She placed her hand over his, the other stretched upon the bed to touch Granmere's arm, feeling the fragility of her bones, as if she weighed no more than a feather.

Sophie had been the first person to welcome her to this land, her staunchest ally. Judith had felt such love for this tiny woman with her indomitable will and a spirit far more robust than her physical strength. If she were grieving so, what was Alisdair feeling?