Highland Heat 2 - All The King's Men

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All the King's Men

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All the King’s Men

To get information that would help the Scottish cause, the spirited Scottish mistress of a British officer agrees to let herself be wagered in a game of cards…

Fiery Sorcha is desperate for information that will help the fierce Highland warriors of Clan MacPherson rise up against the English. That’s why she agreed to be the mistress of Major James Anderson in the first place. But when her sinful and silver-tongued lover takes her to a fortress where he’s playing a spy game of his own, he puts her burgeoning feelings to the test by leaving her to the mercy of a group of dashing and devilish officers for the night.
 

Stripped of everything before the men’s lust, Sorcha proves insatiable—much to the delight of the officers, and the man who gave her to them. Impossibly, her every sexual adventure seems to draw her even closer to Major Anderson, and she begins to wonder if it’s more than information that she wants from the infuriating Englishman…

Reader Advisory: This is an erotic romance short story of approximately 14k words that contains sizzling scenes of group sex, exhibitionism, spanking, dark kink and taboo acts. For adults only.

ALL THE KING’S MEN

A Highland Heat Story

Chera Zade

Al the King’s Men

© 2015 Chera Zade

All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

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~~~

A trap. It was a trap. And as George Washington’s soldiers rushed into the clearing by the pond, their weapons raised, surrounding the men who had taken me, I was so dizzy with sex and relief and sweet victory that I swooned away.
 

Later, having been bathed, and wrapped in a blanket, and spoon-fed warm broth by the patriots, I couldn’t stop shivering. I wasn’t especially cold, but the enormity of what I’d done—and enjoyed—overwhelmed me. When I’d agreed to set myself up as the quarry for Winston and his men, I had anticipated that the whole encounter would be excruciatingly painful.

Unpleasant as torture. Instead, I had gone to a place far in my mind that allowed me to feel pleasure. More pleasure than I thought possible. And now I stood shamed for it…

“You were very brave, Sara,” said Billy Falkner, whose sister had been raped and beaten by Winston. Whose father had been killed by the man. “I know what you went through…well, no I can’t know. Truly, I can’t. But I meant what I said when we came up with this plan. I’ll take you for my wife and be honored to have you.”

“You can’t, Billy. You must realize, I did more than distract those men. I—”

“I don’t care what you did,” Billy said, kissing me softly. “Because all is fair in love and war, and this is both.”

My lover was asleep.
 

I’d waited for his breathing to lengthen, for his pulse to steady, and for the little flutter of his eyes to tell me he was dreaming. When I believed him to be in deep slumber, I watched him a moment more to be sure—and to try to make sense of this man to whom I’d so shamelessly given myself as a mistress.

By light of day, Major James Anderson’s sparkling blue-eyes and expressive face could be strangely compelling. But asleep in the firelight? Why he looked somewhat ordinary. Even for a bloody Englishman…

I never intended to become the mistress of any man, much less the kept woman of an English officer; I was a proud Scotswoman after all. But with two brothers and a sweetheart of Clan MacPherson, all of whom were pledged to rise up against the English in the Jacobite cause, I’d been caught up in a struggle beyond my intention or foresight.
 

This
particular
English officer whose bed I now shared was overseeing arrests being made throughout Scotland, and he’d come to Fort William to interrogate the prisoners. What he learned could send my loved ones to their graves—something I couldn’t allow if it was within my power to stop it. So I’d allowed him to seduce me. Allowed him to squire me about in front of his men, and share me with them as his harlot. Yes, I’d let him lure me into wicked acts of pleasure that were likely to send me straight to hell.
 

All so I could slip free of his arms in the quiet of night to get about the business of treason…

I crossed the room on tip-toe to the chest the major kept at the foot of his bed. Kneeling close to the fireplace, I slowly ran my fingers over the wood to find the hidden latch that would open the secret compartment. I knew there must be one because I’d searched in all the obvious places already. And I found it so very gratifying when I heard the soft click, and a drawer slid open.
 

There it was.
The little leather bound book in which my lover kept his notes. Now that I’d found it, what should I do? The safest action would be to read it, memorize whatever was written in it, and put it back. If I could do this quickly, and in the dim light of the fire, my lover might never know.
 

But the boldest action would be to burn it.
 

He’d discover it missing and suspect me at once. I’d likely be killed for it. On the other hand, perhaps it would repay the sins I’d committed in his bed if I sacrificed myself for the lives of others. Because there had been sin. And pleasure. More pleasure than I dared to think about. The major had taken my virginity atop a butcher block table with his men looking on, cheering the spectacle. A thing I ought to have hated, but which I took to like a whore. It was almost worse that he took me to his bed every night since, with a worshipfulness that made it feel like
lovemaking
. Even though I knew it could not be.

I needed to redeem myself. Whether for whoring or starting to feel some strange attachment to an Englishman—I knew not which was worse. But my hands shaking with the gravity of what I was about to do, and I nearly dropped the little book.
 

Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I crept to the fireplace. There I paused a moment to pray. That was probably my mistake.
 

His voice came out of the dark, groggy, but aware. “You’re not seriously going to burn it, are you?”

My heart jumped to my throat and lodged itself there. I was caught red-handed. There was no hiding what I had done. The important thing was to destroy whatever evidence my lover had gathered that might hurt the Jacobite cause…so I flung the book into the fire, damn the consequences!

“Bloody hell,” the major said, sitting up in the bed as the pages smoked and curled atop the little pile of logs. But leather books burned slowly. To keep him from rescuing it from the flames, I was ready to grapple with him. I planted my feet firmly and blocked his way, waiting for him to rush to the fireplace to pull the book out.
 

But he didn’t even get out of bed. “You lion-hearted little fool.”

“I’m sorry,” I cried, because in my moment of triumph, it
did
feel like some manner of betrayal. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Major Anderson had known of my Jacobite sympathies when he seduced me. He’d known I might spy upon him when he asked me to become his mistress. He’d even jested that it would be an entertaining game of cat and mouse between us.
 

He’d just never counted on my besting him…

“Well, you
should
be sorry, Sorcha,” he snapped, thumping the empty mattress beside him. “Because you made the wrong choice. The brave choice, but the foolish one. Do you know that bravery and foolishness so often go together—and with such disastrous results—that I’d rather have a clever coward under my command than a courageous clot-head.”
 

He said all this crossly.
 

But he ought to have been more than
cross
to watch months of his work going up in smoke.
 

“What was the right choice?” I asked, eying the door, wondering if it would be possible to make a run for it in my night shift. It was a fortress filled with soldiers, though. I wasn’t likely to make it twenty feet.

“The right choice would’ve been to read the book,” my lover said, with a very disappointed sigh. “Knowledge is power. That’s the first tenet of espionage, my dear.”

Resigned to the fact there was no escape, I defiantly raised my chin. “And what would I have learned from reading it?”

He smirked. Very smugly I might add. “The first thing you’d have learned is that it was a book of empty pages. From that, you might have deduced that it had been planted there for you to find. The next logical step, of course, would have been to put it back where you found it and never let on, so as to lull me into a false sense of security and trust. But you let your emotions get away with you. You also stepped on a creaky floorboard near the chest; I chose this room because of that creak, so that was a bit of bad luck for you.”

The realization of how I’d been manipulated sent my mind reeling. “You
tricked
me,” I said, with a gasp. “All these weeks together, squiring me about on your arm as your mistress, sending me sweets and little gifts during the day, whispering sweet words against my skin, and taking pleasure in my body at night—”

“Oh, you did precisely the same thing, Sorcha,” the Englishman said, entirely unchastened. “Minus the squiring and the treats and gifts. The difference between us is that I know who you are, and what you are, and I even admire you for it. Whereas you haven’t apprehended my nature in the slightest. What did you expect was going to happen to you when I realized the book was gone and that you were probably to blame?”

“I expected that you might imprison me or kill me.”

The major’s eyes bulged. “
Kill
you? My god, woman. You really do believe that Englishmen are monsters, don’t you? I don’t kill women—especially not a woman I’ve taken into my bed. I’m incapable of it. That does not, however, mean that I’m incapable of giving you the thrashing of your life. Which you quite deserve.
Quite
. For getting caught, if nothing else. So come back to bed this instant, or I’ll be forced to fetch my belt.”

Given that I had believed myself to be facing mortal peril, and my heart was still thumping wildly in my ears, it seemed like a reprieve. And yet, I was so angry, I stood where I was. “I don’t want to share a bed with you.”

The major lifted a brow. “Think carefully, my dear. The hour is late and I would prefer to end the evening with sweet lovemaking, but if I am not obeyed, I will happily whip your arse to a pretty rose red hue, and take a great deal of pleasure in doing so…”