Kate Wingo - Highland Mist 01 (22 page)

“Look, Iain!
’Tis an eagle!”

Thrilled, Yvette pointed to the magnificent bird that so
ared above the secluded bower. Covered with green grass and blue violets, the glade was an idyllic retreat, far from prying eyes.

Finished tying his mount to a stout tr
ee limb, Iain glanced skyward. “A marvelous sight to be sure . . . nearly as marvelous as the one on which I now gaze,” he said as he stepped toward Yvette and took her in his arms. “I’ll have ye know that no’ a night passed that I didna dream of ye.”

“I dreamt of you
, as well.”

“Did ye now?
” Iain’s eyes gleamed speculatively as he smiled and said, “And do ye care to share any of your nighttime visions with me?”

As she called
to mind a particularly intimate reverie, Yvette felt the blood instantly rush to her cheeks. “Perhaps later,” she whispered, too shy to share so wanton a dream.

“It must have been a verra good dream to put
that pretty blush on yer face,” Iain remarked as he went down on bent knee in front of her and proceeded to remove her shoes. Sliding both his hands under her chemise, he unrolled her stockings, his movements slow and unhurried.

Glancing down at him,
Yvette caught a glimpse of a firmly muscled thigh, Iain’s upper leg exposed by the bunched fabric of his kilt. As she continued to stare at those perfectly articulated muscles, she imagined him, naked, cradled between her hips.

“
D’ye like what ye see?” Iain asked as he rose to his feet.

“You know that I do.”

“Aye, but as with any man, I enjoy hearing my woman say it aloud,” Iain told her as he reached for the silver brooch at Yvette’s shoulder.

Within moments, the
plaid
arisaidh
was tossed aside. Soon it was joined by her plain linen
léine
, leaving her completely naked.

To her surprise
– and great disappointment – Iain made no move to touch her. Instead, he stood motionless as he avidly stared at her.

“I canna believe that ye are
my
woman,” he husked. “Christ’s blood! Ye’re so verra beautiful . . . like Eve in the Garden of Eden.”

“
A degenerate sinner if ever there was,” Yvette retorted, not entirely certain that she cared for the comparison.

A smil
e eased its way onto his Iain’s lips. “I almost compared ye to Aphrodite, but I dinna know if she ever romped naked in the wild.”

“Being a goddess, I would think
she had more sense than that.”

“’Tis unlikely
. She was, after all, the goddess of love.”

That said
, Iain took hold of Yvette’s hands and placed them upon his chest. As he did so, their gazes locked. Then, in the next instant, his mouth captured hers in a fiercely passionate kiss.

Highly a
roused by the fact that Iain was still completely clothed, Yvette writhed against him, his wool plaid abrading her tender skin. More than anything, she wanted Iain MacKinnon to take her chastity, to
truly
make her his woman.

And b
ecause she loved him, Yvette saw no reason why that love shouldn’t be consummated. If she’d never been wed, her virginity would be a matter of grave importance. But she was a widow. No man under the heavens would expect her to be an untouched maid. Certainly, the Earl of Angus has no expectation of it.

“Make love to me,”
Yvette murmured against Iain’s mouth as she began to tenderly trace the outline of his face with her fingertips.

“Ye know I canna do that
,” Iain said with a slight shake of the head.

Yvette’s
fingers moved from the planes of his bronzed cheekbones to the curve of his lips. “You can
do it, but you choose not to . . . there
is
a difference.” As she spoke, she finagled a hand beneath his kilt.

Determined to sway him,
Yvette took a wanton delight in the uncontrollable shudder that coursed the length of Iain’s body when she caressed his muscled thigh.

Emboldened
by his response, she raised his kilt with her left hand while with her right she reached between his legs. Sweetly smiling at him, she traced the fleshy seam that separated his testicles before she gently cupped the heavy sacs in her palm.

“Christ above
! Where did ye learn to do
that
?” Iain hissed, thrusting his hips in her direction. “I didna teach it to ye.”

“Mayhap Aphrodite taught me,”
Yvette purred as she cinched her fingers around his manhood. Remembering exactly how he liked to be stroked, she rhythmically slid her hand up and down the length of him. “Iain, ’twould give me such pleasure if you would make love to me.”

When he didn’t respond, Yvette glanced at his face, noticing with some satisfaction how affected he was by her wanton ministrations
– his chest heaving with each deep breath, the corded muscles in his neck quivering ever so slightly.

Although
given the tight set of his mouth, she surmised that he was actively engaged in a battle between reason and desire.

A
battle that she intended for him to lose.

Espying a bead of moisture on the tip of
Iain’s penis, Yvette smeared it with her thumb, coating him with that glistening dewdrop.

“What are ye doing to me?”
Iain hoarsely muttered between clenched teeth.

Rather than answer
him, Yvette gracefully sank to her knees. Recalling a particularly erotic dream, she gripped the base of his engorged phallus between her fingers and angled him toward her mouth, chafing him with her warm breath.

“Make love to me,” she again entreated, her lips poised a ha
irbreadth from his hooded tip.

“
I canna,
” Iain gasped on a ragged exhalation.

“
You know that’s not true.”

Determined to tempt him with a piece of forbidden fruit,
Yvette opened her mouth to allow him entry before she girded her lips around him. Just as she had in that evocative dream, she used her tongue to explore the crevices and ridges of Iain’s painfully swollen organ before her mouth flirtatiously began to move up and down the length of him.

“It feels as if ye’re branding me wi’
yer warm breath,” Iain muttered, his accent so thick, Yvette could barely comprehend him. “Sweet Jesu . . .” Almost roughly, he clasped his hands around Yvette’s head and pulled her away from his body.

Startled, she peered up at him and said, “Why did you do that?”

“Because I will explode if ye keep at it,” Iain muttered as he tumbled her onto her the grass.

Ignoring her startled yelp
, Iain pried Yvette’s legs apart with his knees. With a hand on each of her thighs, he proceeded to avidly stare at what had to be a very obscene sight; a sight made all the more obscene by the glaring afternoon sunlight.

Sliding his hands beneath her buttocks,
Iain then lifted Yvette to his mouth and lapped at her womanly juices. In the same manner that a thirsty man might raise a mazer to his parched lips.

When he began to jab his tongue at the sensitive bud hidden between the plump folds of her sex, Yvette clutched his hair in her fis
ts and incoherently whimpered. Shamelessly writhing against his mouth, she suddenly wanted, suddenly
needed
, much more.

“I need . . .
please
—” she frantically whispered. “I need . . . to
feel
you.”

Iain’s
tongue flicked one last time over her swollen bud before he lifted his head from between her legs and obligingly slid his body up and over hers. Wedging his hips between Yvette’s thighs, Iain shoved his kilt to the side. He then reached between them and wrapped his hand around his stiffened penis.

“I’ll let ye feel me.”
He placed the tip of his erection against the swollen lips of her sex, using it to gently nudge her, to open her ever so slightly. “But it can go no further than this,” he said before he began to caress her with that smooth, blunt tip.

Yvette gasped aloud
.

A
s her hips wildly bucked beneath him, she physically ached, so greatly did she yearn for him to penetrate deeper than that tantalizing half inch.

Desperate to feel
Iain gloved in her body, she tightly cinched her legs around his hips.

“Deeper,” she begged. “Push deeper.”

“Aye, just a wee bit more,” Iain grunted.

The slight adjustment induced
a painful pressure between Yvette’s legs; a pressure that only heightened her arousal.

Suddenly, she lurched upward, insensibly moaning as she sank her teeth into the strainin
g muscles of Iain’s lower neck. As she did, she felt him push into her another inch.

“
For Christ’s sake! What are ye doing?!
”

Shuddering, Iain forcibly yanked out of her and rolled onto his back
.

Her heart still
thundering in her ears, her body quivering with need, Yvette rolled toward him and slung her leg over his hips. Baring his teeth, Iain growled . . . just before he shoved her aside.

“Leave be, woman!
Christ above! D’ye ken what I almost did to ye?”

Pantin
g, Yvette scrambled to her knees. “You
almost
made love to me.” She placed a hand on Iain’s heaving chest, still garmented in brigandine armor. “Please, Iain, I am begging you . . .
finish it
.”

“N
o!”

“But I am warm and willing and
—”

“I willna sully yer virtue,” Iain said over top of her
, throwing off her hand as he nimbly stood upright. “Ye deserve better than a quick romp in the grass.”

Livid,
Yvette also lurched to her feet, oblivious to the fact that she was still naked. “You are an inconsiderate –” she searched her mind for a word loathsome enough –“
knave!
Why can I not forge my own destiny or choose my own lot in life? Mayhap I want to romp in the grass with you. But because I am naught but a woman, ’twould never occur to you to inquire about
my
wants or
my
needs.”

Glowering,
Iain said, “Is that what ye want, for me to plow yer body and take yer virginity?”

“Yea, that is what I want!
Since your departure, not a night passed that I didn’t dream of sheathing you in my body.”

“Ye can dream all ye wa
nt, but it willna make it so.” Sighing wearily, Iain turned his back on her. Long seconds slipped past as he pensively stared at the mountains on the near horizon. Finally, pushing out a deep breath, he said, “I willna dishonor myself. Or the Earl of Angus.”

Tears
stung Yvette’s eyes as she stared at Iain’s broad-shouldered backside.

Refusing to capitulate, she
grabbed hold of his upper arm, forcing Iain to turn around and look at her. “And what if I told you that I
want
to stay at Castle Maoil . . . with you. What’s more, I want to lie by your side, each and every night. Please, Iain, do not make me leave this place.”

Iain’s brows instantly drew together.
“I dinna comprehend what ye’re saying to me.”

“I am saying that I would gladly be your châtelaine, your mistress, or whatever you wish me to be, if on
ly you will permit me to remain at Castle Maoil,” she said bluntly, the time for subtlety having long since passed. “I have no desire to return to my father. Moreover, I have even less desire to marry Hugh de Ogilvy. I have land,
valuable
land, in Northumberland which I will gladly deed to you in lieu of the ransom money. But only if you permit me to—”

“There is no piece of land under the heavens that will make me forget that yer treacherous whoreson of a father
murdered
my brother!” Iain snarled through clenched teeth. “By hell! I will have my two thousand pounds!”

As though she’d just been slapped in the face, Yvette physically recoiled from him.

To her surprise, Iain’s steely expression suddenly softened.

“Come, Yvette
. Let us not spoil what little time we have left together. Would it not be better for us to part with sweet kisses than angry curses?”

“The devil take you
!”

Driven by anger
at what she perceived as his betrayal, as well as a deep-seated pain born of humiliation, Yvette pummeled Iain’s chest with her fists.

“Mayhap you are not man eno
ugh to mount me,” she taunted, the words tumbling out, uncensored. Angry words. Scornful words. Words that tasted like bile on her tongue. “Like my late husband, perhaps you can not sustain your aroused state long enough to fully penetrate me. Yea, perhaps you are
afraid
that you will not be able to pierce my maidenhead.”