Moon Awakening (11 page)

If that made her wanton, then so be it, she would be wanton. Because deep in her heart she knew she would only ever be that way with this one man… a man who thought he was more than a mere human. And looking at him with his wolf's eyes and power radiating from him like a palpable presence, she thought she just might agree.

Having made the decision, she did not want to wait for him to act, but needed to make the first move herself. She stepped up against him, cupped his face with both her hands and reached up on her tiptoes to kiss him.

Making a feral sound, he dipped his head and took possession of her mouth with mind-numbing intensity. He kissed her like he meant to devour her, eating at her lips, his tongue tangling with hers and pervading her mouth with his spicy flavor.

Her knees went weak. She wobbled and fell against him, confident that he would hold her up and keep her safe. His big hands clamped to her waist and lifted her right off the ground.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with every ounce of the passion she'd tried so hard to suppress until now. His hold changed, one arm wrapped around her back, his fingers brushing the side of her breast through the fabric of her shift and tunic. His other hand cupped her bottom, kneading her with erotic gentleness that sent a wash of humidity to the juncture of her thighs.

This was how men touched women they wished to mate with. It was incredibly intimate and yet not enough. She wanted more, but had no experience with which to determine what more might be. The things he made her feel were so very unique to her that she grew light-headed from the myriad sensations. And it was a good thing he was holding her so tight, for she was beyond remaining upright, even leaning on him.

Their surroundings ceased to exist for her and she knew only the taste and feel of his lips… the possessive hold of his hands. Nothing else mattered. Not her future, not her past and not even the present, except this man in this moment.

She did not know how it happened, but with only a couple of brief separations of their mouths, she found herself as nude as he'd promised her she would be. And she was not embarrassed. She felt no shame in allowing him to see her, to touch her… to know her like no one else ever had.

She belonged to him for this moment in time and she refused to consider anything else.

The summer sun warmed her skin, but not nearly as much as the heat of his gaze. Gold-rimmed brown eyes seared her with elemental fire while her own gaze became locked on the part of him that declared him fully male. He'd taken off his plaid and he stood proud and glorious in his own nudity. His masculine sex was swollen and rigid as a staff, pointing at a sharp angle toward the sky.

Oh, my. "I never thought it would be so big," she whispered.

"It?" he asked with strangled laughter in his tone.

She pointed to his male member. "That."

"That?"

"Your penis," she said defiantly.

But he just smiled. She liked his smile. It made her feel warm in a way that even his touch did not.

"You spent much time thinking on the matter?" he asked.

"Only in recent days."

His eyes glowed with masculine satisfaction. "Since you met me?"

"Maybe," she hedged.

"A man is large… a woman small. The fit perfect."

But, according to him, that "fit" was one delight she would not know in his company. She said nothing, simply staring at him and trying to control the urge to reach out and touch. She would never have anticipated wanting to, but she could barely stop herself.

"You want to feel it?" he asked, as if reading her mind.

"Yes."

"Then do so."

Her gaze flew to his, but there was no mockery evident. He meant it. He had put himself at her disposal and her passion and curiosity demanded she accept his invitation.

She stepped closer and then reached down to brush one fingertip along his shaft. It moved and she jerked her hand away.

He laughed. "It is all right."

"But…"

"I like your hand on me."

She looked into his eyes and saw a hunger that matched her own burning in their depths. A sense of exultation made her want to laugh, but not with humor… with sheer joy. She had no experience of men, was not the favored daughter in her father's household, but she could affect the powerful laird of the Balmoral so much that his body trembled with his need for her.

Amazing.

Lachlan watched the sense of feminine sensual power dawn in Emily's violet gaze and had to fight the urge to tumble her onto her back and bury himself in the silken wetness he knew waited for him between her legs. There was no calculation in her expression, only pure happiness.

She
liked
affecting him so strongly. It was an honest reaction, one worthy of a femwolf, though she was no more than human.

He must remember that truth, no matter how she delighted him. He would not claim her body completely, he would not spurt his seed into her womb. He had promised her mat he would not breach her maidenhead and he would keep that promise. Equally as important, to take a virgin was to imply the willingness to mate for life, and he had no such intention.

No matter how much he might want this human woman, he would not travel the path his father had taken. It was too fraught with danger to his kind.

Emily curled her fingers around his sex as if she had done it a thousand times and rubbed up and down. "You are so soft."

"Soft?" he asked on a choking laugh. "I think not."

"Your skin," she replied with a great deal of seriousness. "Have you ever felt silk?"

"Nay."

"We have silk tapestries in our great hall… or rather my father had. Sybil insisted. They feel like air against your skin, so thin and smooth."

"You are saying I am not more substantial than air?"

"Oh, no. You are quite substantial, laird. But so smooth here over the hardness." She caressed him along his length again, this time taking twice as long to make the journey from base to tip.

If he did not do something, he was going to spill and his pride would not let him do so without giving her pleasure first. Only he could not trust himself to pleasure her right now without swiving her. He had never been so lacking in control, but even his pride could not pretend his mind governed his body at that moment.

He swung her up in his arms and kissed her to stifle any protest she might make. She instantly began kissing him back with a passion that threatened his very sanity.

Using the last bit of self-discipline he had remaining, he forced himself to walk toward the water and not stop until he was in the chilly depths up to his waist. The shock of the cold did little to impact his arousal and he shook with the need to lower her hips and position her to take him inside. He moved toward deeper water. He was up to his chest and her whole body was practically submerged before he broke the kiss.

"Are you ready for your first swimming lesson?" The words came out strong, but his body was weak with desire.

She stared up at him as if she did not understand what he was saying and then her eyes widened and she gave a small shriek. "I'm in the water. And it's cold!" She drew out the last word in a complaining wail.

He shook his head. "Not cold enough." Not nearly cold enough.

"It's not?" Emily looked like she was considering calling Lachlan daft again.

"No."

"But I'm freezing."

He looked down at her and saw that she did indeed have goose bumps all over her body. He wanted nothing more than to smooth them away with one hot caress after another. "We will start with floating."

"F-floating?" She was cold, but he thought the stutter a result of the nervous fear in her eyes.

"I will not let you sink, Emily."

Her eyes filled with resolve. "I do not want to be afraid."

"You will conquer your fear."

"I want to, but I don't know if I can." She did not sound happy with that fact, but resigned to it.

"You can." He was impressed that she did not insist he take her out of the water.

The longer they stood there, the more rigid she became as terror that was so great it even masked the scent of her excitement overcame her. Something shifted inside him as he saw it happen. He hated to see her afraid and was determined to help her. Even his sexual desire took a secondary role to that determination.

"If you drop me, I'm afraid I'll sink into a dark abyss, that the water will hold me down until all my air is gone, until I die… I… I feel like the lake is bottomless, that I will be lost forever. Promise me, you will not drop me."

He was impressed with her for having the courage to voice her fears. "I have already made this promise."

"Say it again."

"I promise I will not let you sink."

She smiled gratefully, though it was a poor attempt. Her mouth trembled and she had turned the color of parchment. "Thank you."

"The loch is not bottomless either, lass."

"I know, but…"

"I am standing on the bottom now and it does not go over my head for a dozen or more feet out."

"I would like to learn to swim here then."

He kissed her softly on her partially parted lips. "All right, sweeting."

A hot blush stole over her cheeks at the endearment and it was all he could do not to kiss her again. She was so damn precious. And she made him smile. He'd been laird for a decade, ever since his father's death in battle, taking on the responsibilities shortly after his voice changed. He'd learned restraint early. He'd also learned duty was more important than pleasure and he had spent the last ten years proving that.

This slip of a woman made him crave the pleasure. She was dangerous, but she was also irresistible.

She gasped and grabbed onto his shoulders the first time he tried to let her go. He found himself almost forgetting their shared nudity in his quest to help her overcome her terror of the water. It took an hour to get her floating with his hand only lightly touching her back, but he was so proud of her for getting that far that he was grinning when he heard an approaching soldier.

He looked down at her lovely body exposed to his gaze and the summer sun and for the first time in an hour saw her as the soldier approaching might see her. Her breasts, belly and thighs floated above the water, while the rest of her was revealed through its crystal clear depths. He had swum naked with femwolves before, and even had sex with them afterward, but never before had he felt the sense of possessiveness he did toward Emily right now.

She was not his woman, but he did not want anyone else to see her this way. Her berry-ripe nipples were beaded from the cold water, and the golden brown curls on her feminine mound glistened with droplets of moisture. Her thighs were apart just far enough for his hand to slide between them and touch her delicate folds if he wanted to.

His hand itched to do just that, but his senses told him the soldier would be there soon.

He sighed soundlessly and then spoke. "Someone is coming."

She'd been floating with her eyes closed upon his instruction, but now they flew open and she tried to sit up. Because she was in the water, she started to sink instead, of course, and he had to grab her to keep her face from going under.

She spluttered and latched onto his shoulders with urgent fingers. "Where? Who?" She frantically looked around the clearing. "I don't see anyone."

"He will be here in a few seconds."

"I suppose you can hear him," she said sarcastically.

"Yes."

She frowned and shook her head. "It makes no sense and I don't know why, but I believe you."

"I do not lie."

"I need my clothes." When he didn't move fast enough to suit her, she tried to shake him. "Now, before he gets here."

He was in complete agreement, but it still took him a moment to force his muscles to obey the command to leave the water. Now that he wasn't focused on teaching her to swim, his need for her was taking precedence over his common sense. His wolf wanted to touch and taste her delectable naked curves.

"Lachlan!"

The wolf would have to wait along with his wholly human need. Using the speed of his inner beast, he carried her to the shore, and then threw his plaid around her like a blanket. The soldier was approaching at a run and would break through the concealing trees in a few seconds. She grabbed the edges of the plaid, making sure it covered her. It was not a woman's plaid and though he was much bigger than she was, a good portion of her legs was still exposed.

He shoved her shift and tunic at her. "Go over there and dress." He pointed to a dense clump of bushes that would hide her from even a werewolf's gaze, though the man approaching was only human.

Lachlan didn't need to be in wolf form to pick up Ulf's scent at this distance. His senses were superior even in his human body, but not quite as good as when he changed.

Emily had grabbed her clothes and disappeared behind the bushes. "You are going to meet your soldier naked?" she called.

"It is my brother."

His plaid landed on the ground a foot or so from the bushes. "Get dressed."

"A captive does not give a laird orders," he instructed her.

"This one does."

He almost laughed at her impudence. He knew no other woman like her… femwolf or human. He had just picked up the plaid when Ulf came into the clearing.

He was scowling. There was nothing new in that. His brother smiled less frequently than he did, but the look of accusation in his eyes irritated Lachlan. Ulf believed his family position gave him the right to question his laird, and Lachlan often humored him. It was not his brother's fault he had not been born werewolf.

He had pitied his older brother since the year came for Ulf's first change and it did not happen. Their father had been disappointed; their mother had been relieved and Ulf had learned that unlike what he had believed since childhood, he would not one day rule the Balmorals. There had been signs that his brother was fully human all along, but their father had ignored them, insisting his sons were both wolves.

He had been wrong. Only one had carried the ability to change and it had been Lachlan. From the week after his first full moon as a werewolf, he had been trained to take over the clan one day. Ulf had never protested. It would have done no good. A human could not survive a challenge by a werewolf and Lachlan would have challenged Ulf's leadership if he had tried to assert it. For the good of the clan.

His entire life had been lived toward that greater good and he was not about to forget his responsibilities now.

"Where is she?" Ulf demanded by way of greeting.

Lachlan could hear Emily pause in her struggle to tug her clothing on. She'd also stopped breathing, as if waiting to hear how Lachlan answered.

He nodded toward the bushes with his head while he secured his plaid.

Ulf's scowl grew more pronounced. "What is she doing over there? You're wet. You were naked when I arrived. Have you taken to tumbling your enemy's castoffs in the water? I thought you only indulged in that sort of thing with femwolves."

Lachlan knocked his brother to the ground with a hard shove. "Guard your tongue."

Ulf had the grace to look chagrined when he realized what he had said. Emily was no more aware than most of the humans in the Highlands of the wolf nature inhabiting some of their clanspeople. Ulf knew the penalty of betraying the Chrechte's secrets to those who should not know.

Death. And being the laird's brother would not save him.

Lachlan did not know what Emily would do if she knew the pack's secret, but she was human and that meant they did not take the chance.

Then, to cover both Ulf's blunder and his own correction, he said, "She is no one's castoff, as I have told you."

Emily muttered something about arrogant men poking their noses into business that was not theirs and he had no doubts she could hear every word he and his brother spoke.

Ulf showed no evidence of hearing her low-voiced grumbling as he climbed to his feet. "Yet she does belong to your enemy."

"He refused her." Lachlan was bloody weary of discussing the Sinclair laird.

"And you plan to keep her in his place?" Ulf asked with derisive bite.

"No." Lachlan did not understand his brother's derision.

Emily was human, but so was Ulf. She was not the other laird's castoff and if Lachlan chose to keep her, he could not see what objection Ulf might raise. Unless he, too, was concerned about Lachlan's children being born wolf.

Ulf, better than anyone, knew the price paid when a child born to a Chrechte and a human took human form instead of a wolf's. Their race did not reproduce easily, but to do so and not pass on the gifts of the Chrechte was a tragedy.

"You are giving a great imitation of a man governed by his lust rather than his head." Ulf's criticism stung because it was so close to the truth.

Lachlan was too proud to admit such a thing though. "I grow weary of your harping, brother. You sound like a fretful old woman."

"Better than a man at the mercy of his beast."

Lachlan usually let comments like that slide, but enough was enough. His brother needed reining in. "Be careful I do not unleash my beast on you," he said with chilling bite.

Ulf winced, but quickly controlled his features. His strength in the face of even a Chrechte's threat impressed Lachlan. He had always admired his human brother and while he had pitied Ulf's inability to make the change, he'd never made the mistake of thinking the older man was weak for what he was.

Not wanting to risk Emily hearing anything more that might betray his secrets, he led his brother far from the bushes she was now simply hiding behind. She'd finished dressing but had not come out, and he didn't know if it was because she was embarrassed or because she didn't like his brother, or both.

He stopped a good thirty feet away. "Say what you came here to say."

Ulf's hands fisted at his sides. "First tell me honestly if you have plans to marry the woman."

"You should know better than that. I will not marry a human."

"Not even a clanswoman?" Ulf asked.

"Nay."

"You're worried the Chrechte's secrets will be revealed."

"That is part of it." Intermating always carried such a risk. There had been a time when it had been expressly forbidden, but that was before the Chrechte joined the Celtic clans. Many maintained the ancient ways though.

His father had not.

"You're afraid all of your offspring would be like me, instead of just one, aren't you?" Ulf asked, sounding bitter.

"It is the responsibility of all Chrechte, but especially the leaders, to make sure our race does not die out."

"I am no less a Chrechte warrior than you because I have no beast to overcome my human logic."

Lachlan did not agree, but he could not explain to his brother, who had no wolf, what it meant to know the beast lived inside him giving him strength and superior abilities. Far from diminishing his ability to think logically, his beast added an animal cunning to his thoughts that no human could emulate.

"There is no need for this argument. I have told you I do not intend to keep the Englishwoman. Why is not important."

"To you maybe."

"To you either. My decisions are not subject to your approval, nor are my thoughts."

"You're so damn arrogant."

"Emily thinks that's a Highland trait."

Ulf did not smile at the jest. "She has a low opinion of us all."

"That you have done nothing to rectify."

"Why should I? I care not what my enemy thinks of me."

"She is not your enemy."

"I do not dismiss the truth in favor of my cock's urgings. She is English and she is promised to the Sinclair laird. That makes her my enemy."

"She is a Balmoral captive, which puts her under my protection. Consider that the next time you are tempted to treat her like your enemy," Lachlan said in clear warning.

"I came to tell you that Duncan is here to give his report." The lack of urgency in Ulf's manner indicated the spy's report was not to tell them that the Sinclair had gathered his troops and was even now crossing the sea to lay siege to the castle.

"I will return to the keep shortly."

Ulf nodded, his mouth set in a tight, grim line, and left.

Lachlan could have ordered the soldier to escort Emily back to the keep and therefore left sooner himself, but he worried Ulf would hurt her tender feelings. When he had started worrying about such inconsequential matters, he did not know, but he refused to leave her to the not-so-tender mercies of his brother.

Emily paced the tower room, her emotions and thoughts in turmoil. She had done and felt so many shocking things she could not decide which one was the most astounding.

She'd exposed her deepest fear and told Lachlan her darkest secret. He had not mocked her fears or implied there was something lacking in her that her father could do such a thing. She had always worried that if she had been more lovable her father could never have rejected her so completely, but if Lachlan saw things that way, he had not said so.

She still struggled with accepting the fact that she had trusted him so utterly.

But then he elicited a unique response in her in more ways than one. She did not find his mouth or touch intrusive, but diabolically tempting. She'd returned his kisses with an ardency she had never dreamed a lady could be capable of. Then she'd let him undress her and when he had removed his own clothes, far from running, as any other unmarried lady would have done, she had touched him. Intimately.