Seduced by the Highlander (24 page)

“I don’t believe you,” the lad said. “And I’ll shoot you if you try to get past me. Go back downstairs.” Alex cocked the hammer.

Lachlan was beginning to grow impatient. “Put the gun down, Alex. I don’t want to hurt you.”

The door to Catherine’s room suddenly swung open on its hinges, and dressed in her shift with a woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders, she stepped into the corridor.

Eyes blazing with fury, she glanced back and forth between the two of them. “What’s going on here?”

Lachlan gestured with his hand toward Alex. “Go ahead. Answer the question.”

The young clansman cleared his throat. “It’s my duty to protect you, Lady Catherine. I cannot, in good conscience, let this man cross your threshold. You know my reasons.”

Lachlan regarded her with narrowed eyes in the dim candlelight. “You’ve already discussed this with him?”

“Yes,” she confessed, her shoulders dropping in defeat. “Fine. If you must know, he told me today that he saw you leave my tent last night. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was afraid it would influence your decision, and you would stay away.” She turned her ardent gaze to Alex. “But I assured Alex that I was capable of making my own decisions. Isn’t that right?”

“Aye, Lady Catherine.”

“And must I repeat myself again?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

Every inch a noblewoman, she did not release him from her bold stare. “If you must know,” she said, “I demanded that Lachlan guard my bed tonight, and I wish for him to stay. If you don’t like it, you will have to point that musket at
me
, Alex, because my heels are quite firmly dug in on the matter.”

In that strange, awkward moment Lachlan realized he was completely, irreversibly in love with her, and his mind clouded over with unease for the future.

“But Lady Catherine,” Alex argued, “he’s … I don’t know how to say it without causing offense, but…”

“Speak freely, Alex,” she impatiently responded.

The lad swallowed. “He’s a debauched seducer.”

“I beg your pardon?” she said.

It was true. Lachlan could hardly deny it, but he wasn’t about to interrupt. He looked to the young man to explain himself.

“But there’s more. He’s
cursed
, my lady. It’s not safe to be alone with him. You don’t know the half of it.”

Catherine turned her gaze to Lachlan and spoke with confidence. “I
do
know it, Alex. I know all of it, and I also know he would never do anything to jeopardize my safety. He is here, at my request, to protect me.” She turned her eyes back to Alex again. “Have you told anyone else what you saw last night?”

Alex released the hammer and slowly lowered his weapon. “Nay. I would never say anything that would harm your reputation.”

She gathered her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “I am grateful for that, at least. And if you truly wish to protect me, you will continue to be discreet about what you have seen.”

Lachlan decided it was a good time to shoulder his way past the young lad, simply to avoid a fight, because he would have flattened Alex if he stood in his way for another minute.

Lachlan entered Catherine’s room and waited by the fire.

“I appreciate what you tried to do here,” she quietly said to Alex, who remained in the corridor. “You were very brave.”

“I suppose I must have been, my lady, because I seem to have lost all feeling in my legs. I’m feeling a bit dizzy, actually.”

“Why don’t you go across the street and join the others,” she suggested. “And if you say a word about this to any of them, Alex, I promise I will not let you live long enough to regret it.”

She firmly shut the door, turned the key in the lock, and faced Lachlan.

He took one look at her in her nightdress, and his body throbbed with desire. In that moment he knew that if he was not careful, the pleasure he was about to give—and take—could turn out to be the worst mistake of his life.

And hers. For he was completely out of control with wanting her.

Chapter Twenty-six

“You look like you are about to change your mind,” Catherine said, her voice falling to a hush.

“Aye. I’m thinking about it.”

He was disturbed by the intensity of his feelings—not just his desire, but his adoration and affection—and the complete abandonment of his long-established caution when it came to intimacy of any kind.

What had she done to him?

She crossed toward him. “I won’t let you. I’ve been waiting all day and night for you, and I want this.”

“Do you always get what you want?” he asked. “Because I don’t.”

She dropped her shawl onto the back of a chair and reached up to unfasten the brooch at his shoulder. “Well, I promise that you can have it tonight. Some of it, at any rate.”

She set the heavy brooch on the table, and with graceful hands, slid his tartan down over his arm while he kept his eyes fixed on hers and came up with a dozen and one reasons why he shouldn’t allow this to continue.

In the end, however, he lifted his arms over his head so that she could remove his shirt, and when she tossed it to the chair on top of her shawl, he basked in the heat of her sultry gaze.

Slowly unbuckling his belt and scabbard, she regarded him with playful eyes, which aroused him further, then set everything on the table and unraveled his kilt.

“Now see?” she whispered with a sneaky smile. “I’ve removed all your weapons. You won’t be able to fight me.”

“It was never my intention to fight you, lass. All I want to do is love you.”

Her eyes lifted, and neither of them spoke for a precarious moment. She idly dropped his tartan to the floor.

He stood very still, naked before the warmth of the fire, while the pounding of his blood through his veins provoked his emotions and crushed any previous impulse to leave. He wanted this woman with a fury that was too powerful to resist. There was no turning back now. Her beauty compelled him forward, and he swept her up into his arms.

Carrying her to the bed, he kissed her mouth with a passion that bordered on violence. He set her down on the soft mattress and stood over her while he stroked her body with hungry, joyful hands, relishing the fact that he could touch her so freely through the thin fabric of her nightdress.

He slid his palms across her luscious breasts, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her pebbled nipples, then journeyed down her shapely hips to her thighs, where he gathered the white linen in a hand and began to tug it up over her knees.

“I am going to pleasure you tonight,” he said, “and make you cry out in ecstasy.”

“As long as it pleases
you
,” she purred, squirming lavishly on the bed.

“Ah, it will.”

She lifted her hips and sat up so he could pull her nightdress off over her head; then he crawled onto the bed to lie beside her sweet, voluptuous form.

His erection was bone hard and enormous, pulsing against her hip, but he would resist the urge to bury himself inside her tonight. He would enjoy her body in other ways. He would not lose control.

Leaning up on one elbow, he ran a finger slowly across the delicate line of her jaw, then down the side of her throat. With a featherlike touch, he drew tiny circles around her nipples, without ever touching the hardened peaks.

She sucked in a quivering gasp of desire. His gaze lifted, and he smiled at her, then spelled his name with a light, stroking flourish across her belly. “Tonight, you belong to me.”

“
Every
night I belong to you,” she whispered. “I’ve been yours since the first moment I met you.”

Bending his head, he kissed her silky soft, porcelain skin and licked inside her navel. She melted into the bed, writhing pleasurably, letting out tiny whimpers of arousal. When her hand snaked out to rub his chest, he gently curled his fingers around hers, kissed the tip of each one, and shook his head. “No, lass,” he said. “You’re not to touch
me
. It’s my turn to touch
you
.”

Her arm fell limp onto the bed. “If that is your wish…”

He eyed her tenderly and rolled on top of her, with his elbows braced on either side of her hips, low down, so that his face was over her breasts and there was no chance of his manhood meeting accidentally with the sweet, soft, tempting dampness between her thighs.

Closing his eyes, he bent to take a lovely breast into his mouth and licked and suckled her delicious nipples. Catherine sighed and combed her fingers through his hair while he slid his tongue across to her other breast and pleasured her with great sensitivity and diligence.

Her legs spread wider, and he began to thrust his raging manhood into the bed, wishing he could rise up and slide into her now—she was certainly ready for him—but instead, he inched lower and dropped wet, openmouthed kisses down her belly to the glossy sweetness between her legs.

She took hold of his shoulders and arched her back, moaning against a flood of delight. “Please, Lachlan,” she pleaded. “Do everything you can.”

“Don’t worry, lass. I intend to.”

Kissing the inner planes of her knees, he made his way up her thighs, where he paused a moment to admire the succulent temptation before him. Irrepressible passion charged through his body. Riotous with a desire he had been suppressing for too long and starving for her in every way, he touched his lips lightly to her swollen sex, then plunged in with an avaricious indulgence that consumed him like a dream.

She held his head in her hands, pushing him deeper, moaning with pleasure while her legs trembled and fell open on the bed. “Don’t stop, Lachlan,” she sighed. “Please, don’t ever stop.…”

Eager to fulfill all her desires, he slid a finger inside her throbbing wet passage while he continued to use his tongue on the glowing pearl at the heart of her folds. He stroked and tasted her for endless moments of rapture, losing himself in her inconceivable splendor, until at last she began to quiver. Her insides contracted around his finger while she thrust her hips toward the ceiling, pulling him closer, squeezing her thighs around his head.

“
Oh yes!
” she whispered as a deep, groaning climax overtook her.

When her body finally relaxed in complete surrender, he climbed over her on all fours and looked down at her lovely flushed face, damp with perspiration. She blinked up at him in a drunken haze of satisfaction.

“What I wouldn’t give to make love to you now,” he softly said, but he cared for her too much. Nothing would make him risk it.

“Let it be my turn now.” She sat up and pressed her open palms to his chest. Pushing him onto his back, she began to stroke him below as she laid openmouthed kisses down the center of his abdomen. “I want to do what you just did.”

He closed his eyes and groaned as her mouth slid over the thick head of his erection. Time stood still in the ensuing moments as he pondered the impossible, mind-numbing pleasure she gave him. The sensations swamping his body were staggering, penetrating, and wild. He drove into her mouth deeply and unbearably, imagining in his mind that he was making love to her on a moonlit beach, giving her everything, without limitation or restraint.

It went on and on; she was relentless and vigorous with her mouth and tongue. He never wanted to be without her.

The climax, when it came, bombarded his senses with a violent explosion of pleasure, and the whole world seemed to disappear for endless flashing moments. All he felt was an aching hunger to claim and possess Catherine in every way possible.

When he opened his eyes, he was on top of her, using his hand to coax his seed onto her stomach.

Panic struck him. He had lost himself for a moment. Thank God he had not given in to that dream.

As he shuddered and convulsed above her, he cursed Raonaid for this cruel torture. He wanted to choke the life out of her. All his violent warrior instincts rebelled and blasted out of him on that fierce, erratic orgasm. He couldn’t take it anymore.

He collapsed onto the bed beside Catherine and wept.

A second later, he was up off the bed, running a hand over his wet face, fighting for composure. He hated that Catherine should see him like this. Hated it with every inch of his being.

He went to the basin and washed himself clean with a towel. He couldn’t look at her. His mind was filled with shame.

The bed creaked, and he felt her careful approach across the room.

She laid a warm hand on his shoulder. “In two days’ time,” she said, “we will reach Edinburgh, and I will do whatever I can to help free you from this curse. Perhaps it is not even real. Perhaps it never was.”

He tossed the towel into the basin and faced her. “It’s real enough to keep me from loving you properly, Catherine. Real enough to make me weep in front of you like a broken man.”

His temper flared. He wanted to pick up his sword and lash out at something.

“Come back to bed,” she gently whispered, holding both his hands in hers. “I understand that you are upset. Let me help you. Stay with me tonight and hold me. All I want is to be close to you.”

He felt very tired all of a sudden.

Catherine led him to the bed and drew back the covers. They climbed in together.

He gathered her close, spoon fashion, and they lay quietly in the dying firelight for a long time.

“What you did to me tonight…,” she softly said. “It was like floating up to heaven.”

He ran his thumb across her shoulder, then kissed her tenderly between her shoulder blades. “I’m glad.”

But it was not enough. He needed more. He wanted all of her, body and soul.

He was quite certain he had made a mistake, he thought, by letting down his guard. God help him, he had never wept in front of a woman before. He was out of his depth with her.

Hours later, just before dawn, he proved himself right on that account when he woke to the tempting allure of her warm bottom pressed tightly against his pelvis, and he was overcome by an unstoppable wave of passion.