The Capture of Highland Desire (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) (25 page)

 
               They rode on towards Creagmor, but Eian could not stop thinking about how close he had come to losing the most precious thing he had ever known.  He wanted to hold her close to him forever and keep her safe, and even though she rode right beside him, she was suddenly too far away.  He reached over and lifted her from her horse and settled her in front of him.  She didn’t argue, but seemed to understand his need to be touching her.  She settled in between his thighs, leaning back against his chest with a little sigh.  He held her tighter to him, and slowly the relief he felt that they were both alive and safe began to turn into a physical hunger, his cock hardening with a force that made him grit his teeth.  He bent his head to inhale her scent, and as always it made his stomach flutter with anticipation.  And with the motion of the horse rocking their bodies together again and again, Eian knew he couldn’t wait until they stopped for the night.  Allia felt his need pressing into the small of her back, and she shifted against him, drawing a groan from deep in his throat.  An urgency that he had never felt before rose up hot and fast within him, and before he knew what he was doing, he had pulled Dair to a halt and slid from the saddle, bringing Allia with him. 

“I need to have ye now.  I canna wait…”

He laid her out on the forest floor and followed her down with his own body.  He kissed her deeply, as if he had been starving for her, and his hands worked to push her skirt up and out of the way.  When his fingers found her wet and ready for him, he sucked in a sharp breath.  “Ah god, lass, ye’ll unman me…”

Already panting with sharp and desperate desire, he shoved the fabric of his kilt out of the way and drove into her in one smooth, hard stroke.  His head fell back and he cried out at the
pleasure and relief.  Allia gasped and her hips rose to meet him, her fingers digging into his back as she tried to pull him closer.  She had already been on the edge the moment he entered her, and with just a few surges of his hips, she was shuddering around him, pulling him deeper, frantically calling his name under her breath.  He thrust into her harder and faster, and she wrapped her legs around him to contain the force with which he took her.  Eian’s breath came hard and fast as he strained towards the release he so desperately needed.  It did not take long.  Within moments his cock swelled harder as the pressure built, and he threw back his head and yelled to the sky, shaking and shuddering with the force of his release.

When it was over, he lowered his forehead to hers, kissing her tenderly, trying to catch his breath.  “Good god, woman… that much pleasure
… should no’ be physically possible…”  Before she could answer, he captured her lips in a greedy kiss, and began to move inside her again, though at a less urgent pace.  “I think I may grow to need ye like this every hour of every day.”  He gave her an unrepentant smile.  “At first I thought I could take ye once and be rid of the burning need I felt, but now I ken better.  It only gets worse with every time.  Much worse.”

Allia slapped him playfully on the shoulder.  “Serves you right, thinking you could use me like that.”

He grinned at her.  “I’m paying for it even now, lass.”  He thrust harder, taking her breath and making her head fall to the side as pleasure coursed through her, building again.  This time, he gathered her in his arms, pulling their bodies close as he rocked them together slowly, drawing out the pleasure.  As he neared climax again, Eian gritted his teeth and continued rocking slowly against her, even though his body was screaming at him to thrust faster.  When he felt her clench him tighter, he looked down into her eyes, feeling as if he were floating in the clouds.  Her lips parted and small sounds of pleasure escaped her as she tried to turn her head to the side.  Eian caught her chin and gently turned her face back to his.  She cried out and held onto him tighter, just as the first ripples of sensation started at the base of his spine, spiraling outward and reaching a fever pitch as they held each other’s gaze. 

             
This time, he pulled her into his arms and tucked her head under his chin, stroking her hair.  “I love ye… more than my verra life”.  Allia smiled as a single tear of joy rolled down her cheek.  She was not sorry that her father was gone and Eian was safe from him.  She would kill the man a thousand times over to make it so.

Eian glanced back at Allia, waiting for her horse to catch up.  He smiled, a look of pure happiness, and she was helpless not to smile back at him. 

             
“There it is, lass.  Creagmor.”

             
“It’s beautiful”, she told him.  And it was.  The Mac Coinnach clan stronghold rose up majestically, a monument of stone with proud towers reaching toward the sky.

             
Eian hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it, and when he’d left, never in his wildest dreams had he imagined how he’d be returning: as a husband and soon to be father.  “This is yer home now, lass”, he said proudly.

             
They rode together into the bailey, and it didn’t take long for word of the youngest son’s return to spread throughout the castle.  The door to the keep flew open and two men strode out, both of their faces lit up with smiles.  Allia had only a moment to realize these must be Eian’s brothers, since the three of them looked so very much alike, when two women joined them.  One of the women ran forward as Eian swung down from the back of his horse and turned to help Allia from hers.  The other hung back more demurely, but her face was lit with a genuine smile.

             
“Eian!  You found her!” the first woman said excitedly as she enfolded him in a big hug. 

             
He laughed and gently pulled himself out of her grasp.  “Allia, meet Faith, my sister by marriage to Bren.  And Bren, my oldest brother and chief of this clan.”

             
Allia looked up at the towering man who had come forward after his wife.  His wide grin looked so much like Eian’s one could almost mistake them for twins.

             
“Eian, I’m glad to have ye home, brother.  And Allia?”  He took her hands in his, then looked questioningly at Eian.

             
“My wife”, he said proudly.

             
Bren obviously struggled to hide a look of incredulity, and it took him a moment to gather his wits and find his voice.  “Och, then.  My new sister.  Welcome home to Creagmor, lass.”

             
Eian turned then to Drust, who, as was his nature, was standing stoically to the side.  Ignoring his brother’s well known discomfort with displays of emotion, Eian wrapped his arms around him in a big bear hug and pounded him on the back.  “Drust, my brother, I’m so verra happy to see ye.”

             
Drust quickly managed to disentangle himself from the embrace and held out his hand to the woman standing beside him.  She took it and he pulled her forward a little.  “My wife, Willa.”

             
Eian took her hand and kissed it, making her blush prettily, and causing Drust to frown. 

             
Faith stepped in then and quickly took command.  “The two of you must be exhausted after your long ride.  Let’s get you settled in, and then I’ll have the cook make something special for dinner to celebrate.”  She expertly began herding the three brothers back towards the keep.

             
After a moment, Eian paused and pulled Faith aside.  “Go on”, he said to the others, “we’ll be right there.”  Allia turned to see him whispering something to Bren’s wife, and then she saw Faith’s answering grin.  What was he up to?  She was certain to find out later, but for now, she was too overwhelmed to care.  All of this seemed just too perfect, and she was afraid that at any moment she’d wake up from the dream. 
Home… at last she was really home. 
And she had a feeling it was going to be more wonderful than she could have ever imagined.

             
Faith ran to catch up with them, and then she and Willa took Allia into the keep to help her freshen up, and then give her a tour. 

             
“I have to tell you”, Faith said once they were out of the men’s hearing, “it was really hard to imagine Eian ever settling down, so we knew you would have to be a very special woman to bring him to heel.  He was a bit… ummm… wild.  Passionate, though. 
Very
passionate.”

             
Allia smiled.  “I doubted it myself at first, but he proved himself to me.  It was just… destiny, I guess.  The same as it was for both of you.”  She paused and cleared her throat.  “I… think you and I might have something in common, Faith.”

             
Faith’s eyes lit up and she broke into a grin.  “I knew it!  What did I tell you, Willa?  It took a woman of modern sensibilities to bring that boy down.”

             
Willa laughed.  “Of course it did.  I never met Eian until today, but his reputation certainly preceded him.  And I know that Drust truly had doubts that he would ever settle down.”

             
  Allia was glowing with happiness.  She had known instantly that these two women were going to be her best friends.  And this time she could stay in one place and keep the friends she made.  An older woman bustled into the room carrying a baby in each arm and after being introduced to Maggie, the housekeeper and sometimes-midwife, Allia met her two little nephews.  Two gorgeous baby boys that looked very much like their fathers.

             
“Thank you, Maggie, for watching them”, Faith said, taking her son and balancing him on one hip.  Willa took the other baby, a newborn, then all three women looked pointedly at Allia.  She had heard the prophecy.  She knew exactly what they wanted to know.

             
She grinned at them.  “Oh, all right.  Yes.  Eian and I are expecting a child too.” 

             
After a round of excited giggles and womanly bonding, the three of them spent several hours in the parlor, playing with the babies, talking, and just getting to know one another.  It was nearly dinner time when she heard Eian calling her name, sounding almost frantic.

             
“I’d better go and see what he wants.”

             
The other two women raised their eyebrows and exchanged knowing smiles, as if they could guess exactly what a newlywed Mac Coinnach man wanted with his wife.  When Allia left the room, they had erupted into another fit of happy laughter.  She found Eian in the hall, and she stepped quietly up behind him from the doorway and wrapped her arms around him.  "I'm right here, what's wrong?"

             
He turned and pulled her to him, holding on tightly as he kissed the top of her head and nuzzled her hair.  "I couldn't find ye.  I was worried."

             
"I'm not going to run away, Eian."

             
"I should hope no’, because I’d only find ye and drag ye back home again.  I just want ye with me, always.  I canna stand to be without ye."

             
"Well, you'll have to be without me sometimes, I can't be chained to your side."

             
"Oh, aye, ye can.  Dinna tempt me."  He bent to kiss her lips.  "I willna lose ye, ever again.  Especially not by my own foolishness."

             
She kissed the masculine line of his jaw.  "Didn't you have a philosophy about women... I think I heard it from some of the men at Lochain… something about there always being another one..."

             
He pulled her even tighter to him.  "That's all changed now.  From the moment I saw ye."  He bent to place light kisses on her nose, her eyes.  "There will never, ever be another woman for me."

             
Already her heart was racing, and her body felt restless.  The man only had to look at her and she wanted him.  Her hands slid over his shirt to feel hardness of his chest beneath the fabric.  He growled low in his throat and pulled her hips hard against his so that she could feel his desire for her.

             
"I need to have ye, right now”, he growled near her ear.  “Let’s go upstairs.”

             
“But it’s nearly time for dinner, and Faith planned a kind of welcome home party for us.”

             
He was already dragging her toward the stairs.  ”Ye can walk or I can carry ye lass, but dinna worry, it will only take a minute.  Then we can go to dinner.”

              The next morning, after a blissful first night together at Creagmor, Allia woke to find Eian already gone from their bed.  She sat up just as the door opened, and he came in bearing a small wooden box and a mischievous smile.  He put the box down on the bed before her.  “Open it.”

             
A strange scratching sound was coming from inside.  Confused, she have him a questioning look and lifted the lid gingerly.  Looking up at her was a tiny, adorable ginger colored kitten.  She lifted it from the box and held it against her cheek, tears forming in her eyes.

             
“Oh Eian, thank you!”  He had listened to her story about the kitten she had left behind, how it had been a symbol of some semblance of permanence in her life, and how she had had to leave him to come here.  By giving her this new kitten, he was saying that her life was here with him now, forever.