To Tempt Highland Fate (The Mac Coinnach Brothers) (50 page)

             
To try to deny that fact any longer only made him feel like a fool.  It was not his body’s primal reaction to near-death at all that had him all torn up inside and constantly harder than a damned rock.  It was the woman. 
This
woman.  Something about her… made him crazy.  But he could never have her, even if he were to let himself consider such a thing.  He didn’t know who she was, but he knew she was special.  Full of grace and beauty and far too high above him to even hope to have her…  He had to heal and leave this place before he was tempted to do something he would regret.  Or something he’d no doubt be punished for when her family found out…

             
“Fine”, Willa said when he just looked at her for several long moments.  “I’ll decide what we’ll do today.  In fact, I’ve already decided, because I knew you were going to be stubborn about it.  You see, there are two choices here.  You can either enjoy the time you’re given and live life to the fullest, because you really don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or… you can be all serious and miserable and refuse to so much as smile.  Which is not much fun.  I know which I choose, so first, we’ll make some sweet buns, and while they bake, we’ll go for a walk, but not too far.  Perhaps down to the river to bathe.”

             
His eyes widened at that, and Willa smiled to herself.  “I’ll get the flour.  And Maura brought me some raisins from her sister.”  She paused to push red hot coals from the hearth into the small oven to heat it, then retrieved the flour from a shelf.

             
She set a bowl on the table, then moved around the room, gathering ingredients and measuring them, handing Drust a spoon. 

             
“Here.  Stir this.”

             
She almost laughed aloud when he looked at the spoon as if he’d never seen one before, but he apparently decided against arguing and tentatively began to stir.  Willa smiled.  Here was a warrior that she had no doubt would be all power and grace with a sword in his hand, yet mixing a bowl of dough seemed to confound him.  She went to her little chest to retrieve a jar of cinnamon.  When she took it out, she felt a mixture of joy at having such a simple pleasure, and shame that she thought to bring such luxuries under the circumstances.  Of course when she had packed the tea and spices, she had only been running away.  She couldn’t have known she would end up running for her life. Or maybe she should have known, had she gotten her head out of the clouds in time and paid more attention.

             
Well, however it came about, they would have cinnamon with the sweet buns.  And this time, she was in charge.  She would choose the man she wanted, and she would call the shots.  Or so she hoped.

             
Willa struggled to open the little jar, but the lid wouldn’t budge.  She pulled and twisted and tugged at it, determined.  She felt her temper rising, and knew she had kept it too firmly tamped down these past weeks as survival was first and foremost.  There was still a painful anger in her that was burning just below the surface, and she had been doing her best to ignore it.  Now it seemed the hapless jar of cinnamon was about to take the brunt of her firmly buried emotions.

             
“Damn!”  The expletive slipped from her lips just as she felt a solid warmth right behind her.

             
Drust’s arms came around her and took the jar from her hands.  “Do ye need help, lass?”  There was a hint of amusement in his voice as he easily loosened the lid and put the jar carefully down on the table in front of her.

             
She leaned back a little and turned her head to look up at him with a rueful smile. 

             
“Thank you.”

             
The smile quickly faded as she became aware of the closeness of his body, pressed against her, and her heart began to pound.  Instinctively, she leaned back just a little farther, bringing the length of their bodies together.  He was so warm, so hard, and he smelled like dark spice and sin…                 

             
She felt Drust tense, as if such close contact with her was unwelcome, but she had seen the raw hunger flash in his eyes.  And she felt the rigid evidence of that hunger suddenly pressing into the small of her back.  Slowly, as if he could not help himself, his arms tightened around her, and one hand slowly trailed up her side until his fingers slid past her throat and traced the delicate line of her jaw.  She stopped breathing. 
Waiting.  Hoping.

             
Yes!  Kiss me.
 
Please, kiss me! 

             
She was trembling in his arms now, consumed completely by the tension and heat and the scent of the man holding her enthralled with only the closeness of his body and the unspoken promise of what could be between them… but she would have to wait.

             
He made a small, anguished sound and dropped his hand, abruptly pulling away from her.

             
No!
  She had never felt so suddenly cold and alone. 
Abandoned
.

             
“Do ye need help with anything else lass, or will that be all?” 

             
Oh no, that’s not all, Warrior…
  She sighed.  “That’s all, thank you.”

             
Willa turned back to the food on the table, but it was oh so hard to concentrate now on what she was doing.  She had known this man for such a short time… no, she didn’t even really know him at all.  And yet she felt absolutely desperate to be close to him.  God!  Who was she fooling?  She wanted to tear off all of his clothes and touch him everywhere, until he begged for more, until he belonged to her, body and soul. 
Do it!  Take what you want for once… No regrets Willa, life can turn in a heartbeat…dare to take what you want.

              The rolls were in the oven, and now Drust followed Willa down the little path to the river, carrying a cake of soap and a drying cloth.  He felt a little stronger today.  For the first time since he’d been injured, he didn’t start to black out every single time he stood.  It still hurt to walk… hell, it hurt to breathe, but now he could feel his body mending, the knitting flesh tightening and itching.  His strength was slowly returning, and he relished it. It could not come fast enough.

             
His attention was quickly drawn by the gently swaying hips of the lass walking in front of him.  Damn if he hadn’t nearly kissed her. 

             
He hadn’t meant to. 

             
She was about to beat the hell out of a spice jar, and he had automatically turned to help her.  But then when he leaned over and his body touched hers… it was as if the very fabric of time stopped moving all around them, and he only wanted to pull her closer and taste her mouth… and feel her tender but fierce spirit that was so alive.    Aye, he knew all was not what it seemed.  There was a reason Willa was hiding here, and a reason this place was warded.  She was in trouble of some sort, perhaps even mortal danger.  He felt a fierce protectiveness rise in his chest.  No one would harm her while he was here… and when he left… well, he couldn’t think about that now.  She was not his, and he would not bring whatever trouble she was in back to his home.  No woman was worth risking the safety of his clan.  The river came into view, and he tossed the cake of soap idly in one hand.  It was true that he could use a good scrubbing.

             
Willa stopped at the shore and put her things down on a large, flat rock.  The river was wide but shallow, the clear water flowing past like liquid silk at this spot, and gurgling over stones just a little farther downstream.  “Now, take off your clothes and kneel in the water there where the bottom is sandy, and I’ll wash your hair for you.”

             
Drust looked at her like she’d suddenly gone mad.  He shook his head.  “I think no’, lass.  I can wash myself.”

             
She raised an eyebrow, clearly ready for him to argue.  “You can’t wash your hair with one hand and do a good job of it”, she told him.

             
This was true.  He still couldn’t lift his arm above his head on his injured side, it pulled too much on the healing wound.  He glared at her, but kicked off his boots.  He was feeling rather grimy and he supposed he was willing to sacrifice a little bit of pride to be completely clean.  Willa had washed him while he was unconscious, but he hadn’t let her near him with her cloth and soap since.  Not only would it have been torture, but he was certain he would have had an erection the size of a battle ax the entire time, which she would definitely have noticed.  Not that she probably hadn’t noticed all of the others by now. 

             
Willa gave him a victorious smile and reached for the hem of his tunic, whipping it up and over his head in one smooth motion, then tugging the sleeves down off his arms.  She paused a moment to take in the site of his bare chest, still rippling with hard muscle even after he must have lost quite a bit of his former strength since he’d been injured.  He had a body made for a woman’s every fantasy, and hers, admittedly, had always run a little wild.  Would he ever willingly let her touch him?

             
He turned away and went toward the river, wading into the cool water. He slowly sunk to his knees at the deepest part, the water still reaching only half way up his chest.  Willa quickly took off her dress, leaving only her shift on, and grabbed her bucket and soap. 

              The water was a cold shock to his skin, but God, it felt good.  Clean and crisp.  At home, he bathed in the loch nearly every day.  He liked to feel clean. 

             
He heard Willa wading towards him, but did not turn around.  He knew she wore only her shift and he was trying to be honorable and not look, damn it.  It would only make things worse for him, anyway.  He felt her hand sweep his hair back from his shoulders.  As always, his breath caught at her touch as pleasure swept over his skin.

             
“Tilt your head back”, she told him.

             
She filled her bucket and poured the water over his head, causing a new shock of cold to rip through his body.  She poured again, and this time the shock was less.  Then she soaped his hair and began to scrub, her fingers working gently against his scalp.  Damn, but it felt good, her hands tugging gently at his hair.  A small sound of pleasure escaped his throat.  When she finished and began to rinse, he mourned the loss of her touch.  Then she reached around to hand him a cake of soap.  Leaning over, she spoke near his ear.

             
“Do you want to wash the rest, or shall I?”

             
She’s trying to kill me.

             
He glared at her, but took the soap and slipped it beneath the water to lather the rest of his body.  It was all he could do to wash his private parts without leaving his hand fisted around his cock.  He needed so badly to come, had needed to for
days
… his whole body ached with it.  He heard a splash, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Willa duck her head under and burst through the surface, water sluicing over her back and shoulders.  She rose and took a few steps toward him.

             
“Are you finished with the soap?”

             
“Aye.”

             
She reached out and he handed it to her, realizing too late that the water had rendered the thin fabric of her shift nearly transparent.  He saw the round swells of her breasts, and the rosy nipples puckered with cold.  The wet fabric clung to the slim lines of her waist, and lower, he could see the darker triangle at the juncture of her thighs.  She took the soap from his hand and sank slowly back into the water with a wicked grin, but not before the sight of her like that was burned forever into his memory.  Her body was lean and muscular, yet soft and feminine and curved in all the right places.  The delicate span of her waist flared to lush hips and long legs.   He could not imagine anything more perfect.  Her hair hung in damp ropes around her shoulders.  The complete effect had been far more tantalizing than if she had been completely nude.  Was the lass
trying
to drive him mad, flaunting before him what he could not have?  His hand slipped beneath the water to adjust the erection which still pressed uncomfortably against the wet breeches he had retied under the water.  If he stood, she would no doubt notice the state he was in if she so much as glanced down, but there was no help for it.  He got to his feet and made his way as quickly as he could to the shore, grabbing a drying cloth and toweling first his hair, then his body.  Holding it strategically in front of his groin, he turned to see if Willa was still bathing.  She was walking out of the water towards where he stood on the shore, her shift plastered to her wet body, and looking for all the world like Aphrodite rising from the sea.  Except perhaps more beautiful.  Aye, definitely more beautiful.