Highland Enchantment (Highland Brides) (33 page)

Sometime during the night it began to rain again. The occasional hiss of a droplet striking the glowing embers woke them. They lay together in com' pardonable silence for a while, her head cushioned against his arm.

"I've dreamt of this," he said softly. The truth seemed so easy now, so simple; undeniable almost, which should have scared him, for the truth had never been his particular friend. A good lie had always suited him better. "More times than I can count."

"You've dreamt of being pierced and lost?" she asked.

He chuckled. It hurt, but the pain was almost pleasant, for she was there. "Nay. Of being here with you."

"Methinks you are too easy to please," she said.

He laughed again and their conversation moved on. They talked of a thousand things, old memories, people they had known, food and feasts and hopes and dreams, until the rain stopped and they fell once again into the soft folds of slumber.

When next they awoke it was daylight. The sun had won the battle for the sky and smiled down on their tiny haven in the woods. Rachel shifted in their mossy bed.

"I'll go hunt up some breakfast."

"By yourself?"

"Cook is busy."

"I'll accompany you."

She gave him a dubious look. "I fear you'll only slow me down."

"Were you planning to run down a stag?"

"Stay and rest."

"I've been resting. Help me up."

She did so, though grudgingly.

He managed to walk by himself into the woods to relieve himself as she did the same in the opposite direction.

Not much later they were arm in arm, making their way to the river.

Liam squatted carefully on the shore. Dipping his hands in the gentle waves, he scooped up some of the water and washed it over his face. It had been some days since he'd shaved, and the water felt wondrous against his skin.

"I fear twill be a hungry morning," Rachel said, glancing downstream.

"Cook is out of sowens?"

"My net broke."

"Oh?" Liam pushed himself to his feet. Despite his expectations, his eyeballs remained in his head, and no unsuspecting body parts abandoned him because of the movement. The world only spun crazily for a second or so. "You made a net?"

"Just over there." She pointed to a place where snagged branches and a couple of boulders made a natural trap.

"Clever lass." He stepped forward.

"Not so very. I fear I can see its tattered remains even now," she said, and indeed, when they reached it, they found that the net had been dragged apart by the waves. Still, a bit of her handiwork remained in place, and miraculously, in that net, two small trout were caught by their gills.

"Clever,
beloved
lass," Liam said. "If you'll fetch me my knife we'll dine well this morn."

She did as requested, and as Liam filleted the fishes, she improved her net and replaced it in the crystal waters.

They wrapped the fishes in oak leaves and buried them in the embers. Then Rachel rose to search for medicinal herbs and whatever staples the woods may have to offer.

The minutes before she returned seemed lonely and long, but finally she appeared, carrying an array of goodies in her pouch that had somehow survived their misfortunes.

"Look what I've found," she said, seeming as happy as a child as she spread out her treasures for him to see.

It didn't take her long to see to her herbs, hanging some to dry, boiling a few then pouring the extract into a hollow gourd. Nor did she delay in starting to brew another batch of soup, or roasting the newly found chestnuts in the ashes.

Their meal seemed sumptuous beyond explanation. The morning wound on, the sun growing brighter, the day warmer. In the shade of their makeshift home they ate some of the soup then talked of old times until sleep found them.

Finally, as the sun settled over the western branches of the woods, they wound their way back toward the river, gathering anything that caught their fancy, feathers, unfurling fronds of bracken, bonny bits of broken rocks, all which they dropped into Rachel's pouch.

The water in the tiny cove was glassy smooth and shone like amber as the sun struck it in a western slant.

They held hands as they stared out upon the beauty of the world. And though Liam was vaguely certain there was a reason he should not kiss her, he couldn't remember what it was.

Her lips felt like magic against his.

She drew back finally, breathing shallowly through her devilish lips, her eyes just a shade brighter than the water that lapped across their feet.

Clearing her throat, she dropped her gaze to his chest. "Twould be a likely time for me to change your bandage."

Liam winced. "I admit that I hoped my kiss would put you in mind of more pleasant things than torturing me."

"If we soak the cloth it won't be so difficult to remove. I've made a soap to cleanse your wound," she said, and lifted the gourd she'd brought along.

"You've been planning this torture all the while?" he asked irritably.

"Twill not be so bad."

He harrumphed. "I've borne your ministrations before, Rachel. I'm certain the bandage is fine as is. In fact..." He lifted his arm, prepared to spew forth some likely lie about his amazing recovery, but her next words stopped him.

"I will bathe you."

His breath caught in his throat. "What say you?"

"I will bathe you," she repeated.

He tried to think of some clever rejoinder, but he was far past that hopeful event. Every aching muscle in his body was tense, and his lower regions were already tightening painfully. "As you said,"

he managed, barely able to press out the words, "tis certainly time to be rid of this bandage."

Rachel's lips tilted ever so slightly—the devil in the saint, and then she reached up, soft as gosling down and touched his cheek. Her fingers rasped through the bristle of his whiskers.

Still he couldn't breathe, and when she kissed his lips, there was no hope. He reached for her, unconcerned for the pain in his chest, but she pressed his arm gently down with her opposite hand and skimmed her nail pads across his bristly chin and onto his chest. For a moment he felt the heavenly sweetness of her flesh against his, and then the soft grate of her touch against his bandage.

He almost protested, for he feared she planned to begin her ministrations immediately, but her fingers did not stop. Instead, they slid, slow as summer over the rigid, waiting muscles of his abdomen and down to the laces of his trousers.

Liam sucked a draft of air between his teeth and squeezed his eyes closed as he waited. His breeches eased open. He felt the air against the heat of his skin and tightened his fists.

She moved a scant step closer. He could hear her breathing, could feel the smoothness of her fingers against his abdomen, his sides and his hips as she eased the fabric down over his buttocks.

His erection, hard as need, was pulled sideways, but it could only bend so far before it popped back up. For a moment she went still. He heard the soft intake of her breath, and then she was moving again, easing the garment downward, over his thighs, down his calves.

He stepped out of his hose and glanced breathlessly down at her. At that very moment, she turned her face up.

Their gazes fused. He reached down and drew her to her feet. Between the ragged laces of her battered gown, her breasts rose and fell. Brushing his nails along her jaw, he skimmed past her ear and smoothed his palm beneath the weight of her burnished hair.

Their kiss was magic, as pure as the flowing water, as clean as the air they breathed. But he could wait no longer for foolish poetry. Beneath his impatient fingers, her laces eased loose. In a moment, her shoulders were bare. Such bonny shoulders. He kissed one.

A tiny moan escaped her. He had not thought his desire could harden any more. But seeing her thus, with her head thrown back and the light of the waning sun falling on her hazelnut skin was more than he could bear. Her clothing slipped away. She stepped out of the circle of fabric. Liam skimmed his gaze over her, the taut swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the sweet, gentle flare of her hips and the smooth endless length of her legs.

Dear God, she was beautiful beyond words, and when she reached for his hand, he followed her without question into the sun-warmed water. It rose to his knees, and there, in the shelter of two boulders, she pulled him down into the lapping waves.

The soft fingers of the water smoothed over his buttocks, licked his scrotum, eased up his abdomen, and touched the lower portions of his bandage. It wasn't until it seeped through the fabric to his wound that he jerked at the impact.

"Nay." She breathed the word as she pressed a gentle hand to his chest. "Nay, all is well," she promised and slipping her body over his, she kissed him.

Suddenly it didn't matter if his chest was seared in two, if his heart burst asunder, if he were drowned here in these quiet waters.

He kissed her mouth, her cheek, the elegant length of her neck. She arched away like an enchanting sea nymph, her legs as slick as silk against his own. Her waist, when he touched it, was as tight and tiny as a willow, and her breasts... They gleamed, wet and ruby-tipped in the sun's last rays.

Reaching up, Liam curved his palm over one. Dragonheart brushed his hand. He kneaded the soft flesh gently, and she moaned. Letting her head fall back, she braced her hands against him.

Pain stabbed through his chest as she brushed his wound. He jerked at the impact.

"Liam?" She pulled her hand away as if burned. "I'm sorry." She leaned over him, her breast pressed warm and heavy against his arm, her eyes full of worry.

He tried to catch his breath, but couldn't quite manage it.

"Are you badly hurt?"

Dragonheart's chain had been hooked over her right nipple. The image was strangely, almost painfully erotic.

"Liam?"

"Aye,"
he rasped, and managed with some effort to pull his gaze from her breast. "Aye, I am in great pain, but I think you can mend me."

"What can I..." she began, but in that instant he skimmed his hand down her back and over her buttocks, gently sweeping her atop him.

She settled over him like a soft wet dream.

"Oh," she said, her tone breathy.

Reaching up, he kissed her lips and rocked his hips into her.

"Oh," she said again, her voice throaty this time and her hips rocking on their own. Bending forward, she kissed his lips. Her ruby nipples brushed his chest, her sweet bottom brushed his penis.

And somehow, with no apparent effort at all, she glided around him. The blessed agony nearly overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes. The moan escaped on its own.

"Liam?" she murmured, her tone worried as she ceased her rocking. "Shall I quit?"

"I'd rather you drown me."

It took her a moment for his words to sink in, but when they did, she moved again, a fraction of an inch, pressing onto him like a beloved scabbard. A slow, painfully slow scabbard. But he would not rush her, would not take that slow torture from her.

Besides, there was nothing he could do. He lay in the water, the sarid cradling him, the waves caressing him and her body clutching him like a precious jewel.

She eased farther on, then farther. He inadvertently allowed a groan to escape, but either she was past caring for his comfort, or she no longer expected to kill him with this sweet torture. And now he could wait no longer. Pressing his hands into the silt of the river bottom, he ground his hips upward.

Their groans melded. He moved again. Her body answered, arching slowly into the movement.

Utopia swallowed him. Water lapped higher about their straining bodies. Muscles flexed and tensed and strove. Breathing escalated, hearts hammered. Passion gripped them hard and fast, not caring about the consequences. Only caring for their escape from reality into this hot, torrid bliss.

Tension built like a storm inside Liam, bubbling and bulging and straining to be set free. He pumped harder, and she answered, riding him like a mermaid on a wild sea steed, her head thrown back in frantic ecstasy. It was the vision that pushed him over the edge that made him crash past the barrier of need.

He pulsed desperately into her. She rasped a high-pitched shriek of anguish, stiffened above him, and then softened, shoulders rounding.

Their heavy breathing mingled as she slumped forward, but before she dropped onto his chest, she slipped off his hips and onto the welcoming sand. There, cradled in the V created between his arm and his body, she let herself relax.

He shuddered once and tried to breathe more normally.

"Are you..." She took a few deep breaths. "Are you quite well?"

Ecstasy smiled on him. Nothing mattered now. Nothing but that she was his for this moment. He hugged her closer. "I think I shall survive."

"Liam?" She raised up on her arm, hovering over him, her worry warm on his face.

"Rachel." It took more strength than seemed practical for him to stroke her arm. "Saint Rachel."

"Hardly that." Her gaze slipped from his face to his chest. "I made you bleed again."

"Small price," he rasped. "If you want me head on a platter, you've but to ask."

"I got what I wanted," she sighed.

He raised his brows at her. This new Rachel might be enough to kill him, but death had never looked so appealing. "Did you?" he breathed.

"Aye." Her hair draped like a curtain of glimmering silk past her face. "For now," she said, and smoothed her hand up his arm.

Liam blew out a slow breath. "I may need a few minutes before a repeat performance."

She laughed low in her throat. "Then I might as well see to your bandage."

"So you were just trying to distract me. I knew it was too good to last."

"Nay, not too good," she sighed. "Not for you."

Miraculously, the process gave him little pain. Her hands were like magic against his skin, touching, smoothing, her brow puckered as she stared at his chest.

"How does it look?" he asked, glancing down, but she stopped him with a hand beneath his chin.

"Tis healing well," she said, and leaning forward, kissed the muscle just above the wound.