Highland Flame (Highland Brides) (28 page)

Flame closed her eyes. His hand slipped lower.

"There," he murmured, running one finger along her bottom lip. The shiver took her entire body now, trembling her from head to foot, but already his mouth had captured hers.

She tried to resist, but he was all hard muscle and soft sentiment. And at this moment, she was all woman. The heat of his kiss seared her senses. The tenderness of his fingers against her cheek abolished her objections, and when he drew away, she felt bereft. But in a moment he bent and lifted her from the water. She could hear him splashing through the gentle waves, but she didn't look where he took her. For this moment, she wanted only to feel the beat of his heart against her breast, the play of his muscles beneath her hands.

Finally, he bent. She felt her back brush against the smooth surface of a warm rock. He settled her legs into the soft grip of the water and her bottom against the sand. A jumble of age-worn boulders stood here, trapping still, sun-warmed water in their midst.

Roderic settled beside her and then he was kissing her again, half covering her with his torso. Even through her shirt, Flame could feel his muscles flex and shift against her breasts. She should call this to a halt, she knew. Instead, she raised her hand to his chest. Air rasped between his teeth at her touch. Their gazes met and melded. Without her consent, her hand slipped lower. Her fingers skimmed over each rib and onto the taut, undulated plane of his abdomen. Again, air hissed through Roderic's teeth, but he didn't draw away. His lips were slightly parted, she noticed, and his body was as still and rugged as if it were crafted from purest granite.

Curiosity pulled at Flame. Her gaze slipped down his broad throat, over his mounded chest, and lower still.

His desire stood rock hard and upright against his flat belly.

She jerked her gaze and her hand away with a start. "Roderic!" she gasped, sitting upright.

He blinked innocently. "Aye?"

"This is ... this is foolishness."

"Nay, lass, this is heavenly."

"But I..." She was breathing hard. A hundred night raids would be less frightening than this—and less exhilarating. Her gaze caught his, and the intensity in his eyes stopped her breath in her throat "I... I left my hose on the shore," she murmured hopelessly.

"That I noticed, lass."

"And I…" A thousand proper phrases came to mind, but she seemed unable to force a single one of them past her lips. "I don't want to stop ye."

"Forgive me for having na regrets."

"But I must stop ye."

"Nay, lass," he whispered, his expression suddenly serious. "Trust me ta stop meself."

"I do not trust men," she whispered.

He touched her face ever so gently. "I admit that I may have earned the name of Rogue, Flanna. But I have never broken a vow. Trust in me now, lass. Even if ye beg, I will not agree ta mate with ye this day. However, I am about ta remove yer shirt."

She could not stop him, did not want to. The fabric felt wet and soft as he slipped it from her arms and over her head, and suddenly she was as naked as he.

Flame watched his eyes and shivered beneath his attention. Instead of reaching for her, he urged her further into the water. Sand cradled her back. Soft, warm ripples caressed her.

Roderic's nostrils flared and his jaw tightened as his gaze skimmed her body, caressing her breasts, her belly, the length of her legs.

She felt breathless and tight as a bowstring.

"Ahh, ye are stunning, lass. I can hardly believe ye have been saved for me," he murmured. His gaze felt hot on her skin.

She closed her eyes aqd trembled. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
Do something. Say something,
her mind commanding. "Did I not tell ye I have a lover?"

"Aye, ye did, lass," he murmured, kissing her throat.

"And did I mention the others?" Though she tried to sound flip and confident, her throat felt tight and her hands were clenched to fists in the water.

"Others?"

"Yes. Hundreds."

"Ahh," he murmured and smoothed the backs of his fingers across the high swell of her breast. "So there have been hundreds, have there?"

"Yes. Scotsmen, Frenchmen ..." She shivered as he brushed her nipple. Against her will, her head dropped back.

"Beggermen, thieves?" he asked.

"Yes... those, too," she said and trembled again.

He laughed. The sound was husky and caused something deep inside her to ache. "I dunna mean ta call ye a liar, lass, and though I ken that men are often fools, na man could have ye once and na give his life ta call ye his verra own. Have ye left dead men in yer wake, lass?''

"None to my knowledge," she breathed.

"Then ye were saved for me."

She tried to argue, but his lips were on hers again. They moved with a tender warmth that teased and tantalized. With the fluidness of a wave, his body slipped onto hers. There was nothing more natural than cradling him between her thighs.

Sunshine caressed her skin. And wherever the light reached, his fingers reached, too, skimming over the bridge of her nose, the fullness of her bottom lip. Feather soft, his hand drifted along her shoulder. She was breathless with the feelings he evoked. But there was more to come, so much more, for where his hand roamed, so roamed his kisses. Her arms quivered beneath his caresses, but when she drew them toward her body, his kisses only drifted to the side. She gasped at the feel of his lips against the aching tenderness of her breast.

"Roderic!" she murmured, trying to push away, but he only slipped forward onto one hip at her side. Ever so gently, he eased her back and kissed her lips.

"I dare not let myself trust." Her breath brushed his lips. Their gazes fused, azure on emerald.

"Be ye speaking from yer heart or yer head, lass?" he murmured.

"I am speaking from my memories."

"Then let us make new memories, Flanna. Memories we shall na forget for a lifetime." He touched her cheek with tender fingertips. "Memories ta make ye smile."

She wanted that. She wanted the memories he promised. But she was being foolish, and pain followed foolishness. But perhaps he was worth the pain. Perhaps a moment in his embrace was worth anything. She reached out, knowing her hand shook.

The bone in his shoulder was thick, the muscle of his upper arm, bunched and firmly packed. Without breathing, Flame ran her hand down his back. It rippled with power, but he neither hurried her nor stopped her exploration. Her fingers fell easily into the furrow that creased the middle of his back. They ran along that course until the rise of his buttocks. There her fingers spread, smoothing over one tight mound and down the back of his bulging thigh. It was as hard as an oaken bough. Instinctively, she pulled him toward her, aching for closer contact

Roderic willingly obliged. Coarse, golden hair rasped against her thighs as he dragged his leg over hers. Against her hip, Flame could feel the hard press of his desire and the heavy, twin sacks beneath it.

Reaching up, Flame slipped her free hand behind his neck and pulled him closer. Their kisses were no longer tender but scorching. With a moan, she pulled him back between her legs.

The hard length of his manhood pressed against her. He groaned. With a hand beneath her hips, he drew her closer still. Water sloshed over them, rocking her in its wake. Flame tilted her head into the pool and arched upward. She felt the urgent thrust of desire and pressed against his throbbing heat. He moaned but didn't enter her. She pushed more eagerly and he pushed back until they were rocking together on the waves, breathing hard and trembling with desire. Her shoulders pressed into the sand. His hands gripped her buttocks, pulling upward.

She arched higher and suddenly she felt his mouth close over her nipple. She shrieked against the intensity and thrust her hips wildly against him. Sparks of excitement streaked from her breast to her loins and off in every direction. Desire became pain, relief necessity.

Wrapping her arms about his back, she pulled him nearer still, trying to fill the aching need inside her, to find the Utopia that called like a siren's song. She heard his throaty moan again, but took no heed, for an unfamiliar need drove her onward.

"Lass," he rasped, abandoning her breast to kiss her throat, "dunna stretch me limits too far."

She was so close. So close. He pulsed hot and heavy against her nether regions. She arched against him.

"Lass," he moaned again, "I vowed."

"Damn the vows," she swore and dragged him inward.

Their gasps melded. But for the drawing of gasping breath, their bodies halted. He had entered her virgin gates by the barest fraction of an inch. Their eyes were shut, but each glimpsed heaven's door.

Flame's hands moved finally, drawing him closer with a ragged groan. Roderic shuddered, fighting a battle she neither shared nor condoned and raised himself to his hands and knees.

Flame felt paradise slipping away. "Nay!" she gasped, trying to pull him back.

"I vowed," he repeated through gritted teeth.

"But I did not," she rasped, gripping his arms with her nails. "And ye said I could use ye. Use ye and toss ye aside if I wished."

A self-mocking smile twitched his lips, but Flame could see nothing amusing.

"Was that not also a vow, Forbes?"

"Aye," he murmured, straddling her thigh to settle against her, "that it was."

"Then..." she began, but already he was suckling her again. "Oh!" she whimpered, thrusting her hips upward. Her desire did not meet the hard answer of his manhood. But it met the solid relief of his thigh. And it would do, for desire was exploding within her, erupting in sharp, demanding waves. She pressed urgently against him time and again, finally gaining the summit of need to fall limply on the other side.

He was there to catch her in his arms. But even through the blur of her tattered emotions, she felt him tremble.

Flame drew a shaky breath finally and tried to sit up. He allowed her a scant inch of room to lever her elbows into the pool's sandy bottom. She couldn't meet his gaze, but felt the sharp penetration of his eyes as he watched her.

She cleared her throat and pushed a strand of dripping hair from her face. His chest was very broad and rose and fell slightly with every breath he took. But finally, she couldn't resist the allure of his eyes and lifted her own to meet his. They shone like twin blue flames. Emotion made his features appear as hard as sculpted stone.

She could feel the sharp evidence of his unfulfilled desire against her abdomen and blushed. "Why do ye look at me like that?" she asked breathlessly.

"Like what?" His tone was husky, his stare as steady as a falcon's.

"Like you'd like to devour me."

The world around them was silent. "If ye dunna ken that, ye are na as smart as I suspected," he said and rose slowly to his feet.

His manhood reached nearly to his navel, hard and erect and still throbbing.

Flame gulped and forced her gaze to his face. He had, then, found no pleasure in their embrace, and so he was angry, she deduced, but she would not apologize, for in the past, apologies had gained her little. Haughtiness served her better. "Fetch my clothes," she demanded.

"Am I ta be yer maidservant then, lass?" he asked.

She nodded once, hoping he couldn't see how her hands shook. "Since ye have taken me far from my own servants, ye will need to serve me in their stead."

For a moment, she thought she saw a hint of amusement light his eyes, but then he bowed from the waist. "As ye wish, me lady," he said, and scooping her garments from the sand, hurled them into the lochan.

Chapter 19

“What are ye doing?" Flame gasped, rising with a jolt to her feet. The sudden movement caused her naked breasts to jiggle and his loins to throb with need.

Roderic gritted his teeth. "I be saving ye from yerself."

"You're demented!" she rasped angrily and spun toward the lochan, but in an instant he caught her arm. Her wet hair lashed about them both, binding them together for a moment

"Nay, lass," he breathed, finding even the touch of her hair was nearly more than his strained self-control could handle, "I am randy. And ye are verra bonny when ye are…" Her eyes fairly sparked green flame. "…naked," he finished.

"This was not my idea," she reminded him, trying to pull away. "So do not blame it on me."

"Were I ye, lass, I wouldna do all that bouncing about or there will be more blame to be placed. Lest ye forget," he said, drawing her against his aching body, "I be only a man. Na a saint."

He watched her throat convulse and fear vie with pride in her eyes. Hauteur won the battle. She lifted her chin. "Fetch ... my ... clothes."

There was nothing he could do but laugh, for despite it all, her spirit thrilled him. "Nay, lass," he said with a chuckle and backed away a half a step lest her proximity be his undoing. "For they would only find ye trouble."

"Trouble?" She yanked at her arm but he held it fast.

"Aye. Ye be too proud for yer own good. Ye would march like a triumphant queen to yonder cottage and demand provisions."

She glared at him. Her hair was slick and shone in copper-bright radiance. The sun stroked her golden face, showing every line, every slope of her features. This was not a pampered young lass with milky complexion and sparrow-light bones. This was a maid born to match a man in spirit and wit and raise bairns to make them proud. This was a woman!

"Now then, lass. 'Tis like this," he said, "though I sometimes canna say why, it would grieve me ta see ye taken hostage ... unless ye be
my
hostage. Therefore, I canna allow ye ta hie yerself up to the Lamonts' in yer manly garb, for they would recognize ye even afore ye spoke."

Her eyes narrowed as understanding began to dawn on her. "Drag me naked to that cottage and ye'll regret the very day ye were born."

Roderic struggled with his smile and miraculously won. "Nay, lass. Na naked. We have the tartan I found in the broken hut."

"Surely ye do not expect me to march up to that cottage wearing nothing but a blanket."