Medieval Highlands 01 - Highland Vengeance (39 page)

At the end of his patience, he came up off the bed. Throwing on the minimum covering for decency’s sake, he pounded over to the door and swung it wide. Resting his hands against the frame, he leaned forward, thrusting his head out to look in the direction of the alcove. If she’d gone on about her duties, he’d track her, throw her over his shoulder—in front of all—and bring her back to their chamber. Then he’d teach her a lesson in anticipation she’d never forget. For he was burning with the need to feel her against him, around him.

Maryn rested her shoulder against the wall on the other side of the door from the direction of Daniel’s gaze. Stepping forward, she tapped him on the shoulder. “Do you allow me in, or do I stand on the landing the rest of the afternoon?”

Daniel growled and whirled around. In the next instant, he had her in his arms.

A startled scream lodged in Maryn’s throat.

He slammed the door with the heel of his foot and stormed toward their bed.

Her husband’s skin was as hot as embers, sending a thrill down her spine. No more teasing; he was much too tightly wound. ‘Twould be best to appease her beast. She trailed her tongue from the curve of his neck to his earlobe, taking the flesh between her teeth and nibbling. “Mmm. You taste good.” Softly touching her lips to the curve of his ear, she whispered, “I need you, husband.”

Halting his stride, Daniel took the back of her head in his hand and kissed her with all the pent-up passion he’d been feeling.

Maryn pressed closer into him, tightening her arms around his neck.

A groan of pure male satisfaction burst from his throat. Breaking the kiss, he lightly brushed his lips across her heated cheeks. “God, how I love you.” He tugged the hair at the nape of her neck. “Where the hell were you? I was going mad.” In two more strides, he was at the edge of the bed, placing her on her feet and roughly untying the ribbons holding her gown closed. Then, yanking it, and the chemise, over her head, he knocked her filet askew. “I need to be inside of you. Now.”

Maryn nodded. “Aye. Now.” She took the filet from her hair and tossed it across the room. Settling back on the bed, she lifted her arms to her husband as he gently came down on top of her and settled between her thighs.

Positioning himself at her waiting feminine portal, Daniel kissed her deeply, thrusting inside her at the same time.

Maryn drew in a sharp breath and tensed at the slight sting.

“Shhshh, love. I’ll make it good for you.” Taking her nipple in his mouth, he suckled gently as he stroked her clitoris with his fingers and rocked his hips, slowly delving her hot canal. He lifted his head and breathed jaggedly against her mouth, his eyes closed in concentration. “That’s it, take me…mmm…does that feel better?” Her delighted moan was all the reply he needed. He ran his tongue along the inside of her bottom lip, and then deepened the kiss, tasting her fully. After another moment, he broke the bond, trailing wet, nibbling kisses down her throat and over the soft mound of her breast. When he at last reached the pliant peak, he opened his mouth wide and took it inside, laving and suckling it into a tight bud.

Feeling herself moistening from the combination of Daniel’s fingers, lips and metered entry, Maryn pulsed around him, able to take more of him with each new thrust. She raised her hips to meet him. “I need you deep inside me. Do not stop.” Panting, she held her husband’s backside as she rocked against him, wrapping her legs high around his waist.

Daniel kissed Maryn’s neck and shoulder, moving inside her as he manipulated her clitoris, preparing her for a deeper possession. When he had her writhing beneath him, her slick juices flowing around him, he rose up on his knees and positioned a pillow under her bottom. Lifting her legs over his shoulders, he came down on his forearms. Pulling almost all the way out of her, he looked into her passion-filled eyes and plunged deep. They both yelled out in surprise and ecstasy. He thrust into her twice more before he felt her muscles tightening around him. He rocked his hips faster, making her splinter, her beautiful head thrown back and her blushing breasts bouncing as she dug her nails into his upper arms and cried out his name over and over again.

Feeling his own climax begin, Daniel raised up on his knees and held her hips steady as he pumped inside her, his eyes riveted to the place where they were joined. His movements became frenzied, his muscles shaking in rapture, as he came on a long moan, until, with a final shudder, he felt the last eddy of his release. Afterward, freeing her hips from his grasp, Daniel rolled onto his back, dizzy and shaken.

His wife curled on her side against him, settling her head on his shoulder and wrapping her leg over his still-throbbing groin. He drew in a harsh breath through his teeth at the ultra-sensitive contact and quickly moved the leg further south.

“Think you we disturbed the babe with our eagerness, my love?” she asked after a moment, playing with the crisp hair on his chest.

Daniel opened his eyes and looked into hers. Seeing the worry there, he placed his hand on the side of her flushed face, stroking his thumb over the downy rise of her cheek. “Nay. Tho’ we were eager, we were not rough. The babe is well, fear not.” Taking his hand from her face, he trailed the back of his fingers over her still flat belly. “Are
you
well? That is the question. Has your stomach rebelled since this morn?”

She rolled to her back and his palm followed as he turned on his side and rested it over the place where their babe nestled inside her. She lifted her hands and put them over his large tanned one that so easily spanned her stomach. “I am well. I seem only to have that affliction when I rise each morn.”

Daniel leaned down and kissed the nestling place of his son—or daughter. Smiling, he remembered his wife’s gullibility in believing he would know the sex of his bairn this early on. Tho’ it did please him to receive such belief in his abilities from his usually quick-witted mate. In truth, he cared not whether his babe were lad or lass—he cared more that it be healthy and that his wife remain healthy as well.

She stroked his arm. “What worries you? Grandmother Maclean assures me that this sickness will not last many sennights more, if that is your concern.”

Rising over his wife, his elbows on either side of her face, he bent down and kissed her. Lifting his head and looking deeply into her eyes a moment, he said, “You must promise me that you will be very careful now that you carry our bairn.”

“Daniel, I—”

Placing a kiss against her forehead, his lips caressed the skin as he spoke, silencing her argument. “Please swear you will not put yourself or our babe in peril.”

“What mean you, ‘peril’? Surely you know that I would not risk losing this babe, now that I know of its existence?”

Daniel saw the heightened color of her cheeks and the stubborn set of her jaw and knew he must tread carefully in order to get her agreement. She invariably saw his desire to keep her safe as a desire to instead control her actions. “You mistake me, my love. I do know that you would never intentionally risk our babe’s life. Nay, I only seek to caution you regarding your normally active habits and request that you refrain from those that are more strenuous until after the babe arrives. ‘Tis best for both you and the bairn.”

*

Calming at her husband’s words, and his concern for their welfare, Maryn kissed his chin, stroking the curve of his ear. She sighed, knowing she must give him her promise, but wondering how tightly drawn the reins would be. Lord, would he even allow her to walk to the village now? Probably not. This fortress, which had been built to keep the enemy out, felt more like a prison to keep her in. “Aye, Daniel, you have my promise. I’ll be cautious in my activities until the babe is born.”

Smiling against her temple, he said, “If you’ll but open yourself wide to me, I have a gift I’m bursting to give you. Try not to scream too loudly when you receive it—I want no others to know you’re getting it.”

Goosebumps rose along her flesh. Maryn did exactly as he requested—and was wickedly rewarded for her acquiescence.

Callum sat by the loch, deep in thought. Picking up a smooth, flat pebble, he skimmed it across the water and absently watched as the missile bounced four times before ending its trek to drop down through the wet basin and find a new home. Maryn was with child—another man’s child—his
cousin’s
child. He’d believed himself prepared for this, the fruitful outcome of her wedded state, but the tidings had shaken him to his boots.

He scrubbed his fingers over the tension in his neck. He should never have returned here, that fact was plain. But he’d grown too anxious to see for himself that she fared well with her new husband, so had offered to deliver the tidings of his mother’s betrothal himself, and had resolutely traveled back here, to his grandfather’s holding.

With a short, self-derisive laugh, he threw his head back and rolled his eyes. Aye, he still thought of it as his
grandfather’s
holding. Which, he supposed, was one of the reasons he’d never felt comfortable taking over the lairdship. For, ‘twas truth, he’d been spoiled by his parents and grandparents. So much so that, at the time of his grandfather’s passing, he’d been much too callow, too undisciplined to be the leader this clan needed, the leader his grandfather had expected him to be. If only his father had not grown ill and taken to his bed so soon after the old man’s death, then mayhap he would have advised his son, been the guiding hand Callum had so desperately needed. Surely then, Callum reasoned, his tenure as laird of the Macleans would have been marked by excellence rather than failure.

Aye, he’d failed in his duties to his clan—made far too many mistakes. Most of them due to the guise of arrogance behind which he’d childishly hidden his uncertainty. He’d harshly forced his will and authority upon everyone under his rule, while he actively ignored the slow decay of unity within the clan which ultimately manifested itself in their poor maintenance and security of the keep.

But then it had all come to a rather ignominious end with his desperate attempt at blackmail. Callum snorted in derision. What a pompous ass he’d been! He’d actually believed that he’d found the perfect solution to Laird Donald’s adamant refusal to allow him to wed Maryn. But instead, his threat had only served to hasten his loss of her. And had very nearly put an end to the friendship they shared in the bargain.

Callum sighed in resignation. But, ‘twas all past and finished now. For his cousin was not only the new laird of the Macleans, but Maryn’s husband, as well as the father of her unborn babe. And he, himself, had been relegated to his previous stature within the clan. Which, he recognized fully, was not such a bad lot to be given, after all the trouble he’d caused.

Except he could not watch his love grow round with another man’s babe. Nay, he could
not
. The pretense of lightheartedness he’d used to conceal his tender regard and broken heart these past sennights was wearing thin. And, if he remained here, he knew, he would be forced to continue the deception—a thing he no longer had the will to do.

“Aaaahhhh!” Dropping his head into his hands, he gave a vicious tug to his hair. After a few more silent moments of agonizing debate, with the only sound around him, the rustling of the leaves on the trees and the birds twittering high up in their nests, his head shot up.
Why not move with my new family to the MacGregor holding?
Alleck would no doubt balk, but he was young and would make new friends easily. Aye, that was surely the best course to take, if Jesslyn would only agree to it. But how to get her agreement without confessing his true reasons for the move? Aye, there was the rub.

Hearing the caw of a goshalk, Callum rested back on his elbows and looked up at the blue sky. Seeing a starling trailing the hawk, he continued to watch. The hawk swooped and the starling followed. As she climbed again, the starling wove around the hawk’s tail. It seemed the two were using the open sky as their playing field.

Recognizing some of his own behavior in that of the starling’s—desperately pursuing a creature far above his range—Callum knew he must somehow find peace and, if he was very fortunate, someday find the love he sought in the arms of the woman he would soon wed.

Having some plan now of what to do, he rose to his feet and strolled over to where he had tethered his stallion, more than ready to return to the keep. Time alone would tell him if the decision he’d made this day was the right one.

*

“The man is driving me mad!” Maryn raged, stomping first one direction and then the other in Jesslyn’s front chamber. “‘Tis surprised I am that he has not required a servant to stand by my stool and lift the goblet to my lips each time I drink.” She stopped her pacing then and turned to look at her friend. “Does he think me so feeble?”

“Maryn, you exaggerate, surely. What has he asked you
not
to do now?”

Maryn saw that her friend was biting back a smile, but chose to ignore it. “He has decreed that I should
not
help Grandmother Maclean in the gardens each morn. He’s certain I shall strain my back, or some such nonsense.” She lifted her hands to her head and plunged her fingers into her hair, sending her filet clattering to the floor. Ignoring the sound, Maryn turned to Jesslyn. “What am I to do? I cannot bear six-and-a-half more moons of this foolishness.”

“I confess, I know not. Daniel has never been one to allow emotion to rule him, but I see that where you and the babe are concerned, he is unable to see reason. Cannot you simply abide by his wishes until the babe arrives?”