The Dark Highlander (22 page)

He filled her almost lazily, purring in that strange language. He withdrew, inch by inch, with excruciating slowness, until she was gripping the grass in thick handfuls and ripping it from the ground. Till with each thrust she struggled to arch against him and take more of him, keep him inside her so she could gain her release. For a short time she thought it must be her fault it kept eluding her, or perhaps he was just too big, then she realized he was deliberately withholding it. His big hands on her hips, he was pressing her down when she tried to arch up, preventing her from controlling the pace or taking what she needed.

“Dageus . . . please!”

“Please what?” he purred against her ear.

“Let me come,” she wailed.

He laughed huskily, his hand sliding between her pelvis and the bunched fabric beneath it, prodding at her folds, exposing her taut nub. He flicked a finger over it and she almost screamed. A heartbeat passed, then two. He flicked lightly again. “Is this what you want?” he said silkily. His touch was expert, tantalizing, torturing, not quite enough, meted out with the sure skill of a man who knew a woman’s body as well as she did.

“Yes,” she gasped.

“Do you need me, Chloe?” Another light pass of his finger.

“Yes!”

“Soon,” he purred, “I’m going to taste you here.” He brushed the pad of his thumb over the hard nub.

Chloe slammed the ground with her palms and squeezed her eyes shut. Those simple words had nearly—but not quite, damn it!—pushed her over the sweet edge.

He pressed his lips to her ear and whispered in a sultry, erotic voice, “Do you feel like you can’t breathe without me inside you?”

“
Yes
,” she sobbed, dimly aware that there was something déjà vu-ish about his words.

“Ah, lass, that’s what I needed to hear. ’Tis yours, then, aught you want from me.” Cupping her face with his large palm he turned her head to the side and slanted his mouth over hers at the same moment he thrust deep and held, grinding his hips in circles against her bottom, pumping into her. As she arched back against him he tightened his arm around her waist and deepened the kiss, his tongue plunging in tempo with his lower body, both driving into her. The tension gripping her body suddenly exploded, flooding her with the most exquisite sensation she’d ever felt. It was different than what had happened on the plane; this was a deeper quake at the very core of her, immensely more intense, and she screamed his name as she came.

He continued the steady thrusting until she went limp beneath him, then he drew her hips up and back, raising her to her knees and drove into her, the heavy weight of his testicles slapping against her hot, aching skin. With each thrust she whimpered, unable to prevent the broken sounds spilling from her lips.

“Och, Christ, lass,” he hissed. Rolling her with him onto his side, he wrapped his arms around her so tightly she could scarcely breathe, and thrust. And thrust, his hips flexing powerfully behind her.

He breathed her name when he came and the broken note in his voice, coupled with his hand moving so intimately between her legs brought her to another swift climax. When she peaked again it was so intense that the edges of darkness folded gently around her.

When she roused from the dreamy half-doze, he was still inside her. And still hard.

He took her to the village of Balanoch much later, which was actually a bustling little city. They ate in the central square, far from the shops on the outer perimeter that housed the smellier, noisier trades such as the tanneries, the smiths, and the butchers. Chloe was famished and ate with gusto strips of salted beef and fresh-baked bread, cheese, some kind of fruit tart, and spiced wine that went straight to her head, making her just tipsy enough that she couldn’t keep her hands off him.

She saw things in the busy village that sealed beyond a shadow of a doubt—not that she’d really had any left—that she was in the past. The houses were wattle and daub, with tiny yards in which barefoot children played. The shops were constructed of stone with thatched roofs, their wide faces sporting shutters that opened horizontally, the bottom one displaying their wares. Beside the tanner’s vats, she’d watched young lads shaving skins with currier’s knives. At the blacksmith’s forge, she’d stared in fascination at a strangely compelling smith while he pounded a long length of red-hot steel, sparks flying.

She’d peered in the single window of the goldsmith’s abode and glimpsed books therein, at which point Dageus had threatened to toss her over his shoulder if she tarried overlong. When she’d started up the stairs, he’d backed her against the door and kissed her until she lost not only her breath, but all memory of where she’d been trying to go.

There were chandlers, weavers, potters, even an armorer and several kirks.

She couldn’t help herself, she gaped, and a dozen times or more Dageus had gently closed her mouth with a finger beneath her chin. She lost count of how many times she muttered something inane like
Ohmigod, I’m really here!

They didn’t stay in Balanoch long, however, nowhere near long enough for Chloe to thoroughly explore; but frankly, she was more obsessed with exploring the big beautiful man who’d done things to her that made her feel as if she were coming apart at the seams.

They stopped several “leagues” as he called them, from the village, near a copse of oak trees, beside a tumbling stream that widened into a shimmering pool.

When he slid her from the stallion this time, his gaze was tender, his every touch a languid caress, as if wordlessly apologizing for his earlier roughness (which she hadn’t minded a bit!). And when he took her again it was in the sun-warmed pool, after he’d gently washed those parts of her he’d battered. He went slow this time, giving her dozens of hot, wet, lazy kisses, lavishing her breasts with tiny nibbles and caresses. Lying her back at the edge of the pool, slipping between her legs and hooking her calves over his shoulders so he could taste her as he’d told her earlier he would. Lapping sweetly until she was wild for him, then dragging her back into the pool and lifting her astride him. She clung to him, staring into his eyes while he filled her and became part of her again.

And just before she drifted off in his arms, beyond replete, exhausted and sore in places that had never been sore before, she knew that she’d gone and done what she’d been determined not to do: She’d fallen head over heels for the strange, dark Highlander.

The moon was silvering the heather when Dageus finally stirred from his doze. He was sprawled on the plaid with Chloe in his arms, the lush curves of her plump backside pressed to his front, their legs twined together. Had he been a weeping man, he might have wept then from simple pleasure.

She’d taken him as he was.
All
of him. He’d been wild with the darkness goading him, beyond kindness, his humanity slipping, and she’d brought him back to himself. He’d tried to make it up to her with tender loving, slower and gentler than he’d ever taken a woman.

However he’d taken her, she’d met him and matched him. He’d been right, Chloe was wanton, had a wildness of her own. She’d been ready to lose her innocence, eager to be awakened, to be taught, and he’d relished every moment of it. Relished knowing he was her first lover. Her last, too, he thought possessively. She was a daring wee lass, loving every part of sex just as he’d known she would.

After they’d gone to Balanoch (which he’d scarce even seen, too consumed by the wee woman between his thighs on the horse), they’d lazily sunned themselves naked beside the tumbling brook that fed the pool. They’d run their hands over each other’s body, learning every plane and curve. Tasting all the hollows and crevices. They’d shared more spiced wine and talked.

They’d
talked
.

She’d told him about her childhood, what it was like to grow up without parents. She’d made him laugh with stories of her elderly grandda warily taking her shopping for her first bra, (making him picture Silvan trying to choose female undergarments—och, that would be a sight!) and having The Talk with her about what she called “the birds and the bees.” Try as he might, Dageus couldn’t grasp that colloquialism. What birds and bees had to do with tooping, was beyond him. Horses he could understand. But bees? Unfathomable.

He’d spoken a bit about his childhood—the finer parts, growing up with Drustan, before he’d been old enough to know that the Keltars were feared, during those years he’d still harbored a young lad’s dreams and fancies. He’d sung her bawdy, outrageous Scottish ditties as the sun had raced across the sky, and she’d laughed until tears filled her eyes. He was astonished by her every expression, so open and unguarded. Amazed by her resilience. Amazed by the emotions she stirred in him, feelings he’d long forgotten.

She’d asked him questions about Druidry and he’d told her of the myriad Keltar duties: performing the seasonal rituals on Yule, Beltane, Samhain, and Lughnassadh, tending the earth and the wee creatures, preserving and guarding the sacred lore, using the stones on certain necessary occasions. He’d also explained, as best he could, how the stones worked. The physics of it had flummoxed her, and when her eyes had begun to glaze over, he’d spared her further edification. He’d told her what little they knew about the Tuatha Dé, and how the Keltar had formed an alliance with them many thousands of years ago—though he wisely avoided the subject of oaths.

So the Tuatha Dé really existed?
she’d exclaimed.
An actual race of technologically advanced people? Where did they come from? Do you know?

Nay, lass, we doona ken. There is very little we know about them for a certainty.

He’d known the precise moment she’d truly accepted it; her eyes had sparkled, her cheeks had flushed, and he’d half-feared she was going to rush right back to the stones to examine them further. He’d swift given her something else to examine.

Och, aye, his mate was wanton. . . .

Strangely, she’d not brought up “the curse,” nor had she pressed to know what he was searching for, and for that he was endlessly grateful. He had no doubt it was only a temporary reprieve and that she’d hammer him with questions before long, but he’d take what he could get. He sensed that she’d been as determined as he to steal a day with no worry for the morrow. ’Twas a gift he’d never expected her to give him, a gift that humbled him. If he had naught ever again, he’d had this day.

She knew he was a Druid, knew how ancient and strange his bloodline, and hadn’t feared him. He’d shamelessly milked it for all it was worth and basked in her acceptance.

Now, as she slumbered in his arms, he nudged her a bit so the palm of his right hand slipped between her breasts, coming to rest above her heart. He shifted himself so the palm of his left rested above his own.

There were words he’d waited his entire life to say and he would not be denied them. Silvan had ever accused him of loving too much. If he did, he couldn’t help it. Once his heart made the decision, there was no arguing with it. She was his mate and, for however long the gods granted, he would belong to his woman completely.

He kissed her till she stirred drowsily and murmured his name. ’Twould do him no good to say the vows whilst she slept; his mate must actually hear the words. Then he began speaking reverently, pledging himself to her forever, though the bond wouldn’t take on its full life unless she one day gave the words back.

“If aught must be lost, ’twill be my honor for yours. If one must be forsaken, ’twill be my soul for yours. Should death come anon, ’twill be my life for yours.”

He tightened his arm around her and drew a deep breath, knowing that what he was about to complete was irrevocable. She’d said no words of love to him (though she’d used it in a sentence once in Balanoch—she’d said she
loved
the way he made
love
—and had nearly caused his heart to stop beating). Completing the vow would seal him to loving her for all eternity, and if there were lives beyond this one, he would be bound to love her in those as well. In eternal torment, aching endlessly for her, if she never loved him back.

“
I am Given
,” he murmured, holding her close. The moment he uttered the final words of the oath, a wave of intense emotion crashed over him. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it might be like were she ever to give the vow back. Completion, he suspected. Two hearts made as one.

Deep inside him the ancient ones hissed furiously and recoiled. They hadn’t liked that at all, he brooded darkly. Good.

“That was beautiful,” Chloe murmured. “What was it?” She poked her head up and peered over her shoulder at him. In the pearly moonlight her skin shimmered translucent, her aquamarine eyes were sleepy and sexy, sparkling. Her lips were still swollen from his kisses, achingly lush. Her tousled curls fell in a tumble about her face and he could feel himself growing hard again, yet knew it would be the morrow at least before he could have her again. Were he a patient man, he should give her a sennight to recover. He’d be lucky if he made it a few more hours. Now that he’d tasted her, tasted how sweet it was to make love to a woman he loved, he was starved for more.

“Och, lass, you are so lovely. You fair take my breath away.” Trite words, he scorned himself, such weak words compared to what he felt.

She flushed with pleasure. “Was that some kind of poem you recited?”

“Aye, something like that,” he purred, rolling her over in his arms so she was facing him.

“I liked it. It sounded . . . romantic.” She peered at him curiously, nibbling her lower lip. “What was it again?”

When he didn’t repeat it, she mused a moment then said, “Oh! I think I’ve got it! You said ‘if aught must be lost—’”

“Nay, lass,” he shouted, going rigid. Och, Christ, what had he done? He dare not let her give the vows back. If aught happened to him, she would be bound to him
forever
. And if something terrible happened, if—God forbid—he actually turned dark, would she then be bound to him, a beast from hell? She might be tied for all eternity to the rage and fury that was the Draghar! Nay. Never.