The Sinner (9 page)

W
hen Glynis awoke, the sun was shining in a hazy glow through the weave of the blanket that somehow still hung over them. Had last night truly happened? It must have, for Glynis’s imagination was not as good as that. She understood now why women were willing to take Alex Bàn MacDonald into their beds for as long as he was willing to stay.

She risked turning to look at him. Ach, Alex was handsome enough to make the fairies jealous. She let her gaze travel over every perfect, manly feature—the straight nose, high cheekbones, and strong jaw stubbled with golden whiskers. Even in his sleep, his mouth was curved up at the corners, as if he had a wicked secret to tell ye that would make ye laugh.

Her cheeks grew hot as she recalled all the places his mouth had touched her. Three times he had reached for her in the night and made her feel things she’d never felt before.

She had wanted to know passion with a man. Too late, she realized that she might be better off not knowing the pleasures that were possible between a man and a woman. It would certainly be easier to live without them if she were still ignorant. She recalled the bliss she had felt in his arms and sighed.

Nay, she could not regret the night.

“Tell me about your marriage,” Alex asked.

Glynis turned in his arms, all warm and sleepy-eyed. “Why do ye want to know?”

He shrugged. “I’m curious, that’s all.”

Her eyes, as always, seemed to see right into his lying heart. In truth, he had wanted to ask her about her marriage to Magnus all along. He felt the unfamiliar tug of jealousy over this man who had touched her in all the places he had.

“The two of ye have such animosity toward each other that I figure ye must have cared deeply once.” Alex had learned from his parents how love could turn to hate.

“Hmmph.” She crossed her arms and stared up at the blanket strung above them. “Magnus Clanranald doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

She hadn’t said that she had not cared for Clanranald.

“Magnus doesn’t like to lose his possessions,” she said. “He thought I was one of them.”

“Why did ye leave him?” Alex asked.

“The marriage took place at my family’s castle on Barra, so I didn’t know what was waiting for me at his home.” Glynis was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again. “His mistress was there to greet him, along with a couple of other verra friendly lasses. Magnus made no effort to hide them—and saw no reason he should. He even let his mistress take my place at the table.”

Ach, it sounded too much like his father. But Alex’s mother fought back just as hard in the bitter war between them.

“Magnus is the worst of chieftains,” she said, her voice hard now. “While my father sometimes makes errors in judgment, he always
tries
to do what is best for our clan. Magnus puts his own interests before his clan’s, always.”

Alex suspected that the true reason she left Magnus was that she didn’t respect him.

“I tried to protect his own clansmen from him, but I couldn’t.” Glynis brushed a tear away with an impatient hand. “I saw him murder one in a fit of temper and another because the man objected to Magnus’s interest in his daughter.”

Alex cupped her cheek with his hand. “Magnus’s temper seemed fixed on you when we saw him at Duart Castle. Did he ever harm ye?”

“No. He knew that if he did, my father would come with his war galleys full of men,” she said. “Magnus didn’t want the trouble—but that was before I stabbed him and left.”

For all Alex’s sins, at least he’d brought Glynis far enough away to be safe from her former husband.

“Enough of this serious talk.” A slow smile spread over Alex’s face as he leaned over her, and his green eyes danced. “If ye have the strength to make love again before breakfast, I do.”

Letting Alex touch her all over in the dark of night was one thing, but it was broad daylight now.

“Ach, I’m sorry, lass,” he said, frowning. “Did I make ye too sore?”

She was sore, but not
that
sore.

“We could try other things,” he said, giving her a look so full of sin that it made her pulse flutter.

“I’m all right,” she said, her voice coming out high.

“Then what do ye say, Glynis? In for a penny, in for a pound?” Her breath hitched as he stroked the inside of her thigh. “When ye confess to the priest, the penance is likely to be the same, whether we do it two times or twenty.”

“Twenty times?” Her voice went higher still.

“Have ye changed your mind about this?” Alex asked, his expression suddenly serious. “Just tell me if ye have, and I’ll let ye be.”

“No,” she said. “I just didn’t expect ye to want to do it again.”

“Me not want to?” he said and laughed. Then he got on his knees and started unfastening the blanket from the tree. “It’s stuffy in here.”

Glynis watched the muscles of his back as he stretched to unhook the corners. Besides being able to ask her the most private questions as if he were discussing the weather, the man was completely unselfconscious about his nakedness. But then, he was beautiful.

The blanket fell to the ground, and sunlight washed over him. When he turned, the warm light kissed the skin over his sculpted muscles and glinted off the golden hair on his broad chest. Her gaze drifted downward, and she swallowed when she saw how ready he was to make love again.

“Come, let me see ye,” he said, tugging at the blanket she held to her chest.

She remembered how Magnus ridiculed her, saying her breasts were too small. It was the least of the sins for which he would burn in hell, but the memory stung all the same.

“Can’t we do this without ye looking at me?” she asked.

“Ye aren’t going to be shy now, are ye?” Alex folded his own arms across his chest. “We’ll stop right now if I can’t see. I’ve been looking forward to this for too long.”

“You were expecting me to go to bed with ye all along?” She was horrified.

“Nay, I wasn’t expecting it.” His grin grew wider. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t imagining ye naked.”

“That’s no the same thing,” she said.

“Of course, I did see ye last night, but the light was verra poor,” he said, making a face.

“My breasts are too small,” she blurted out. Her face was scalding.

“What fool told ye that?” He tugged at the blanket again. “Please, Glynis. I had my hands on ye enough last night to have a fair idea of what your breasts look like.
Please.
”

It was clear that the man was going to beg until she relented. When he tugged at the blanket again, she let go.

“Ah, lass, my imagination was sorely lacking,” he said. “Ye are as beautiful as the selkies that lure men to their death at sea.”

His words both pleased her and embarrassed her further. “Alex, will ye lie down now?”

Instead, he knelt by her feet and kissed her from her toes upward until his warm lips tickled her knee. Heat pooled in her belly as he moved up her thigh to her hip. By the time he reached her breasts, she was breathless.

He cupped her breasts in his hands. “They are perfect,” he said, his eyes intense on hers. “You’re perfect.”

In the sunlight streaming over them, she watched as he flicked his tongue over her erect nipple. When he took it into his mouth and groaned, she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the sensations spiraling through her.

Just when Glynis thought she could not bear it anymore, he moved up to kiss her shoulder and run his tongue into the hollow above her collarbone. He worked his way along the side of her throat to beneath her ear with his warm lips and tongue. She felt as if she were melting into the ground by the time he claimed her mouth again.

With every stroke of his strong hands, he wiped away another bad memory of Magnus touching her. She wanted him to replace every ounce of unpleasantness and humiliation with pleasure and joy. Oh, God, how she wanted him. She wrapped her legs around Alex’s hips, urging him forward.

“I don’t want to rush this time,” he said against her ear. “I’m going to make certain ye don’t forget me too soon, Glynis MacNeil.”

Not likely.
She almost laughed, but then her breath caught as his hand moved between her legs. At first, her muscles went all weak as he worked his magic on her. Then the pleasure became a tension building inside her until she thought that she would burst into pieces.

“Please, Alex, please,” she said, pulling at his shoulders.

He hovered over her, teasing her and kissing her senseless until at last he gave in. A high-pitched moan came out of her throat as he finally slid inside her.
At last.

Alex seemed to know how to keep her on the edge, moving just so, slow and deep, until she wanted to pound her fists against his chest.

“Harder,” she said, trying not to shout. “Harder.”

“Tell me ye won’t forget me,” he said, as he thrust deep inside her. “Tell me.”

“I won’t forget,” she said between gasps. “I won’t.”

Not for as long as she lived.

Glynis could tell the moment that he lost control because a wildness replaced his skilled movements. He was pure want and need and full of the same joy that she felt. They came together in an explosion of white heat and stars.

But afterward, as she lay beside him staring up at the blue sky above her, the joy seeped from her bit by bit. She realized that Alex MacDonald could hurt in a way that Magnus never could. She’d cared nothing for Magnus. Nay, she despised him. Before their wedding night was over, she had closed her heart to him.

But this was different. She would have to guard her heart closely to keep Alex from walking away with it. He would not intend to take it—he did not want it any more than she wanted to give it to him. But with every wink and smile, he stole a piece of it. And when he made love to her, he held it in his hands.

A
lex could not trust himself with this woman. He felt too much. He wanted too much. This was not like him at all.

After several days of making love to her morning, noon, and night, his desire for her had not slacked one whit. In his pride, Alex had thought he would light up the nights for Glynis and give her plenty of pleasure to remember him by. But each time he made love to her, he was as amazed as the first.

As he watched the light of dawn break over the hills and cast a golden glow on her sleeping face, his father’s voice pounded in his head.

Beware of a woman who can grab your soul, for she’ll make your life a misery.

Ge milis am fìon, tha e searbh ri dhìol.
The wine is sweet, the paying bitter.

And why was he so determined that she not forget him? He’d never cared before. Nay, he hoped that the women he bedded would forget him and leave him alone when it was over. But Glynis had nothing in common with the easy, laughing, overtly sensuous women he usually bedded. Nay, she was not his usual sort at all.

She was the sort his father had warned him about.

It was lucky for them both that Glynis was barren, for he was a lunatic when he was with her. After telling her he was always careful, he kept forgetting to pull out as he should. Hell, he never even thought of it. He had to get control of himself.

When Glynis opened her eyes and smiled at him, he felt so closed in he couldn’t breathe.

“We’ll have to make better time, or I’ll be late getting to Edinburgh,” Alex said, not that he gave a damn anymore about arriving in time to see Sabine.

He got up from their warm blankets and threw on his clothes. It wasn’t like him to panic and run, but he was desperate to get moving.

“I need to check the snares I set last night before we go,” he said as he strapped on his claymore. They were camped in a wood well below the trail, so she should be safe, and he needed to get away from her to clear his head.

“I’ll pack up,” Glynis said, and Alex heard the hurt in her voice.

“Be careful and stay close to camp.” He crouched beside her and touched her cheek. “Don’t go where ye can be seen from the path.”

Looking into her face, with those big, solemn eyes and that sweet sprinkling of freckles across her nose, Alex could not escape the knowledge that he had corrupted a wholesome lass. The fact that she’d wanted corrupting did not excuse him.

This had been a big mistake.

Glynis gulped in deep breaths as she rolled up the blankets. She should have expected that Alex would tire of her this quickly. In the midst of saddling Rosebud, she paused to rest her head against the horse’s shoulder. She wanted to blame Alex for the hurt welling up in her chest, but he had tried to warn her that she could not do this lightly. She clenched her fists and told herself that once she was in Edinburgh, she would make herself forget Alex MacDonald.

Since Alex was in such a damned hurry to get there, she wasn’t waiting for him to return to water the horses. The walk down to the small loch where they had taken them last night was a bit longer than she remembered, but it was well hidden by the trees.

After letting the horses drink, she tied them at the edge of the nearby clearing where they could munch on the grass, then she took off her shoes and waded into the water. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back and let the sunshine wash over her. She took deep breaths until she felt calmer.

Her eyes flew open as a sudden unease swept over her.

She turned, and her heart dropped to her stomach. Over the tops of the trees, she saw a man up on the path. He was too far away for her to tell if he saw her, too.

Glynis held her breath and forced herself to move slowly out of the water so as not to draw his attention. When she reached the cover of the trees, she paused, listening hard. But she heard nothing except the birds and the breeze in the branches overhead.

She hid behind a thick bush and curled herself into a ball. Would the man look for her? Her heart thudded in her ears as she waited.
Please, God, let Alex return soon.

Glynis forgot about the horses until she heard a loud whinny. She scrambled low over the ground until she could see into the clearing where she’d left them.

“Goddamned beast!” A tall warrior with a claymore strapped to his back was trying to grab Rosebud’s rope, but she was snorting and pawing at the air. “I’ll show ye who’s master!”

Glynis watched in horror as the man brought a switch down on Rosebud’s neck again and again. Now both horses were rearing up and straining against their ropes.

She had to do something. There was only one man, and she had surprise on her side. She picked up a hefty stick from the ground. While his back was to her, she should do it. Still, she hesitated, hoping Alex would burst through the trees.

But the horses were frantic, their whinnies like screams in her ears. She couldn’t bear it. Raising the stick over her head with both hands, she ran toward the man.

Argh!
With all her might, she whacked him on the back of the head. It made a sickening thud, and he crumpled to the ground. Oh, God, had she killed him?

“Hush, hush.” She tried to soothe the horses. But their eyes rolled back, and they grew wilder still. Glynis felt a prickle at the back of her neck—and suddenly she knew why the horses were still upset.

She screamed and pulled her dirk as she turned. A half dozen warriors had entered the small clearing.

“Stay back!” She stood in front of the horses, holding the bloodied stick in one hand and her dirk in the other.

Her gaze flew from one to another. God, no. She recognized these men. They were members of Magnus’s personal guard.

“We’ve been looking for ye for days.” The one who spoke was Fingall, a huge man with broken teeth who was known for terrorizing the weak among his clansmen. “Magnus sent men in every direction looking for ye, but we got lucky when we came upon some Campbell fishermen who saw ye.”

“We were beginning to wonder if they lied to us about which way ye went,” another of the men said. “But we couldn’t go back and ask them again because we left them all dead.”

This brought a round of laughter from the others.

“Ye murder defenseless fishermen, and ye call yourselves warriors?” Glynis said. “Ye disgust me!”

“Ye always did have a sharp tongue.” Fingall said. “But we’ll soon wear the fight out of ye.”

He signaled to the others, and they all started moving toward her. Behind her, the horses were rearing and whinnying again.

“Magnus wants ye back alive, that’s all,” Fingall said. “We’ll have some fun with ye on the way back.”

Alex whistled to himself as he walked down the side of the hill through the tall, wet grass. Glynis wasn’t just another woman, but this was just another affair for him. All he’d needed was some time to roam on his own to realize he’d exaggerated it all in his mind. When it came to women, it didn’t pay to think too much.

A scream echoed off the hills and reverberated through his bones.

Glynis.

Alex ran hard for the camp, icy fear coursing through his veins. The camp was empty. Without pausing, he continued running in the direction from which her scream had come.

“Alex!” Glynis screamed his name this time.

His feet pounded down the path toward the lake. He drew his claymore as he burst through the low-hanging trees into the clearing.

The details of the scene before him ticked in his mind in an instant. Glynis, her dirk in one hand, a stick in the other. A body at her feet. Six warriors, their weapons out, in a half circle in front of her. They had Glynis backed up against the horses, who were rearing dangerously close to her.

Alex shouted to draw the men’s attention as he ran straight at them. As he jumped over a log, he threw his first dirk. It caught the man closest to Glynis in the chest and dropped him. Another of the attackers reached for her, and Alex threw his second dirk into the man’s throat.

Four men left. Alex swung his claymore into the one brandishing an axe. When Rosebud reared, he shoved another under her hooves. Red fury pounded through him as he swung his claymore into yet another.

“Move away from the horses before they trample ye!” he shouted at Glynis, as the last man came at him.

Alex pulled another dirk from his boot as he ducked below the swing of the man’s sword. As he came up, he buried the dirk under the man’s rib cage.

The last attacker was down. Alex blew out his breath.

Then Glynis screamed again. When he turned, Alex saw that the man he’d thought was dead when he first came into the clearing had gotten to his feet. Blood poured from a wound on his head as he stumbled toward her. She swung too soon with her dirk.

Alex was running hard toward them as the wounded man caught Glynis’s arm that held her knife. Before the man could pull Glynis in front of him to use her as a shield, Alex skewered the wretch. He pried the dying man’s fingers from Glynis’s wrist and pulled her into his arms.

“Are ye all right, lass?” he asked when he could get the words out.

“Aye,” Glynis said into his shoulder. “They were Magnus’s men.”

Christ have mercy.
He never should have left her for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a shaky voice. “I didn’t realize I could be seen from the loch.”

“It’s my fault. I never should have brought ye.” Alex was so accustomed to these sorts of dangers that he hadn’t recognized how foolish it was to take a woman by himself on this journey.

“I did hide,” she said, “but then I saw one of them hurting the horses.”

“
O shluagh!
” Alex called on the fairies for help. “Ye risked your life for the horses?”

“He was whipping Rosebud.” Glynis leaned back and looked at him with wide eyes. “I only saw the one man at first, and I knew ye hadn’t gone far. As soon as I saw the others, I screamed for ye.”

“What if I hadn’t gotten here in time?” In the blink of an eye, one of those men could have slit her throat or had her on the ground with her gown up to her waist. “Ye are a danger to yourself, woman.”

He was furious with her. And at the same time, he wanted her so badly his teeth ached.

The hillside was covered with wildflowers, with a few sheep grazing here and there.

“I thought you had tired of me,” Glynis said, in her usual direct way, as she lay in his arms.

After the attack, Alex had brought Glynis straight up to the top of the highest hill where he could see for miles and miles. Once he was certain no one else would surprise them, he’d made love to her first frantically and then quite thoroughly.

“The truth is, I can’t get enough of ye,” Alex said, brushing his thumb across her bottom lip.

There was no point in pretending he could resist her. They would be in Edinburgh in a few days, and it would end. Why deny themselves the pleasure in the meantime?

Alex noted how high the sun was and knew they should be on their way. But the smell of her hair was in his nose and the silk of her skin under his fingertips. So, instead, he watched two hawks soar back and forth against the blue summer sky as he and Glynis talked about the rebellion, the new regent, and whatever else came into their heads.

When Glynis snuggled closer, Alex exhaled a breath and closed his eyes. God help him, he wanted her again. Surely, this could not go on. His desire for her would eventually fade, as it did with every single woman he had ever been with.

In the meantime, he would enjoy the present, as he always did. When he tilted her head up with his finger to kiss her, Glynis’s gray eyes searched his, as if she were trying to see into the heart of a sinner.

But this sinner’s heart was buried far too deep for her to find it.