A Highlander Never Surrenders (26 page)

“You think me bonny?” When she twisted around in his arms, her hip brushed over his unrelenting erection beneath his plaid. Drawing in a sharp breath, she quickly scooted an inch out of the way.

“There’s yer proof.”

Hell, she could not argue
that
point. “You do not find me manly, then?”

“How could . . .” He paused, and when he spoke again, she could hear the grin in his voice. “Ye sought to please me by becoming more like yer sister.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Her spine grew rigid against his chest. “I don’t care if I please you or not.”

“But ye do please me.” The sensual timbre of his voice along her nape made her toes curl. With a slight tug, he heaved her more firmly against all his hard angles. “The bold silhouette of yer hips pleases me.” Shifting his hips, he pressed his potent arousal against the sweet swell of her buttocks. He groaned, raking his teeth over her nape. “Aye, it makes me want to do all sorts of wicked things to ye.” Claire shuddered in his arms as the memory of him pleasuring himself in the loch invaded her thoughts. She wondered if she might be able to bring him such satisfaction.

When he smoothed his big hands over her breasts, her nipples grew taut. “What kinds of wicked things?” his touch lured her to ask.

She felt him grow even harder against her back, felt him pulse and tremble with desire that made her own body ache with need. He pinched her nipples with excruciating care, rolling them beneath the fabric of his tunic between his fingers while he kissed her neck. Instead of telling her, he showed her, spreading his palms down her belly and then beneath her trews. Cupping her hips, he pushed the snug garment over her buttocks and worked them slowly down her legs, his hands delighting in the feel of her bare skin.

“Kick off yer boots,” he commanded on a ragged whisper.

She obeyed, too aroused to bother with blushing. Nestled in his embrace of hard, sinewy thighs and powerful arms, a scintillating awareness of her femininity washed over her. To hell with being a lady, she mused while he helped her discard her trews. He made her feel like a woman, and she loved it. Her tunic, or rather his, went next.

The mist cooled her naked flesh. In the darkness, the delicate tracery of his fingertips up her arms and along her collarbone made her skin burn. She could hear his heavy, strained breathing behind her as his fingers closed around her jaw. Angling her face to meet his, he captured her uneven breath with a slow, intoxicating kiss.

“Yer sassy mouth pleases me,” he whispered over her parted lips, then descended again. He ravaged her mouth with his tongue, stroking her, tasting her like a starving beast. When she flicked her tongue over his in response, his muscles jerked. He lifted her in his arms, turning her body to meet his, and cupping his hands under her thighs, spread her legs over his hips.

Claire clutched his shoulders as she straddled him. She should be appalled, even afraid of what he was doing to her, or was about to do. But his hands gliding over her thighs, molding to her backside to drag her closer to his rigid shaft, made her wriggle to get even closer. Some ancient, thoroughly wanton side of her wanted to caress every erotic inch of him. When he caught her nipple between his teeth, she arched her back, offering him more. He suckled her hard, pulling tight little gasps from her throat. He bent his knees to support her and pulled at his plaid.

She wanted to look at him, to see the fire that consumed her in his eyes. But the absence of one sense heightened all the rest. Running her hands over his arms, his chest, she relished every nuance of muscle that sculpted him. He lowered his hand between them, and she followed, feeling him tug at his plaid. He covered her fingers with his and closed them around the solid weight of his erection.

She did not pull away. Though her fingers felt small around him, and she felt a momentary jolt of fear at the thought of him fitting this anywhere but in her hand, she marveled at the extraordinary combination of silk and steel. No sword ever forged was as fine as this one. Boldly, for she was not one to approach anything in life with meekness, she stroked his length, rubbed the pad of her thumb over his engorged tip, exploring, squeezing him until he near burst in her tight grip.

“Come here.” His voice was rough, a throaty tangle of demand and need. Gripping her hips in one hand and his cock in the other, he slid the moist tip over her warm niche.

Claire grasped his shoulders as hot, charged energy whipped through her. Instinctively, she spread her knees, wanting him, needing him to quench the flames that threatened to consume her.

She almost grew angry with him when she felt his fingers glide over her taut nub, but his touch was one of ultimate seduction. He fondled, and teased, and dipped within her firm folds until she swayed, wet and ready in his hand.

He entered her slowly, breaking the thin barrier of her sweet virginity with long, torturously measured strokes. She cried out and tried to break free of his embrace, but he held her firm, trailing his lips over hers and whispering how she made him feel. Soon, the pain began to ebb and pleasure so replete, so unrelentingly erotic quaked her to her soul. Every muscular thrust made her more wild, until she felt drunk with want. She rode him with shameless abandon, exulting in the violent spasms that made her tighten around him. She coiled her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard and long, flicking her tongue over his in a dance as ancient as the forest around them.

He ground his hips against hers, impaling himself into her as deep as she could take him. He tugged on the string binding her braid and drove his hands through her luxurious tresses. His thrusts grew more fevered as he pulled on her hair, curving her back and exposing the knotted peaks of her breasts to his hungry mouth until she screamed his name in the rapture of her release.

With one final surge that drove her upward to the clouds, Graham spilled his scalding seed deep within her, groaning with sweet, savage victory. Finally, she was his.

Chapter Twenty-four

I
shall gain the victory, but the glory will be yours.

Dawn broke over the treetops, spreading a pool of amber light over the warrior asleep upon the leaf-carpeted ground. Finally clothed and sitting at his booted feet, Claire appraised him at her leisure. Her gaze traveled up his long, powerful legs, lightly dusted with bronze hair. His plaid had ridden up his left thigh while he slumbered, and just the sight of it stalled her breath and made her loins ache more than they already did.

She struggled against the urge to lean over and trace her fingers over his whipcord-tight belly in the daylight, slide her hand up the lean sinew knotting the bare arm flung over his head. His curls fell in impish disarray over his forehead, like an askew halo atop the head of a fallen angel. His sulky mouth was just as devastating relaxed in sleep as it was when he aimed his heady smile at her. When she fought him blade to blade outside the tavern, his quick arm and quicker grins—both of which he did not hold back from her—had nearly cost her her victory. Never had she fought a man like him. She was certain nothing would ever feel more exhilarating. She was wrong. Feeling his body quake and heave with need for her, his muscles bunching beneath her fingers with measured restraint to take her, and then . . . finally, that hot, throbbing lance breaking through her body like a battering ram, felt better. Had she truly made love to such a man last night? Or was it some lust-filled dream sent to make her fall in love with him?

“Satan’s balls,” she muttered. She was going to have to be more wary of allowing
that
to happen. The rogue had done this countless times before without giving his heart to any woman. She was no different.

“Yer sister would not approve of that mouth.”

She cocked a wry eyebrow at Graham as he sat up, coming face to face with her, but whatever retort she was about to fling at him faded when he smiled at her.

“God, ye’re beautiful.”

It was not his declaration, one she’d heard many times before from men who sought to win her favor, but the way his breath faltered when he set his eyes on her, that felled her heart to her arse. “Thank you,” she said softly, feeling a ridiculous smile creep up her lips. “You are beautiful, as well.”

The devil beat her! She mewled worse than any kitten! She could have bitten her tongue right off. Did she just tell him he was beautiful?

“And so bold,” his voice dipped to a smoky baritone as he reached out and wrapped his index finger around a lock of her loose hair. He tugged, bringing her face closer and sweeping his lips over hers. “I vow there is nae other lass like ye in all the world, Claire Stuart.”

Was that a good thing? she thought to ask him, just before he captured her breath with his mouth. The passion in his kiss convinced her that it was.

“I hurt.” She pushed against his chest with her palms when he lowered her onto the dewy grass.

Instead of looking repentant, he grinned down at her, quite pleased with himself. “Aye, ye’ll need a day or two to recover.”

More like a sennight, she thought, but kept it to herself. No need to feed the knave’s unrivaled arrogance. And did he think she was his to do with as he pleased now that he’d deflowered her? A day or two indeed. Why, he’d be fortunate if she spared him a second . . .

He pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth, scattering her thoughts like leaves in a storm. The caress of his fingertips against her throat made her tremble in his hands. “I do not know if I can wait so long to have ye again,” he whispered, parting her lips with the pad of his thumb. The proof of his desire pushed against her hip, hard, unrelenting, insatiable.

Despite the pain he’d caused her, her nipples went rigid, for the pleasure he’d given her was far greater. She coiled her arms around his neck and opened her mouth fully to his masterful tongue. She did not want to wait either. Shamelessly, wantonly, her body writhed with the hunger to feel him inside her again. She was sure she would have happily given him all he desired if the sound of approaching horses had not startled her so.

She jolted up, mindless of her shoulder smashing into his jaw. She managed to shove a few strands of hair away from her face and pat it back into some semblance of neatness as the intruders came upon them.

“Well then,” Angus peered down at them from atop his great warhorse, his stern gaze falling suspiciously over Graham’s tunic hanging three sizes too big over Claire’s shoulders. “I’m guessin’ this means she isna goin’ back to Ravenglade.”

Claire sprang to her feet, cursing the searing flame spreading across her cheeks. Avoiding her sister’s knowing stare, she swiped the dirt from her backside and turned her eyes on Angus. Whatever they suspected had happened between her and Graham, it was high time his men knew that she would do as she pleased, whether their commander approved or not. “Why ever would you assume that, MacGregor?”

“Because Ravenglade is that way,” he said, hooking his thumb over his shoulder.

Bristling, Claire pivoted around to Graham. “You chased me for no reason.”

“Nae.” He grinned, his dimples charming her senseless. “My reason was good enough.”

Damn him to Hades. The feral gleam in his eyes revealed to all what his reason had been. Suddenly, she felt naked before their eyes and curtained her gaze behind her heavy tresses.

“Claire.” She heard Anne call her and had no choice but to lift her mortified gaze to her. “Does this mean you will not be returning to James?”

She opened her mouth to tell Anne that naught had changed. Now more than ever she believed Monck had betrayed their brother. She would obey none of his commands, including wedding Robert, and she intended to warn James of his treachery. But Graham’s voice cut her off.

“Yer sister is mine now, and she’ll be coming to Skye with us.”

For an instant, Claire was sure she’d heard him wrong. When the instant passed, and she realized he was serious, she almost laughed right in his face. Almost. Her nostrils flared. Her lips tightened. Her eyes blazed with indignation as she swept her hair away from her face. She was
his
now? “Why, of all the puffed-up . . . insufferable . . . Do you sincerely think—”

Her tirade came to an abrupt end when he snatched her up by the waist and clamped his mouth over hers. Crushing her to him with one arm, he devoured every last shred of her resistance, until she hung weak in the crook of his elbow.

“Find yer sword and mount yer horse, Claire,” he commanded huskily, his gaze spilling over her features, basking in his prize. “I’m taking ye home.”

Three days later, Claire was still not sure when she had agreed to follow him to the end of the bloody earth. She told herself that she journeyed to Skye in order to keep Graham and Robert from riding back to Edinburgh and alerting Monck to their suspicions regarding James. But she knew she followed Graham for another reason entirely. Was she in love? How was she to know? She’d spent her entire life primping for battle, not suitors. And if it was love, how the bloody hell could she have given her heart to a rogue? Aye, she let him take her, but that didn’t mean she loved him, did it? All the men in Connor’s garrison had bedded women they didn’t love. She could ask Anne, but then she would have to endure endless hours of teasing. Och, why hadn’t she given at least some of her attention to the ways of courtly ladies and lords when she was a child?

Whatever it was, it had a grip on her from the beginning. Every plan she’d ever had to slip from his company had been thwarted by the man who rode just a few feet ahead of her, tall in his saddle, his broad, bare shoulders lightly bronzed from the sun. Save for what happened at Ravenglade, he had not used force, or the practiced charm of a rogue, to keep her with him, yet each day she had willingly followed him in whichever direction he led. She had no one to blame but herself for her mad attraction to Graham Grant. And now he thought she was his.