A Highlander Never Surrenders (27 page)

The thought of
belonging
to Graham no longer stirred her temper—at least, not as much as it had when she first heard him announce it. Highlanders were a stubborn, primitive lot with their own set of laws. Cradling her in his arms last night, Graham had explained that he had every right to claim her as his woman if he so chose. And would he fight General Monck’s whole army for her? she had laughed at him. Aye, he’d promised, he would. She would have punched him in his ribs if he hadn’t been holding her so tenderly beneath the stars. If she’d detected a trace of arrogance in his voice, she would have challenged his claim, called him daft.

But it was she who’d gone mad. Mad because she wanted to believe he could. And mad with desire every time he touched her, looked at her, smiled at her. It shocked her, really, the way she purred like a damned kitten in his trembling embrace. Connor would have laughed at her, insisting that she had finally found a man who could tame her. She would have denied his claim, though, knowing that her Highland warrior had sparked in her a feral, reckless need she never knew existed.

It came upon her whenever they stopped for the night. The urge to lure him into the woods, to steal him away from the others, peel off his plaid, and mount his sleek body the way she had in the mist. Never in her life had she felt such sweet power over a man, such glory in being a woman. Even now, with little more than a few stolen kisses between them in three days, Claire felt more alive and on fire than she ever had in combat. Her nipples flared to life against the soft wool of her tunic at the slightest slant of his mouth. When she walked Troy to a stream, Graham’s hooded, hungry gaze made her excruciatingly aware of the sway of her hips, the feminine contour of her derrière.

Of course, she did not act on her newly kindled lust, for she was no trollop—especially with Anne so close by. But her determination to resist him for modesty’s sake crumbled when they stopped at an inn just before they reached Glenelg.

“Why, ’tis Commander Grant!” A buxom amber-haired woman, with a sway in her hips Claire was sure had to be painful, sauntered straight for Graham. “The Lord has answered m’ prayers.”

“And mine,” another serving wench called out, hefting a jug of ale to her patron’s table.

Entering the inn at his side, Claire watched Graham slip off his cap, letting loose his unkempt tumble of honeyed curls. She saw what the other women saw and understood why the mere sight of his dimpled grin ravished their breath.

“ ’Tis good to see so many friendly faces, Abby,” Graham greeted the woman warmly, but when she lifted her arms to coil them around his neck, he caught her wrists gently and stopped her. “This is Claire,” he told her turning her in Claire’s direction.

Claire smiled, more at Graham than at the woman. What was this? Had the rogue lost interest in his wenches? And was it because of her? With a pang that set her heart to racing, she remembered that he had not bedded Lianne at the inn in Stirling. Could she have captured the heart of this magnificent warrior? How was she to know?

“And will she be sharing yer room?” Abby sneered at her.

Before Graham could answer, and och, Claire wished he had, Anne stepped forward, looping her arm through Claire’s. “Of course not.” Her smile was as serene as a summer loch when she addressed the dour-faced maid. “My sister is a lady, but should she find you skulking about his, or Lord Campbell’s door, she is likely to beat you senseless.”

Claire tossed her sister a scrutinizing look while another wench led them to the stairs. There was no visible evidence to confirm Claire’s suspicions. Anne didn’t stumble or sway on the stairs but glided up them like a swan across a loch, still wearing that ridiculous smile. “That was a tad unladylike, Anne—as is getting drunk with men.”

“I am not drunk,” Anne discarded her sister’s admonishment with a delicate wave of her hand. “I took but one sip to help dull my senses, lest I find myself riding off into the misty eve with Robert.” She cast her sister an and-you-know-exactly-what-I-mean look and continued up the stairs even while Claire paused, gaping at her. “We are not like the women here, Claire. We are kin to the king, and must conduct ourselves as such.”

Although it was quite shocking to hear her sister’s confession about wanting to bed Robert so badly she had to drink whisky to resist him, Claire could not help the sudden surge of laughter rising from her throat. “Och, Anne, we are not so different from these women at all.”

“Aye, we are.” Turning, Anne stopped and looked down at her over her shoulder. Her tranquil smile held a hint of victory fit for the battlefield. “We have won the men they pray for.”

Claire’s heart battered wildly in her chest. Had she won Graham? She turned to look at him over her shoulder only to find him looking back.

“Abby,” he called out without breaking their gaze, “have someone prepare a bath in my room.”

Claire slipped out of her and Anne’s bed and into Graham’s room without being seen. She paid no heed to her sister’s words. Her only thoughts were of him. She shut the door behind her and entered a haven bathed in the rosy candescence of candlelight. His bath had been prepared, its surface glittering like starlight. He moved within the shadows and light, coming to stand behind her.

“What kept ye, lass?” He buried his face in the soft hollow of her neck and grazed his teeth over her rapid pulse beat.

“I arrived as quickly as I could,” she said, her breath as short as his while his deft hands undressed her. Her nipples tightened instantly at the stroke of his palm.

By the time his plaid crumpled to the floor, Claire was trembling with unchecked desire for him.

The water spilled over the edge when he stepped into the basin. He sat, gently pulling Claire down to sit nestled between his thighs. Plumes of candle smoke raced across Claire’s nostrils as the cooled water caressed her belly, her breasts. Enfolded in the heat of his body, she felt heady and drunk with Angus’s potent whisky. Her muscles relaxed and her limbs went numb as he pulled her back against his chest. She watched his fingers skim the surface before her, a seductive dance that made her nipples ache with anticipation.

With his hot breath raking across the pulse at her throat, he cupped her breasts in his hands, squeezing, kneading her gently. But his touch grew more intense, more possessive as his staff hardened against her back.

She drew in a long, languorous sigh when his hands reached for the soap bowl, leaving her alone to savor the tingling aftereffects of his ministrations. He lathered his hands above her, dripping soap onto her breasts. A subtle shift of his hips grazed his erection along her lower spine and pulled a labored groan from his throat. Slipping his legs beneath her, he spread her wider over his knees and arched his back, lifting her pelvis out of the water. Lowering his hand to her eager niche, he flicked his soapy fingers across her, taunting, and then satisfying with more meaningful strokes. His other hand worked her deeper into oblivion, tugging her nipples and caressing her in his rough palms.

He dipped his finger into the water, and then into her, and stroked her from the inside. Claire writhed in his hands as wave upon thrilling wave sluiced over her.

Graham held her firmly, as fiercely aroused by her climax as she was. He slipped his finger out, and sliding it over her engorged nub, he lowered her onto his waiting lance.

Claire thought nothing would ever feel the way his fingers just did, but how could she have forgotten how sinfully good it felt to glide over his cock? She
had
to forget, else she would be mounting him every time he crossed her thoughts. It wasn’t just the way he stretched her just enough to almost tear her apart, or the satisfying fullness of having every inch of him inside her. It was the way he moved, as if taking her was his right. The gyration of his hips that drove him deeper, the slow, excruciatingly erotic plunges and retreats that teased her with his length, and the way he clutched her to him, impaling her hard and fast, having his way and making her love it.

Och, but he was as wicked as he proclaimed, taking her lobe between his clenched teeth and telling her how tight and hot she was.

“ . . . like hungry flames on my shaft, licking and sucking me dry. D’ye feel how hard I am fer ye, Claire?” He drove into her like a battering ram, soaking her with his seed.

“Aye,” she panted.

“How does it feel?”

She told him without reserve, pulling up and dipping down over his throbbing erection until he filled her to bursting and she cried out with the rapture of her release.

Chapter Twenty-five

I
have kept my heart’s desire silent long enough.

As the sun began its lazy descent in the west, James Buchanan set his bloodshot eyes toward the high, ragged peaks of the Grampian mountain range. He had not slept in over a sennight, plagued by thoughts of vengeance while his men slumbered peacefully round the campfire. Night after night he sat awake, contemplating whom to kill first when he finally reached Skye. Graham Grant, he decided, for smashing his skull into the wall and setting him to bed for days with an ache in his temples that made him wail, a broken nose, and a cracked tooth. The son of a bitch was going to pay dearly for that.

Robert Campbell would be next to feel his wrath. The earl was a traitor to the Parliament. Who on the council would fault him for killing a royalist MacGregor sympathizer? James hadn’t liked him from the moment the earl set foot in Ravenglade. He didn’t like the way the man’s eyes changed color with the direction of the light. Or the way those eyes watched him with open suspicion. As if he knew . . . James had to kill him. He would cut out the tongue that had flapped against him in Claire’s ear, and then he would cut out those wolf’s eyes.

As he settled his back against the gnarled trunk of a tall pine, his thoughts turned to Connor’s sisters. A doleful sigh escaped from the gaping hole where his tooth used to be. He would not take any pleasure in killing them, but now they left him no choice. He ground out a blasphemy through his tight lips, thinking about how easily Claire had turned on him. She took the word of a Roundhead over his. Arrogant cunt. Connor had always given her her way. Even when they had joined the resistance, and Claire insisted on going with them, Connor had confided in him that he had agreed with her decision because he understood her so deeply. His blood flowed through hers. And so it did. She was as much a bitch as her brother was a bastard. Always refusing him, always so serious, with no interest in play.

And James had wanted to play with her. Good and hard. He wanted to hold that tight bitch down and use her until she screamed her allegiance to her new lord and master. And scream she would, just before he cut her throat.

There was still a way to gain Connor’s lands with them all dead. When the king was rightfully restored to the throne, and he saw that it was Buchanan who rode at General Monck’s side when they took back the kingdom—Buchanan who slaughtered the men who dared to kill his two lady cousins, he would grant the lands and titles to his faithful servant.

James smiled to himself, pleased with his craftiness. He could not lose. Even if Charles never made it back to England, Monck trusted him, and after delivering Connor’s head to them on a silver platter, Lambert and Fleetwood did, too.

A disturbance from within a stand of trees to his left interrupted his thoughts. Pouncing to his feet, he drew his sword and kicked the sleeping soldier beside him.

“Who is there?” he called into the twilight shadows, waking a dozen more. “Announce yourself, or die.”

“Hold!” a man hailed back. “It is I, Steven, with men from Ravenglade!”

Hearing this, James sheathed his blade and stepped forward. What the hell was the captain doing so far from Ravenglade? James had to leave him and his entire legion behind. For they were not any of his men, but Connor’s, loyal to the Stuart line. “What is it? Why have you followed us?”

“A missive.” Steven held a folded parchment aloft and leaped from his saddle, joining James in three long strides. The seven men who accompanied him hung behind in the shadows. “It arrived from London by way of Stirling,” he said as James tore the parchment from his fingers. “The messenger said it was urgent, and should be delivered to you posthaste.” He followed James to the firelight. “Who is sending you missives from London?”

The tone of Steven’s question was innocent enough, but when James slipped his gaze to him, he saw suspicion in the thrust of the captain’s chin.

“I will tell you who after I myself find out.” James cast him a sinuous smile before returning to the missive. He recognized the handwriting right away. Elizabeth Fleetwood, the general’s daughter. The stately slut who had shared his bed and many of her father’s secrets when James visited London last winter. He scanned the letter quickly, suspecting she wrote to beg him to visit her again. His eyes fell to two words leaping off the illuminated page.

Connor Stuart.

His heart thumped madly in his chest as he quickly scanned the rest. Above the flames, his face went ashen and he stumbled back. Steven caught him by the arm and tried to have a look at the letter.

“What is it that causes you to look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

He just had. Connor Stuart was alive—imprisoned in the Tower, but alive.

“Who knows of this missive?” he asked, yanking his arm from Steven’s grasp.

Steven eyed him warily as he dropped the parchment into the fire. “Just those of us who delivered it to you.” He retreated a step when James slid his sword from its sheath.