A Highlander's Home (20 page)

             
She moaned, and wrapped one leg around his thigh.  His hand spiraled down from her waist to the wet heat between her legs to stroke the fire he knew he had built.  She made no move to push him away which fueled him even more.  He found the bud of her desire and rolled it between his fingers. 

             
“Aaahh!” she fairly yelped.

             
He eased the pressure while pulling her closer to him.  He nipped her bottom lip while dodging her efforts to capture his mouth with hers.  She was a fast learner.  He smiled.

             
“Easy, lass,” he whispered.

             
“No.”  She dug her fingers into his hair, pulling his mouth to hers while grinding her hips deeper into his hand, that oversized calloused hand that she was growing to appreciate more and more with every passing second.

             
“Hmmm, I say aye, ye say nay.  Tsk, tsk.  Whatever am I going to do with ye, my sweet strange lass?”

             
She whined and stood on her one tiptoe
and wrapped her other leg tighter around his waist now.  Breathlessly, she answered honestly from the one minute place in her mind that was still somehow functioning through the haze of pleasure, “I don’t know.  Just don’t stop this.” 

             
Then she whimpered, “Please.”

             
She opened her eyes just then as he looked down into her upturned face.  The fire was dying behind her and casting a golden red glow.  Her eyes, normally green like the sea, had deepened to the darkest emerald he had ever seen.  Her lashes were long and dark against them making them appear surreal.  He thought he would drown in them if she did not close her eyes that very second.

             
His
warm
mouth came down hard on hers, forcing her lips apart further than before.  She welcomed him, even after they both tasted the blood on their tongues.  His fingers continued their assaul
t while her hands moved over his muscled shoulders
in a panicked frenzy, looking for something, not quite sure what or how to find it, knowing only that he would give it to her and end this torture.

             
With the heel of his hand still on the wet bud, he inserted first one finger, then a second, feeling her tighten around him and then relax only to tighten again as the grinding of her hips became harder, more determined.

             
He leaned against the door and slid down causing him to be at her height.  She planted her hands on either side of him
and spread her legs.  Her head was thrown back, eyes closed, and breaths were coming shorter and faster, matching the thrusts of his fingers.  She could have been a pagan goddess for all the modesty that she was displaying.  He could tell that she was confused about finding this elusive ending she sought.  She was a virgin, as he had hoped, but a virgin who would give him a run for his money. 

             
Increasing the speed of his hand, her moans became louder.  The louder she was, the faster his hand moved.  She tried to bury her head in his shoulder but he splayed his hand below her neck, holding her slightly back so he could see her.  He wanted to pleasure her, yes, but he had no idea she held such passion, such…
force.
  She would reach the precipice of her passion, and he would watch her fall off of it.

             
She seemed to stop breathing for an eternity.  The room that was filled with moans of desire and half shrieks of lust was now as quiet as a tomb.  Then suddenly, as he stared unblinkingly at this woman who was surprising him at every turn, let out a gasp and a sound that could only come from deep inside a woman who had been without the touch of a man.

             
Her fingers dug into the wood on either side of his head, peeling the wood splinters into little shards that fell to the ground.  Her hair fell to below her waist as her head was thrown back.  She had stilled her body, but Leith continued his assault on her body, feeling her shudder around his fingers, his palm catching the
droplets of her lust.

             
She bit her bottom lip, reveling in the pain as her body reveled in the pleasure stemming from this big brute of a
Scotsman
. 
She raised her head, her mane of hair, now wet and tangled, falling over her face.  Burying her face in his shoulder,
she breathed deeply, and shuddered. 

             
His hands eased their now torturous movements and held her waist, supporting her against his body.  He stared into the fire over her shoulder, stroking her hair.  She was amazing. 
This was amazing.
  He had tupped many a lass in his day but it had never been like this.  And they had not even fully tupped!

             
He inhaled deeply of her scent and his arousal
tightened
, causing him to groan into her neck.

             
“Am I hurting you?” she asked, sounding like a little girl, as she wiped the tangled mess of hair out of her face, her eyes slightly glazed as she looked at him.

             
He stood, picking her up and wrapping her trembling legs around his waist.  “No.”  He placed a peck on her check, inhaling once again. 

             
She giggled.  “Why are you smelling me?”

             
He stood still, her round bottom perfectly cupped in his hands.  She weighed practically nothing and seemed to fit against him as if God himself had designed her just for him.

             
“Because ye
smell wonderful,” he answered, smiling.

             
She laughed out loud this time.  “I smell horrible and need another bath.”

             
He lowered her to the bed, wishing he could set aside his morals and join her, take her until she screamed his name. 
She was showing no shyness or shame following her burst of pleasure.  Another surprise he savored.

             
Her hand lingered on his arm, feeling the muscles bunch under her fingers.  He was staring at her as if he knew her deepest secrets, as if he could see the deepest recesses of her thoughts.  “Do you have to go now?”  She followed his gaze to the door.
 

             
Sighing he lowered his mouth to hers and slowly kissed her with the gentleness that rivaled the power he had used just moments before.  He met her gaze.  He wanted to say no.  He wanted to stay.  He wanted her to ask him to stay.

             
He
ran his finger along her jaw,
and then
stared at her.  “Do ye wish me to stay?”

             
She never wanted him to leave.  But she was confused and scared.  Her body ached and her legs were still trembling.  She could feel the sweat drying on her skin.  Her woman’s place between her legs was more moist than she had ever felt it.  She looked at his hands that had worked such magic on her body, made her throw her head back with abandon, and dig her nails into his shoulders. 

But this was dangerous territory.  He was from the fifteenth century.  She was from the future.  Things could get so much more complicated than they should be.  She could not take the chance of falling in love with him or vice versa.  She had to keep her focus on the stones.

He sensed the change in her.  He straightened and held her hand.  Her eyes had changed.  She was thinking of the stones.  Her time.  Her life.

He kissed her knuckles and turned to leave.

“
I do…but
I can’t,” she whispered.  “I’m so sorry, Leith.”

“
Do not be sorry, lass.”  He paused,
and then
said, “I will take you to the stones.”

Her lip quivered.  She whispered, “Thank you.”

             
He walked towards the door.  Raine shot to the end of the bed, clutching her pillow.  “Tonight,” she said breathlessly.  “It had nothing to do with the stones.”

             
He looked at her.
  She needed for him to understand.

             
“I was not trying to persuade you to take me there by letting you…um…this.”

             
He strode back to her, picked her up until she dangled like a doll in the air, and kissed her.

             
Putting her back on the bed, he replied
softly
, “I know
, lass
.
  But I promise you that one day you will ask to stay
.”
  His blue eyes bore into the depths of her.

             
The door closed behind him
,
and she listened to his steps retreat
ed
down the hallway.  She
lay
down, and stared at the ceiling.  A smile started as the thoughts of what had transpired began to burn itself in her memory.

             
She curled into the pillow and fell asleep with thoughts of a large, dark ancient Scotsman dancing before her eyes.

Chapter 17

             
Leith fairly hurled Raine
across the room to jump start his orders.  Alisdair had come
,
and he wanted blood.  Hell’s Gate had been in Leith’s family for generations
.
H
e was not about to give it up without a fight.

             
“Get up to yer room and take ye
r ladies with you!” he bellowed.

             
She lifted her skirts
,
preparing to run back to him.  She yelled
in reply
, “I can help!  I can fight
,
too!”

             
He pinned her with a steely gaze. 

             
“Ye will do as I say, woman.  Now get to ye’re rooms!”

             
With her ladies already scrambling towards the stairs, they grabbed her and were almost dragging her with them
, heedless of her protests
.  Just as
they were about to round the corner and take him out of her sight
, an
image of Leith, wounded, lying on the ground beneath a half-crazed Alisdair flashed through her mind.  What if this were the last time she saw him?  What if he died in this battle?

             
Flinging off her ladies, she hiked her skirts high above her knees, freeing her legs to sprint across the room towards him.  He turned from his men and saw her coming towards him.  There was no use in trying to stop her now.

             
Her body hit his so hard it almost knocked them both over.  Her legs wrapped themselves around his hips
,
and she crushed her mouth to his.  Robbie shook his head and grabbed Leith’s sword, but he kept his eyes on the hills.  There was no time for this.  Plenty of time after the battle but not now.  He sighed and frowned.  Women.

             
Leith felt her tongue invade his mouth in a desperate attempt to taste him in the few seconds she knew she could demand from him.  He
grabbed a fistful of her hair and matched her
tongue
stroke for stroke.  Then he put her down and pushed her to arms length and took his sword back from his brother who stood frowning at him.

             
Standing there she was a picture to see.  Her hair all mussed from
his hands
, her wonderfully full lips red and swollen, her skirts bunched up as she clutched them to her chest exposing her legs.  He couldn’t help but smile.

             
The image of the great Scotsman standing on the precipice of battle, sword in hand, jet black hair tousled from her frenzied hands burying themselves in it, his lips wet from her efforts to extract one last taste of him would be forever in her mind. 

             
To her frustration, her lip quivered as she declared, “I don’t want you to die.”

             
He laughed
shortly
.  “Och, lassie, neither do I.”

             
“He comes,” Robbie growled, his eyes on the hills.

             
There, in the midst of what Raine thought to be an army, was a tall man with golden hair on a white horse speeding over the hills on a direct path for Hell’s Gate.  To kill the Laird and claim the keep.

             
Their eyes met and held.  For what seemed like an eternity, they stood still, taking in the loveliness of the other in that moment.

             
Leith strode towards her and crushed his lips to hers once more.  She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on with more strength than she knew she had.