Everlastin' Book 1 (14 page)

Rude, crude and
charming.
All wrapped up neatly in this man
she'd only met three days ago. And yet, in her heart, she felt as
if she had known him all her life.

“Lachlan?”

He thrust back his
shoulders. She couldn't help but notice how taut his back and
shoulders became, and wondered if she hadn't made a grave mistake
intruding where she wasn't wanted.

The light awarded by two gas
fixtures on each side of the portrait, flickered.

Wresting her concentration
free of the mesmerizing globed flames, she said by way of apology,
“I'm sorry I disturbed you.”

But she didn't move to
leave. Lachlan turned slowly to face her, his chest heaving with
every breath he took. His arms, held slightly out from his powerful
build, supported clenched fists.

His gaze fixed on the hand
Beth held over her heart. She lowered her arm and looked up at the
portrait again.

“You bear a striking
resemblance to him,” she said nervously.

“You dinna belong in
here.”

“Is something
wrong?”

A moment passed in tense
silence. A fey fluctuating sensation played around her heart.
Although part of her mind tried to reject the notion, gut instinct
told her what she was experiencing was Lachlan's attempt to lighten
his mood.

“You should no' be here,” he
said finally, a quaver in his tone slipping past his
control.

“I'm sorry.”

Lachlan forced his stiff
fingers to uncurl.

What has she to be sorry
about?
he wondered. He was the reason she
had been brought to Baird House. He was the one who planned to keep
her everlasting.

Never would she live the
life of her dreams.

He'd waited too long for a
fitting bride to bless his house.

Beth couldn't imagine what
was going through his mind, not when his features went through a
gamut of expressions within a matter of seconds. She was a little
afraid of the intensity in his dark eyes until it slowly began to
register that he was looking her over in a way she hadn't
experienced since her college days.

“You're still upset with
me,” she said with an airy shrug.

After a moment, he gave a
forlorn shake of his head.

“I-I know you were only
trying to help me. About my mother, I mean.”

“You must help yerself,
lass.”

Unbidden, tears sprang to
her eyes. “I loved my mother, Lachlan.”

He nodded.

“She-umm...changed during
her illness.”

“Aye. Tis
normal.”

Beth struggled with
indecision. Deep in her heart, she knew she had to let go of the
guilt. But it was so hard. As if to say the words aloud was to
destroy the image of the woman she needed to cling to. “I...I don’t
understand why you keep bringing her up. She was ill and died. It’s
done, so why—”

“Go to yer bed, Beth. Tis
late.”

Breathing heavily, she
moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “You said you
knew.”

“Do
you?
Or have you buried it too deep?”
When she frowned, he went on, “You canna harbor dark emotions in
this house, Beth. They’ll eat you alive. Trust me, I know, and I
canna stand by and watch you pretend ye’re not hurtin’ here.” He
thumped a fist over his heart. “So...tell me, lass, wha’ causes you
to cry in yer sleep?”

How could he know
that?

There was seldom a night she
didn’t awaken and find her face damp with tears.

How can he know
that?

“Beth, I told you we share a
link. As ma anger wi’ the Inglisses affects you, this guilt ye’re
denyin’ affects me.”

It was if a bubble forced
itself up from the pit of her stomach and burst from her mouth.
“Her suffering was constant. There was nothing the doctors could
do. Nothing...
nothing
offered her the slightest relief.”

The tears came faster. “I
never doubted her love for me. You have to understand
that.”

“I do.”

“She would never have—” Her
voiced cracked but she forced herself to go on. For some reason
beyond her understanding, she
had
to free herself of the memory’s grip. “—begged
me...unless she was desperate. Desperate to...end the suffering.
It...it affected her mind— Oh God! I can't do this!”

Lachlan's chest filled with
pain in sympathy for her, but he could not let it show. “Then
stop.”

Trembling, Beth struggled to
end the war inside her. “Three times she suffered massive
coronaries, and three times they brought her back. She w-wanted to
d-die. Day after day....”

“Wha' happened day efter
day?”

“Every time I went near
her....”

“Go on, darlin'.”

As if an invisible hand
plucked away her raw emotions, a fey calm befell her. Staring off
into space, blinking in a mechanical manner, she evenly went on,
“She begged me to help her to die. To hold a pillow over her face
and end her suffering.”

“You couldna bring yerself
to do it.”

Beth slowly shook her head.
“I wanted to. There were times when her weeping nearly drove me
insane. It invaded my dreams...everything. So consuming. I should
have loved her enough to do as she asked.”

Coming to stand a short
distance from her, Lachlan clasped his hands behind his back. “The
eve afore she passed on, she said some hurtful thin’s to
you.”

Beth looked into his
handsome face. “How could you know?” Not expecting him to reply,
she went on, “She said she hated my weakness. Accused me of being
heartless. Her fingers...so cold, and surprisingly strong, gripped
my wrist. She knew she was hurting me. The look in her eyes....
She
hated
me,
Lachlan. When I woke up the next morning and found her dead, I was
so relieved, so grateful it was over! Not for her! For
me!”

Her gaze searched his face
for a sign of his disgust, but his expression was guarded, even his
eyes not betraying his thoughts.

“Say something,” she
choked.

Something awakened in his
eyes. Smoldering. Boring into her brain. Beth gulped and backed
away two paces. He'd said he'd known her secret, but of course he
couldn't have. Now he was repulsed by the woman she'd exposed. That
side of herself she had trouble accepting.

“I love you,
lass.”

His words stunned her.
Straining to look deeper into his eyes, she touched the base of her
throat.

“Put yer mither to rest in
yer heart, and give yerself to me.”

Beth hesitated. Now she knew
the intensity was in fact simmering passion. He wanted her, and
that frightened and thrilled her. She hardly knew the man, yet her
body tingled at the mere thought of his hands caressing her, of his
mouth mastering her, taking her to those endless horizons written
about in books.

But he was a
stranger!

Her heart raced
wildly.

The trepidation in her mind
did not offset the strangling longing and desire she felt at that
moment. She was
thirty!
Certainly she had earned the right to experiment with
sex.

Did he say he loved
me?

“Aye, I love you, lass,” he
said in a whisper of a tone.

Her fingers kneaded the
cotton skirt of her short nightgown. She wished she was wearing
silk. Something soft and clingy and sensuous. She wished she was
beautiful not merely benefited by a chemistry that seemed to
attract him.

She'd never considered a
love affair. Nor a fling. She'd always been too shy, too insecure
to see herself as anything more than slightly attractive, a woman
with good skin and a fair build, a woman not unlike the hordes who
searched endlessly for the man of their dreams.

If she gave into her
feelings tonight, allowed the raw desire within her to surface,
what would the morning bring?

How could she face Carlene
and David?

What would they think of
her, throwing caution to the wind to satisfy a long-overdue itch to
know womanhood?

No man had ever made her
squirm with a mere look, nor made her skin feel afire at a mere
touch. Lachlan did. And he'd freed her. It was as if an enormous
weight had been lifted off her shoulders. The guilt no longer
hovered at the periphery of her mind. She was free. Free to love.
To live.

If she abandoned this
chance....

Lachlan's impatience broke
her spell of indecision. To Beth, he appeared to be but a blur as
he rushed toward her. Before she could utter a single word, she was
in his arms, her mouth being plundered by his own. The kiss was
frightening, yet so torrid as to seize her sexuality and wash
ashore her fears. His hands moved over her back and buttocks,
slipped beneath her nightgown, and kneaded the rounded firmness of
her backside.

Wrenching his lips away, he
moaned by her ear, “Tis been so long since these hands have touched
such hurdies.” To explain his meaning, his hands smoothed over the
contours of her buttocks and hips. “I've waited so long for you. I
canna wait no mair, Beth. I've got to feel maself inside you! Can
the wooin' come later when ma brain is no' so afire wi' need o’
you?”

Breathless, her head
swimming, she looked up into his wild eyes and delivered a mute
answer. With a moan of joy, Lachlan swept her up into his arms and
carried her to the bed, where he gently laid her down. But his
hands were not so gentle as he parted her legs and knelt between
them then sat back on his heels. His fiery gaze moved over every
part of her while the back of his fingers caressed her inner
thighs, maddeningly sensitizing her skin.

“I have a serious question
to ask you, lass.”

His chest rapidly rising and
falling, he let a few seconds pass before asking, “Will you respect
me in the morn?”

Beth's rapturous expression
cracked with a smile. She was nervous and shy, but she had never
wanted anything as much as she wanted him at this
moment.

Lachlan sobered as his gaze
settled on Beth's concealed breasts. His hands trembling, he lifted
the gown up and over her breasts, and with her help, over her head.
Tossing the gown aside, he leaned to, his weight supported on his
forearms to each side of her shoulders. He kissed her at first
tenderly, then more demandingly until he could feel her arch and
squirm beneath him. He cupped one of her breasts in a hand, trailed
kisses down her face and neck, and made his way to the erect nipple
within his hold.

His lips encompassed the
rigid nub and gently sucked. She moaned. When the coarse texture of
his tongue circled and lapped at the peak, she moaned
again.

His kisses moved down her
ribs and across the flat planes of her abdomen. With little effort,
he ripped the sides of her panties and tossed the material away. He
straightened on his knees and, staring heatedly into Beth's
passion-filled eyes, began to strip out of his pants. His movements
were deliberately slow, controlled to build her anticipation. It
was upon him to initiate her into the wonders of lovemaking,
although it had been the key that had forsaken his hopes and dreams
many years ago. He was determined her first experience would
further bond her to him.

Patience and
gentleness.

He'd counseled himself on
these qualities during the agonizingly long months he'd waited for
her.

Beth watched him, marveling
in the majesty of his perfect body. At first glimpse of his
arousal, she started to look away, but some inner instinct prompted
her to stare at the instrument that was about to play the chords of
her yet unfulfilled needs. She wanted to hear angels and birds, to
feel the soaring upon penetration described in romance books, to
know a climax under the mastery of a man like Lachlan.

His pants flung aside, she
expected him to drive his rigid penis to its hilt. But he didn't.
Scooting down on the bed, he lowered himself and brushed his lips
and tongue along her abdomen, then slowly along her inner thighs.
Spasms of tingling delight washed through her. Gripping the pillow
above her head, she arched up and released a low, raspy
moan.

“Lachlan, what are you doing
to me?”

A devilish smile was his
only response before he pressed his lips to the valley between her
thighs.

“Oh...my...God,” Beth
gasped, under assault by so many alien sensations that she couldn't
concentrate on any one in particular. Two of Lachlan's fingers
glided in and out of her body. She arched up and clenched her
teeth. The sensations were maddening and frightening and powerfully
wonderful, and she thought she was going to burst. Pleasure after
pleasure rolled over her in endless waves—

Her climax took her unawares
and a cry escaped her. Lachlan continued his ministrations, causing
her to writhe and squirm in an attempt to stop the bursts of
sensations before they consumed her.