Lord of the Isles: International Billionaires VIII: The Scots (21 page)

BOOK: Lord of the Isles: International Billionaires VIII: The Scots
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His lashes were nearly black, a clear contrast to his porcelain skin. Long and lush and lavish. He used them so well as a weapon to keep her at bay, yet now they just lay there on his cheek, like a delicate brush of dark on white.

With her gaze, she traced the line of his jaw to his jutting chin. The line was perfectly male, strong and sure, firm with resolution even in sleep. He’d shaved yesterday, but not today, and the rough bristle of shadowed hair graced his skin, hinting at the male animal underneath the vulnerability.

His mouth was like the rest of him. Such a contradiction between the power of a man and the softness of a spirit. His lower lip jutted out, red and ripe. The upper lip bowed in the middle, almost feminine, if not for the whiskers surrounding it.

Reaching over, she tenderly touched the tip of his nose with one finger. She drew her touch up, tracing the small bump in the middle, wondering where he got that, and then to the bridge and across one straight brow.

His sky-blue eyes shot open.

He said nothing.

Lilly looked into those eyes and saw her new reality for what it was. Reality. There was no way back to her safety zone, a place where she parceled out her heart with caution. For this man, for this time, there was no safety in hiding any longer from what she felt.

She let her finger slide off his cheek and gave him a bleak smile. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.” He kept staring at her. “Did ye get some good photos?”

No, she hadn’t. Instead, she’d sat on a rock and stared at the Atlantic, thinking about her mom and her sisters across the pond. Thinking about why she’d never quite fit into New York City, and her family over there. How that had changed something inside her. Something inside her that seemed to be changing once more.

“A few.” She inched back, although she knew she’d already been caught.

His mouth pursed. “Is that a fact?”

“Mmm.” Glancing at the water, she took in the breadth of his sea, the salt of his air, the ridge of his islands. Something settled inside her.

It is what it is.

Her dad’s favorite saying came to her, some comfort for her new reality.

Iain straightened and pulled his bag around. “And here I promised to have a feast spread out when ye got back here. I’ve been derelict in my duties.”

The wry edge of humor in his voice comforted her too. “Slacking off, soldier.”

She turned to make sure the mention of his military past went over okay, and was satisfied to see his expression didn’t grow dark and his shoulders didn’t go taut.

Instead, his beautiful mouth quirked. “I aim to change that right now.”

“Go ahead.” Her stomach rumbled, surprising her. She’d thought the turmoil inside would have swamped any basic needs. Apparently not.

He laughed because he’d heard the sound. “Lovely Lilly needs food.”

“What did you bring?”

Zipping open the bag, he pulled out two bottles of water and handed her one.

“A woman can’t survive on water alone,” she teased and again, was astonished she could do so.

“I wouldn’t ask ye to.” A couple of plastic-covered cheeses, both log-shaped, came from his rucksack next. Then he pulled out a bag filled with an oval brown bread.

“What are those?”

“Now I’m here to educate ye.” He carefully peeled the plastic off. “On what good cheese the Scottish make.”

“What’s the bread?” She leaned in to pluck the bag up and stare at the flat, unremarkable looking thing.

“Bannock.” Next, he flipped a knife and a plate from his rucksack. Laying the cheese down on the plate, he began to slice. “Hand the bread over, lass.”

“What’s bannock?” She squished the bread in between her fingers.

“Give it here.” He snatched the bag from her and gave her a glint of his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Bannock is a flat bread Scots call scones sometimes.” Pulling the loaf out, he cut into it and put a slice of cheese on the wedge. “Here now. Have a taste of Scotland.”

The cheese was soft and creamy, with a touch of pepper. The bread was chewy and tasted like an oatcake. The combination of flavors exploded on her tongue. “Mmm.”

“The
donas
likes it.” He sliced the other cheese and put it on another wedge. “Try this one.”

Lilly obediently popped the next offering into her mouth and closed her eyes in simple pleasure. This was also a soft cheese, buttery and smooth with a sour tinge at the end. It mixed perfectly with the taste of the bread.

Swallowing the treat, she opened her eyes.

He stared at her with a hunger she couldn’t misunderstand and she could no longer ignore. Because she was hungry, too. Hungry not only for his body, but for his heart.

A shiver went through her.

His straight brows furrowed. “Are ye cold?”

Cold with wariness, hot with desire.

“Not at all. Tell me what those cheeses are.” She shifted back on the blanket.

“The first one is called crowdie. Supposedly, the Vikings brought it over to us, so it’s our most ancient cheese.” He rattled off the words with swift ease and pride like the cheese and the history were as much a part of him as the land and sea.

“And the second?”

“It’s called caboc.” He munched on a slice of his own before continuing. “Another traditional Scots cheese.”

“I can’t believe my dad hasn’t ever shared these with me.”

“Your da doesn’t strike me as an adventurous eater.” He stuck another of the slices in his mouth and chewed with evident satisfaction.

The truth of the statement made her cock her head and stare at him. The McPherson was perceptive, very perceptive if he’d picked this knowledge up about her dad without spending a lot of time with him. “You’re rather wise about people, aren’t you?”

He appeared startled for a moment as if the thought had never occurred to him. “Wise? I’m no such thing.”

“Really.” Leaning over, she snatched another treat. “How often have you met my dad?”

“I don’t know. Maybe three, four times.”

“And somehow, in those few short meetings, you figured out Dad tends to stick to the basics.” She nibbled on the soft cheese and bread. “Things like pre-sliced cheddar cheese and white bread.”

He shuddered, an exaggerated reaction that made her chuckle. His gaze lit in response and the sparkle tinted the blue with starlight and magic.

Lilly went quiet inside, so quiet she thought she could hear her heart thunder to life for the first time in all her twenty-nine years. This love for Iain wasn’t anything like the love she had for her family. She’d been wrong to think so, wrong to think this mirrored what she’d felt before. This love circled around her and inside her until it became one with every fiber of her body and soul.

The realization made her heart batter against her chest.

Thankfully, the man lounging on the blanket across from her didn’t detect the storm raging inside her heart. “Some would argue the caboc is Scotland’s oldest. The daughter of a MacDonald chieftain created the recipe and handed it down to her daughter as a secret.”

Scrambling inside her head and heart, looking for a familiar rock from her previous life she could hold on to, she tried to keep up appearances. “Is it a secret even now?”

“Some would say so, though my da used to make a good enough replica in our creamery.”

“Used to?” With a start, she remembered she was still this man’s friend, and still needed to get this man back to a normal life. Even though she’d decided to be more. Somewhere between landing here on this island and now, she’d decided to take him as a lover. Decided her heart would always be his. And yet, she still had something else to give him. “What do you mean, used to?”

Predictably, the dark clouds swirled into his eyes. “Leave it,
donas
.”

“No, I won’t.” She curled her fingers on the edge of the blanket because she couldn’t use her touch yet. Not until she’d pushed him a bit. “Why isn’t your creamery making cheese anymore?”

“Because I wasn’t here to help.” The words came out with a swift punch. “And when my da got sick, he couldn’t keep it going.”

“Iain.” Affection and worry mixed into her love, a soft, solid brew of devotion. “You were serving your country.”

“I should have been able to do something.” He threw down the knife in self-disgust. “I should have been serving my family and my islands.”

She couldn’t stop herself from touching now. Not now when he needed her. Getting to her knees, she crawled straight at him and unlike before, when he’d scuttled away, this time he held his position by leaning down on his elbows and spreading out his long legs.

“Are ye coming for me, lovely Lilly?” He might not have retreated, but those half-mast eyes of his told her he had his guard up.

“Yes.” In more ways than one, she realized. The love was too fresh and new and painful to assimilate fully, but somewhere, deep inside, she knew she was coming for him and intending to keep him.

“Are ye,” he said in a soft, wondering voice, although he masked his eyes in that sultry way of his. “Then come on.”

She did. She came right to him and laid her head on his brawny shoulder. “Iain.”

“Iain, she says,” he sing-songed back.

“You can’t be everything to everyone, you know.”

“Do I know that?” His arms came around her, shifting her so she lay on her side with him.

“Well, clearly you don’t.” She slung her arm across his waist. “Not yet, anyway.”

He sighed, a gusty sound. “I suppose you’re aiming to make me see this eventually.”

“Yep.”

Silence fell between them. It should have been filled with wary anger or fraught emotions. Instead, it seeped between them, a warm, gentle connection.

“I’m thinking, Lil.”

“Mmm.” She snuggled closer.

“I’m thinking I need to do some things differently than my da did.”

“On the islands.”

“On my islands.”

The claim of ownership thrilled her because there was confidence in his voice, and a determination she’d never heard before. “Okay, Your Majesty, what are you thinking?”

He chuckled, the movement of his chest butting against her breasts, making her realize the passion for him was there beneath the friendship. “Donal might have been right about a few things.”

“Donal?” Lifting her head, she looked at him. “Who’s Donal?”

A dark, nasty emotion drifted in his eyes before he blanked it away. “I’m thinking we need to do some exploring.”

Before she could grasp the change in conversation and figure out what had happened, he’d jumped from her arms and stood. “Let’s go,” he ordered.

“Wait. What?” She scrambled to her feet. “Go back to the castle?”

“No.” He turned to pace off across the beach. “We’re going to explore.”

Looking around at the tiny island, she shook her head in confusion. “Explore what?”

“My past.”

Chapter 21

T
he cove
on the other side of his island and the small grassy indent into the rock wall were exactly the same as when he’d last been here.

A thousand years ago, it seemed like.

He wasn’t that boy anymore.

So who was he?

Lovely Lilly rattled to his side, her breathing short, the lemony scent of her swirling in the air mixed with the sweet smell of her sweat. “I thought maybe we were racing to escape some Viking raiders.”

The gift of her humor, when she should have been yelling at him for his rude behavior, made the sudden guilt even thicker inside. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” She pushed her blonde curls off her forehead. “For what?”

He paced away, before he knelt at her knees in supplication. “For not slowing my gait so ye could keep up.”

“I kept up. As you can see.”

He turned to catch her waving her hand at herself in a grand gesture. The expression on her face was wry and kind.

Something broke inside. Was it his heart? His pain? Iain couldn’t tell. He only knew he needed to make it up to her in some way. So he gave her a gift of himself and his past. “This was my place as a lad.”

“Was it?” She looked around.

He wondered what she saw. Did she see the subtle beauty of the color of his sea here? The green more prominent, the blue less so. Did she see the way the solid rock formed a cover over the indent, like a ceiling or a canopy? Did she see the whisper of the wind moving along this grass, caressing the blades with a soft touch?

Did she see what he’d seen as a boy?

“What’s the island called?”

“Bha Innis.” He gave her a little smile. “And before ye ask, ye curious woman, it means
His Island
.”

“That sounds appropriate.” She smiled right back at him.

Her lovely smile sunk into him like a heatstroke, making him venture further into his past. “My da brought me across the first several times. But after a while, he let me come here by myself.”

“You liked that a lot, didn’t you?”

“Aye.” Bracing himself, he put his hands on his hips. “I enjoy being by myself.”

“You say that as if you’re making some horrid confession.” She wandered closer, her gaze keen. “It isn’t, you know.”

“Do I?” He forced himself to keep meeting her gaze.

“If you don’t, you should.” She cocked her head. “Tell me.”

“What?”

“Was your mom as boisterous as your dad?”

“Boisterous?” Iain gave her an immediate frown. “My da was a great man.”

“I’m sure he was. I enjoyed him every time I met him.” She stepped a bit closer. “Still, he could be rather overwhelming.”

“I don’t know what ye mean.” A rough sound came from his throat because he’d loved his da. Loved his loud voice and big laugh. Loved his pride in the McPherson name and his devotion to their island kingdom.

“But we weren’t talking about your dad. I asked about your mom.”

“I loved my mum.” The memory of her had faded, a lingering, loving presence who’d fallen aside in the face of his da’s needs.

“I’m sure you did.” She crept closer. “Tell me about her.”

Grief, a grief he hadn’t been allowed to feel for almost twenty years, roared through him. He sucked in a deep breath, pushing back the tears. “I’m quite like her, actually.”

“Are you?”

“She was quiet.” He closed his eyes and remembered. “She was very quiet.”

Lovely Lilly only hummed.

“She liked to read and she liked her garden.”

“Oh, Iain.” The sorrow in her voice made him snap open his eyes.

“What? What’s wrong with that?” He scowled at her once more.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” The
donas
came right to him and looked into his eyes.

And it hit him, just like that.

Her eyes were exactly the green of his sea. Her determined spirit was exactly like the rock arching over them. Her tender friendship and care gave him exactly the same touch of pure happiness he’d experienced whenever he’d arrived on this island. As a boy, he thought of this as his place, when all along, he’d been searching for her. His Lilly.

“Iain.”

“Iain, she says,” he choked out the words because he still wanted to protect himself from the wondrous need filling him.

Maybe she realized he couldn’t say anything more without giving her everything. She reached up on her tiptoes and put her arms around him and put her lips on his.

Everything inside him went silent. The howl of his pain, the bittersweet memory of his boyhood, the wonder of what he’d found.

Everything went away except her.

She hummed on his lips and, like an incantation, the sound made him open to her, taste her. The buttery remnants of the cheese they’d just eaten coated her tongue and his, binding them together. Beneath it, lay her. The sweet, subtle taste of Lilly. This time, he savored, this time he took his time and got all of her mouth.

But not all of her.

His past and his plans fell away to leave him with only the male, with only the primitive need pounding inside. He yanked his mouth from hers to confess what he had never wanted to confess again to a living human being. “I need ye.”

“I need you too.” Dropping down from her tiptoes, she smiled.

The smile lit inside him. Drove away any lingering darkness or wary worry. He didn’t know anything other than this.

This moment. This woman.

“Come here,
donas
.” He tugged her hand and dropped them both to their knees.

“Someday, you’re going to have to tell me what that name means,” she teased. “But right now, I don’t want to talk.”

He thought he should probably attempt one of his own teases. “Ye? Don’t want to talk…”

With a female move as old as Eve, she pulled her shirt over her head and shimmied as she did it, making his tease clutch in his throat.

“Lilly.”

She was impossibly, improbably, exactly right for him.

Her glossy skin glowed in the sunlight, so warm and tan and lovely. Her breasts brimmed over her bra, making his mouth water and his teeth clench. Her shoulders and arms were graceful, lyrical in the way his music was. She was everything and anything and his.

“Lilly,” he breathed in again. With the air, came a sliver of his brain. “What are ye doing? Aren’t ye the one who thought we should only be—”

“Not now.”

Her two words were simple and yet, incredibly confusing. He frowned, trying to wring his mind back into functioning control. “But I thought—”

“Not now, Iain.” Sighing, she crawled closer until she plastered herself against him. “Things have changed.”

Instinct howled at his brain to shut up. Emotion welled inside, breaking around his wobbly heart like a hurricane. “I want ye. Don’t think I don’t.”

“I know you do.” The muffled words came from his neck. “And I want you.”

Then, she hummed again on his skin.

The sound went through him like a tsunami, cutting through any last objections. Until all he could take in was her fragrant, warm body, and the fact she’d finally admitted what he’d wanted to hear from the moment he’d seen her.

As the fairy girl, he’d wanted her spirit to heal him.

As a winsome woman, he wanted her to become one with him.

Throwing away his brain, Iain grabbed her naked waist and tugged her into another kiss.

And another. And another.

* * *

L
illy’s heart
expanded in her chest until all she had was her love for Iain McPherson. All her plans for her future, all her memories of her past were swept away. The love spread inside, filling every empty crevasse, every lonely gap. All the chinks into her soul, all the cuts and fractures and slices of her past filled, pulling her into completeness.


Donas
,” he whispered on the side of her mouth. “Take my shirt off.”

His raspy plea broke through her emotions, drawing her back into the physical reality of him. She yanked off his T-shirt and pressed her hands on the center of his chest, feeling the steady, solid beat of his heart beneath her palms. “I want all of you, Iain. Everything,” she confessed in a hushed voice.

His finger poked her chin and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. His eyes were wide open, no dark lashes hiding himself from her. The blue was stark with need, and God help her, she hoped with something much more profound. “Lil.” His mouth wasn’t sultry and suggestive, but rather firm and determined as if pronouncing an important truth. “Ye have had me since the moment ye walked into my castle.”

Hope burst inside her and she laughed with joy, a deep, simple joy of understanding she’d found her place on this planet. Found the place she’d been looking for with an unconscious knowing.

“No more laughing or talking,” he growled before snapping open the clasp of her bra, tugging it off her willing arms, and throwing it aside. His focus dropped from her face to her breasts. Groaning out a tortured, male sound, he stared. “Ye are beautiful.”

Sliding her fingers through her hair, she arched, giving herself to him. “Touch.”

“Jesus.” His hands rose to cup her, jiggling the weight in his palms. His eyes closed and he made another hoarse sound in his throat.

Fire and the warm pull of desire flashed from her breasts down into her womb. Lilly arched more, into the heat of his hold and his need.

His thumbs brushed her hard nipples, making her hum again. “Come here,” he crooned as he lifted her, his strength easily moving her where he wanted.

His mouth latched onto one nipple and she gasped at the lightning stroke of passion roaring through her blood. Switching to her other nipple, this time his tongue twirled over it, a light, gentle taste.

Then he nipped her right on the side of her breast.

“Ah!” she cried, taking in the quick cut of painful pleasure. Dropping her head back, she closed her eyes, accepting his tender desire and male possession.

He murmured something she couldn’t understand before laving her skin, drenching the bite in his hot, wet need.

“Iain,” she breathed, opening her eyes to the blue sky.

“Lilly,” he responded, his hands tightening on her torso before laying her on the soft grass.

He rose above her, his gaze locked with hers, his big shoulders tense with sexual need, the hair on his chest damp with sweat. There was something elemental about him now, something primitive and wild. Something that came from the past, came from the earth, animalistic and untamed.

Reaching up, she grabbed for all of it. All of him. His skin was hot, the muscles underneath rigid.

“Don’t hold back, love.” Her voice thrummed with a female knowing. “Take what you want.”

He jerked as if she’d cut right into his heart. His eyes went opaque and then a second later, narrowed into lasers of desire. Wrenching off her jeans and panties, he jumped up and tore off his own.

Iain stood, staring at her naked body, taking everything she offered and more. So much more. The sky-blue gaze went from her face, down across her full breasts, along the dip of her waist, the small pillow of her tummy and landed right at the juncture of her legs.

“Open to me.” His words were a command and yet, the harsh need edging them told her he was as much under her sway as she was in his.

Sliding her hands over her body, Lilly dropped her thighs open.

He gasped and threw his head back, closing his eyes like she was too much for him to take.

But she wasn’t. She was exactly what he needed, exactly what he needed to take.

“Come here,” she commanded herself.

The sun shone around him, a halo of light silhouetting his warrior body in gold. He seemed a part of the land beneath him, the sky above, the sea and rock and sand.

“Iain,” she called for him once more, so needy and wanting and willing to give everything she thought she might burst. “Please come here.”

He landed on her, his body blazing with heat, his weight and power making her gasp.

“I can’t stop.” Staring into her eyes, his own were glazed with a fevered intensity. “I can’t—”

“You don’t have to.” She grabbed his beautiful ass. Finally. It was as tight and amazing as she’d dreamed. She grasped his firm cheeks and pulled him right into her.

He moaned, throwing his head back again, his mouth going lax. His hips pumped his cock straight into her core, no finesse, no skill.

Only need. Only want.

Lilly closed her eyes and took him. Took the starkness of his passion and the clear urgency of his potent demand.

His hands landed on the ground by her shoulders with a solid thud. His head dropped, hair brushing along her collarbone. His hips began a driving, determined pace.

Lifting her legs and her arms, wrapping them around his heaving, straining body, she let him take everything.

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