Seduced by a Highlander (32 page)

“Would it not have been better to sell some of the goods
before
we stopped fer the night?” Isobel asked him when he caught up to her, about to enter without him.

Nae. He wanted time with her alone first. “ ’Tis better to bargain with a merchant when he has the prospect of a full day’s customers ahead.”

The inn was nothing Tristan hadn’t seen a dozen times before. Dim lighting, the sickeningly sweet aroma of wine, whisky, and ale, a handful of tables and chairs scattered about. He scanned the patrons first. Mostly travelers with nothing on their minds more pressing than a hot meal and a warm bed.

They paid for two rooms and sat at an empty table as supper was being served.

“What’ll it be then?” a buxom brunette serving girl asked, fisting her hand at her side and giving the fingernails of her other hand an uninterested glance. “We have rabbit sautéed in honey or roasted mutton served with mushroom and parsley soup…” Her short list came to a skidding halt when Tristan looked up and offered her a pleasant smile. Her powdery blue eyes darkened on him like a storm on a hot summer night. “… or if yer appetite craves something with a bit more flavor, I could have something sent up to yer room later.”

Tristan was acutely aware of Isobel stiffening beside him in her chair and was vastly delighted to discover that she was jealous. “The mutton will do fine.”

“I want the rabbit,” Tamas brooded.

“Ye’ll have the mutton.” Tristan kicked him under the table, then turned back to the girl. “And some mead to go with it. And would ye happen to know if there is a priest in the vicinity?” he added as she stepped away, visibly discouraged.

“A priest?” Isobel tugged on Tristan’s sleeve, but then turned, along with the rest of them, when someone called out Cameron’s name.

“I thought it was ye!” Annie Kennedy rushed forward, breaking away from the two hulking lads at her side. “Isobel, Mister MacGregor.” Annie offered them both a
warm smile. “It is good to see ye again.” For Cam’s sake more than Isobel’s, Tristan did not smile back. “Whatever are ye doing here at the Golden Hillock?”

“We are planning to do some trading in the morn,” Cam told her, looking like a fresh-faced squire who’d just been addressed by the queen of England.

“So then yer night is free?” Annie asked him boldly, green eyes wide and gleaming. “I was just about to go out fer an evening stroll with my brothers—Andrew is not here,” she interrupted herself to cast Isobel, and then Tristan, a darting glance before turning her attention back to Cam. “I would like it verra much if ye joined us.”

Cameron nearly turned over the table to reach her side quickly, then slowed his pace when he caught Tristan’s edifying gaze. “Nothing would give me more pleasure,” he said smoothly, his mouth cocking to one side as he offered Annie his arm, “than spending the night with ye.”

Tristan would have cheered his student’s success if Isobel weren’t staring at him with a look of heightened suspicion arching her brow.

“I want to go, too!” Tamas said, scrambling from his chair before anyone could stop him. “I do not like it in here. It smells. And I do not like mutton.”

Tristan had heard good fortune was a lass. He guessed she loved him well, for she followed him always. Even on his longest days. Of course, when Cameron looked to him for aid, none came. Cam didn’t want a chaperon, but better him than Tristan. He sent them all off with a smile.

“What did ye tell Cameron before ye left fer Glasgow?” she asked him as the others left the table to rejoin Annie’s brothers. “He reminded me a bit of ye when he accepted her invitation.”

“Och, ’twould no’ interest ye,” Tristan assured her with a playful wink. “ ’Tis a wee bit antiquated.”

“I see.” She grew quiet again when the serving girl returned with their supper, and then sent her on her way with a venomous glare. “Why did ye ask her about a priest?” she asked when they were alone again.

Tristan dipped his spoon into his soup and brought it to his mouth. “I hope to be needin’ one.” He frowned into his bowl and then at her. “Ye’re no’ goin’ to like it.”

“Why do ye hope to be needing one?” she pressed, ignoring her soup and his reaction to it.

“Well, I dinna’ know what they do here, but in the north we usually call upon a priest when we wish to wed.” He cast her the briefest smile before turning to the trencher before him. “I hope the mutton tastes better. I fear eatin’ at yer table has spoiled me.”

“Tristan.” She tugged on his sleeve again, drawing back his full attention. “Are ye asking me…?”

He touched his hand to her face, longing to somehow ease the trepidation he saw in her eyes, could hear in her soft voice. Would she never give him her full trust?

“Aye, Isobel. If ye will have me.”

Something in her expression changed. She almost smiled at him, and it would have been her most joyous, most radiant smile yet, for all her fears fell away for an instant. They returned a moment later. “There are things…”

“Aye?” He dragged her gaze back to his when she tried to look away.

“Things that still… concern me. I do not—”

“I love ye, Isobel,” he said over her before she had the chance to refuse him. Hell, this wasn’t how he wanted to tell her, not in some run-down inn with foul food beneath
their noses and their arses sore from bouncing around like eggs in a saddlebag. “Ye are the delight of my heart. I would give up anything fer ye: my honor, my kin, my life. I want to take care of ye, provide fer ye, hear yer laughter, yer voice every day. I will no’ give up until ye are mine, so ye might as well marry me now and save yerself the trouble.”

She looked as if she were going to weep, but then her lips softened into the smile he’d been waiting for. He cupped her face and drew her in for a long, deep kiss that pulled the breath from both their bodies.

“We still have some of the food I packed fer our journey in the bags in one of our rooms,” she whispered, breaking their kiss and looking up at him a bit shyly.

“Then let us go find it.” Tristan pulled her to her feet and then followed her up the stairs.

Doing the honorable thing with her, for once, be damned.

I
sobel stepped into the small candlelit room. Her eyes fell to the small, threadbare bed in the corner and she let loose a tiny squeak. A few moments ago she had wanted to be alone with Tristan, crushed in his arms and smothered in his kisses. She’d even suggested it after he confessed to loving her, but being here, completely alone with him and a bed… She turned to him and stopped breathing for a moment while he bolted the door. He loved her. Oh, she had hoped for it more than she had been willing to admit to herself, and for many reasons. She peeked up at him as he moved silently toward her, forgetting the bed and everything else. The only reason that mattered in that moment was that he was hers. This magnificent man, physically crafted from some mad artist’s dream, molded within by a most gallant knight. She had let Tristan MacGregor win her heart. She had never expected to win his as well.

“Ye’re shakin’, my love,” his husky voice drummed across her ear when he reached her and bent his head to hers.

“Do ye truly love me, Tristan?”

She saw the truth in his eyes before he spoke, in the way they took her in almost in relief, as if he needed her, thirsted for her, and could not believe he’d finally found her.

“Aye, lass.” He lifted his hands to her face and traced her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. “I love ye more with every moment that passes. My heart grows more and more alive every day that I spend with ye.” He kneeled at her feet and took her hands in his. “Ferget my past, as I have, and know only that I have never loved a single lass before ye and I will never love anyone but ye.”

She blinked away the moisture that blurred her vision of him and smiled. “Such a silver tongue ye have on ye, Mister MacGregor.”

“A blessin’ granted me fer the pleasure of yer ears.”

“And fer my mouth?” She bent to him, aching for his kiss as she had since the night in the king’s Privy Garden.

“Woman,” he whispered against her parted lips as he rose, “how can I tell ye of yer beauty and what it does to me when ye entice me to show ye with my body?”

His body. How many times had she watched him labor beneath the sun, his bare arms glistening with lean muscle, his flat, moist belly tempting her vision downward? She knew that what lay hidden beneath his breeches was as vibrant as the rest of him. She’d felt it surge against her on a few different occasions when he’d kissed her, swollen hard and ready to take her where they stood. She darted her tongue into his mouth and then gasped into it when he rose up like a wave and eased her down on the bed.

She’d always thought that a man’s body atop her might be a bit suffocating and unpleasant, but Tristan was neither. In fact, his tight muscles trembling over hers felt so sinfully good that she bit his lip, instinctively wanting more.

He smiled against her teeth, groaned, and bit her back. A surge of delight washed over her, sending bursts of heat to her crux and more vigor to her kiss. His tongue stroked the deepest recesses of her mouth like a flame setting her on fire. She answered with short, quick, hungry breaths, sucking gently on his tongue when he withdrew to taste her from a different angle. She had no idea what had come over her, only that it was a force she could not resist. She didn’t want to. This… desire she felt for him was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Her body throbbed with need until it was almost painful, satisfied only by his passionate responses.

He spread her beneath him with his knees, knowing what she craved even if she didn’t fully understand it yet. When he pressed his full arousal between her thighs, a deluge of pleasure drenched her.

“I am afraid,” she whispered, clinging to him.

“I vow I willna’ hurt ye,” he promised, his voice thick with need of his own. “I aim to give ye pleasure.” He smiled, gazing down at her. “Trust me.”

He’d already given her more than she’d ever imagined. But what was expected of
her
? Oh, she knew where he wanted to put that rigid muscle between his legs. She’d seen bulls mating with cows before, but what if it was painful? As hard as he was, it certainly felt as if it might be. She’d never had another woman to ask. Should she stop him if she didn’t like it, or let him do as he wished?

How could she push him away when she wanted him exactly where he was now, pressed to her, his heart beating madly atop hers, his mouth branding her as his and his alone? She stopped trying to think clearly and let herself surrender to his masterful touch.

He scored his mouth over the thrashing pulse-beat at her throat while his tender fingers unlaced her kirtle. With a flick of his wrist he slipped his hand under her shift and caressed her bare breast in his hand. His rough skin against her soft flesh made her breathless, lightheaded with wanton delight and reckless anticipation. Her heart pounded wildly as he tugged on her shift, exposing her to him fully. For a moment, he simply gazed at her beneath him, then he looked into her eyes and smiled.

“D’ye know how bonnie ye are to me, Isobel?”

She shook her head, sincerely not knowing.

“Lookin’ at ye is like baskin’ in the summer sun after a long, cold winter. ’Tis like seein’ home after a battle that’s left ye empty and alone.” He kissed her mouth, her nose, her eyes. “I dinna’ know how ’tis possible, but each time I see ye, ye grow more beautiful to me.”

Oh, his tongue truly was a blessing for the pleasure of her ears. But these were not just pretty words, spoken to a hundred different women. She
was
beautiful to him. He had made her believe it more each time she’d caught him looking at her. It didn’t matter if her hair was often hanging around her shoulders instead of pinned up with sparkling jewels, or if her face was smeared with dirt from her garden. His eyes always drank her in like the finest wine.

He dipped his tongue to her eager nipple and laved his warmth across her. “Ye taste even better than I dreamed.” Closing his lips around her, he suckled until she writhed
beneath him, needing more. He retreated just enough to lift himself off her while he pushed her skirts over her knees, his fingers treading beguilingly across her bare calves. Freeing her legs, he curled them around his waist and dragged her hips upward to meet his.

“I’m goin’ to erupt in my breeches if I dinna’ have ye soon,” he said, bending to plant a kiss along her inner thigh.