The Campbell Trilogy (85 page)

He grabbed her hands, clasped them around the wrists, and pulled her in front of him. Jaw clenched, he said tightly, “What are you doing, Lizzie?”

Her cheeks flushed pink. She looked like a naughty bairn who’d just been caught with her hand in the biscuit jar, but her eyes did not shy from his. “I want you.”

Blood surged through his veins. The pulse at his neck started to tic furiously. Her words reverberated through his body, the devil’s own temptation.

He stood up, releasing her wrists, but she did not move away.

Maybe it had been a mistake to bring her here. He’d wanted her to understand, but nothing had changed: They couldn’t be together. “It’s not a good idea.”

Her face fell. “Why not?”

“Nothing has changed, Lizzie. I cannot marry you. Making love to you now would be wrong.”

She flinched from the harshness of his words. He thought she’d turn away, but instead her chin edged up and she looked him right in the eye. “Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? With what has happened, there is too much between our clans.”

“But not between us.”

“What are you suggesting? Surely you know your family would never allow us to marry.”

She took a deep breath. “Not right away, perhaps. But they love me—they’ll come around … eventually. You know you can’t run forever. Let me help you.”

“Like your cousin helped Alasdair and Iain?”

She dropped her hands from his. “You do blame me for
what happened to your cousin and brother. And to your sister.”

He could hear the hurt in her voice but forced himself not to react. This was for the best. “I don’t blame you. But others will.”

“Being hated for my name is nothing I’m not familiar with. I’m willing to brave it if you are.” He read the challenge in her gaze. “Have you so easily given up on your vow to return your land to your clan?”

“Damn you, Lizzie.” His eyes narrowed. It was a low blow. She knew now how hard it had been for him to give this place up—and how much he still wanted it. It was part of him. “I will get it back,” he said, and his voice held a dangerous edge. “But I won’t use you to do it.”

“If you truly want to do the best thing for your clan, don’t you have a better chance with me on your side?” She paused, giving him time to consider her words. “My family will listen to me; let me help plead your case.”

She was right. Her influence with her family was the best option—the only option—the MacGregors had right now. But he didn’t want to listen to reason. He was trying to protect her. “And if you are wrong about your family’s acceptance? What then?”

“I want to be with you, Patrick. Wherever you are.”

His heart hammered. He was so damn tempted, but then he remembered the past few days and how she’d looked last night in his arms—cold and lifeless. “More caves in the snow, is that what you want? God’s blood, Lizzie, you could have died out there.” He couldn’t hide the raw emotion in his voice as the memories assailed him. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.

“But I didn’t,” she said quietly.

Her calm certainty angered him. “Not this time, but what about the next? Because there will be a next. I’m an outlaw. You’ve no idea what it’s like to live on the run. To
be without a home. To not know where your next meal is coming from. This isn’t the life for you.”

“Am I not allowed to make that decision?” She put her hand on his chest and gazed up at him, her mouth so soft and tempting. He wanted her so badly, he couldn’t think.

Patrick’s blood pounded; he was holding himself by a very tight rein. It scared him how much he wanted to take up her offer. But he loved her too much to do that to her. She had no conception of the life she would be thrown into, the desperate situation of his clan, and what she would be giving up. He couldn’t allow her to make such a sacrifice for him.

His face turned hard, his mouth twisting in a sneer. “You’ve been raised in the finest castles in Scotland, surrounded by servants who tend to your every wish, you have never wanted for anything. Can you imagine what it’s like to go to bed with nothing in your belly? To hear your babe cry with hunger? To go for months being so cold you can’t move your fingers? This isn’t some romantic girlish fancy—something you can end when you get tired of it. It never ends.”

Her face flushed. “I won’t pretend that it will be easy.”

“Easy?” He laughed harshly. “You wouldn’t last a month.”

Her eyes flashed, and he knew he’d gone too far. “How dare you condescend to me like this! Have I in any way proved myself less than any of the women in your clan? I am not some pampered princess, and I will not be treated as such. I can make my own decisions, and I certainly don’t need some overbearing, overprotective knight in shining armor who thinks he knows what’s best for me doing it for me. What you describe is horrible, and I won’t make light of the situation of your clan or pretend that I know what it is like, and God knows why with the way you are acting right now, but for some reason
you
make me happy. I love you and I’d rather endure hell with you than hell without.”

Jesu, he thought, taken aback. She had a feisty little temper beneath that sweet façade.

“If you don’t want me for your wife, just say so, but don’t try to scare me away because it won’t work.”

He swore, standing stone still, willing himself not to pull her into his arms and ravish her senseless. He was only trying to save her from herself. “This has nothing to do with what I want.” His eyes met hers. “God, Lizzie, you’re killing me. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

She leaned toward him. Her soft breasts pressed against his chest enticingly, but it was the flash of hope in her eyes that proved the death knell of his resistance. “Then stop. This is the right thing.” She reached down and clasped his hand in hers. Her soft, warm fingers entwined with his. “Give me a year to prove it to you. If I’m wrong, you can walk away with impunity.”

He stilled, understanding exactly what she was proposing. A handfast. The old Highland custom was frowned on by the Kirk, but not as uncommon as it would like. A year? Hell, once she was his, he’d never wish to let her go. But it would give her a way out.

Gazing into her big blue eyes, he knew that he couldn’t fight destiny. He loved her, and he was done trying to find reasons for them not to be together.

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Here, before God, I, Patrick MacGregor, do pledge to you, Elizabeth Campbell, my troth. I agree to be bound to you for a year and a day under the ancient custom of handfast.”

“Here, before God, I, Elizabeth Campbell, do pledge to you, Patrick MacGregor, my troth. I agree to be bound to you for a year and a day under the ancient custom of handfast.”

When she was done, a wide smile broke across her face, unleashing a swell of something inside Patrick that he hadn’t felt in many years—happiness.

His mouth brushed over hers softly, tenderly, sealing their vows with a reverent kiss. The poignancy of the moment was forever etched on his soul.

He swung her up in his arms and carried her over to the pallet near the fire.

“Your leg,” she protested.

“It doesn’t hurt.” In truth, right now he was so happy that he could feel no pain.

He set her down and removed the plaid from her shoulders, arranging it on the pallet as a covering. He shirked off his unbuttoned jerkin and removed his boots, but when he started to pull off his shirt, she stopped him. “Let me.”

The soft huskiness in her voice filled him with heat, but it was nothing to the incredible sensation of her hands on his body.

She slid her hands under his shirt, skimming her palms over his belly and chest, lingering, exploring the ridges of muscle with her fingertips, driving him mad with her feather-soft touch. His skin heated, and every nerve ending flared at her delicate caress. She drew out every movement, taking her time in lifting the linen shirt up and over his head.

She knew what she was doing to him, the little minx, and when her hand dipped to play the same game with the ties of his breeches, he clasped her wrist. “My turn.”

He knelt before her, running his hands up her calves and looping his thumbs under the edge of her torn sark. He raised the fabric inch by inch as his hands stroked her long, shapely legs. Her skin was like velvet—so incredibly smooth and creamy under his rough fingertips. The contrast between them could not be more profound, but it no longer worried him. She might be tiny and delicate, but she’d been made for him. She wouldn’t break—he smiled wickedly—though he intended to make her shatter.

When his hands had finished exploring every inch of creamy smooth skin, he used his mouth, pressing soft
kisses on the curves of her calves, her tiny knees, the tender insides of her thigh, pushing the fabric higher and higher as his mouth climbed toward her petal-soft sex. The scent of her filled him, seeping deep into his bones, arousing dark, primitive yearnings.

His staff pulsed against his belly. But it would have to wait.

Her legs started to shake and her breathing hitched as he slowly approached his destination.

He wanted to bury his head between her legs and taste her hard and deep, but he forced himself to go slowly—to drag out every moment of her pleasure.

Her legs pressed together reflexively, her body tightening with resistance, but he forced them apart.

“No,” she protested. “Surely you can’t mean to—”

She gasped. Her words turned into a moan as his tongue flicked over her slick womanly core.

He closed his eyes and groaned, savoring her taste and the feminine scent of desire, before pressing his mouth fully over her.

Her legs wobbled and she had to grab his shoulders as he slid his tongue deep inside her, probing intimately. She was so warm and soft. So deliciously wet. And tasted as sweet as honey.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he increased the pressure, increased the pleasure. Stroking. Flicking. Sucking. Bringing her to the brink and then easing her down.

Her moans turned frantic. “Please,” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair.

Her passion undid him. He grabbed the soft curves of her buttocks and lifted her fully against his mouth, thrusting deep inside her with his tongue, the stubble of his beard scraping her gently as he gave her the relief she desired. And when he felt her body clench, he sucked, right as the spasms of release crashed over her.

He jerked, having to hold back his own release as the soft cries of her pleasure echoed in his ears.

Only when the shudders had ebbed from her body did he finally lift the sark over her head and lower her to the pallet. Naked. Sated. Her gaze soft and her cheeks flushed with pleasure. Never had she looked more beautiful.

My wife.

His chest burned with emotion and wonderment. Moved beyond words at the poignancy of the moment, the most perfect of his life.

Unable to wait a minute longer, he quickly divested himself of his breeches and moved between her legs.

She grabbed his shoulders, holding him with her loving blue-eyed gaze as he entered her.

He loved to watch her face, watch the erotic way her eyes widened and her lips parted with soft gasps as he pressed inside her, inch by inch.

Her body clutched him like a warm glove. He shook with the effort of restraint. She was so small, so incredibly tight. It felt too good.

He thrust, groaning at the sensation of being deep inside her, filling her. Loving her. The pressure in his groin was intense, but he wanted to prolong every moment of this—to show her with his body all the love and tenderness in his heart.

Cradling her face with one hand, he kissed her gently, twining his tongue with hers in a slow, delicious dance. Only then did he move inside her with long, deep strokes, drawing out every inch of pleasure.

He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough. He wanted to feel every inch of her soft skin pressed against his.

He could feel her restlessness, feel as her passion built. Her hands roamed his back, his arms, clutching harder and harder as their bodies climbed together in perfect step to the peak of pleasure.

He’d never felt like this in his life. So completely attuned to another person. Feeling her pleasure as surely as if it were his.

His chest pounded. The pressure in his loins was tight and hot. He pumped harder and faster, her hips rising in perfect synchronicity to meet him.

Warmth washed over him in a heavy flood. Pleasure intensified and tightened at the base of his spine.

Oh God, yes.

He was going to come. Her breath quickened. And so was she.

Their eyes met and the world exploded, shattering into a kaleidoscope of spine-tingling pleasure. She cried out, her body contracting tight around him like a fist. He thrust one more time, high and deep, roaring with the force of his own release. He gave himself to her completely as he was sucked into a vortex of pleasure so intense, she claimed not only his body, but his soul.

Forever.

Lizzie pressed her hips back against him to take him deeper, in the throes of the most wildly erotic dream of her life.