A Highlander Never Surrenders (28 page)

A short while later, James wiped the blood from his blade, stepped over one of the eight bodies littering the ground, and motioned to his men to saddle up.

“Change of plans. We’re going to London. Stuart’s alive, and we must remedy that before his cousin returns.”

Claire braced her legs and her mettle against the brisk wind tearing at her braid and whipping strands of hair across her face. But it was not the weather that held her breath suspended in her chest, or the surging pitch of the boat beneath her boots that heaved her stomach to her throat. It was the view as they crossed the narrows into Skye. The jagged, mountainous peaks of an isle suspended between the mists of heaven and hell. A place where time meant nothing—the feeling of leaving all she loved behind to enter a world forgotten by man . . . mayhap by God.

“The first time I set my eyes upon
Eilean a’ Cheo’
, the Misty Isle, I was certain my sister was dead.” Robert joined her at the ship’s bow and rested his hands on the thick wooden rail. “For only a man with a harsh, desolate heart would choose to dwell in such isolation.”

Claire regarded his sculpted profile as he spread his gaze over the isle looming ahead. “You were brave to come for her, Robert Campbell.”

He shook his head, accepting no glory. “I could have done no less.”

Claire smiled. She had thought him unskilled, too idealistic to understand the ultimate sacrifice of battle. But she had sorely misjudged him. He might not be willing to die for the deliverance of Scotland, but he would have died for his sister. “You are truly a knight, Lord Campbell. Kate is a fortunate woman.”

He turned to her, his fondness for her warming his eyes to deep amber. “Both of our sisters are fortunate.”

“Aye,” Claire agreed. “And Anne, doubly so, now that she has you looking after her.”

His grin flashed, shy, modest, devastatingly sweet. Roundhead or not, Claire was glad he fancied her sister. She would put a good word in for him to Charles if ever he returned to England.

“So what happened when you found your sister? Did you fight the MacGregors?” she asked, returning her attention to the isle.

“I had no intention of fighting them. By the time I entered Skye, I had discovered that we cannot always trust our first impressions. Skye,” he said, looking back toward the rugged landscape, “is one of the most magnificent places in Scotland, and the man who chose to dwell here is fair, and compassionate, and very much in love with my sister.”

“Did he just call Callum compassionate?” Graham came up behind them and snaked his arm around Claire’s back. “He wanted to kill ye the first time he met ye, and the time after that, Rob.”

Claire was instantly, excruciatingly aware of Graham’s closeness, the melting warmth of his muscles grazing her frame. His touch was casual, and yet provocatively possessive, washing her away on thoughts of domination and submission. Her blood ran scalding through her veins, directly to her loins. He had not touched her since they left the inn. Claire guessed it was her own fault, because of the way her reluctant gaze darted to Anne—who remained ever at her damned side—every time Graham got too close to her.

She remembered to breathe when Robert’s laughter pulled her back to the moment. She grinned when she looked at him, but had no idea what the bloody hell she was smiling about.

“He’s never made me shyt in my plaid,” Graham said, defending himself against whatever Robert had accused him of.

“You mean to say that when he flung you clear across his barn you did not fear the sting of his wrath?”

Above her, Graham answered with a whimsical smile in his voice. “I rose back up and stopped him from killing ye, did I not?”

“Who?” Claire asked both of them.

“Callum,” they replied in unison.

Claire nodded, recalling the topic now. She waved when she spotted her sister stepping on deck. Beside her, Robert’s body snapped to attention after following the direction of her greeting. Claire cut her gaze to him, thinking of a way to get Anne out of her hair, and out of the Highlanders’ brew. If the young knight knew why his sweet damsel was half soused every day, he would surely do something to stop it, and then, mayhap, Anne would quit lecturing her about the merits of being a lady. “I am concerned about her dallying in Angus’s whisky.”

“Aye,” Robert agreed, echoing her worried tone. “Has she always enjoyed spirits?”

“Och, she does not enjoy drinking,” Claire assured him, smiling at her sister’s approach. “She does it because of you.”

“Me?” Robert asked, dragging his gaze from Anne to Claire. “She drinks because of me? Why?”

“I’m afraid I do not know. You will have to ask her.”

Robert was off before Claire could even turn to him. She concealed a little giggle behind her hand, which Graham promptly halted when he leaned his hips against the rail and hauled her into his arms.

“A clever ploy to get me alone.” His green eyes twinkled, his seductive smile curled her toes.

“Really, rogue,” Claire argued, breathless against him. “Do you tell yourself that the sun rises each day just to shed its light on your glorious countenance?”

“Nae,” he said, his smile deepening into something more meaningful. “Because it rises to shine on ye.” He caressed her cheek in his palm and leaned in to kiss her. Claire knew she was lost to the fullness of his lips, the erotic dance of his tongue, the drum of his heart against his chest and hers. She clung to him, opening her mouth to take him deeper.

“I want ye, Claire.” His shuddered breath fell across her lips while he glided the proof of his desire along her crux, burning her, branding her. “I will not wait much longer to have ye.”

She gazed into his eyes and quirked her mouth into a rueful smile, enjoying the chase as much as he did. “Unless your Highland claim on me grants you leave to force yourself upon me, waiting is what you shall do.”

His mouth hooked into a slow, blatantly sexual grin. “Woman, beware of how ye tempt me, or when this boat docks, I will carry ye deep into the woods and fuck ye senseless.”

“Tempt me neither then,” she parried, despite the tremor in her voice. She slipped her hand between them and rubbed her palm down the length of him. “And I will not take hold of this pulsing beast and make you forever mine.”

Anne would have dropped down dead if she’d heard her, but Claire had never learned to be shy or submissive with men. She knew she sounded like a brazen wench, but as long as Graham found no offense—which his clenched jaw and smoldering gaze proved he didn’t—she didn’t either.

“I am already yers,” he growled, locking her in his steel embrace and capturing her hand between them. “But ye may work the
beast
to yer heart’s content if ’tis convincing ye need.” He dipped his hungry mouth to her throat, grazing her flesh with his teeth and pressing his thick shaft against her cupped hand.

“Can ye no’ wait until we reach Camlochlin fer this?” Brodie grumbled as he passed them. “Everyone’s watchin’ ye, fer hell’s sake.”

Claire immediately tried to break away. Talking like a wench when no one else could hear was one thing; rubbing herself all over Graham like a sex-starved harlot while others watched was another. But Graham pulled her back, turning her in his arms and using her body to conceal the strain against his plaid.

“Brodie, go fetch Angus and get the horses ready.” The menacing glint in his eyes warned Brodie not to argue. “And ye,” he bent his mouth to Claire’s ear. “Don’t move.”

Move? She could hardly breathe with his arousal butted up against her rump so intimately. She tried to remain still even when a tendril of hair fluttered across her face and made her nose itch. She shifted her weight to one leg and felt Graham’s body stiffen against her spine. She forced a casual smile at her sister when Anne returned from wherever Robert had just taken her. Anne glared at her in return, clearly angry with her for telling Robert her reason for drinking. Relaxing into the hard wall of muscle behind her, Claire let out a satisfied sigh. Ah, success! The
lady
looked a bit flustered. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen from being kissed. Mayhap now, Anne would understand the struggle
she
had to endure each day.

That struggle was about to come to a shattering halt, Claire realized when they docked in Kylerhea and were mounting their horses. As she lifted her boot to Troy’s stirrup, Graham rode up alongside her, curled an arm around her waist, and hoisted her into his lap.

“We’ll catch up with ye,” he told the others, whirling his stallion and hers around in the opposite direction. “Angus, tie yerself to Anne when ye reach the cliffs and don’t let her fall.”

“What cliffs?” Claire gaped at him, and then at her sister, as Graham dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. “She could fall off a cliff?”

“She is safe,” Graham promised her against the wind battering their faces. “Ye, on the other hand, are not.”

Chapter Twenty-six

B
ut soon, the land shall quake at my coming . . .

“We should not have separated from them,” Claire complained to Graham as he dismounted. “My sister should not be—” She caught her breath when he clamped his hands to her waist and lifted her out of his saddle and into his arms. “—alone.” She tilted her face up to his and his potent gaze set a thousand butterflies loose in her belly.

“She is not alone,” Graham breathed, his tawny lashes sweeping downward as he leaned toward her. The lazy stroke of his tongue across her lips made her groin sizzle. “But we are. At last.” He closed his arms around her, drawing her to him in an embrace as needful as his kiss. His tongue swept deep inside her mouth, stroking, titillating, vanquishing her every other thought, save for one. He was going to fuck her senseless. And she couldn’t wait. She flung her arms around his neck, and driving her hips hard against his, rubbed herself like a languid cat over his full erection. He withdrew slightly, still captive to her eager embrace, a teasing smile dimpling his cheek.

“What is it ye want so, lass?”

She wanted him naked and mad with desire. She wanted to feel—to see his muscles, sleek and straining while he took her. He knew it, and he deliberately kept it from her.

Dragging his palm over the ripe swell of her buttocks, his hand disappeared between her legs. “D’ye want to spread these creamy thighs beneath me while I sink deep and hard into ye?” With naught but a slow, salacious flick of his finger against the moist wool of her trews, he coaxed her apart. “Aye,” he answered for her as she tossed back her head, offering herself up to him.

Graham’s control snapped. He snaked his arm around her waist and crushing her to him, lifted her off her feet. His mouth descended on hers, open, ravenous, almost brutally possessive. Claire matched his fervor, biting his lower lip and clawing at his plaid. He broke their kiss only to get her out of her clothes faster, and to unfasten his belt. His eyes shone like smoldering embers as they poured over her bare, beautiful form even while her own did the same to him.

Claire wanted to feast her eyes on him a moment longer. She wanted to let her gaze savor the savage look of him, wild with desire, hard and huge with need. But he would wait no longer. With a low grunt, he heaved her up over his hips as if she weighed nothing and caught her nipple between his teeth. He sucked her while he hefted her thighs up and around him.

The wind wailed across the braes, blending with her cry as he caressed her buttocks and thrust himself inside her. His muscles shook against her palms as she tried to writhe out of his grasp. He held her firm, laving his tongue like a flame between the valley of her breasts, up the smooth column of her throat, all the while moving, grinding his hips against hers. She sought mercy from him, but did not find it as he buried himself to the hilt, driving her upward while his mouth captured her pleas.

She had forgotten the pain, but with each relentless plunge, the agony turned to pure, sinful pleasure. Her body spasmed as shards of green and gold flashed before her eyes. She tightened her legs around him, crossing her ankles at his lower back to clutch him to her, never wanting to let him go.

Graham watched her passion with smoldering eyes and a darkly sensuous smile, basking in the pure, unabashed pleasure she took in him. She swept her tongue over his and he groaned in her mouth, harshly, sweetly, wanting to give her all, and more. His fingers trickled down her braid, singeing her spine, making her muscles jerk and clench around him. Breaking their kiss on a fevered growl, he stared deep into her eyes as he cupped her backside and guided her up and down his long shaft.

She smiled, taking every inch, grasping his sensitive head within her tight folds. Dear God, but he was big, and full, and so deliciously strong holding her up while she milked him like the harlot of harlots that she was. She did not care. He drove her wild and she showed him that he did, without the boundaries of propriety to stop her. Just as he had shown her no mercy, she gave him none now. When he tossed back his head, she followed, licking the sleek, strained cords of his neck. Clutching his shoulders, she nuzzled her mouth to his ear and sucked his lobe.

“You convince me well, warrior.”

With a grin as wickedly arousing as the thrust of his hips, he withdrew fully, closed his hand around his glistening rod, and shot his hot seed like a geyser up between them.

When he was done he turned her around, dragging her buttocks against his groin. “Ah, lass,” he murmured roughly, bending her forward to take her from behind. “I have not even begun to convince ye.”