Choosing the Highlander (17 page)

“Very well,” he said, continuing his stroking.
Gentle with her. Easy with her.

When training a young horse, one didn’t toss a saddle on its back immediately. The trick was to determine what each young horse would accept and then gradually introduce new things while providing rewards.

Constance was not an animal, but her skittishness reminded him of some of the fillies he’d observed at the stables. She was equally spirited and willful. Just as the most spirited and willful young horses grew into the most prized mares, this fascinating lady would be well worth his patience in earning her trust.

He ran his hand down her head in long, slow passes, combing with his fingers. When he met with a tangle, he worked it carefully. He refrained from asking more questions. He was rewarding her for accepting his touch and for holding to her word. She might not have answered his queries, but he hadn’t attempted to lie. This was progress.

She propped her chin on his chest to gaze up at him. The wariness was still there, but it had eased somewhat. “Very well? You’ll accept my non-answer?”

“Of course. I agreed to your terms, and I am a man of my word.”

Her slow smile took his breath away. Her eyebrows remained slanted, mayhap with caution, but clearly with gratitude. He’d not seen such softness from her before. Not even when he’d had her naked so he could bathe her. The fact that he had put that beatific expression on her face made his chest swell with pride.

“Shall I make another attempt? Will you answer this? Wherever your home might be, do you wish to return?”

She went very still. “I do,” she said. Her brows slanted even more. Her expression was one of apology.

“Then we have a problem.” He continued stroking.

“Yes.” Her agreement came as a surprise. So did the way she leaned into him and licked her lush lips.

Their faces were close. Close enough that he could kiss her with naught but a dip of his head. He was considering doing just that when she surprised him again by climbing upon his lap and squeezing him between her thighs.

She clasped his face, thumbs grazing his cheeks. “But it’s a problem for another day.” She sealed her mouth over his, and the distance between them shrank to insignificance.

Chapter 14

Kissing Wilhelm was more than a physical connection between lips and tongues. More than a clutching of arms and a melding of stomachs. More, so much more, than a simple expression of mutual affection.

This kiss, like their first, was need expressed through motion. It was the potential energy of desire turned into kinetic passion. Together, they closed a circuit. Sensation was amplified until the heat from their joined mouths spread like wildfire through her whole body.

This is what it’s supposed to be like. This is the part that’s always been missing. Fire. Excitement.
 

Wilhelm’s crushed her in his arms. Having her breasts mashed up against his hard chest should have been uncomfortable. Instead, the pressure soothed something deep inside her that verged on aching.

One powerful hand squeezed her hip, keeping her pinned in such a way that she couldn’t miss they physical effect of his growing interest. As his arousal lengthened and hardened, it provided friction in just the right spot at the apex of her thighs. Shards of pleasure sang through her nervous system. The only other times she’d felt such jolts of sensation had been when she would touch herself to urge her body on when the few lovers she’d had would do their thing on top of her.

But tonight, she wasn’t touching herself. Neither was Wilhelm. Well, not with his hands. It was as if the arousal she felt for him had primed her for pleasure and the coming together of their bodies set off a chain reaction of sensations. She’d never experienced anything like this before.

Is this why Leslie dives into relationships head first?
Is it simply easier for her to feel aroused than it is for me?
 

Connie might have been more interested in the physical aspect of relationships if she reacted to other men the way she reacted to Wilhelm.

She hardly recognized the crazed creature she’d become. She should be embarrassed about writing on the lap of her traveling companion, biting at his lips, and moaning into his mouth. But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Not when he pushed back at her with tiny lifts of his pelvis. Not when his heavy breathing matched hers. Not when he cupped her head with one huge hand to keep her where he wanted her so he thrust his tongue even deeper.

Oh, yes. He’s burning too.
 

The thought drove her to clutch him tighter, to give him more of herself. She wanted to give him all of herself.

Crazed with need, she scrabbled at the buttons at his throat. The pourpoint had dozens of them staked one on top of the other. “Want you,” she muttered between kisses, despairing at the time it was going to take to expose his chest.

She changed tactics. Below his groin, the pourpoint parted to allow for the movement of his legs. Reaching into the gap, she found his linen shirt underneath. Grabbing onto the fabric, she rucked it up, pulling it from where his great kilt wrapped around his waist. All she managed to do was create a pouch of fabric. The shirt kept coming, like a handkerchief out of a clown’s pocket.

A whine of frustration burst from her. She needed to feel his skin so badly she was near tears.

Wilhelm stilled her hands and leaned back from their kiss.

Reality crashed over her. She met his eyes, seeing herself from his perspective. He must think her completely uncouth. Respectable women in this time probably didn’t throw themselves at men and claw at their clothing.

“I—I’m sorry,” she said, her cheeks flaming. “I don’t know what came over me.” Continuing down this path would be unwise. They both knew she intended to return home. Surely, that’s why he’d stopped her. Either that or because of her unwillingness to answer his questions.

She couldn’t meet his eyes as she waited for his rejection.

But his crooked finger under her chin didn’t feel like rejection.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

She hated how automatically she obeyed. No. She hated him for wielding such power over her that she actually enjoyed obeying him.

As quickly as her anger flared, it fizzled at the sight of his flushed cheeks and heavy-lidded eyes. He’d wanted her to look because he’d wanted her to know the need wasn’t one-sided. He looked as desperate for her as she was for him.

She hadn’t realized she’d clenched her fists at her sides until he took her hands and one by one replaced them around his waist, encouraging her to hold onto him.

“Lass,” he said, cupping her face. His hands were warm and callused and so big they seemed to swallow her up. His hoarse voice held her every bit as captive as his gentle grip.

She swallowed thickly, wishing he would fall on her like a beast and make love to her so she could take the memory of him back to Chicago. But she knew better. He was about to set a boundary. How would she survive without his touch? Without his kiss?

“My desire for you overcomes my good intentions,” he said.

She could relate. “I understand.” She pulled her arms from around his waist and tried to climb off his lap.

“Nay, lass.” He gripped her roughly and held tight, banding an arm around her lower back. He was still hard beneath her, and judging by the way he held her, he didn’t mind her knowing.

He wasn’t alone in his arousal. Her body was alight with it too. Her breasts felt wonderfully swollen, and her underclothes stuck to her inner thighs with wetness. She’d never wanted like this before. She’d never actually
craved
sex before.

“I want you,
mo luaidh.
I want you with everything I am.” He cupped her head again and brought her close so he could kiss her temple.

The feel of his lips on that tender skin made her shiver. His scent made her feel drunk. “But,” she whispered, bracing herself for whatever he said next.

I canna lie with a woman who willna tell me her full name,
she imagined him saying.

“I shouldna touch you in such a way until I can call you my wife.”

She blinked. “Wife,” she stated flatly. An image of saying vows before Anselm as she stood hand-in-hand with Wilhelm bloomed in her mind. Then she came to her senses. “We can’t get married. I’m from—I’m from far away. I need to go home.”

“’Tis a problem for another day,” he said with a grin, echoing what she’d said before she’d accosted him. His hands roamed her back, stroking her, showing her he truly did want her, but not all of her, not unless she married him, apparently.

“But—then—” She couldn’t tell him that if he was waiting for marriage, they’d never become intimate. She wasn’t about to marry a man from the past, no matter how wonderful he was. He belonged here. His clan and country needed him. She belonged in 1981.

“I’ll have you, lass. And I’ll give you all of myself in return. But not as long as my future is uncertain.”

That was the sweetest, sexiest thing she’d ever heard. It was also highly disappointing since she was worked up
now
.

“Dinnae fash, lass.” He stroked his thumb over her frown. “’Tis only precaution. When this business is behind us, I’ll be courting you in earnest. But for now, we must both of us exhibit patience.”

He thought she was worried about whether he would manage to clear his name. She
was
worried about that since he’d gotten into this mess by saving her life. But she was more worried about whether she would make it home. Wasn’t she?

It must be her lingering arousal clouding her mind. She couldn’t decide which she wanted more. The uncertainty should be enough to kill her arousal. But it wasn’t.

Wilhelm brushed his knuckles over her cheek, and she leaned into his petting. It felt so good, being touched this gently, having a man she liked and respected so much declare his intention to court her, even if it couldn’t possibly lead anywhere. It would be wrong to encourage him when she intended to leave.

On the other hand, it could take weeks or even months to find the shopkeeper she’d dreamt about. All she knew about the dark-haired man was what he’d told her in the dream: “
I have not been to Inverness again since then, though I do open my shop from…time to time.”
 

Her entire plan for returning home hinged on finding this guy, and she didn’t even know whether he was real. He’d said she didn’t have enough imagination to create something like him, but it
had
been a dream. It could be nothing more than wishful thinking making her suspect the shopkeeper was real and could help reunite her with Leslie. She had no proof.

What if she never found him? What if she did but he couldn’t or wouldn’t help?

Would it be so awful to spend time with Wilhelm while she searched? Dornoch wasn’t far from Inverness, after all. But to spend time with him the way she wanted to—between the sheets—it seemed she would have to marry him.

She enjoyed Wilhelm’s company. They had amazing chemistry. But even if she weren’t planning on going home, it was too soon to talk of marriage.

Besides, she could never marry someone she had to hide things from. Marriage partners were just that: partners. They helped each other, shared everything with each other. The most essential part of who she was, a twentieth-century professional woman, was something she could never explain to Wilhelm. He might recognize the truth in her words, but there was no way he could possibly believe what had happened to her. He would think her crazy, babbling about time-travel and a future world with cars and telephones and sky-scrapers.

She should climb off his lap and keep her distance from him, but she couldn’t bring herself to break their contact. “Wilhelm.”
She breathed his name, at a loss how to respond to his attempt to comfort her.
 

“I like the sound of my name on your lips, lass, but this—” He touched between her brows. “This, I doona like. Why do ye fash? Tell me, my Constant Rose.”

She couldn’t help smiling at his nickname for her. He’d given her another name, too, a Gaelic one, by the sound of it. “What does it mean, that other word you called me?
Moe-loo-ee
?”

He huffed a chuckle at her pronunciation. “
Mo-luaidh,
my dear one.” He lowered his face to hers until their foreheads pressed together.

The gesture was so tender it brought tears to her eyes. If she blinked, they would fall. Stubbornly, she forced her eyes to stay open until the urge to cry passed.

“I can’t be your darling,” she said.

“Because,” he prompted.

“Because I need to go home.”

“Aye. You’ll come home with me, to Dornoch.” His voice was steel while his caresses remained gentle.

“Dornoch is your home. Not mine.”

“It can be ours. All you have to do is trust me. Trust
in
me,
mo luaidh.
”

Her body had relaxed under his petting, but at this, she sat up. “I don’t want Dornoch. I want Chicago. I want to go home, and I resent you minimizing my desires in favor of your own.”

At last, he’d given her a reason to resist him. She leapt at the chance. Who knew when or if he would ever present her another opportunity to push him away?

Anger at his presumption replaced her yearning for his touch. She scrambled off his lap. Her body wanted his, but where it counted, on the inside, they were not compatible. He was just like any other chauvinist. He put his ambitions above hers and expected that if she married him, naturally, she would give up her own life to become part of his. He wanted her, but he didn’t care about her goals and desires.

A small part of her recognized she was grasping at straws of offense, but she didn’t turn back from this course. She couldn’t, because being with Wilhelm ran in direct opposition to her goal of returning to 1981.

She should be relieved. She now had the freedom to leave Wilhelm without guilt when the time came. But it wasn’t relief she felt as she stood with her back to him in the small cabin. Weariness tugged at her eyelids, both physical and emotional. Her legs and bottom were sore from the ride, but more, her heart felt bruised. She felt more alone than she had since those men had tied her up and called her a witch.