Her Highland Fling (8 page)

She stepped inside the room the innkeeper showed her, absorbing the details with the eye of someone who would faithfully report her findings later. Lace curtains fluttered against the open window, and beyond them she could hear the pleasant sounds of conversation out on the street. There was fresh paint on the walls, a lovely soft blue that made her regret not having stayed here from the start.

She set her bag down and smiled at the anxious innkeeper. “It is quite lovely.”

The man pulled a kerchief from his pocket and mopped the top of his balding head. “Well, at the Blue Gander, we pride ourselves on running a clean, respectable establishment. You might mention in your article that the maid, Sally, is instructed to provide the guests anything they might want. They have only to ask.”

Pen suppressed a giggle, recalling the exchange she had overheard several nights ago. Sally’s offer hadn’t sounded very respectable to her, but perhaps it might appeal to a certain kind of tourist. Namely, the
male
tourists.

But she nodded encouragingly, wrote a few things down in her notebook, and then shooed the innkeeper on, determined to have a moment alone to collect her thoughts before MacKenzie arrived and sent them scattering to the winds again.

She paused a moment, listening to the open window with a cocked ear. The games started tomorrow morning, and already the town’s population had begun to swell in anticipation. By the conversations she could hear swirling on the street, it seemed half the town was betting on Mr. McRory to win the famed caber toss.

The other half were betting on William MacKenzie.

She counted herself among the latter, but not only in the matter of cabers.

She smoothed a hand over the bed’s beautiful coverlet, a patchwork of bright colors embroidered with a Celtic cross. The room felt bright and new, but it also held what appeared to be Caledonian artifacts on the bureau, illustrating the rich history of the land and its people. She paused, fingering a small statue. Clearly, a good deal of thought and effort had been put into this. As a reporter and a tourist, Pen could appreciate the careful perfection of the room.

As a woman bent on seduction, however, it was not quite right.

So she shut the window and pulled the lace curtains closed against the early-evening sun, until the room was bathed only in a lovely, dim light. She turned back the beautiful embroidered coverlet on the bed and plumped the pillows. She opened her valise and pulled out a small bottle of vinegar and a sponge, taking the hopeful precaution she’d read about but had never thought to need. Thank goodness Moraig wasn’t so rustic as to lack a chemist shop.

Should she change into something more . . . accessible?

But no, her night rails were plain cotton, hardly the stuff of lustful fantasies. She had not packed her bag in London intending to seek out this experience, and she’d never seen the need for a trousseau. Until she’d met MacKenzie, she’d never met a man who’d made her regret her choice of sleeping garments.

She unfastened the top buttons of her bodice and then studied her reflection critically in the washstand mirror. The shadowed vee between her breasts was just visible, and so she loosened another button. It would not do to go into battle unarmed, particularly when her opponent seemed so reluctant to engage in the sort of skirmish she sought.

She was paler than she would like, and she did not want MacKenzie to think she was nervous. She pinched her cheeks and then pulled the pins from her hair, one by one, until the warm, heavy coils fell about her shoulders.

She studied her reflection again. Yes, that was better.

She looked ready to be ravished.

Unless she’d made the room too dark for him to notice her efforts . . .

She was halfway to the window, intending to open the curtains again, when the sound of boots on the threshold froze her in place. She turned slowly, her heart like a hammer in her chest.

He stood in the doorway, his big shoulders nearly filling the space to completion. He looked confused as his eyes dropped to her bodice, a long, slow slide of perusal that made her skin burn in anticipation. She laced her fingers in front of her in a bid to control their trembling.

“C-come inside, MacKenzie,” she somehow found the courage to say.

After a moment’s hesitation, he did, placing his hat on the bureau next to the artifacts. “I was surprised when the innkeeper said you were already here. I thought we had agreed to six o’clock.”

“I wanted a moment to see the r-room alone. Research, you know.”

“Aye.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I know how you like your research.” His eyes lingered on her unbound hair, and a stark look of want settled over his face. “You . . . ah . . . look as though you are ready to take a wee nap. Should I come back later?”

“No.”
The word escaped her lips more harshly than she’d intended. She calmed herself with a carefully indrawn breath. “That is, I am not t-tired.” She moved toward the door and was dismayed to see him edge away.

For heaven’s sake. She was not going to bite him.

Unless he wanted her to.

She reached the door just as he reached the bed. He scratched his head, looking very much like the bumbling beast who had greeted her outside the posting house. “Is . . . er . . . everything in the room to your liking?”

She shut the door and locked it. “
Now
it is.”

“Miss Tolbertson—”

“Pen. As we agreed.”

She stepped toward him, and as the bed was at his back, he really had nowhere to go. He shuffled an uncomfortable moment, enduring her determined advance, his dark eyes everywhere and nowhere on her skin. “Cameron says only your sister is permitted to call you ‘Pen.’ That others, when invited to do so, call you ‘Penelope.’ ”

That made her stop a moment. Was it true? She’d never taken the time to think on it. And moreover, what did that mean? If William MacKenzie was naught but a fling, why had she invited him to address her so intimately? There was something about him—his eagerness to please, his devotion to town and family—that engendered as much by way of friendship as seduction. She shook her head, trying to clear it of that thought.

She had not staged the room to procure only his friendship.

She took another step. “You invited me to call
you
‘William.’ ”

“And yet you do not.” He pulled a hand through his dark hair, as though trying to settle his nerves. He cast a hand to the staged bed. “What are we doing here, Pen? If not a nap, what, precisely, do you want from me?”

She was nearly on him now, and the hand he had just pulled through his hair reached out as though to stop her. But he was very tall, and she was not, and the gesture had the fortunate effect of placing his fingers very close to her waiting breasts. She could feel the calloused rasp of his fingers against the sensitive skin she had exposed and imagined she could feel the acceleration of his pulse as he touched her. She placed her hand over his, pressing it into her flesh.

“I w-want you to show me this,” she whispered.

Brown eyes burned down at her, delivering a message that was nearly the opposite of reluctance. And yet, his hand stayed rigid against her body, a warning and perhaps a plea. “You play a dangerous game, lass. I’m a man who wants you fiercely. It is not easy to remain a gentleman when you look at me so.”

His admission made her heart leap wildly.
He wanted her.
She was not imagining the tension that hummed between them. And where there was want, there was hope.

“Then d-don’t remain a gentleman.” She stared at his mouth, which looked ready to devour her at a single word. “I am t-twenty-six, MacKenzie. A stammering spinster, with no intention or d-desire to marry.” She pushed against his hand and leaned in, going up on her toes, until her lips hovered only a few inches from his. “But that does not mean I do not want—do not
deserve
—to know something of life.”

His fingers seemed to soften against her skin. “You do not have to be a spinster,” he said softly, in his stomach-turning brogue. “Christ, Pen, you’ve passion enough for five women. You could have a husband and see that passion met every day if you wished.” His lips lowered a fraction of an inch, an unfulfilled promise she could still not quite reach. “And do not use your stammer as an excuse. Any gentleman would count himself fortunate to have you.”

That startled her enough to make her blink.
Was
she using her stammer as an excuse? Certainly, the men of Brighton had considered her an object to mock, rather than kiss. Had she pushed away all thoughts of love and marriage because her desire for self-sufficiency had demanded it or simply because they had seemed out of reach?

With her pulse so heavy in her ears, it was hard to sort out which had come first.

“I d-do not wish to take a husband,” she said, almost desperately now. “I enjoy my independence, and I won’t b-barter my body for the purpose of procuring a protector I do not need.” She pulled his hand lower, until it was pressed more fully against the swell of her breast. “I
want
this. I am bound to d-discover it eventually. But you are the only one who has ever made the breath catch in my throat, MacKenzie. I want this experience to be with you, not someone else.”

His eyes narrowed, as though imagining—and disapproving—of the thought of her doing this with someone else.

She licked her lips. “And you
d-did
say you would show me whatever I wished.”

With a growl, his lips descended on hers, and then she was pulled into the dark heat of him, the kiss blissful and brutal and beautiful, all at once.

And oh, dear heavens, how this man could kiss. His mouth moved against hers, tongue stroking her own in a wicked hint of promise. She wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting to be only closer. They fell backward onto the bed, her body stretched against his hard length, their mouths still joined in battle. He tasted of salt and outdoors and the merest hint of tooth powder, and the scrape of his chin against her cheek was its own kind of pleasure.

She regretted, then, not having changed into her night rail, because if she had, they’d be halfway closer to where she wanted to be.

She gave her hands permission to roam, making short work of his necktie as they kissed and then moving lower. As her fingers splayed over his broad, hard chest, she could feel the coiled strength lying in wait beneath the linen of his shirt. She ripped several buttons free from his collar in frustration as she slipped her hand inside, wanting to be closer still.

But with a muffled groan, he broke off their kiss and shifted their bodies, putting more space between them. She wanted to pant her objection, pull him back into the kiss, but she stilled as the change in their positions began to register in her quivering thoughts.

Suddenly
she
was the one on her back.

He had taken control.

And he was rearing over her, looking every inch the wild Highlander.

She waited for him to fall on her, waited for the ravishment she’d been hoping for. Instead he lifted a hand and rubbed his knuckles against her cheek, almost tenderly, though his features seemed strained with the effort of holding back. “If we are going to do this, lass, we’ll take it a bit slower, aye?”

Pen caught her lower lip in her teeth and somehow found the sense to nod. He appeared to be agreeing with her proposition, praise the temptation gods. She did not want to do or say anything that might send him running now.

He dipped his head, pressing his warm mouth to the hollow at the base of her throat. She sucked in a breath, surprised at the gentle heat of his touch but willing to follow his lead, as long as he did not stop. Her entire body was trembling now, and at her core there was a delicious, spreading heat that made her feel a bit like molten wax, waiting to be shaped into what he would make her.

She was still in too many clothes, the ridiculous froth of skirts and crinolines making her want to gnash her teeth. But the flash of air on heated skin that told her the buttons of her bodice were now being completely undone. She acknowledged that perhaps there was a certain delicious anticipation to be found in the unwrapping.

A wicked grin claimed his face as he took in her simple corset. “It laces in the front,” was all he said.

Pen’s cheeks heated, knowing her undergarments were nothing close to the height of fashion. “It is easier to d-dress without a maid.”

He went to work unlacing it and parted the stiffened fabric almost reverently. “Praise the saints for your independence then, lass, because you are easier to undress as well.” The low tenor of his approval sent a snaking down her spine.

He pulled the straps of her chemise down and then stared down at her, no longer moving.

No longer
breathing
.

Pen squirmed, but he stilled her with a hand. “Lie still, lass, and let me look at you.”

She would have rather he just kissed her again, but she held herself motionless, sensing this was somehow part of the process, though looking and touching had not been mentioned in
any
of the books she’d read on the subject.

Finally, he began to swirl a hand over her aching, greedy skin. “I wanted this first sight of you for a memory. You are too beautiful for words.”

Pen swallowed, though his hands were wreaking havoc on her senses.
Memory
, he’d said, as though acknowledging that what lay between them was temporary at best.

But it didn’t feel temporary. It felt . . . portentous.

As though she was about to be changed forever.

And then his head was lowering to her breast, and he was drawing her nipple into the heat of his mouth, and she gasped at the unexpected waves of feeling rolling through her. How was that possible? His mouth was there, but she felt it lower. Deeper.

Stupid books and their scientific explanations.

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, drowning in the feel of all he was doing to her. He was a generous lover, paying as much attention to one breast as the other, his hands roaming, touching, until she was panting with need. He loosened her skirts, dragged them free, and then worked his hands and mouth
up
her body, leaving a wake of devastation and longing as he moved on to new places. She let him.