Highland Warrior (13 page)
Authors: Connie Mason
Gillian struggled, but to no avail. “Why do you want a woman who doesna like you?”
His grin was not comforting. “I can make you like me. I can make you like everything I do to you. Have you forgotten our wedding night? You burned in my arms. You writhed and gasped and screamed with pleasure. Why are you denying yourself the joys of the marriage bed?”
“For the very reasons you just named,” Gillian shot back. “I doona want to burn or writhe or scream. I doona want to feel pleasure with you. I am a MacKay.”
“Foolish woman,” Ross growled. Then he kissed her.
But Ross wanted more than just kisses. He wanted to touch her hot, wet center, to make her respond, to exult in sweet victory when she climaxed in his arms.
He wanted to conquer her, body and soul.
He wanted to burn in her flame.
Scooping her into his arms, he carried her to the bed and followed her down. Her shift came apart in his strong hands, and he tossed it aside. Then he rolled on top of her, sliding his uninjured palm along the smooth length of her thigh.
“You feel good,” he muttered. “Better than I remember. You’re a bonny lass, Gillian.”
To Gillian’s shame, she was enjoying the weight of Ross’s body atop hers. All her senses seemed overwhelmed by him. She fought the feeling, but the moment his hand brushed her woman’s hair and caressed lower, she feared she was fighting a lost cause. The MacKenna was too experienced for her.
He pulled away long enough to shed his plaid braies and shirt, and then he pressed his naked length along her quivering body. She burned everywhere they touched. When he dipped his head and spread kisses over her breasts and belly and outlined her navel with his tongue, she shivered uncontrollably.
“Do you like that, lass?”
The lie came easily to her lips. “Nay, I doona.” The truth, were she to admit it, was that he made her feel wild, wilder than riding across the moors on Silver, wilder than engaging in swordplay, wilder than she had ever imagined she could feel.
Ross’s intimate caresses were becoming unbearable. While her mind wanted him to stop, her body begged him to continue. Gillian had opened her mouth to protest when she felt his fingers slip inside her moisture. He sealed her lips with a kiss that stole her breath and drained her resistance. When his fingers began thrusting in and out of her, she sent a silent scream into his mouth.
Gillian closed her eyes, unwilling to let Ross witness the pleasure he was giving her. The world began to shimmer; reality faded. She gave a cry of protest when Ross removed his fingers, broke off the kiss, and stared down at her.
“Do you want me to stop, lass?”
Disoriented, her eyes glazed with passion, Gillian returned his stare. “What?”
“I thought not.” He kissed her again, and rolled over to bring her on top of him.
“MacKenna...”
“My name is Ross. Say it.”
“Nay.”
He raised his head, took a distended nipple into his mouth, and began to suckle. The breath caught in Gillian’s throat. She couldn’t endure such sweet torture much longer.
“Ross ...”
Ross grinned up at her. “Aye, lass, say it again.”
“Ross.”
Gillian could feel his sex throbbing against her intimate flesh, hot, hard, potent. She was past resistance now and well into the urgent need to take this to its ultimate conclusion. When Ross arched his hips and pressed forward, she felt his sex probe against a spot so sensitive she convulsed.
“Take my cock inside you, Gillian,” Ross said on a groan.
Gillian no longer had a choice. Her body took on a life independent of her mind as she placed a hand around his sex and guided it to her throbbing center. His hips flexed, and he filled her completely. It was not painful like the first time, and she felt herself stretching to accommodate him.
“You are wet for me—do you ken what that means?” Gillian shook her head. “Nay, doona deny it,” he said. You want me as badly as I want you. Ride me, Gillian. Doona spare me, for tonight I am your stallion.”
His words set off a firestorm inside Gillian. She rode him ruthlessly, tirelessly. When she heard him groan, she glanced down at him and saw that his teeth were clenched and his fists knotted in the bedsheet.
His eyes were open and he was staring at her. His intensity startled her. But she was too eager to find her own pleasure to concentrate on Ross’s. Her flesh burned; her insides had turned molten. Pleasure spiraled upward from the place they were joined. She began to tremble; she moaned and thrashed atop him.
“Now.” Ross gasped through clenched teeth. “Come now.”
And then she shattered.
Ross rolled her over on her back and began thrusting hard, once, twice, thrice. Her climax strengthened, lengthened, held her suspended. As if from a distance she heard Ross’s hoarse cry and felt his seed bathe her insides. Then he collapsed on top of her.
Gillian wanted to scream in frustration. What kind of woman was she to succumb to MacKenna with such wild abandon? On the other hand, what had made her believe she could resist him? He was a braw, bonny man with mesmerizing blue eyes and a hard body that any woman would want; that much she was willing to admit. But she had known other handsome men without feeling stirrings of desire. What was it about MacKenna that made her yearn for his attention?
His weight shifted off of her. Gillian inhaled sharply, suddenly aware that she could breathe freely again. She heard Ross sigh and waited with bated breath for him to mock her. She had insisted she didn’t want him, and the arrogant man had proved her wrong.
“I canna recall when I’ve enjoyed making love more. You are wonderfully responsive, Gillian. Never try to tell me you doona want me, for I willna believe you. You enjoyed it as much as I did.”
“Your arrogance knows no bounds, MacKenna. Aye, you made me feel pleasure, but I didna stand a chance. You are too experienced. Mayhap if I had someone to, compare you to, I would be better able to—”
“Cease, woman! There will be no man but me in your bed. You would do well to remember that. You are mine, Gillian, mine. Mine,” he repeated as he rolled on top of her and kissed her with renewed ardor.
Then he made love to her again, slowly, wringing a response from her. Before she knew it, she was panting with need, cursing Ross, cursing herself, and enjoying every minute of it.
“Tell me you hate me now,” Ross said once his breath returned and he rolled away from her.
“I...” She tried again. “I...”
A knowing smile curved his lips. “I will listen to no more of your lies. Go to sleep, wife. We have both earned our rest.”
Gillian turned away from him and closed her eyes. Why had the words of denial stuck in her throat? She did hate MacKenna, didn’t she? That question remained unanswered as she drifted off to sleep.
Ross listened to Gillian’s even breathing, wishing he could find sleep as easily as his wife. Mayhap sleep eluded him because he was having difficulty understanding the woman he had wed. She made love like an angel while professing to hate him. How could a woman who hated him find enjoyment in the marriage bed? Wouldn’t she lie beneath him like a statue instead of writhing and moaning with pleasure?
Ross sighed, closed his eyes, and pulled Gillian into the curve of his body, seeking the solace of sleep. He had just started to doze when someone pounded on the door. Spitting out a curse, Ross eased away from Gillian, crept across the chamber, and opened the door.
“What does a man have to do to earn his rest?” he hissed when he saw Niall standing outside the door.
“I wouldna bother you if it wasna important,” Niall replied. “There’s trouble, Ross. I decided to ride out to check on the herd before I retired, and saw reivers making off with some of our livestock. I tried to stop them but there were too many. Since I wasna expecting trouble, I had gone out alone.”
“Wait here,” Ross said, mindful of his sleeping wife.
Turning back into the chamber, Ross pulled on his braies, stomped into his boots, and grabbed his shirt, jacket, and weapons before joining Niall.
“How many reivers were there? Did you recognize any of them?”
“I counted at least six, but there could have been more. You are nae going to like this, Ross, but they were MacKays.”
“MacKays? Impossible, we have a truce.”
“Truce or no, I recognized the plaid.”
Ross belted on his claymore and dirk, threw on a jacket and headed down the stairs. “Wake the men. We might be able to catch up with them. Or at least follow their trail. I canna believe MacKay would break the truce.”
“He had us right where he wanted us,” Niall said, “unsuspecting and unaware.”
Twenty minutes later, Ross led a party of men through the gates and into the dark night. They rode to the winter pasture at the foot of the nearby hills. As Ross had expected, the reivers were gone, and with them a dozen or more cows.
“We’ll follow their tracks,” Ross said as he studied the signs on the soft ground in the moonlight. “ ’They canna have gotten too far.”
They found their missing cows a few miles away. Apparently the reivers weren’t expecting to be chased and had given up their prize rather than tangle with angry MacKennas. If Niall hadn’t ridden out to check on the herd, the thieves would have escaped, and they might never have gotten their cows back.
But that was not all Ross learned when he found the missing cows. He also found a piece of MacKay plaid caught on a nearby bush. Cursing MacKay for his trickery, Ross rode home in a rage. This treachery would not go unpunished. After he renounced his MacKay wife and returned her bag and baggage to her father, the feud would resume. So much for peace.
Chapter Seven
Ross dismounted in front of the keep, issued a few curt orders to Gordo, and stormed inside just as the sun rose over the nearby hills. Those unlucky enough to be in the hall when he entered scattered at the sight of his glowering features and clenched fists.
“Tell Hanna to have food on the table in thirty minutes,” he called in passing to one of the men setting up tables for the morning repast.
Then he stormed up the stairs to the solar and burst into the bedchamber. Stomping to the bed, he pulled the covers off of Gillian and barked, “Get up!”
Gillian blinked awake, saw Ross standing over her, and smiled. How could she not smile after all the pleasure he’d given her? It had been a most extraordinary night, one she wasn’t likely to forget anytime soon. She stretched sinuously, recalling the erotic delight Ross evoked with his hands and mouth and other manly parts of his body.
“Get up
,
Gillian,” Ross repeated in a voice that was curiously lacking in feeling or compassion.
,
Gillian,” Ross repeated in a voice that was curiously lacking in feeling or compassion.
Gillian sat up, pulling the sheet high to cover her nakedness. “What is it, Ross? Has something happened? You look so ... so angry.”
“Anger doesna begin to describe how I feel,” he spat. Curling his fingers around her arm, he yanked her out of bed. “Meet me in the hall in thirty minutes. Doona be late. And wear your heavy cloak; ’tis cold outside. I’ll send Alice to pack your trunk.”
Gillian gaped at him. “Pack my trunk? Are we going somewhere?”
“Aye, I’m taking you to Braeburn.”
Gillian’s face lit up, and she clapped her hands. “We’re going to Braeburn for a visit? Why did you nae say so? I’ll be ready, Ross. You willna have to wait for me. It will be wonderful to see Da and my brothers again.”
Ross sent her a strange look but said naught as he nodded curtly and retraced his steps to the hall. His mood hadn’t lightened when Gillian joined him thirty minutes later. In fact, the tension in the hall was so thick she could have cut it with a knife. Obviously something had happened that she was not privy to. From the animosity directed at her, Gillian could conclude only that the problem involved her or her clan.
Gillian knew for certain she was the target of the hostility when a servant set a bowl of porridge in front of her instead of her usual plate of eggs.
“What is this about, MacKenna?” Gillian demanded to know. “Why does everyone look angry at me? What have I done to deserve such animosity from your clansmen?”
“Doona try to tell me you didna know,” Ross hissed. “Your father had this planned from the beginning.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Reivers attempted to steal our cows last night. They were MacKays. The feud has officially ended. Our herd wasna guarded as it would have been had we not agreed to a truce. A truce, ha!” Ross repeated.
Gillian’s mouth dropped open. “Nay Da wouldna break the truce. He came to you with the peace offer, do you nae remember? Why would Da ask for a truce if he intended to break it?”
“To catch us off guard, and he almost succeeded, but he didna get away with our cows. Thanks to Niall, we discovered your father’s treachery in time to catch up with the thieves. They left the cows and ran off like cowards when they heard us coming after them.”
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