Taming the Heiress (21 page)

Holding her, Dougal felt good, needed, essential to her. The feeling was new to him. He had faced urgent and dangerous situations before, but saving Iain had brought him an unexpected reward in a sense of true belonging with the islanders, who gave him their respect and seemed ready to cast aside their resentment about the lighthouse.

Comforting Meg, he felt oddly as if he fulfilled more than her momentary need. Holding her approached a destiny, somehow. He belonged here with her.

Most of his adult life, that sense of being needed had been lacking. While putting up lighthouses, he had faced danger in order to eliminate risk for others. His own family had been devastated by a tragedy that he could now help prevent in the future. He was proud to be able to give others safety and security. His skills were needed—but he had never felt necessary to someone for himself alone. He had not even realized it until now, with Meg leaning her head on his chest and weeping.

What if she had needed him all these years—as he had wanted and desired her in dreams and imaginings—yet he had been only a hurtful memory for her? Closing his eyes in anguish, he told himself he should have searched more thoroughly for her. He hoped his apology had not come too late.

Unless he made a difference for someone, for her, he might always feel unsettled and at odds with life, always running toward danger in order to prove himself somehow. Rescuing Iain had opened floodgates of gratitude and goodwill such as he had never felt before, crowned by this moment with Meg in his arms.

Love brimmed in him and spilled over as he held her, and he felt a moment of magnificent, private surrender, as if part of him changed, subtly and surely. He wanted to ease what troubled her now—more than that, he wanted to be with her always.

"Hush, lass," he crooned. "Hush, my dear." Brushing his hand over her hair, he slid his fingers into the wealth of her hair. Meg leaned her head back to gaze up at him, her eyes luminous, awash in tears.

With deliberate gentleness, tipping her chin on his knuckle, he bent and kissed her, a sure brush of the lips, a slight, meaningful tug, another sweet brush. Then she pressed against him, urging them toward a deep meld of mouths and heartbeats. Cradling her face in his hand, he kissed her insistently, sinking his fingers into the golden richness of her hair. He kissed her breathless, until she clung to him and the room seemed to spin.

Through the half-closed door the music and light from the other room faded, but he still heard it and was dimly aware that they were not alone. He had to be alone with her, if only for a little while. Body and soul demanded it.

Tearing away from her, he took her hand, pulling her out of the room and through the outside door of the sleeping room. They stepped into the night, where the sky had finally darkened to starry indigo. He heard the rush of the sea.

Silently, swiftly, he drew her with him toward the bay. She moved beside him, making no sound as they crossed the reedy, kelp-littered sand of the little bay. Her hand felt fervent in his. He drew her down toward the sea, where the water washed, foaming, over the sand. He did not know why he wanted to take her there, but he followed his heart and pulled her along.

Wavelets rinsed over her bare toes, and she splashed a little as she walked beside him. He stopped suddenly, holding her hand, to work off his boots and toss them onto the drier sand, pulling his knitted socks off after them and tossing them, as well. The water felt cool and good over his feet. When Meg laughed, the sound made him feel even finer.

She hastened beside him, walking a little ahead of him, now pulling him along where earlier he had been tugging at her. He let her pull him over a hill and past the small headland that separated the larger bay from this small, private bit of beach in the shadow of the rock wall, with the moon-spangled water beyond.

She turned, walking backwards now, still holding his hand, and he followed her, feeling soft, dry sand beneath his feet. Then he tugged on her hand and pulled her into his arms. Under the moonlight, he touched his mouth to hers, feeling her body curve against him and her arms slide around his waist.

A keen burning slipped through him, and he kissed her in full freedom now, deep and wild and thoroughly, sliding a hand up her back, the other pulling her to him at hip and waist until her abdomen pressed hard against his rigidness. He groaned low and let his hands move upward.

She turned slightly, allowing his fingers to trace over the swell of her left breast, where she tightened like a pearl for him. He felt her small gasp in his mouth, and he touched her other breast, ruching that willing nipple, feeling her sag in his arms a little. She opened her mouth to him, teasing him with her tongue as he teased her breasts, her hands easing over his waist, moving down, then behind him, pulling him against her.

He could not get enough of her. She was like fire to him, like the burn of the whisky in his blood. He wanted her intensely, could not think past that urgency. His pounding heart and throbbing blood dimmed all reason.

Part of him, blood and soul, remembered the night they had shared, and he wanted that back again, not for its incredible physical satisfaction, but for the depth of the passion he had known only in her arms.

He proceeded with care, partaking slowly of the luxury of her, of this, though his heart slammed and his body urged him onward. He framed the deep curves at her waist, and he felt her hands move up his back, shaping, clutching at his shoulders. She gave a breathy moan and curved herself against him.

When he felt that hot, irresistible pulsing of spirit begin between them, when his body throbbed and demanded, he could no longer hold back, and he pulled her tightly against him.

Sinking with her in the sand, he dropped to his knees to face her as she kneeled also, and he pressed her to him in a deep kiss. Then she sank, and he went with her, stretching out with her on a soft cushion of white sand, rolling slightly, so that he lay beside her.

Gathering her to him, he traced his hands over her. Keenly aware of what he wanted, he hoped she wanted it, too. But he could not go on until he knew that she would be his entirely, without hesitation.

Cupping her face in his hand, he pulled his lips from hers and drew her into his embrace, placed his mouth at her ear. "I must know," he whispered, kissing her earlobe, "if you understand what we are about here, if you feel this, too, between us."

"I do feel it," she said, her lips brushing his neck, his jaw. "I know what we are about here." She stretched for his kiss.

"Meg," he said, dragging his lips from hers, determined to make certain all was clear between them, "I must know something. You walked with a fellow on the beach the other day. Norrie said it was Sir Frederick Matheson who came to see you. Tell me—if he means something to you." Voice low and ragged, he hated himself for asking. But he had to know.

"He is no one," she murmured, her mouth tracing over his. "No one at all to me."

He lay back, gathered her into his arms, held her. "You kissed him." Surprisingly, he felt only a little jealous; instead he felt a strange sense of knowing, of certainty that she was his and could belong to no other. He wanted to trust her loyal, caring heart and dared to hope that she shared his feelings.

"He kissed me," she corrected. "And it meant nothing to me. Do not think about it. And I will not think about it." She added in a low and oddly defiant voice, "Not now." She tilted her head to kiss him again.

He broke away. "Meg, my girl," he whispered, "I need to know what you want of me, of us, just now." This time he would ask—this time, he knew just what he wanted and why. Her, forever. He held still, heart driving hard in his chest, and waited.

She looped her arms around him and stayed so still that he thought, for a moment, she would simply pull away and end this. Fair enough, he thought, if that was what she needed to do.

Setting her cheek beside his, she sighed in his ear. "I want the dream," she murmured. "Just once, I want the dream that I am truly, deeply, utterly happy. Where I have all that I want and I am just who I want to be, with the man who has my heart in his keeping."

He sighed out low and traced his lips over hers, stirred so deep he could not speak. The dream, as she called it, was what he most desired himself. And she was the dream. He drew back, waited.

"For this one night," she went on in a soft voice, "though I know it cannot last, I want the beautiful dream that I have kept and treasured. After that—" She stopped, and he held her, feeling the thump of her heartbeat through her slim rib cage, beneath his hands.

"After that?" he whispered, easing his lips over her earlobe, teasing, tugging, as he waited.

She shook her head a little. "Then I will go back to the other world and do what must be done."

He nodded. But he intended to take her with him into that other world, as he moved from place to place, from city to remotest point. She was indeed the dream, had always been so for him. He dared hope, now, that he would be the dream for her, as well.

He rose over her then, propped on his hands while she lay back on the sand. The water rushed at their feet, and from far beyond, he could hear the faint strain of a fiddle and the sweet harmony of singing. He looked down at her.

"What do you dream?" he murmured.

She pulled him down toward her. "I have often thought about what we had once before," she said, "that perfect knowing of one another, perfect caring for each other. And I dream that all the years in between never happened, that we have always been together. Just this once, I would like to feel that it is so."

He kissed her, then drew back. "It could be so. We could stay together forever." His feelings for her, he realized, had formed years ago and had not changed, staying deep and full, waiting dormant until he had found her. Now that he had begun to know her, with her kind heart for others and her sweet, honest purity, he knew that he loved her.

She shook her head gently, something he had not expected. "Just the dream," she said, sliding her fingers into his hair. "That is all I want tonight. Please," she whispered, and he heard a note of such plaintive force, such surprising desperation, that he felt himself run hot and deep with longing and desire. He wanted to give her joy, complete himself in the completion of her.

"Please—" she repeated, and he touched her mouth with his, took the word and turned it into a kiss. He traced his tongue over her lips and shifted lower, drifting kisses along her jaw, her long and beautiful throat, until he found the swell of her breast. He fingered gently at the buttons of her blouse and opened it, slipping his hand inside the warmth there, sliding beneath layered cotton and cambric. As he touched her incredible softness, she gasped, and his body tightened deep within, like a fist, and began to throb with a burgeoning need.

Dipping his head, he touched her nipple with his tongue, coaxed it to stiffen, heard her whimper as she slid her fingers through his hair, over his ear, and down, until she was tugging at his shirt, and he in turn slipped her blouse from her and fingered the delicate laces of her camisole.

Gasping, moaning softly, she undressed him quickly, and he drew off her garments, one after the other, until they lay nude on a scattering of dark clothing and pale sand, hidden in the black shadow of the headland where no one could see them, where they had found a small private space to relish each other.

Feeling the gentle, cool evening wind on his skin, he drew her into his arms, her skin warm and delicious against his, and he traced his lips over her breasts, teasing her nipples to pearls, while she arched and breathed out in a cry. He traced his tongue over her breasts, between them, and downward over her abdomen, to where she was sweet, tender, and secret.

As she shivered under him, he teased her, stroked her, until she clutched at him and whimpered out her release. When she subsided, sighing like a wave, he could not control the powerful need much longer, his heart slamming, body and soul near to bursting. But he must not give her a child, not yet, though he wanted that, someday, with her. Even if he could not resist her—yet again—he would not knowingly compromise her well-being.

Through a haze, he reminded himself to be cautious, even as she pleaded with her writhing body and a low, throaty moan that sent a hot pulse through him. She moved in the soft sand beneath him, pulling him over her, and he gave a low groan, all fire and blaze and no longer himself.

As his body slipped into the glove of hers, she became his crucible and he hers, all fire and passion, all wind and sea and pounding heart. The storm tore through him, and somehow he found the strength to pull back, to spill himself into the warm sea that teased around them.

Breathless, he gathered her into his arms and rolled to his side to hold her. Moments later, he realized that she wept silently, hiding her face against his shoulder.

Chapter 13