The Ravishing One (25 page)

She purred with the pleasure of it, grasping handfuls of his silky hair and holding his dark head to her. He pulled her nipple deep into his mouth, sucking hard and rhythmically.

Her heels dug into the ground as she lifted her hips, demanding, begging, seeking what she wanted.

Him.

In her.

His hand slid down her ribs and clasped her hip. Gently, he pushed her against the ground and rolled one heavy leg across her. She felt it between them, his cock, warm and incredibly hard, like chamois-sheathed steel, tantalizing in its proximity to her mons.

He kissed her mouth, burnishing her lips with his own as he’d done before, coaxing them apart. She knew now what he wanted. At once she opened her mouth, raking her fingers through the rich, thick waves of his hair before sending her hands flowing down his back, savoring the jump and bunch of his muscles beneath her palms, the smooth-hard texture of his skin. And all the while he kept giving her those deep, plundering kisses.

He shifted his hips, moving fully on top of her. His weight felt good. His body dense and masterful, her own lush and accommodating. His hand drifted down her side and then between them. He grasped his hard shaft and slowly, teasingly moved the swollen head between her sleek folds, over that little amazing bump. She cried out, and he drank the sound, moving closer, deeper, until …

“Fia,” he muttered, and with a deep, controlled thrust pushed himself inside of her. She bucked. His body trembled, and he released her mouth, dragging his lips across her cheek and resting his forehead on the ground next to her.

“I am striving for some portion of control here, Fia,” he whispered thickly. “I beg you to help me. Don’t move.”

Her eyes flew wide at his words, at his presence in her, at the feel of him lying on her.
Not move?

Impossible!

She wriggled. His shaft jerked in response, drawing a gasp from her.
Aye! More of this. More
.

He pulled himself out and then slowly pushed back in. She followed his withdrawal, wanting more.

“Nay,” he whispered harshly. “Wait.” He withdrew on a long, slow hiss of pleasure. “Meet me now. Come to me, love.”

He thrust as she raised her hips. A cry of discovery broke from her throat.

“Again.”

And again. Each thrust and counterthrust taught her the rhythm of this ancient dance. Each fiber of her body sang with discovery, with involvement. His thrusts grew deeper, more powerful, and more elemental.

“Yes,” she sobbed. “Please.” For there was more. Just beyond this point, beckoning, urging, promising. There was more.

He grasped her leg, hooking her knee above his hip, increasing the depth and tempo of his possession. His jaw tensed, the hard muscles of his chest bulged, corded over with veins. His skin grew flushed with exertion.

Her eyes closed. Sparks careened against the velvety
blackness; the sensations spiraled around her, in her, taking her, owning her.… A pleasure so intense it felt like pain thrummed through her. He whispered, his rock-hard body straining above her and in her.

With her.

She lost herself, instinct overriding the dense armor of her self-protection. “Please, Thomas! Please!”

His arms surrounded her, lifted her. His mouth fell on the side of her neck, sucking gently in counterpoint to his hard thrust. “Let go, Fia,” he murmured. “Let go.”

Warmth flooded her. Electric waves of sensation coiled tighter and tighter, until all that was left was an urgent essence of need.

“Make it yours. Take it now.”

With his words, desire exploded into fireworks of pleasure, rolling through her body like thunder, expanding as it went. Wave upon wave rippled outward, coursing, streaming molten satisfaction, emptying even as it filled.

“Thomas,” she gasped in amazement. “Thomas!”

He did not answer, could not answer. Her body molded beneath his, accepting and giving back in kind his rising passion. He rode the thick, bucking waves of it, blocking out everything except the two of them, the cries she no longer tried to control, the beauty of her climax.

Then her thighs tensed, her fingers dug into his biceps, and another cry broke from her, one of pure
repleteness, as deep within he felt her tighten around his cock.

His own crisis was upon him then. He planted his hands on either side of her and rose, leveraging his hips hard against her, driving himself fully into her, and shouted his release to the sky.

Chapter 20

F
ia touched Thomas’s face, her fingertips a sigh across his mouth. Her eyes were lucent but sad, like moonlight.

“I never knew it could be like that,” she said.

He turned his head, pressing a kiss to her palm, and read in her soft smile her regret and her withdrawal. He knew what she would say before he heard her words, and yet when she said them each one drove like a spike through his heart.

“It can’t happen again.”

“No?”

“It would … it would only end up hurting more when it was over.”

A small part of him wanted to deny it, to ask why it needed to end. Why something that had felt so right, so perfect, must be “over”?

But honesty kept him silent. She was right. She saw his acquiescence in his face, and before he could read her thoughts, she dipped her head and turned her back as she began lacing up her chemise. Her neck looked vulnerable.

If this had been a fairy-tale romance, they would have fallen asleep in each other’s arms and woken to a flight of swans casting shadows over their faces. They would have turned to each other and whispered sweet pledges and vows, risen from their pine bed, and ridden off into the setting sun.

But this was not a fairy-tale romance.

He looked away, reminding himself with bitter force that they did not exist separate from their pasts, their lives, their futures. What they did mattered to others as well as to themselves. He’d only to turn his gaze eastward, toward McClairen’s Isle and all the people he’d brought here, to understand just how little time he could waste on his own pain, no matter that the wound felt mortal.

Even if things were different … He was still an outlaw in this land. Soon he would need to flee England, most probably forever if he valued his neck. Which he did.

And Fia? Fia was still Carr’s daughter, and a week of gentle concourse and a few hours of passion did not change who she was. He knew Fia well enough to entrust his life to her, but he did not know her well enough to entrust others’ lives to her. But that didn’t stem the longing he felt for her.

If they were to make love again—for surely there
was more of love than rutting in what they had done together—it would only turn “longing” into “yearning.” Perhaps a lifetime’s worth.

Damn, he thought. For a man who’d only sought to erase all things Merrick from his life, he’d made a bloody mess of it.

He pulled his boots on and stood up, wanting to touch her but afraid, because it would only stoke the attraction that simmered so close to the surface. “ ’Tis too soon dark to return to the manor, and the path is too faint to follow. We’ll have to stay at Maiden’s Blush this night.”

She turned, her smooth countenance at variance with her all-too-readable eyes.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll not press myself on you. There are rooms already finished within the castle walls, some with rudimentary furnishings. You’ll stay in one and I’ll stay elsewhere.” Under the stars, he thought, though he did not tell her. He dare not consider being so near what he wanted so badly. He was only a man, after all.

She nodded and waited while he found their mounts and returned with them. With commendable restraint, he lifted her into the saddle and swung atop his own horse.

The path led to the thin, flinty land-bridge connecting the headland to the island. They crossed just as twilight’s shadows dissolved into night’s dark mantle. Overhead, nighthawks spiraled and wheeled in the indigo sky, as below, insects chirruped from the grasses. Torchlight flickered across the newly reconstructed
terrace, where a few masons still chipped away at blocks of stone.

Fia recognized one of them as the giant, Jamie, who’d greeted them on the beach. He lifted his massive head at the sound of their approach and, recognizing Thomas, came to greet them.

“Sooo.” Jamie released the word slowly, his bright gaze flickering knowingly between Thomas and Fia. “ ’Bout time.”

“Shut up, Jamie,” Thomas said with more ire than the giant’s friendly if suggestive words warranted. “Have one of the men take the horses. Lady MacFarlane will be staying the night.”

The big man opened his mouth but one look at Thomas’s hard face made him rethink the wisdom of whatever he’d been about to utter. He called out over his shoulder for one of his men.

Thomas dismounted, and without waiting for Fia’s consent, clasped her waist, lifting her to the ground. He dropped his hands and stood back, all of this accomplished without a glance at her.

Pain lodged in Fia’s heart, but no bitterness, no regret. It was not distaste that kept Thomas’s gaze averted and his touch impersonal. On the contrary, it was desire, foolish, hopeless, hurtful desire. She knew because it filled her, too.

All the long ride down from the mountain, she’d watched his straight back, his broad shoulders, the way his hips moved with well-oiled ease to accommodate the movement of the horse beneath him. It had set pulses of desire shooting through her, the memories
only moments old of his hips moving against her, his chest covering her, his arms wrapped around her.

She should count herself fortunate that he’d realized the folly of surrendering to desire as had she.

She’d never had a lover because she’d never
wanted
one. And now that she’d had one, she wanted more. She wanted Thomas. Not for just a few hours, but all the hours she could imagine. She wanted tomorrow and tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that. But wanting would gain her nothing. Except Thomas’s death.

If Carr ever discovered what she’d done, he’d have Thomas arrested and hanged, and his head on Temple Bar within a fortnight. She could not live with that.

She should be grateful. Six years ago she’d given up all her fantasies about Thomas, and now, amazingly, she’d been allowed a taste of those dreams and they had been more wonderful than all her imaginings had conceived. She should be grateful, content with what she’d been allowed. But she was not, she wanted more, because she was greedy and selfish. Like Carr.

But unlike Carr, she needn’t be ruled by her rapacity. She would not make Thomas pay the price of her greed.

She forced herself to look around at her surroundings, and as she did, wonder washed over her, releasing her from her painful conclusions.

She started forward, drawn by what she saw. It took her breath away. She tilted her head back, barely conscious that she was smiling in recognition of … Maiden’s Blush.

“ ’Tis said,” she heard Thomas murmur behind her, “that Dougal McClairen first saw Lizabet McIntere at her father’s keep when she was but thirteen years old. ’Twas the only time Dougal saw the girl, but ’twas enough.

“Dougal left McIntere’s house, knowing the old brute planned to align his family with a wealthier one by marrying off Lizabet. That didn’t matter to Dougal. He swore to have her. He came here to this island and he built this castle, knowing it would be impenetrable and impervious to siege.

“It took him four years, and when he was done he gathered together seventy well-armed Highlanders and went awooing. Luckily, Lizabet hadn’t yet wed—though Dougal swore it wouldn’t have mattered to him if she had—and after one look at Dougal’s men, McIntere agreed to the marriage.

“Dougal brought Lizabet to this island, to his unnamed castle.…” Thomas’s voice roughened and faded.

“And they stopped at the crest of that hill, near sunset,” Fia continued in a hushed voice, for she knew the story well, had heard it from childhood, recited in Gunna’s broad burr. Her gaze traveled with loving appreciation over the rough, silvery stone, the glinting, deeply recessed windows and high turreted towers. “And Dougal made a solemn oath. Once in his castle’s walls Lizabet would remain forever innocent of any man’s touch save his own.

“And Lizabet blushed, and the Highlanders that were with them, who heard the vow and saw the lady’s
cheeks, looked at the great gray fortress, and it seemed to them that in the setting sun it, too, blushed at its master’s ardency. And so, forever thereafter, the castle has been called Maiden’s Blush.”

She turned and found Thomas’s gaze upon her and she thought that no matter how ardently Dougal looked upon his bride, his expression could not have matched the intensity of Thomas McClairen’s gray-blue gaze.

“Until Carr,” Jamie said, breaking the odd, still moment. He stood a ways back, smiling bitterly.

Thomas looked away. “Aye,” he said under his breath, “until Carr.”

Her father had bought the castle by betraying the McClairens’ Jacobite sympathies to the Crown, and then, to close the net, secretly testified against his own benefactor, Ian McClairen, and thus secured the execution of the castle’s laird and rightful owner.

Having received the castle as payment for his treachery, Carr had gone about the business of prostituting the great gray dame. He’d tarted her up, adding bizarre excrescences to her silhouette and hiding her beneath a garish veneer.

But now … her stately towers no longer cringed beneath a tiara of unlikely gables and flying buttresses. Crenellation lined her summits like a simple circlet on an ancient ruler’s brow. Gray stone melded with gray stone. All of it fit together; all of it was of a piece.

“It’s magnificent, Thomas,” Fia said quietly. “However have you managed? However could you afford it?”

“The privateering trade has been very good to me,” he said with a tiny smile.

She turned. “But I thought that you owned a merchant shipping company.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes one overlaps the other.”

“I see.” And she did. The dangers of sailing in pirateinfested seas were grave enough, but the dangers entailed in chasing down and engaging enemy ships would be immense. She disliked that he’d risked so much and, obviously, so often.