To Tame a Highland Warrior (23 page)

“It’s all right, Grimm. I know it will hurt at first, but Kaley told me that if the man is a skilled lover, he will make me feel something more incredible than I’ve ever felt.”

“Kaley
told you that?”

Jillian nodded. “Please,” she breathed. “Show me what she meant.”

Grimm expelled a fascinated breath. His Jillian had no fear. He gently slipped the head of his shaft inside her and eased her down, gauging her every flicker of emotion.

Her eyes flared. Her hand flew down to curl around his shaft. “Big,” she said worriedly. “Really big. Are you certain this works?”

A grin of pure delight curved his lip. “Very big,” he agreed. “But just right to pleasure a woman.” He slipped into her carefully. When he met the resistance of the barrier, he paused. Jillian panted softly. “Now, Grimm. Do it.”

He closed his eyes briefly and cupped his hands on her bottom, positioning her above him. When he opened his eyes, resolve glimmered in their depths. With one firm thrust he pierced the barrier.

Jillian gasped. “That wasn’t so bad,” she breathed after a moment. “I thought it would really hurt.” When he began to move slowly, her eyes flared. “Oh!”

She cried out, and he silenced her with a kiss. Moving slowly, he rocked her against him until any trace of pain in her wide eyes disappeared and her face was illuminated by the anticipation of what she sensed was dancing just out of her reach. She initiated an erotic, circular movement with her hips, nipping her lower lip between her teeth.

He watched her, entranced by her innate sensuality. She was abandoned, uninhibited, plunging wholly into their intimate play without reservation. Her lips curved deliciously as a long slow thrust of his hips hinted at the passion to come, and he smiled with wicked delight.

He raised her up and switched places with her, placing her on the chair. Kneeling, he pulled her forward, wrapped her legs around his waist, and slid deep within her, pressing with exquisite friction against the mysterious place deep inside her that would cast her over the edge. He teased the nub between her legs until she squirmed against him, begging with her body for what only he could give her.

The Berserker exulted within him, frolicking in a way he had never thought possible.

When she cried out and shuddered against him, Grimm Roderick made a husky, rich sound that was more than laughter; it was the resonant knell of liberation. His triumph quickly became a groan of release. The sensation of her body shuddering around him so tightly was more than he could resist, and he exploded inside her.

Jillian clung to him, gasping as an unfamiliar sound penetrated her reeling mind. Her muscles fused to molten uselessness, her head fell forward, and she peered through her hair at the nude warrior-man kneeling before her.
“Y-you can laugh! Really, truly laugh!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

He traced his thumbs up the inside of her thighs, over the light skein of blood. Blood of her virginity marked her pale thighs. “Jillian, I … I … oh …”

“Don’t freeze up on me, Grimm Roderick,” Jillian said instantly.

He began shaking violently. “I can’t help it,” he said tightly, knowing they weren’t talking about the same thing at all. “The Greathall,” he muttered. “I am such an ass. I am so damned—”

“Stop it!” Jillian grabbed his head with both hands, leveling him with a furious look. “I wanted this,” she said intensely. “I waited for this, I needed this. Don’t you dare regret it! I don’t, and I never will.”

Grimm froze, transfixed by the blood that marked her thighs, waiting for the sensation of lost time to begin. It wouldn’t be long before the darkness claimed him and the violence ensued.

But moments ticked by, and it didn’t happen. Despite the raging energy that flooded his body, the madness never came.

He gazed at her, dumbfounded. The beast within him was fully awakened, yet tame. How could that be? No bloodlust, no need for violence, all the good things the Berserker brought—and none of the danger.

“Jillian,” he breathed reverently.

“H
OW ARE YOU FEELING
?” G
RIMM ASKED QUIETLY
. Punching the pillows, he maneuvered Quinn to a sitting position. The window fittings were tied loosely back, swags framed the casements, and the crescent moon cast enough light that his heightened vision allowed him to function as if it were broad daylight.

Quinn blinked groggily at Grimm and peered through the gloom. “Please don’t.” He groaned when Grimm reached for a cloth.

Grimm stopped in mid-reach. “Doona what? I was merely going to wipe your brow.”

“Don’t smother me with any more of that blasted mandrake,” Quinn muttered. “Half the reason I feel so lousy is because Kaley keeps knocking me out.”

One bed over, Ramsay rumbled assent. “Don’t let her make us sleep anymore, man. My head is splitting from that crap and my tongue feels as if some wee furry beastie
crawled in, kicked over on its back, and died there. Three days ago. And now it’s rotting—”

“Enough! Do you have to be so descriptive?” Quinn made a face of disgust as his empty stomach heaved.

Grimm raised his hands in a gesture of assent. “No more mandrake. I promise. So how are you two feeling?”

“Like bloody hell,” Ramsay groaned. “Light a candle, would you? I can’t see a thing. What happened? Who poisoned us?”

A dark expression flitted across Grimm’s face. He stepped into the hallway to light a taper, then lit several candles by the bedside and returned to his seat. “I suspect it was meant for me, and my guess is the poison was in the chicken.”

“The chicken?” Quinn exclaimed, wincing as he sat up straight. “Didn’t the barkeep bring it? Why would the bar-keep try to poison you?”

“I doona think it was the barkeep. I think it was the butcher’s attempt at revenge. My theory is that if either of you had consumed the entire basket, you would have died. It was intended for me. But the two of you split it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense if the butcher meant it for you, Grimm,” Quinn protested. “He’d seen you in action. Any man knows you can’t poison a Ber—”

“Bastard as ornery as myself,” Grimm roared, drowning out Quinn’s last word before Ramsay heard it.

Ramsay clutched his head. “Och, man, quit bellowing! You’re killing me.”

Quinn mouthed a silent “sorry” at Grimm, followed by an apologetic whisper: “It’s the lingering effects of the mandrake. I’m stupid right now.”

“Eh? What?” Ramsay said. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Even between the two of us we didn’t even eat all the chicken,” Quinn continued, evading Ramsay’s query. “And I thought the innkeeper dismissed the butcher after that incident. I asked him to do it myself.”

“What incident?” Ramsay asked.

“Apparently not.” Grimm ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“Did you get his name?” Ramsay asked.

“Who? The innkeeper?” Quinn gave him a puzzled look.

“No, the butcher.” Ramsay rolled his eyes.

“Why?” Quinn asked blankly.

“Because the bastard poisoned a Logan, you fool. That doesn’t happen without recompense.”

“No vengeance,” Grimm warned. “Just forget it, Logan. I’ve seen what you do when you focus on vengeance. The two of you came out of this bungled attempt unharmed. That does not justify murdering a man, no matter how much he might deserve it for other things.”

“Where’s Jillian?” Quinn changed the subject quickly. “I have these foggy memories of a goddess hovering over my bed.”

Ramsay snorted. “Just because you think you were making some progress before we were both poisoned doesn’t mean you’ve won her, de Moncreiffe.

Grimm winced inwardly and sat in pensive silence while Quinn and Ramsay argued back and forth about Jillian. The men were still at it some time later and didn’t even notice when Grimm left the room.

Having spent the early hours of dawn with Quinn and Ramsay, Grimm checked in on Jillian, who was still sleeping
soundly as he’d left her, curled on her side beneath a mound of blankets. He longed to ease himself into bed beside her, to experience the pleasure of waking up to the sensation of holding her in his arms, but he couldn’t risk being seen leaving Jillian’s chambers once the castle roused.

So, as morning broke over Caithness, he nodded to Ramsay, who’d managed to stumble down the stairs in search of solid food, whistled to Occam, and swung himself onto the stallion’s bare back. He headed for the loch, intending to immerse his overheated body in icy water. The completion he’d experienced with Jillian had only whetted his appetite for her, and he was afraid if she so much as smiled at him today he would fall on her with all the slathering grace of a starved wolf. Years of denied passion were free, and he realized he possessed a hunger for Jillian that could never be sated.

He nudged Occam around a copse of trees and paused, savoring the quiet beauty of the morning. The loch rippled, a vast silvery mirror beneath rosy clouds. Lofty oaks waved black branches against the red sky.

Strains of a painfully off-key song carried faintly on the breeze, and Grimm circumvented the loch carefully, guiding his horse past sinkholes and rocky terrain, following the sound until, rounding a thick cluster of growth, he saw Zeke hunched near the water. The lad’s legs were tucked up, his forearms resting on his knees, and he was rubbing his eyes.

Grimm drew Occam to a halt. Zeke was half crying the broken words of an old lullaby. Grimm wondered who had managed to hurt his feelings this early in the morning. He watched the lad, trying to decide what was the best way to approach him without offending the child’s dignity. As he hesitated in the shadows, any decision on his part was rendered
obsolete as the crackling of brush and bracken alerted him to an intruder. He scanned the surrounding forest, but before he had detected the source, a snarling animal sprang from the woods a few feet behind Zeke. A great, mangy mountain cat burst onto the bank of the loch, thick white spittle foaming on its snout. It snarled, baring lethal white fangs. Zeke turned, and his song warbled to a stop. His eyes widened in horror.

Grimm instantly flung himself from Occam’s back, yanked his
sgain dubh
from his thigh, and drew it across his hand, causing blood to well in his palm. In less than a heartbeat, the sight of the crimson beads roused the Viking warrior and set the Berserker free.

Moving with inhuman speed, he snatched Zeke up and tossed him on his stallion and smacked Occam on the rump. Then he did what he so despised … he lost time.

“Somebody help!” Zeke shrieked as he rode into the bailey on Occam’s back. “You must help Grimm!”

Hatchard burst from the castle to find Zeke perched on Occam’s back, hanging on to his mane with whitened knuckles. “Where?” he shouted.

“The loch! There’s a crazed mountain cat and it almost ate me and he threw me on the horse and I rode by myself but it attacked Grimm and he’s going to be hurt!”

Hatchard sped off for the loch, unaware of two other people who’d been alerted by the shouting and were hot on his heels.

Hatchard found Grimm standing motionless, a black shadow against the misty red sky. He was facing the water,
standing amidst the scraps of what had once been an animal. His arms and face were covered with blood.