To Tame a Highland Warrior (44 page)

“It looks like we may get a real doozy.” Adrienne eyed the drifts as she bustled about, poking up the fire.

Jillian blinked. “A what?”

“Doozy. Oh …” Adrienne paused, then laughed. “A big storm. You know, we might get snowed in for a time.”

“You’re not from this part of the country, are you?” Jillian frowned, trying to place her strange accent.

Again her hostess laughed. “Not quite.” She beckoned Jillian to join her before the fire. “Just tell me, are those two of the hunkiest men you’ve ever laid eyes on?” Adrienne
eyed a picture above the hewn-oak mantel and sighed dreamily.

Jillian followed her hostess’s gaze upward to a beautifully rendered portrait of Gavrael and the Hawk. “Oh my. I don’t know what ‘hunkiest’ means, but they certainly are the most handsome men I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s it,” Adrienne agreed. “Do you know they complained the entire time this was being painted? Men.” She rolled her eyes and gestured at the painting. “How could they blame a woman for wanting to immortalize such raw masculine splendor?”

The women spoke quietly for a time, unaware Hawk and Gavrael had entered the study behind them. Gavrael’s eyes lingered on his wife and he started to move forward, determined to claim her before someone else dragged him off.

“Relax.” Hawk placed a restraining hand on his sleeve. Enough distance separated the men from their wives that the women hadn’t heard them yet, but Adrienne’s voice carried clearly:

“It was all that fairy’s fault. He dragged me back through time—not that I’m complaining a bit, mind you. I love it here and I adore my husband, but I’m originally from the twentieth century.”

Both men grinned when Jillian did a double take. “Five hundred years from now?” she exclaimed.

Adrienne nodded, her eyes dancing. Jillian studied her intently, then leaned closer. “My husband’s a Berserker,” she confided.

“I know. He told us right before he left for Caithness, but I didn’t get a chance to ask him any questions. Can he change shapes?” Adrienne looked as if she were about to reach for paper and ink and start scribbling notes. “In the twentieth century there’s a great deal of dispute over just
what they were and what they were capable of.” Adrienne paused as she became aware of the two men standing in the doorway. Her eyes twinkled mischievously, and she winked at her husband. “However, there
was
a general consensus on one thing, Jillian.” She smiled impishly. “It was commonly held that Berserkers were known for their legendary stamina—both in battle and in the b—”

“We get the point, Adrienne.” Hawk cut her off, his black eyes sparkling with amusement. “Now, perhaps we should let Gavrael show her the rest himself.”

Gavrael and Jillian’s chambers were on the third floor of Dalkeith. Adrienne and Hawk escorted them, dropping not-so-subtle hints that the newlyweds could make as much noise as they wished; with the intervening floors, the revelers below would be none the wiser.

When the door closed behind them and they were finally alone, Gavrael and Jillian gazed at each other across the downy expanse of a wide mahogany bed. A fire leapt and crackled in the hearth while fluffy snowflakes fell beyond the window.

Grimm regarded her tenderly and his eyes slipped down, as they’d frequently done lately, to the scarcely noticeable swell of her abdomen. Jillian caught the possessive glance and gave him a dazzling smile. Ever since the night of the attack, when she’d told him they were going to have a baby, she’d caught him smiling at odd times with little or no provocation. It delighted her, his intense delight about the baby growing inside her. When she’d told him, after they’d returned from the caves to Maldebann, he’d sat blinking and shaking his head, as if he couldn’t believe it was true. When she’d cradled his face in her hands and
drawn his head close to kiss him, she’d been stunned by the glimpse of moisture in his eyes. Her husband was the best of men: strong yet sensitive, capable yet vulnerable—and how she loved him!

As she watched him now, his eyes darkened with desire, and anticipation shivered through her.

“Adrienne said we might get snowed in for a while,” Jillian said breathlessly, feeling suddenly awkward. Being chaperoned these past weeks had nearly driven her crazy; to compensate, she’d tried to push her unruly steamy thoughts into a secluded corner of her mind. Now they resisted their confines, broke free, and demanded attention. She wanted her husband
now
.

“Good. I hope it snows a dozen feet.” Gavrael moved around the bed. All he wanted to do was bury himself inside her, reassure himself that she was indeed his. This day had been the culmination of all his dreams—he was married to Jillian St. Clair. Gazing down at her, he marveled at how much she had changed his life: He had a home, a clan, and a father, the wife he’d always dreamed of, a precious child on the way, and a bright future. He, who had always felt like an outcast, now belonged. And he owed it all to Jillian. He came to a stop inches from her and flashed her a lazy, sensual smile. “I doona suppose you have any noises you’d like to be making while we’re snowbound? I’d hate to disappoint our hosts.”

Jillian’s awkwardness melted away in a flash. Skirting all niceties, she slipped her hand up his muscular thigh and tugged his plaid away from his body. Her fingers flew over the buttons of his shirt, and within moments he stood before her as nature had fashioned him—a mighty warrior with hard angles and muscled planes.

Her gaze dropped lower and fixed upon what must have
surely been nature’s most generous boon. She wet her lip, a wordless gesture of desire, unaware of the effect it had on him.

Gavrael groaned and reached for her. Jillian slipped into his arms, wrapped her hand around his thick shaft, and nearly purred with delight.

His eyes flared, then narrowed as he moved with the grace and power of a mountain cat, dragging her down onto the bed. A rough sigh escaped him. “Ah, I missed you, lass. I thought I was going to go crazy from wanting you. Balder wouldn’t even let me kiss you!” Gavrael worked swiftly at the tiny buttons on her wedding gown. When she tightened her fingers around him, he quickly secured her hands, trapping them with one of his. “I can’t think when you do that, lass.”

“I didn’t ask you to think, my big brawny warrior,” she teased. “I have other uses for you.”

He tossed her an arrogant look that clearly warned her he was in charge for the moment. With her distracting hands temporarily restrained, he lingered over her buttons, tracing kisses over each inch of skin as it was revealed. When his lips returned to hers, he kissed her with a savage intensity. Their tongues met, retreated, then met again. He tasted of brandy and cinnamon; Jillian followed his tongue, caught it with her own, and drew it into her mouth. When he stretched full length on top of her, muscled body to silken skin, her softness accommodating his hardness in perfect symmetry, she sighed her pleasure.

“Please,” she begged, shifting her body enticingly beneath him.

“Please what, Jillian? What would you like me to do? Tell me exactly, lass.” His heavy-lidded eyes glittered with interest.

“I want you to …” She gestured.

He nibbled her lower lip, drew back, and blinked innocently. “I’m afraid I doona understand. What was that?”

“Here.” She gestured again.

“Say it, Jillian,” he whispered huskily. “Tell me. I am yours to command, but I follow only very explicit instructions.” The wicked grin he flashed loosened the last of her restraints, leaving her free to indulge in a bit of wickedness of her own.

So she told him, the man who was her own private legend, and he fulfilled her every secret desire, tasting and touching and pleasing her. He worshipped her body with his passion, celebrated their child in her womb with gentle kisses, kisses that lost their gentleness and became hot and hungry against her hips and blazed into flowing heat between her thighs.

Plunging her hands into his thick dark hair, she rose up against him, crying his name over and over.

Gavrael
.

And after she’d run out of demands—or simply had been sated beyond coherent thought—he knelt on the bed, pulled her astride him, and wrapped her long legs around his waist. Her nails scored his back as he lowered her onto his hard shaft one exquisite inch at a time.

“You can’t harm the baby, Gavrael,” she assured him, panting softly as he held her away, giving her but a tiny taste of what she so desperately wanted.

“I’m not worried about that,” he assured her.

“Then why … are … you … going so
slow?”

“To watch your face,” he said with a lazy smile. “I love to watch your eyes when we make love. I see every bit of pleasure, every ounce of desire reflected in them.”

“They’ll look even better if you’ll just—” She pushed
against him with her hips and, laughing, he held her away with his strong hands on her waist.

Jillian nearly wailed. “Please!”

But he took his sweet time—and how sweet it was—until she thought she could no longer bear it. Then, abruptly, he buried himself deep within her. “I love you, Jillian McIllioch.” His accompanying smile was uninhibited, his white teeth flashing against his dark face.

She laid a finger to his lips. “I know,” she assured him.

“But I wanted to say the words.” He caught her finger between his lips and kissed it.

“I see,” she teased. “You get to say all the love words while I have to say all the bawdy ones.”

He made a rumble low in his throat. “I
love
it when you tell me what you want me to do to you.”

“Then do this …” Her low rush of words dissolved into a satisfied cry as he fulfilled her demand.

Hours later, her last conscious thought was that she should not forget to mention to Adrienne that the “general consensus” about Berserkers could not even begin to touch the reality.

“I
DOONA UNDERSTAND IT
,” R
ONIN SAID, WATCHING THE
lads. He shook his head. “It’s never happened before.”

“I doona either, Da. But something is different about me from any of the McIllioch males before. Either that, or there’s something different about Jillian. Perhaps it’s both of us.”

“How do you keep up with them?”

Gavrael laughed, a rich sound. “Between Jillian and me, we manage.”

“But with them being, you know, the way they are so young, aren’t they constantly getting into mischief?”

“Not to mention impossibly high places. They’re forever pulling off incredible feats, and if you ask me, they’re just a little too damned smart for anyone’s good. It’s almost more than any one Berserker could be expected to keep up with. That’s why I think it would be useful to have their grandda around too,” Gavrael said pointedly.

The flush of pleasure on Ronin’s cheeks was unmistakable. “You mean you want me to stay here with you and Jillian?”

“Maldebann is home, Da. I know you felt Jillian and I needed the privacy of newlyweds, but we wish you would come home for good. Both you and Balder; the lads need their great-uncle too. Remember, we McIllioch are the stuff of legends, and how will they come to understand the legends without the finest of our Berserkers to teach them? Quit visiting all those people you’ve been dropping in on and
come home.”
Gavrael studied him out of the corner of his eyes and knew Ronin would not leave Maldebann again. The thought gave him great satisfaction. His sons should know their grandda. Not merely as an intermittent visitor, but as a steady influence.

In a contented silence that bordered on awe, Gavrael and Ronin watched the three young boys playing on the lawn. When Jillian stepped out into the sunshine, her sons looked up as one, as if they could sense her presence. They stopped playing and ranged in around their mother, vying for attention.

“Now, there’s a beautiful sight,” Ronin said reverently.

“Aye,” Gavrael agreed.

Jillian laughed as she tousled the heads of her three young sons and smiled into three pairs of ice-blue eyes.