Return of the Highlander (18 page)

For a long, anxiety-ridden moment, she watched the activity outside her window. It was fairly quiet. There were only a few soldiers milling about in the darkness, chatting idly with each other, sitting about in small groups sipping ale in the torchlight. She cupped her hands to the glass, hoping to see inside the stable, but it was no use. The stable doors were closed.

“What are you searching for, lass?” a deep voice whispered in her ear. She whirled about in surprise.

“Darach!”

There he was, like a mysterious archangel warrior in the candlelight, standing before her, his hands sliding onto the curve of her hips, his mouth brushing over hers in a soft featherlike caress.
Was she dreaming?
She was afraid to believe this was real. Then her body thrilled at his touch and she knew in that moment that he was truly standing before her, embracing her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, keeping her voice low, leaning to peer around him and ensure the door was closed.

It was closed, but was it locked?

Yes…yes it was.

“I couldn’t leave without keeping my promise to you,” he whispered in reply. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

“What promise?”

“Surely you know….”

“One last kiss?”

“Aye.”

With that, he bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers in a soul-reaching kiss that aroused her fiery passions. It caused her to overlook the fact that everything in her life was imperfect compared to this single scorching kiss. She felt as if she were floating in another time and place where everything was as she wished it to be. That her father was safe and warm in his bed, and Darach was the only man who could ever claim her as his own. How she wished it were so.

He bent at the knees and thrust his massive body up against hers, stepping forward to drag her sideways and crowd her up against the wall beside the window, out of sight of any onlookers from the bailey below.

Her whole body melted as his tongue swept into her mouth and he nipped at her lower lip, sucked at the sensitive flesh and ate at her mouth like a starving man.

She opened to him willingly, wanting him with every measure of her being, clutching at his broad, muscular shoulders, and tugging at the tartan draped across his back.

His hand cupped the side of her head and his thumb toyed with the delicate flesh at her ear. Tingles of pleasure coursed down the length of her body as she devoured him at the mouth, but it was not enough. Not nearly enough. She wanted so much more.

Pressing his forehead against hers and breaking the kiss, he laced his fingers through hers at their sides. “I don’t want to leave you,” he said. “I cannot bear the thought of another man’s hands on you when you belong to me, lass. I must have you.”

“I cannot bear it either,” she replied, kissing him again, lifting her hands up to run her fingers through his wavy, dark hair. She gazed into his eyes with pleading. “I can’t stop thinking about you and wanting you. It’s like some kind of fever that won’t break. Seeing you in the tower room was torture. I thought I would die when I had to pretend as if you were nothing to me, because you are everything.”

“Ah, lassie….” His hips ground against hers and he laid hungry, wet kisses across her cheek, down the sensitive length of her neck, and the top of her shoulder. He sucked fiercely at her flesh and drove her mad with hot waves of yearning.

Closing her eyes, she threw her head back as he dropped to his knees before her and slid his hands up under her skirts.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he said. “I want to touch you and kiss you everywhere.”

Heaven help her. Her body was on fire with lust and a complete inability to resist what he offered. His hands were surely enchanted, for she was falling into a deep whirlwind of surrender.

He pressed firm kisses to her breasts and belly, over the surface of her silk and brocade gown, down low, and across her hip bone. All the while, his hands slid expertly up her legs, thumbing her knees and stroking her tender, trembling inner thighs.

Larena couldn’t think. All she could do was focus on sensation as he lifted her heavy skirts higher and higher, then whispered huskily, “So beautiful….”

Then he pressed his mouth to the sensitive flesh at her core, where all her desires were centered and burning for his touch.

She felt a tremor of response in every part of her body, inside and out, as the lush heat of his mouth invaded her being and drove her into a wild frenzy of need.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked, fisting bunches of the draperies in her hands to keep from collapsing in a faint—for she wanted to enjoy every minute of this unbelievable ecstasy.

“I promised you one last kiss,” he replied in a gruff, ravenous voice. The heat of his breath against her damp curls sent a fresh shiver of lust to her brain and weakened her knees.

“I didn’t know kisses like this were possible,” she whispered on a sigh of pleasure and disbelief.

He continued to make love to her with his mouth, stroking and probing with his tongue until a sizzle of rapture exploded below and she fought against the urge to cry out. Her stomach muscles clenched and the whole world shook as she fought to control her body’s wild carnal response, but it was no use to fight it. She shuddered violently up against the wall.

When the agonizing wave of ecstasy subsided, Darach rose to his full height before her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply on the mouth, spinning her around toward the bed. He walked her there, then eased her down upon it while cupping the back of her head with his big hand, laying her gently onto the pillows. He never took his eyes off hers as he set his weapons aside and climbed over her on all fours.

“I won’t leave you,” he said. “I don’t know what you did to me on the road, lass, but I’m under your spell. I cannot go. Not without you.”

“That’s not possible,” she said, still reeling with pleasure as he lowered his body to hers. “I promised Lord Rutherford. Chatham is expecting me for dinner. There is a guard outside the door.”

Darach glanced back at it. “He won’t come in. I heard you tell him you were changing your gown.”

“You were listening?” she asked breathlessly as he returned his attention to her body and laid tantalizing kisses down the side of her neck.

“Aye—from under the bed.”

“But how did you know this was my chamber?” she asked, though it hardly mattered. Nothing mattered but the exquisite sensation of his lips and tongue roving across her flesh.

He was here. There was nothing else she needed to know.

“This room belonged to my brothers once,” he explained, lifting his head to look down at her. “The laird’s children have always lived in this tower. When I found the books on the bench under the window, I knew this was where you must lay your head at night.”

He kissed her again and she pulled him close, wrapped her legs around his hips, and fought hard against all the unwelcome thoughts of her future without him. All she wanted was to be held in Darach’s arms forever and pretend this was all there was, all there would ever be.

But it wasn’t all, and she knew she had to keep her head.

“Darach,” she whispered, pressing her palms against his broad chest and pushing him back slightly. “You know I can’t leave with you.”

He gazed down at her, then bowed his head.

“If I did that,” she continued, “I don’t know what Chatham would do. Surely he wouldn’t see any point in letting my father live.”

Darach’s eyes lifted. “I could abduct you so it wouldn’t appear to be your fault. I could steal you away tonight. Maybe then they’d keep their promise.”

“They’d come after us. Besides, I can’t gamble on maybes—not when my father’s life is at stake.”

Darach rolled off her onto his back, tossed his arm up under his head and stared at the ceiling. “So, you plan to go through with it then. You’ll marry Chatham?”

“It’s what I agreed to,” she explained. “You knew that was my fate—and my choice—all along. It’s why you brought me here. I cannot break that oath.”

He rose to his feet, stalked across the room, and sat down in the chair before the dying fire. “I agreed to bring you here before I knew what sort of woman you were.”

“And what sort is that?” she asked, rising onto her elbows, hoping he would not accuse her of being shallow and loose with her affections.

“The kind of woman that a man like me cannot live without,” he replied. “I am in love with you, Larena Campbell. I must take you home with me.”

Her eyebrows lifted, for she was flattered that he wanted her so badly. She couldn’t deny the joy that engulfed her at the sound of those words on his lips. He was truly in love with her?

But was she in love with him? Or was this only lust? How could she be sure? She desired him. That was obvious. But what did she know of love?

“We barely know each other,” she argued. “How can you say something like that after only a week?”

“I’ve been asking myself that, lass,” he replied. “Maybe I’m mad.” He pushed himself out of the chair and paced around the room, raking his fingers through his hair. “I must be losing my mind. I shouldn’t have come.” He glanced toward the door and window as if he were desperate for some means of escape.

Larena swung her legs to the floor and hurried to his side. “No, I am glad that you did. If you hadn’t come, I would be searching for you now in the stables or hunting all around the castle until I found you. I had to see you one last time, and you must believe me when I say that I am in hell right now. I don’t
want
you to leave. If I could have what I want, I would tell the English army to leave here immediately and never come back. I would free my father from prison. Then I would do whatever I pleased.”

“And what would that be?”

She felt completely lost in the depths of his dark, stormy eyes. “Right now, all I want to do is lie with you here on my bed, feel your arms around me, hold you close, and never let you go.” She backed away as a painful shiver coursed through her. “But a guard is standing outside that door and my father might still be executed if I do not keep my oath to Lord Rutherford. If I don’t go to Chatham tonight, I might as well sign my father’s death warrant. What would you have me do, Darach?”

He regarded her with fierce intensity. “Come away with me.”

She angrily shook her head. “How can you suggest that? You are asking me to choose between you and my father.”

“Aye,” he replied.

Growing angrier still, she turned away and strode to the opposite side of the room. “Maybe it’s easier for you. Your father is already dead and you have no family of your own, except for Logan. You abandoned your clan years ago, but I am not built like that. I am loyal to those I love.”

“Do not insult me, lass. I am loyal, too,” he said, his footfalls slow across the floor as he approached. “And
you
would be my family. I would be loyal to
you
.”

She whirled around. “But how could I trust you to remain so? How do I know you wouldn’t one day flee my side for some unknown reason and take up with another woman in another clan? Change your name again? You’re not even who you pretend to be. You’re not a true MacDonald. You’re an imposter, lying to everyone who knows you. How can I give up everything I know for a man I know so little about?”

He stared at her long and hard. “I am a true MacDonald, for I have given my oath to Angus and I will never betray that oath. If you don’t believe me, then you should go to your fiancé. Walk out of here now and do not look back. I’ll be gone by the time you return. You won’t ever hear from me again.”

Her heart wrenching sorely in her chest, Larena couldn’t catch her breath. “Please…I don’t want us to part like this.”

“What difference does it make how we part? It’s a bad ending, no matter how you try to dress it up.”

Tears flooded her eyes. “But I don’t want there to be bad blood between us. I don’t want you to remember our time together with a feeling of ill will. I want to go on dreaming of you, imagining you out there somewhere, thinking of me fondly at least, hoping I am well, as I will always wish the same for you.”

The ferocity in his eyes softened and he slowly shook his head. “You’re making it worse, lass. Show a man some pity, will you?”

She understood immediately what he was trying to tell her. “You would find it easier to hate me.”

“Aye, but I’m not sure that will be possible, because if I think you’re dreaming about me or wanting me, I will keep coming back for you. I will return, again and again, over and over, until the day I draw my last breath.”

A torrent of desire welled up inside her. She backed away from him, trying to deny it, wishing he wouldn’t say such things. “Darach,
please
.”

Despite the words, somehow he read into her soul and recognized the deep chink in her armor. Confidently striding forward, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth. Her lips parted for him and she fell into the blinding force of his passion. At the same time, she felt as if she were being ripped in two.

Darach swept her up, carried her to the bed, and set her down again. He stood back, massive in the candlelight, looming over her.