Her feet swivelled to Fingal as her heart gave a huge somersault. Dark eyes bulged on him, tall, broad, ruffled hair, tartan in disarray. Shirtless. Did the man not know what the sight of his steel torso did to her? Transformed her into a famished creature.
He closed the door with a resolute click that caused goose bumps on every inch of her. As he prowled to the stall, her breath hitched in her throat.
"I saw you from my study," he explained as he halted less than four feet from her.
Her lips drew an 'oh' that made his eyes flay them and continue down to her cloaked silhouette, to raise back up to the gaze that had not torn from him since the first moment he arrived, speech nowhere to be found. His presence had the power to subvert every brain function as she froze there with a thousand feelings coursing through her.
"You didn't answer my question." Two more steps and he stood so close she registered the heat emanating from him.
The rasp mushroomed steam to all those forbidden places. "I—maybe," she blurted as her head bent back to sustain his intense glare.
Every single cell clamoured for him as if they pulled her in his direction without her mind allowing it, so uncensored it never ceased to amaze her.
Square hands clasped her tiny waist. "Why do you insist on lying, Sassenach?"
Somewhere in the farthest precinct of her mind, a timid thought told her to leave. To tear her darned eyes from him and trudge to the door to save her body, her soul, and even her tattered pride, of which there was no sign at the moment.
"I'm not—"
And then one of his hands slipped under the cloak to cup her breast. Everything else lost meaning, her name, her clan, her future role in his life. Every single thing lost meaning. In this dim, enclosed place, she was merely a woman that needed this man more than an eagle needed to fly. The world outside served for nothing more than to impose its meaningless rules on mortals incapable of following them. And by Jove, she was a mortal, more than willing to commit mortal sins. Revel in them, die laughing at them, like a mad woman who was happy once. Only once.
His thumb started rubbing the peaked mound and, besides losing its meaning, everything disappeared—turned to sensation, to fire, to yearning.
Her head fell back with a sigh as she held his bare shoulders. Deft fingers unclasped her cloak, and it bunched on the boards, leaving her in a lacy nightgown.
Cinnamon eyes meshed with hers, drinking, seeking. "I cannot offer you marriage," he rasped.
She had this impulse of scoffing at his scruples, not because they were funny, no. But because she had kicked hers through the window the second he snapped the door shut.
"Neither can I." It aired as a faint breath.
His gaze burned hotter on her when a side-smile drew his sculpted lips. Agile, his muscled arm laced her by her waist to lift her from the ground and carry her to an empty stall. Unwrapping his tartan, he threw it on the fluffy piles of hay disposed there.
For the second time in her life, Catriona looked her fill, enraptured by his rugged beauty. His fierce hand shot out to her nape and brought her obedient mouth under his in a hungry kiss. With a muffled moan, she laced his neck with both arms and clung to his naked frame. His smart fingers unbuttoned her neckline and in seconds her nightgown fell in a whisper on the hay. And they were skin to warm skin, again, as it should be.
"It's impossible to stay away, Emily," he mumbled, his stubble rasping her skin everywhere.
"So don't," she replied as her own lips tasted him where they could reach.
He made her lie on the tartan, and it was softer than her mattress. His strong body covered hers as she received him, cradled him with arms and legs. Her bosom revelled in the roughened chest, her legs grazed his hairy thighs, her fingers merged in his luxuriant hair; the scent of him, green woods and man, infiltrated her nostrils. Their lips joined with pure starvation. They kissed with eagerness. Then they kissed with urgency. Kissed with thirst. Then with lust as they became more and more carnal. For long moments they devoured each other like there was no tomorrow.
There was not, in fact.
His ever-greedy mouth descended along her neck to nip the curve with her shoulder. And lower. And lower, where he clasped one breast with his mouth and his hand held the other possessively. She responded with moans, with her fingers raking his hair, with her head falling back in pure delight.
His stubble trailed further down until his shameless lips clutched to her between her legs, fairly to consume her, unbridled, with lascivious insistence. He savoured all of her, heedless of what he was doing to her, to the heat spreading and singeing her, to the eruption that taunted and threatened. He took her to the verge of insanity, smearing her moist flesh with savage intent. The outburst came, inevitable and total. Her spine arched as a long moan escaped her throat.
Returning to her, he braced his arms at her side, eyes piercing hers. "I'll possess you, Sassenach," he growled. "Because you're mine, and will always be."
No time for her to answer as the tip of him met her, and she opened in extreme need for him to fill her. He entered her and sat to the hilt, simply to stop, as if careful not to hurt her.
But the beginnings of another orgasm flourished in the depths of her.
"Move, Fingal!" she demanded, pulling him with her legs.
"Wait…you need time to—"
"Move, for pity's sake, I am—"
And he did. Deep, hard, true.
Her deflagration came twice as intense as the first, spreading waves and more waves of pleasure through her body. His flesh inside her was the most indescribably delicious thing she had ever experienced.
"Damn it, woman, you'll turn me to dust!"
He let go, thrusting fast, erratic, in between harsh grunts, unforgiving pushes. He touched something in the bottom of her, wrenching one more ragged orgasm from her, before exploding with a mindless growl as he emptied himself to his last drop.
He fell on her, panting, to find sanctuary in the curve of her neck.
When his breath had gone back to normal, he fell on the tartan and pulled her with him. They lay entwined for a long time.
Fingal wanted to flog himself for his weakness one minute. On the next, he wanted to yell his exhilaration from the top of Ben Nevis itself, only to rush back and take her again. And again. All in one single breath. The same she stole with her unreserved passion.
With this woman on simple mounds of hay, he felt as if he lay in the most lavish bed of the most lavish palace of the most far-fetched folk tale ever told. He wanted nothing else. Except the woman, that is.
The one who would be gone in mere hours.
The one from whom he tried to stay away.
And could not. Would not.
The same who had just spoiled him for others.
Bluidy hell!
Legs tangled with his, in complete abandon, she moved to peck his shoulder. He turned to her. "How are you faring?" he asked.
"Perfectly alright," she answered as she burrowed further against him.
"Some women experience pain in the first time," he informed her.
"Perhaps the fact I ride a lot has helped." It might be the exact truth.
The memory of her tightness, and the way her channel gripped him not once, but twice, got him nearly ready for more.
The impossible lass made nothing easier when her ripe lips closed around one of his nipples. "Lass—" he groaned.
Delicate, wicked fingers found him already hardening under the end of the tartan he had pulled over them. She lifted her head to him. "Do you think we could have another go?"
A hundred would be more like it, he thought.
"Come ride me, Sassenach," he invited, fully aroused now. "I could think of nothing else after that day with Fiadhaich." And he pulled her to him.
As he showed her how to do it, she adjusted her balance and pushed him to the edge in the process. "You're so delicious," she moaned, moving over his flesh. "I can feel you everywhere." Her spine arched with her delectation.
She was going to drive him to madness yet again. "Same here," he growled, palming her bouncing breasts and letting her undo him at her will.
Their moans and groans dotted the night as they dispensed with words. They fell asleep entangled and cocooned in his tartan.
Morning light filtered through the wood planks when Fingal opened his eyes, still lying on the hay, covered by the wool.
Alone.
The lass had left.
Debranua's hooves pounded on the park's wet ground in loud thumps one early morning three weeks later. Jumping over fallen branches, splashing through potholes, they cut the cool wind and made the earth rattle in their wake. Catriona gave free rein to the mare in the hopes of shaking her brain from the memories, the melancholy. From the longing that twisted her insides night and day. The misty early morning offered her an empty Hyde Park, through which she rode at her will.
The trip back to London had followed the usual routine of daylight travel and nights at inns. Bumping and jolting in the carriage made her choose to ride part of the way. Her fingers on the reins had ached to turn the mare and gallop back across the border at breakneck speed.
That morning after…the most memorable night of her life, she had not deemed herself capable of waking Fingal to bid him good-bye. Had she done it, she would not have found the courage to do at least this right thing and return. With a last look at his form sleeping sated on the hay, she had carefully untangled her body from his, thrown her cloak over her shoulder and rushed to her chambers to dress and leave.
One of the stable hands had readied Debranua for her before she went with Flora to meet Peter at the inn where she had kept her carriage, her trunk already carried there the evening before.
Back in this foggy, crowded, and noisy city, she'd had a peaceful townhouse to herself for barely a day before her mother and Anna arrived from the country. Their father had gone directly to Scotland. With her mother and sister around, the dragging social events recommenced.
There were times Catriona sat through a tea party, a garden party, a dinner party, whatever, and burst into the utter need to scream! Or the need to run somewhere quiet and green, shed those restraining, horrible clothes, bathe in cool waters.
Something!
Something that would rip out these confusing feelings. Even better, something that would fulfil her, soothe her. Appease the tempest quaking inside her. Something that—
Or someone.
Not anyone. Him
At this point, she would make a feeble attempt not to remember, but the memories flooded in, anyway. And soothed her, yes. But also made the longing, the need, so intense it chafed, corroded, threatened to weaken her good intensions. It all ran so deep, she could not even bring herself to cry. Not even this relief was available.
"Catriona," Anna greeted her as she returned from the park and entered the morning room, empty except for both sisters.
"Good morning," she said, flushed from the ride, before taking her seat.
Head lowered, she did not look at her sister. Had not been able to meet her best friend's eyes since they had gathered again in London.
"I am worried about you," the younger woman started, a puzzled frown on her face.
At that, Catriona snapped her attention to her. "How so?"
"I don't know…you are different, somehow," she said tentatively.
Their mother had also been eyeing her elder daughter quizzically for three weeks. "There's nothing to worry about, Anne." Catriona tried to imprint a casual tone to her voice, but did not succeed much. The pressure inside was becoming too unbearable.
"Then why are you so quiet…so distant, distracted?" Clearly, she missed her elder sister's companionship and warmth.
"It's nothing." The lie too clear for effect.
Catriona would have to carry the burden of her mistakes alone. She would not allow anyone to suffer for them. Her choices led to this, and she must take the consequences on her own.
"It's not nothing and you know it!" the girl said with exasperation.
At least, said consequences would not get more serious than they already were. Her menses came during the trip back though she and Fingal had followed nature's designs to a T.
"It's just—" Catriona halted, took a sip of tea to moisten her dry throat, "just that I miss Scotland. No more than that." A half-truth must be better than a lie.
"Oh, sister mine!" Anna stood up from her place and came to hug Catriona, intending to offer solace.
The tender gesture did what no wild ride had accomplished so far—it brought tears to her eyes. The dam cracked, and it all poured out of her emotionally exhausted self. Anna murmured words of support as the crisis drew its course.
For the first time in weeks, she was able to look her sister in the eye. "Anne, you're such a precious friend," she said.
The blonde girl smiled. "Let's do something amusing today," she proposed. "I got an idea!" She brightened instantly, in her light-hearted way. "Let's do a puppet theatre. What do you think? Mama could take part, too."
Puppet theatres were fun with Anna and would serve to take her mind from the last weeks' events. "A delightful suggestion, I'd say."
After finishing their breakfast, they headed to the library to prepare their entertainment.
"This isn't how you do it, Dave," Fingal irritably scolded as he had been doing to each and every stable hand for more or less three weeks.
"You shovel the dirt like this." He showed him with a furious, barely contained energy. They were in one of the stables, a rain that would not relent flogging the roof.
It had started the day after the…the…she left and had not lifted since. It was as if the damned woman took the sun with her. Which she very well might have because everything seemed to have become dull, colourless. Soulless.
From the moment his eye opened in the stable that morning to register her absence, something snapped in him. No matter what he did, his damned mood would not mend. He tried everything. Ride Fiadhaich full speed, tick. Cold dips in that full-of-memories loch, tick. Work like a war prisoner, tick.
Thinking of it, he should not have returned to the loch, another thing in a long list for which she spoiled him. The stockyard, tick. The damned adjoining shed, tick. Wine, tick, because she had splashed him with it.
Every single cursed thing.
The lad stood with him, seeming at a loss what to do. "You go help Craig. I'll finish here," he said because he needed to be alone. Again.
"Aye, my laird," the boy assented and left with a too-relieved expression.
Fingal worked on this and the other stable chores like the hounds of hell chased after him. He worked until he had no choice but to return to his manor where the endless string of memories would haunt him throughout the night.
Rain-soaked, cold, and glowering, he strode to the study in search of the warm—and fleeting—solace whisky would offer. Bursting through the door, he aimed at the sideboard, pouring a more than generous dose.
"They say you've been intractable these days," Drostan said from behind him.
Fingal swivelled abruptly to find his eldest brother sitting on an armchair by the fire.
He downed the quintessential drink in one gulp before answering. "This rain is causing many delays."
"Is it?" the laird asked doubtfully. "It will be a few weeks before we must bring the livestock back inside their barns." As they were wont to do in autumn.
Fingal produced no answer to that since his brother had the right of it. He grunted agreement and returned to the sideboard.
"You need not marry the McTavish lass if you have…misgivings." The laird went right to the jugular.
Damn him! Fingal swore. He was too perceptive. "I have no misgivings," Fingal answered harshly. That is, unless you counted his raging body craving something it should not as a misgiving.
"I wish you to be as happy as I am," Drostan said.
And as their sister, Aileen, was, he did not say, but it hung in the air between them.
Another dose of whisky poured into his system. "Father arranged your marriage, too."
"And Freya and I found our way," the laird admitted.
It had been a long way, Fingal remembered.
"I'll also find mine," he asserted without an ounce of certainty.
"That lass, Emily—"
"Brings no alliance with her," he interrupted his brother because the very name pronounced in his presence caused an earthquake in his guts.
Who the hell was he kidding? In that blasted stable, clan relations had not come to his mind once. He could not even remember his own name, let alone this. That he put this as an obstacle attested to his reluctance in accepting how deep the lass branded his guts, which scared the living daylights out of him.
"It doesn't matter. We have enough alliances." Drostan stood up and came to take the third glass Fingal had poured from him.
His empty hand raked his hair in an agitated gesture as he gave his back to his brother and looked through the window to the never-ending rain.
A few seconds later, the glass thudded on the sideboard beside him, drained, and the study door clicked shut. Drostan understood Fingal needed solitude.