Day came again and Caird was not comfortable. His feet hung off the edge of a too-small bed that had more gaps than rope and the mattress hadn’t been filled properly, if at all.
But he wasn’t moving. Not when Mairead curved so contentedly against him.
When he’d returned with food, she had been asleep in the bed. With no other place he wanted to be, he had lain next to her. Sleep had claimed him immediately.
It was the light in the room telling him another day had gone. Mairead’s head was tucked under his chin and her breath was warm against his chest. The softness of her breasts gave to the hardness of his body; he could feel their bounty with each gentle inhale she gave.
Only when he held her, only in sleep, was she giving and soft. Her body was built for his fantasies but it was her bravery that left him awestruck. At some point, she had become a coveted dream.
A very cold dream.
Her feet were like ice and he adjusted to fit her more firmly against him. When he tucked her legs between his own, the curve of her hips matched his.
He could no more prevent the hardening of his body than stop his heart from beating. Days and nights of wanting were built within him.
His need for her now, like fire arcing through his chest, came not just from the wanting.
He’d almost lost her. Injured or not, he had to touch her, had to make her real to him. It had to be now.
Asleep, she was soft and giving. When awake, she was angry, and hurt, and denied they were different together.
Gently, slowly, conscious of her injury, he skimmed his fingertips along her shoulders, revelling in the softness of her skin before her gown impeded his direct touch.
Then his fingertips flattened to his palm as he caressed the curve and dip of her spine under her gown, felt the welcoming narrowness of her waist and the flare of her hip.
When his fingers swept lower, he stopped.
Mairead woke to warmth, to heat, to a determined caress across her covered skin. She held her breath as she waited for Caird’s hand to continue, but he held still.
A tension thrummed through him, taut and full of need.
‘You wake,’ he said. Exhaling, he moved out of the bed.
Surprised, she turned.
The morning did not hide the tension in his shoulders as he went to the table still laden with food.
There was more of the vegetable broth he’d given her before, but also bread and cheese that he tore into hunks for them to share.
She was starving, yet wary.
Yesterday, when he’d left the room for food, she’d forced her grief back inside her, knowing soon she would be home, that only then she could let it free. But it still clamored inside her.
When Caird handed her some food, she took the offering, but avoided touching his fingers. His earlier caresses still felt like they skimmed across her skin. Those traces only increased her uneasiness, and she didn’t know what more of his touch would do to her.
‘We leave today,’ Caird said, finally turning his gaze to her.
They had both eaten until there wasn’t any more food and the break in the strained silence felt ominous.
When she saw his shuttered expression, she knew to ask, ‘Where to?’
He walked to the far wall and leaned against it. ‘To my brother and laird. A decision must be made about the jewel.’
This was why she was wary.
‘I’m not going with you to see Laird Colquhoun. My home’s not more than a short ride away. You’ll be leaving me there!’
He shook his head. ‘You will stay with me.’
Arrogance and kidnapping again. But this time, he had the jewel and her family had the dagger. They didn’t need each other.
And it...complicated things when she was with him.
‘Why do I stay with you?’ She stood and brushed crumbs from her hands. ‘I need to return to my family.’
‘Your family is safe because they know nothing of the jewel. If you return, they’ll know.’
She swept her arm, felt the pull of her injury and pressed her hand to the spot. ‘I would never tell them.’
‘Aye, and do you think the Englishman would care? He’d kill you first, and so you’ll stay with me.’
His grey eyes searched hers until it felt like they could see every uncontrollable emotion inside her. She also knew if he kept watching her like that, her emotions wouldn’t, couldn’t stay inside her.
‘I ken none of this. Haven’t I hurt you enough? At the inn, in the forest, at the river and—’ she gestured around them ‘—even here, I’ve hurt you. Let me go!’
‘Aye, you’ve hurt me! But it’d hurt—’ He stopped.
‘But what?’
‘We’re different,’ he said, pushing away from the wall. ‘Even if you refuse to see it. We’re different than we were at the inn, in the forest and it would hurt me more if something happened to you!’
‘You think you care for me? Why? Because of a few kisses, because I saved our lives, because you tended a few injuries. You can’t care for me. You doona know the truth.’ She drew herself in, braced herself to admit her guilt, her shame, her never-ending mistake. ‘Because I killed my brother.’
Mairead’s eyes were tortured, showing the exact look he’d seen before she’d fled in the forest. Like then, he wanted to comfort her, but he knew she was a hair’s breadth from running now. So, he willed his feet to remain still even though her eyes troubled him far worse than before.
‘I killed him,’ she continued, walking away from him and around the bed. ‘It was all my fault. He wanted to wait for another market, another day to sell the dagger. To wait, just in case the man he stole it from would return for it.’
She laughed harshly. ‘But I wouldn’t let him. I couldn’t wait. Impulsive you call me? Aye, I am! I was too eager to repair and hide my brother’s gambling. Too desperate to end the nightmare before further damage could be done.’
She paced now. ‘So he did it,’ she continued. ‘He went, even though he was being reasonable. Even though he knew it was dangerous. He did it for me! When they surrounded him, he never had a chance. I watched his agony, his death and knew it was all my fault! You want me with you to keep me safe. But you need to let me go. I doona think before I act and I make murderous mistakes.’
Caird held still, knew he had to hold still. So he watched pain and guilt tremble through her even when all he wanted was to hold her and fight all her fears.
But she was finally telling him what he needed to know to understand. She was giving him answers. So he did what he did best, and stayed quiet.
‘You want the jewel, thinking to save Scotland?’ she continued. ‘Keep me with you and see how I interfere! How, somehow, I would cause more deaths, more war!’
Caird felt something unfurl in his chest. This was her secret she’d kept from him. She thought she had caused her brother’s death. This was her pain and why she fought him. Why when he insisted they were different, she didn’t accept him. Why she wanted to forget.
He could never forget why he wanted that jewel. ‘You think I did this because of political reasons? You doona know why I risked this.’
‘Did you kill your brother, too?’
He knew the pain she was in. When his had been fresh, he’d lashed out as well.
But he had brothers, a sister, the support of his clan. Her brother had died and she had no family with her now. By forcing her on this journey, he denied her the comfort she should have received. He deserved her hatred.
But she needed to understand more. He deserved not only her hatred, but his brother’s as well.
At Dunbar, he had rescued Malcolm, but he could never forget the argument they’d had before his brother went. Nor would he forget overturning dead bodies until he found Malcolm buried beneath a corpse. Carrions were already picking the flesh of the body. Barely alive, his brother didn’t fight when they picked at him as well. Malcolm lived, but he would never be the same.
‘I didn’t kill my brother, but I might as well have,’ he answered.
Her eyes widened before she recovered. He didn’t want her to recover, or to mantle herself in anger and guilt any more.
‘Using that jewel was never about Scotland. After Dunbar, I just wanted the power to end the war. I wanted it for Malcolm. You saw his scar.’
He just held in his helpless rage. That scar. It was only thin because of the finest sutures and care. Some of it would even fade. Malcolm had been unconscious, but when Caird had seen it, the wound was wide open.
‘I couldn’t find him for days because he was trapped under a corpse. There were flies...’ He shook himself. ‘Carrions.’ There had been other scavengers as well, human ones, for Malcolm’s sword and boots had been taken. ‘Nae, Mairead, I didn’t kill my brother, but I will never forget he had gone to Dunbar alone. Because I refused to go with him.’
He could see Mairead’s anger falter at his words. Horror and pity flickered in the dark depths of her eyes and her lashes were spiked from tears. Then she jutted out her chin and stopped the tears from falling.
‘But he survived,’ she said stubbornly.
She was stubborn, but she cared.
He could see that she cared. It was there in the trembling of her lips. It had been there before the village, when she’d let him hold her all night. When she’d told him she knew he’d come for her.
She had feelings for him, but she didn’t want them.
‘Aye, he survived,’ he said. Somewhere in all her hurt, he wanted her to recognise him, recognise them for what they were now. But she blindly held to her doubts and fears. ‘And you’re still nothing but a deceitful, lying Buchanan.’
Fury blazed in her eyes. ‘How dare you!’ She stepped forward, her hand rising to slap him. He didn’t move, waiting for her to take the remaining steps. He deserved it.
He’d even welcome it. Maybe it would help release some of her grief. He wanted to share her grief because he wouldn’t stand for anything separating them.
‘Aye, a liar, Buchanan,’ he repeated. ‘You know we’re different now than at the inn, than in the forest. You know we’re different because you saved my life and told me of your brother, even though you didn’t have to. You could have bargained differently with the Englishman. At the river, you recognised we were different when I swam the water to get to you! You responded to me, were giving yourself to me. Because you wanted me!’
‘Lust is different.’
‘From what?’ he pressed.
‘From this caring for each other,’ she finished. ‘You think I care for you because I saved you. You think you care for me because you tended me. But it cannot be that way, when I doona want it to be!’
‘Care for you?’ His feet took steps closer to her before he could stop them. ‘Is that all you think I feel for you?’
His eyes searched hers as if he’d never seen her before. As if he’d never see her again. ‘Clever Buchanan,’ Caird whispered vehemently, ‘haven’t you guessed yet?’
Mairead’s eyes, which had always shown every emotion if only he’d look, revealed her again. Because he no longer had his prejudices against her, he saw everything: guilt, anger, hurt, fear, desire. But it was her longing that tugged at him. In her longing he had his answer.
She wanted them different, but she didn’t trust him. No, it was even more than that.
The Buchanan Clan were notorious liars and deceivers. They used it to their advantage and were proud of it. But for Mairead, all those lies and deceits went further. She’d never been shown trust. Not from her own family, her bereaved mother, her giggling sisters or her reckless brother.
Mairead didn’t know the ways of trust. Nor the ways of love. And he did love her, but first she needed to accept the trust between them.
Love. Trust. Two emotions that took lifetimes to understand. He’d learned them from his clan, from his family. He had their love, trust and returned it. She did trust, but she didn’t understand it, maybe didn’t realise she gave it.
He had to get her to listen to him.
But there was only one time she listened, only one time when she didn’t fight or argue or pace away from him as if trying to escape.
And that was when he held her.
Held her...close. Her tiny frame and generous curves, lush and pressing against him. For a man his size, trained until his body gave not an inch, he wanted to be buried in every plush, giving bit of her.
When he held those curves, she listened. She didn’t fight him or argue; she became soft and giving.
When he cradled her closer until she nestled into him, and their breaths were no more than shared gasps of desire. When he could do nothing but feel her soft lips give under his, knowing their kisses were all that he needed and yet only a fleeting taste. Then, and only then, she held still, she listened and she responded.
Her response.
A spike of lust so severe slashed through his body and he forced the air back into his suddenly empty lungs.
Love. Trust. They took a lifetime to understand. But his body wouldn’t let him wait a lifetime to show her.
He knew it was imperative they start that lifetime together. Immediately.
It wasn’t only his thoughts that made him certain. It was Mairead’s own actions. For while he gathered his thoughts, his eyes kept steady on her. Every lush bit of her.
So his desire began with her pacing the small room and it strengthened when she reached one end only to spin to the other. Each spin giving him full, generous views.
His need increased as sunlight filtered through the window and highlighted her dark eyes that contrasted with her creamy skin. Highlighted the rose glow of her cheeks that bloomed in her agitation and, he knew with satisfaction, bloomed and unfurled when he held her.
His lust became greater still seeing her hair. Her hair that made the breath in his lungs burn quickly away with pure need.
Her hair. Unbound and wild. Brushed by his own hand while she healed, it was wilder than ever. The repetitive action had calmed him, but now each lock sprang around her head, defiant, defying and taunting him again.
She might not know what love and trust were, but he did. She might deny it all, but her responding body wanted them to be together. He had the proof with her hair. Her hair beckoned to be shown.
He could only comply.
If it killed him, he’d show her love and trust. And he would show her. Now.
Mairead couldn’t stay still. She’d confessed her mistake and her guilt but Caird hadn’t reacted as she’d expected.
Instead of displaying horror and disgust, he had held perfectly still and silent while she laid bare her shameful mistake.
Then he’d told her of Dunbar and Malcolm. He’d confessed to his own mistake, confessed to his own guilt and shared it. With her.
It shattered what little hold she had.
Oh, how her legs trembled then, how she wanted to believe what she thought was in his eyes. But how could she? She’d made so many impulsive mistakes and everything she felt about Caird was impulsive. She couldn’t trust herself.
Caird said he cared for her. But even in that she didn’t trust herself. Because he sounded incredulous, angered and disappointed, too. So many emotions were displayed in his declaration, she didn’t know what he meant.
And he didn’t tell her. In fact, he didn’t say anything. Absorbing her with his grey-green eyes, he’d become quiet.
Trying to avoid his all-too-knowing eyes, she paced and by the time she stopped she was as far from him as she could be in the room.
She stopped because she felt the change in him. Clear across the room. The way his gentleness and understanding turned to something more. Something like desire, but more than the familiar need. More than the whisper of wickedness that his steady regard usually gave her. Now it was darker and more elemental.
It wasn’t whispering, wasn’t beguiling or coaxing or beckoning.
It was heat and a sheer surge of power emanating from him. It stunned her.
Her feet stopped their pacing before the rest of her body caught up and she lurched unsteadily forward. When she felt his need battering against her back she turned, thinking she could change her stance and become steady again.
So she turned and was dizzy in that turning. Aye, she was dizzy because she wasn’t more steady facing him. She was distinctly more unsteady, wavering and trembling.
Caird’s three steps were all it took for him to be right up against her. That stopped her dizziness. When his eyes flared and his hands curled upon her upper arms, that stopped her unsteadiness.
But his touch and proximity did nothing for her trembling. Her trembling increased.
And his grey-green eyes that had been studying her, trying to find his precious answers, weren’t doing so now.
Now his eyes were filled with desire and determination.
‘We’re different now, Mairead,’ he said. ‘I’m different.’
Grip tightening, he enfolded her in his arms until her cheek pressed against his chest. The only thing she could hear above the roaring in her ears was the consistent, battering beat of his heart.
‘More different than you’ve ever known,’ he said. She didn’t only hear the words; she felt them. They rumbled deep within her.
She had never seen Caird like this, as if he couldn’t restrain himself. Through her trembling, she shook her head to deny his words.
He sighed and she felt the rise of his chest and shoulders, felt the air shuddering into his lungs before he released it.
‘Stubborn,’ he whispered.
She felt that word, too.
He pulled away, just enough to look down at her, but not enough to stop his heart pressing against hers. It was beating as fast, and as hard, and as erratically as her own.
Because he remained silent she looked up to understand him. To see his eyes that displayed more emotion than was good for her.
‘I’m taking, Mairead,’ he said. ‘I’m taking and giving.’ His eyes were searching and finding every bit of her heightened colour and every wayward unruly lock of hair. ‘And I’ll take again,’ he promised. ‘Over and over. Until you realise. Until you have nae more doubts.’
She didn’t know what she was supposed to realise, not when she was this close to him, not when she felt more than his heat, his breath, his heart. She felt his want, his need, his desire. Felt him pull just enough to bring her up and closer to him.
‘My words are—’ he dipped his head ‘—going to fail me.’ His lips brushed hers. ‘So, I’m going to show you our trust.’
The persuasive pressure of Caird’s lips slanting over hers sent a moan through her body that reverberated between them.
‘Aye, show you,’ he whispered. His lips and teeth sucked her lower lip into his. ‘I’m going to show you trust; I’m going to show you care.’ He repeated the action on her upper lip until her breaths were little pants.
‘I have nae ale; my words will stumble.’ His tongue swept across the seam of her lips. ‘It may kill me—days of wanting, of needing and denying. Now you’re stubborn and demanding my patience. Patience!’ He shuddered. ‘At this moment, I’m less patient and more impulsive than you.’
He increased the pressure of his kiss, just enough, coaxing enough, so when his tongue teased again she met his with her own.
Caird’s hands gripped, loosened.
But he didn’t deepen the kiss. Instead, his mouth hovered along her jaw, wended its way to her ear. ‘At the inn, you responded like this. You’re a maid, Mairead, but you responded.’
His tongue, flickering, made tiny movements along the shell and down behind it. ‘’Tis not usual to respond to me as you did.’ Kisses along her neck, trailing down, increasing her trembles. ‘’Tis not usual how I responded to you. Despite the ale.’
He pulled away, his breath just behind her ear. Her eyes were closed; she was afraid his were open.
‘That response was trust, Mairead,’ he whispered. ‘You came to my room to find the dagger and save your family. You were grieving and you kissed me.’
Trembling even more as she fought his words, Mairead gripped the back of his neck and splayed her fingers through his hair.
‘It was lust. Like now,’ she said, her voice broken by her breaths. ‘I forgot everything else.’
He slowly shook his head. She hadn’t opened her eyes, but she could feel his hair brush against her shoulders.
‘It was trust,’ he insisted. ‘You trusted I’d care for you. So giving was your response.’
Her body was against him, but Caird held back until she felt she wasn’t close enough. Finding purchase with his shoulders, she pulled and Caird shuddered out a sound, but he held firm.
A few breaths. A few heartbeats until he continued, ‘Then you ran. You ran and I followed and I fought.’
Mairead couldn’t make her legs cooperate so she could press more fully into him. Not when his lips reversed the trail along her neck, returned to her other ear, his tongue and breath both giving and denying contact.
‘I fought to keep you near me. Even then at the campsite, I knew I couldn’t let you go. That had nothing to do with the jewel, but with what I longed for with you.’
His mouth was kisses and words, but his hands, oh, his hands’ caresses were both lengthy and fleeting, everything she needed and still not enough. Careful of her injury, he touched everywhere, but gave only whispers of heat.
‘Did you know I’d come for you?’ he asked.
She felt his need hard against her as his hands tantalisingly skimmed up her arms that were wrapped around his shoulders and neck. He brushed his fingers over her clenched hands only to sweep back down her arms, along her sides and swirl at her lower back. And again.
‘Did you?’ he repeated, stopping his hands.
She blinked. Had she? She remembered forcing the horse faster. She tried thinking. Caird stopped his hands and she needed them to move again. She’d known he’d come for her.
‘Aye,’ she answered.
A curl to his lips. ‘It was trust.’ His hands continued their hovering caress. Touching her, but only increasing the pressure inside her. He was making her wait as she answered his questions.
He should know she didn’t like to wait.
She lowered her hands along his upper arms. ‘It was your arrogance, Colquhoun. I knew you’d follow because you felt entitled to kidnapping me.’
‘Stubbornness.’ Caird’s hands flexed at her waist, his breath hitched just at her jaw.
He caressed again, but his hands and lips no longer skimmed, they swept.
‘It was trust that I’d follow,’ he said. ‘That I’d find you, protect you, keep you from harm.’ Just before he reached her lips, he whispered, ‘That blow to my chest I took purposefully.’
She shook her head, not listening to his words, only aware of the increased pressure of his lips and hands. Because with just the shake of her head, he increased his touch again.
She didn’t think he realised it. But if denying him and caressing him made his control slip, she’d do it again.
‘An accident only,’ she insisted. ‘You didn’t care for my safety. You didn’t want me fleeing and ruining our tale to your cousins. Your worry was for show.’
‘I worried for you. Even then, and far too much.’ Caird flexed his hands on her sides. ‘Your trembles as I held you were real. I trembled, too.’
She shook her head as she gripped his arms, the leverage enough to pull him roughly closer.
His surprise was all she needed. She tilted her head until her lips were against his.
He held still. A heartbeat, and another.
‘Your response,’ he growled against her lips. ‘To me.’ A warning. ‘Is trust,’ he insisted as another sound, something primal, erupted from deep within him.
Gripping her hips, Caird kissed her.
Her breasts ached and she moved against him, tiny movements, which only increased the tension.
Another sound from Caird, him moving, a jolt to their bodies as his shins found the bed.
He pulled his head away, breaking their kiss, but not his intent. ‘The flooded river,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You wanted me.’
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her.
‘Tell me,’ he repeated.
‘Aye,’ she said, her voice not her own and just as breathless as his. ‘Aye, I wanted.’
He swallowed. ‘And how did you feel when I followed you? When I swam, when I ran, when I feared I wouldn’t reach you?’
The icy water dragging her down. Caird too far away. But when she had been struggling to breathe, to survive, she’d kept her eyes not on the shore, but on him. She’d known he’d come for her.
She had never depended on anyone. Because she’d never had anyone like Caird before. There was only one word to describe how it felt. But could she say it?
When Caird was touching her and kissing her, she was helpless not to answer him.
‘Wondrous,’ she answered truthfully, impulsively. ‘It felt wondrous.’
He nodded, satisfied. ‘Trust is wondrous,’ he said. ‘When you put your back to mine against those soldiers. When I woke from my injury, knowing you had saved my life by mending me, by protecting me.’
Even as she protested, Caird lowered her down. ‘It was wondrous trust,’ he said.
Her feet touched the floor, but it was only so his fingers, his hands, quick, efficient, could unlace the cords of her old gown and push the torn and frayed material off her shoulders. Only so his palms and spreading fingers could tug the weakened fabric until it unravelled and fell in defeat around her ankles.
Gripping her transparent chemise, his eyes on hers, he ripped the garment in two. On a shuddered sigh, it billowed around them until she was completely bared to him.
‘Mairead,’ he said with reverence. His eyes didn’t hold hers any more. Instead, they roamed over her body and she felt his eyes everywhere.
Under his gaze, her body didn’t feel like her own. She took a much needed breath and his eyes stilled and rested on her breasts.
‘Your skin,’ he whispered. ‘Against your dark hair and eyes, it’s impossibly white, impossibly soft. I’ve only had a taste and I only want more.’
Her legs and limbs were shivering. She stood, but she felt as if she was moving in different directions at the same time. It wasn’t only his touch, it was his words, too.
‘Are you sure you had nae ale?’ she asked.
‘I do speak,’ he breathed roughly. ‘When I can’t control, can’t restrain, I speak words. Ale makes me so and apparently so do you.’
‘I make you without control?’
‘Constantly. More so than ale and I’m not used to it. Like now with you bare before me.’
As his arms and hands worked slowly, efficiently, Caird’s gaze brushed upwards and stayed with hers. She blinked and his tunic was gone.
In daylight every scar, scrape and wound was shown in relief, but that wasn’t what held her gaze. It was the breaths he took, the heightened colour of his skin, the sheen of sweat as he laboured. Laboured simply by looking at her.
Another blink, and another, his leggings and braies hit the floor.
In front of her, Caird stood naked. She’d seen him, but never—never—like this. Everything was different.
Because now it was daylight. And the sun wasn’t as hot or warm or as magnificent as the man in front of her.
Still he didn’t take; still he waited. She was beginning to realise what he meant by showing her trust would kill him. Because she felt that way as well, dying bit by bit, but also recreated. Reborn into something more. Something different.
Caird took the step necessary to hold her. When he did, the hairs on his arms brushed against the sides of her already sensitive breasts and she couldn’t stand any more.
When he held her closer, it was shocking, surprising, overwhelming, everything and nothing she could expect.
The strength of muscle beneath heated skin, sinew binding and tensing from lifting her, beginnings of slickness encouraging her fingers to trace and glide.
She wanted to touch it all.
Caird held Mairead close to him. Her body everything he thought it could be, and more.
‘I doona know the way of this,’ Mairead whispered.
She tilted her chin to raise her eyes to him. He was left with shaking legs when he saw the desire and trepidation in her eyes. Just that look alone sent such a satisfaction through him, he immediately craved to hold and claim her. To take.
‘Of this?’ he asked, his fingers moving along her cheek. ‘Or of what we have between us?’
She had more generous curves than any gown had outlined. More tempting skin than the sunlight revealed through her chemise. Her curves, her breasts, her hips spilled against him. And his hands and mouth felt unbearably greedy.
Calling on his last reserves of patience, he waited for her answer. ‘Mairead?’ he asked.
‘Both,’ she whispered.
A precious answer.
‘There is nae way of this. There is only removing doubts. There is only us.’ His finger tucked a curl behind her ear. ‘What is it you want to do?’
‘Touch,’ she answered. ‘Everywhere.’
‘Impulsive.’ His lips curved as the tension grew.
Now that she was given the freedom to touch, it was her eyes that roamed.
She laid her palms just below his chest and along the ridged symmetrical planes of his stomach. Her fingers traced around his wound. The fresh stitches were fine and holding. Around the area she’d burned, the wound was only faintly pink. It would scar, but it was healing.
She continued to gaze as her hands felt. Her fascination increased as she stepped closer to reach higher up the expanse of his chest and shoulders. Closer, standing on her toes, until she leaned against him and he grasped her hands. Held her. A pause, a breathless wait. She darted a look. His face was darkened with colour; his cheeks were hollowed as if he took a sword wound again.
Mairead’s tentative touch was brief and the barest hint of time he craved from her hands. Even so, he couldn’t withstand it. Not when he still needed to show her trust.
Releasing her hands, he vowed, ‘Another time.’ Then he lifted and lowered her to the bed as he knelt between her legs.
With her lying before him, he savoured her kiss-swollen lips. Greedy, his hands kneaded her generous hips and her outer thighs before caressing upward, until he covered and cupped her breasts. When she gave a sound of pleasure, he broke the kiss.
‘Your response,’ he said with a curve to his sensual lips. His hair, disarrayed and wild, fell forward with the tilt of his head.
He held her breasts in his broad warrior’s hands. Her pale skin against his tan. Soft, unmarked against calloused and scarred.
‘Now will you, Colquhoun?’ Her hands clutched the linens beneath her.
‘Soon, I’ll take, Buchanan, I’ll take until you’re helpless to give. When you do... I’ll take again,’ he replied.
He adjusted himself between her, one leg closer to the apex of her thighs. Eyes locked with hers, his hands circled, cupped, kneaded. And again.
‘Glimpses of your breasts, of wondering how they’d feel.’ Circling again, cupping, kneading. A rhythm he repeated again. And again. ‘Never enough.’
Her breasts filled with a sort of burning heat that wasn’t pain, but something hotter, something searing.
‘Now to see, to feel their weight in my hands.’ He lowered his head, so his whispering words fanned across her and increased the pleasure and pressure. ‘To almost taste them.’
The pleasure built as he hovered his mouth over her, as he continued his rhythm. She needed to move, tried to move, but his knee was there, blocking, forcing her to lift her hips up— She gasped. Not a barrier at all. Exquisite pleasure arced through her.
He held still as if she shocked him. Without raising his hands or his mouth, he slowly moved his knee.
‘Not like that, not so soon,’ he said against her breasts, but she sensed a new tension in him. Something feral. She felt that same tension at her breasts, and between her thighs. She was desperate to move again.
‘What do you do?’ she asked, wanting his knee to return. Her hands cupped his head to keep him there in case he moved that pleasure, too. Never had she felt like this.
‘Showing you trust,’ he said. ‘And I can nae longer wait.’
He lowered his mouth and she felt the flicker of his tongue, the press of his lips on her breasts.
She gasped.
An answering sound from him. Hungrier, greedier kisses, everywhere she wanted and yet... never did he touch the tips.
She couldn’t keep sounds inside nor her movements still. She wanted more.
Finally, agonisingly, she felt his breath against her nipples and she whimpered.
His mouth hovering, a curl to his lips, his hands stilled again.
‘Your response, Mairead,’ he said. ‘Give me your response.’
Breath fast against her, he waited for answers she couldn’t allow. Even now.
His brows drew in. ‘You doubt.’ Incredulous. ‘You gave me trust, Mairead, more than I could ever hope.’
He breathed deeply, holding on to his slipping control as he moved his mouth away. ‘When you told me I’d come for you.’
Caird gave her breasts more strokes, more slides of his fingers until she moved with and from his touch. Until she arched and tightened. She needed his lips, his mouth right where he poised it above her. And he was making her wait.
‘You doubt,’ he said, ‘but against all odds I fought and won because you trusted me.’
Cupping her breasts, lifting them again, his mouth hovering at the tip, his breaths tormenting, he vowed, ‘It was a precious thing. Your trust and your response. I’ll show you.’
Mairead, her want sharp, felt the heady pleasure of his breath and roughened chin. Then finally, breathtakingly, his mouth covered the tip and rolled her nipple with his tongue.
Her breath stopped on a gasp.
Eyes locked with hers, his hand lifted the other breast to his waiting mouth. A longer wait. Then a sound before he sucked, and stroked, and pulled—more.
Pleasure ripped through her. Giving waves of release.
When Mairead’s response eased and her breaths returned, Caird rested his head between her breasts and cupped his arms around her sides. Her body was sated, soft and ready for him.
He forced his breaths to return, for the pain of desire to subside. Mairead had given her response, but not her trust.
It wasn’t enough. He needed to remove her doubts; he needed to show her more. Right now, he didn’t know if he could.
Her touch. Tentative along his head, his hair, his shoulders. Pleasure easing his pain. Needing more, he held still.
Mairead didn’t know the way of this. But Caird was showing her. His words and touch were intense and wondrous pleasure. Her body felt complete as he rested and cradled her against him. Impossibly, it also made her crave him more.
She couldn’t crave more. Already she’d almost lost him.
‘Were there many?’ she asked. The soldiers, at the village. She’d never asked.
Caird turned his head, but kept it resting on her chest. He seemed to want her touch along his slickened skin, so she continued. As her fingertips circled back along his shoulders, his breaths eased.
‘Harsh and hard odds, and at least one I missed,’ he answered, a different tension in him.
He didn’t tell her how many soldiers. She feared he didn’t know because there had been too many to count.
‘Does it pain you...your shoulder?’ he whispered. ‘With me, like this, is it too much?’ He lifted his head.
‘Nae,’ she whispered. She hardly noticed it. Not now. Not when her heart pained her worse. The feeling was so fierce, she couldn’t avoid it. It was fear at almost losing him. And yet, as she had stood there in front of the Englishman, she knew he’d come for her.
Caird watched as the light in Mairead’s eyes changed. They were dark and fathomless, but the life within them gave shimmering light to their depths. Like a night sky with too many stars to count.
What he saw there gave him hope. Some conflict, some doubt was there, but she was starting to believe. Her eyes gave him strength to show her more, to make her bright eyes glaze with passion.
He wanted to bring her to that peak again. He knew her body was ready for him. But it wasn’t enough, he needed her trust.
Adjusting himself, he started again. Trying to be gentle, trying to coax with his hands, he kissed, he touched. But his ragged control slipped with a caress along her arm, a taste around her fingers, a breath against her wrist.
‘Caird?’ she whispered as she touched. Tentative caresses weakening...undoing him.
‘Follow me,’ he asked. Did she want words? They were burned out of him by her response, by her doubt.
He kissed along her bared shoulders, down the valley between her breasts and underneath.
His hands moved along her sides; his fingers feathered along her waist until he felt her hips. Then he moved his hands and mouth lower yet.
‘What do you do?’ she whispered, her hands tightening along his arms, refusing him.
‘Showing you,’ he said. ‘Trust.’
Reverently, savouring the texture and taste of her, he continued his kisses along her stomach. He stroked the softness and heat of her skin. He had to give and show her patience, and it was breaking him.
Delicately, intensely, Mairead’s hands eased and released their grip. Then, he heard her response above the sudden roaring in his ears, above his need for her.
Her response. ‘Please.’
When Mairead’s hands began their tentative caresses, Caird knew he could no longer be gentle. He was taking as his body demanded he do. The taste of her, the feel of her breasts and her release now drove his need.
He took her hands, so much smaller than his and pressed them above her head. Taking his other hand, he caressed and kissed along her hip, along her thigh. Her tiny movements encouraging what he desperately wanted.
Murmuring approval, he continued lower, widening his thighs and spreading hers. She was exposed, and he was more than ready to taste her.
Then, and only then did he release her hands and lift her to his mouth.
Her sounds of confusion turned to gasps of pleasure. Her hands caressed his head, his shoulders. His hunger, temporarily assuaged, only increased as he kissed her and kissed her more. He knew he wouldn’t last.
But he needed her desire to bond with his, knowing he was on that cliff and it was imperative she was there with him.
Mairead couldn’t catch her breath. Caird’s hands and kisses were skimming across her bared skin. He was everywhere she needed, even as she craved more of his touch.
Then with his body brimming with need and pain, he stopped.
He was curved between her thighs and his arms embraced her hips. His forehead rested on her stomach, where his hair fanned out and covered what he had brought her to.
A precipice.
Her body clenched, and ached. It was nothing like before; it was more.
But if she was at the edge, Caird was still climbing the rocky crags.
His back and arms glistened with sweat that highlighted healing wounds and raised scars.
He whispered, too. Whispered as he gave a slow steady shake of his head. Answering or denying a question only he could hear.
She didn’t know what to do; didn’t know the way of any of it. Only, knowing his pain distressed her. With both hands she cupped his head, which stilled, and she caressed his hair, which clung to her fingers.
When she got to the ends, he raised his head.
She had never seen his eyes like this. It was as if he’d reached the top of the cliff, his battered hands on the ledge where she stood. A few loose rocks and he’d plummet, his control shattered—utter vulnerability and utter masculine power.
‘Your response,’ he whispered, his voice broken. His hands on the cliff, trembling.
‘Give me your response, Mairead. Before I claim you. Tell me you have nae doubts. Give me your trust.’
Looking into his eyes, her body poised on the edge, she gave the only answer she could. ‘Aye.’ She licked her dry lips. ‘Aye.’
His breathing changed, his eyes changed, his body, if possible, became larger, more indomitable, more there.
A quick shake of his head. ‘In this.’ His mouth descended. A kiss below her navel, reverent and branding just as his hands slid along her sides, his thumbs wide cupping and caressing under her breasts before returning to her hips.
Head raised again, eyes searing, he demanded, ‘Or. In. More.’
Greedy Colquhoun. Still never assuming, still never jumping to conclusions.
Still hanging on the cliff.
Then she understood only she had the power to lift him. That here, now, he gave her that power.
Licking her lips again, conscious of how open she was to him. How bared she was to his gaze, to his kisses. She knew her answer. She had doubts still, but not about Caird. Lying here now, with him, she wondered how she ever doubted.
Then she remembered...he was Colquhoun, and she was Buchanan. So because it was him, she answered the only way she could.
‘In this...’ she began.
Grey eyes swirling green, swirling surprise, vulnerability, pain and doubt.
‘In more,’ she continued, keeping her eyes steady on his. Willing him to understand more than her words. ‘In. All.’
Caird’s head fell to her stomach, his breath harsh bursts across her thighs, his fingers flexed at her hips.
She smiled. Because a Buchanan had bested a Colquhoun.
Again.
Caird wanted to roar at the feeling of victory and rapture that swept through him.
Victory. But his body didn’t think so. His body was still in torture. He was right. Earning her trust this way nearly did kill him. If she had denied them, he had vowed he wouldn’t claim her.
The risk was great and too dear. It was more than any battle he had ever fought. Mairead had to have understood this. Had to have known. Yet she had tortured him more.
Deceitful, clever Buchanan.
He should have expected that, but she’d given her answer.
Adjusting himself higher, he gloried in the dark mischievous light of her eyes, just as he knew he’d have them glazed again. And he would glory in that more.
‘I have to have you ready,’ he promised. His mouth descended, his hands caressing.
A kiss for every pulse she gave, until he again adjusted between her thighs. His hands lifting her, his mouth and tongue and heat and breath shredding her understanding of desire. A sharp kiss, a gasp of sound. She was almost...there.
Breaking the kiss, his lifted his head. ‘Soon,’ he said, a plea, a vow.
His eyes on hers, then on his finger that slowly, agonisingly teased her entrance where she ached the most.
‘I have to claim you now,’ he said. ‘Here, do you understand?’
She stilled, she watched, she felt.
‘When I do, it will hurt.’ Another finger replaced his first. A little deeper, a little wider. ‘But like this, you’ll give yourself, you’ll follow me.’
His eyes remained riveted on his fingers. He released his touch, but not his eyes. By using his fingers to prepare her for him, she knew he would soon take her maidenhead and it would hurt.
But it could be nothing to the torrents of pain flowing over Caird’s entire body. His face was drawn, his cheeks were hollowed, his breaths were ragged.
She knew that pain would only go away if she followed, if she gave. Because it was him, she did. With both hands she caressed his jaw until he looked at her.
‘You need to take, Colquhoun.’ She brushed her fingers delicately against his lips. ‘I want you to take.’
She cupped his face and brought his lips to hers.
This kiss was forgiveness and desire. Grateful because he did take then. Just as he kissed her, and kept on kissing her until her body moved beneath his, and he adjusted his body to hers. She felt the pressure, a slight pain, but then—wonder.
When he moved, she moved with him. Giving him the trust and the care he had shown her. She gave because it was him and it was all she could do.
His lips released from hers and his movements increased. Until their sounds and strength and need bonded and he surged within her, taking and giving with everything he was. And she did what he asked her to do.
She followed him.