chapter Seventeen
Sorcha burst into her chambers bubbling over with giddiness. However, her levity vanished when her eyes landed on Caitrin, who sat very primly on the edge of Sorcha’s bed. “Cait.”
The seer smiled softly and then rose from her spot. “So, I see ye arrived in time ta save him.”
Cait had known exactly what would happen when she sent Sorcha to Her Grace’s private sitting room. Havers!
Was Cait sad about the fact? Perhaps a bit jealous? “Are ye all right with this?”
Cait nodded once. “Ta be honest, I wasna a few years ago, but I am now. Dash was my future. I just had never seen it. But I have kent for quite some time that Alec is yers.”
Cait had always known? Sorcha took a staggering step backward. Was that why Cait had fought so hard against accepting one of his many offers?
“I would offer ye my congratulations, but yer journey is far from over, Sorch. Ye have more than a few obstacles standin’ in yer way.”
“What obstacles?” Sorcha asked, though she knew her friend would never say.
Cait shrugged her answer. “Dash and I’ll go with ye ta Edinburgh.”
Sorcha shook her head. “That doesna seem wise, Cait. Dash and Alec together?”
Cait heaved a beleaguered sigh. “It isna up for debate, Sorch. Ye are no’ yet married, and ye canna travel all that way with Alec alone. Ye do still have a reputation ta protect.”
“But—” Sorcha began to protest.
“No buts,” Cait interrupted. “Besides, our travelin’ coach is already packed and ready ta go.”
“I need ta pack my things,” Sorcha mumbled. There was obviously no reason to argue. But as she glanced around the room, she noticed that her personal things were missing from the bedside table. She opened the wardrobe to find that all her dresses were gone. “Where is everythin’?” she asked of no one in particular.
“I had yer maid pack it all up,” Cait answered with another shrug of her shoulders. “The coach is ready.”
“Did ye have them pack Alec’s things as well?” That seemed a bit forward.
“Even I wouldna do that,” Cait sighed. She got that faraway look in her eye that meant she was seeing events that had not yet happened. “But as soon as ye go and inform him we’re leavin’, he’ll be ready in no time.”
“I’ll have ta go find him,” Sorcha grumbled. A small part of her hoped Alec would refuse to travel with Eynsford and Cait. They didn’t need a chaperone. Cait certainly hadn’t had more than a maid when she’d traveled to Scotland with Eynsford. And Sorcha would revel in some time alone with her fiancé, truth be told.
“He’s in his room,” the seer chirped. “Or he will be in a moment.” Cait avoided looking at Sorcha entirely. “Ye should run along. The sooner ye tell him, the sooner we can leave.”
“What do ye see?” Sorcha bit out. Cait was keeping something from her; she could feel it.
“Ye ken I canna tell ye,” her friend chirped again, still avoiding Sorcha’s face entirely. But a grin tugged at the corners of Cait’s mouth.
“Fine,” Sorcha groused. It looked as though her fate had been decided for her. She would be traveling with a Lycan, a vampyre, and the witch who’d once stood between them.
~*~
Alec mumbled to himself all the way back to his room. He’d gotten himself into a hell of a mess this time. How dare those Overton women try to trap him? And Sorcha. Pretty little Sorcha had stepped up to his defense like he’d never expected anyone to do again. He wasn’t worthy of such loyalty.
He’d take Sorcha as his wife, take her into his bed, and take her life force, and he wouldn’t be able to give her a damn thing in return, aside from access to his wealth. He couldn’t grow old with her. She’d continue to age, and he would always remain a young man. How in the devil would they avoid that? He couldn’t give her children, either. In his mind’s eye, he could see Sorcha with a child at her knee.
She’d make a wonderful mother.
Yet she’d settled. She’d settled for him.
A knock at his door drew his attention. “Enter,” he called out absently. He didn’t even have to look up to know who it was. As soon as the door opened, Sorcha’s apple blossom scent preceded her into the room. “You came to your senses, did you?” he asked as he leaned against the large wardrobe and folded his arms across his chest.
“Nay, I’m still an idiot, by yer standards,” she replied, her voice droll. She closed the door behind her.
Alec couldn’t help but smile at her. She had the sharpest tongue for such a sweet little lady. “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Sorch. I just think you took too much upon yourself when you decided to sacrifice yourself for me. And you should open that door. Someone could get the wrong idea.”
Sorcha snorted. Such a dainty little sound. “I think it’s a bit late ta worry about that,” she reminded him.
“Only because you had to be a martyr,” he shot back.
“So, wantin’ ta save my friend from a fate worse than death makes me a martyr?”
“I already suffered a fate worse than death,” he said quietly. “And lived to tell the tale. That would have been nothing.” He stalked across the room toward her, with all of the pent-up emotions he hadn’t been allowed to show rising to the surface. “And were you completely addled when you told the duchess I’ve spent every night with you? That you enjoy waking up with me in your bed?”
“So, I lied. What of it?” Her eyes flashed at him in anger.
“Aye, you lied. I feel certain I’d remember being in your bed.” He’d never come out of it. He’d stay there forever and a day. And he’d keep her there with him.
“I should hope so,” she snapped back.
So quickly that she startled and flinched, Alec reached out and grabbed her, drawing her flush against his body.
“Since you’re already ruined, Sorcha, I think we should take advantage of the moment.”
“Beg yer pardon?” she choked.
Her hands landed flat against his chest, but she didn’t pull away. Blast her for not pulling away. She was temptation personified. “More than one person thinks I’ve been in your bed.” His hands slipped down her sides until he cupped her round little bottom. She still didn’t retreat. “I can’t stand for you to be thought a liar. So, I think we should remedy that.”
He’d thought about very little, aside from taking her beneath him, since he’d arrived at Castle Hythe. And now she’d sealed her fate. Would he be the worst sort of cad if he took advantage of her?
Alec let his hands knead her bottom, not enough to scare her but enough to draw her closer to him, so close that he was certain she couldn’t miss the bulge beneath his trousers.
“Ye’d like ta take me ta bed?” Sorcha asked.
“More than anything,” he admitted. Then he cupped her bottom, picked her up with her feet merely a few inches off the floor, and very gently laid her in the center of his bed.
She didn’t protest. She didn’t utter a sound, aside from a pleasant moan as she sank into the counterpane and he climbed up beside her. “Ye’re a bit daft, you know that?” he whispered as he brushed her hair back from her face.
“Ye really ken how ta flatter a lady in yer bed, Alec,” she protested mildly, shoving ineffectually at his chest.
“Look at me, Sorch,” he prodded. His teeth had descended and they ached with the need to have her. He smiled at her when she finally looked at his face. “This is me. This is what I am. A vampyre.”
She reached up to stroke the side of his face. “I ken what ye are,” she whispered.
His lips touched the corner of her mouth. It took all of his concentration to be gentle. The pounding of her pulse filled his head like a soldier’s drum might fill a battlefield. That excited him even more. “I want you,” he growled as he cupped the side of her neck with his hand and pressed his lips to hers.
She tasted like jam and smelled like all the things he loved most in the world. She rose to meet him, her lips eager, her body loose and languid beneath him.
“You really should push me away,” he warned when he finally lifted his lips.
“I wish people would stop tellin’ me what ta do,” she whispered to him, and tugged his head back down to hers.
When he slipped his tongue into her mouth, hers eagerly rose to greet it. He kissed her until his head swam with the need to take her. Then he lifted his head and looked down at her. “God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed.
“Ye say that like it surprises ye.” She giggled.
“You surprise me every day. I didn’t even know you were all grown up until recently.”
“Until ye started lustin’ for me.” She giggled again, an animated sound that made him want to join her.
“You think this is amusing,” he taunted. He didn’t know when he’d fallen under her spell, but she was all he could think about. Right now, he wanted to be inside her. He wanted all of her. Every last inch.
“Quite,” she affirmed. Her hands began to work the knot at his neckcloth, keeping at it until she was able to pull his cravat free and toss it to the floor.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked. He liked it. He wouldn’t stop her. But he’d like to know what was in her head.
“I want ta be closer ta ye,” she admitted as she began to work the buttons of his waistcoat and helped him shrug out of it.
“Forbes is going to have your head,” he warned. “He took great care dressing me today. For the meeting with Her Grace.”
“Ye’ll protect me.” She sounded so sure of that. And she should. He would always protect her. From everything.
She tugged at his shirt until she’d freed it from his trousers and then pulled it over his head. “Now what?” he asked.
With a gentle little shove, she pushed him onto his back.
“Now I can have my way with ye,” she said as she climbed on top of him, her breasts pressed against the hair on his chest.
“Your turn,” he warned as he began to tug at the laces at the back of her neck.
“Ye undress women much too well, Alec MacQuarrie,” she teased as he opened the back of her gown and helped her pull it over her head.
“I’ll never undress another woman again,” he swore.
When he looked down her body, he saw that she wore nothing more than a thin chemise and stockings. He groaned aloud. He could see the dusky pink of her nipples through her shift.
“I’ll expect ye ta undress me on a regular basis,” she teased.
“You don’t count,” he said as he reached up and pulled her lips back down to his. Then he rolled her to her back.
“Nice ta ken how much I doona matter.” She rolled her eyes.
“Hush,” he said gently as he took her mouth with great care. She arched against him, the fine muslin of her chemise tickling his chest. The broad points of her nipples brushed his bare skin. She trembled beneath him when he bent his head and rubbed his cheek against one of the little nubs. Her fingers threaded into his hair and tugged gently.
“Alec,” she whispered.
But then he licked across her nipple, right through the fabric of her chemise, and she nearly came undone right there in his arms. Alec glanced up at her face to find her sparkling eyes dark with passion and hooded by heavy lashes. He reached for the hem of her chemise to draw it over her head.
But the pulse point that pounded at her inner thigh drew his attention with its frantic rhythm. He spread her legs and settled between them. Then he sat up on his knees so he could run his fingers over her inner thigh, searching for that pulse point. He wanted nothing more than to feel it pound beneath his fingers. For surely her pulse was throbbing as hard as his manhood was. He could hear it in his head.
“What are ye doin’?” she asked.
He bit back a grin. Of course, she would ask. “Touching you.”
“Why there?” A breathy little gasp left her throat when his fingers skimmed up her thigh toward her heat.
“Because it gives me pleasure,” he replied as he let his fingers slide into the springy curls at the juncture of her thighs.
“Me too,” she cried out, as he touched her center. She was wet, slippery with desire. He nearly spilled himself at his first stroke across her folds. Her hips arched toward him as he lowered himself on top of her again.
Sorcha tipped her head to the side as his lips touched the side of her neck. God, she tasted like nothing he’d ever had, and he hadn’t even punctured her flesh yet. A cry rang out in the room as Alec stroked across the little nub that could drive her to completion. He’d take her over the top and then take her there again when he could be inside her.
“Please, Alec,” she whimpered, her hips finding a rhythm against his gentle stroking.
Alec replaced his finger with his thumb and slid one digit inside her. She was like a warm silken glove that closed around him. She tugged at his hair and forced him to look into her eyes. He could drown there, never having seen such an utter look of surrender on anyone’s face. Her eyes closed as her pants increased, those breathy little sounds nearly driving him mad. He wanted to work his way inside her and then hear them all over again. She only needed another moment, and then he would… Her back arched when she finally toppled over that precipice. Her hands clutched the bedclothes as the force of completion racked her tiny frame. He continued his gentle stroking as she fluttered around him and caressed her until she was done.
Sorcha threw an arm over her eyes and groaned, “Oh, dear.” The thump of her heart was still frantic, but it was beginning to slow.
“Was that a good ‘oh, dear’ or a bad ‘oh, dear’?” He had to know.
She lifted her arm briefly and peered shyly from below it.
“Very good,” she whispered.
Alec adjusted his body so he could free himself from his trousers. “Are you certain you want this?” he asked. He searched her face as he looked for the answer.
She reached down and tugged his trousers over his hips.
Apparently, she did. Alec situated himself between her thighs and probed at her center. The warm wash of her previous climb sucked at him. But just as he nearly pushed himself inside, a heavy knock sounded at the door.
“They’ll go away,” he groaned. But he held very still at the entrance to her warmth and listened for the door.
“Did ye lock the door?” she had the sense to ask. Thank God, because he had no sense at all in that moment.
“Did you?” he replied. Bloody hell. Neither of them had.
The knock sounded at the door again. Then a hard, extremely annoyed voice called out, “MacQuarrie?”
Eynsford! Blast and damn. Of course, the blasted Lycan would show up right when Alec was about to push his way into Sorcha’s warm and willing body. She stiffened beneath him and shoved at his shoulder. “Oh, no,” she cried.
“Miss Ferguson, are you in there?” Eynsford asked quietly through the crack in the door.
Alec put a hand over her mouth and shook his head. She didn’t utter a sound.
“I know she’s in there, MacQuarrie. I’m far from deaf, you know. I’ll expect you to have her out here within the next five minutes.”
Five minutes. Alec wouldn’t even need five minutes. He’d like more than that, but… “And I’m going to wait right here while you finish talking.”
Talking would be the operative word. There was little talking going on, and Eynsford could hear all of it with those blasted sensitive ears of his.
Alec bent and kissed Sorcha hard, a promise of things to come.
“Be out in a moment,” Alec grumbled quietly.
“Oh, I know you will,” Eynsford replied.
Alec rested his forehead against Sorcha’s. “I hate that man,” he whispered.
She winced slightly, which didn’t bode well. “Then I should probably no’ tell ye that he and Cait are travelin’ with us ta Edinburgh.”
What was left of Alec’s ardor vanished instantly. There he lay between Sorcha’s thighs, his manhood probing at her willing center, and his ardor vanished completely. He’d traveled the North Road with Cait and that blasted Lycan of hers the previous winter, and though their circumstances had changed drastically since that time, he had no desire to repeat the journey. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Sorcha giggled and very softly kissed his lips. “Ye are already dead, Alec.”