Chapter 12
Rob lowered his mouth to hers, tasting and teasing. She was so sweet, so fine, he feared he defiled her with just a kiss. But she’d asked for this. Surely this was no sin if the lass wanted him.
Lord knew he wanted her. He’d never thought to ache so for a woman again.
The skin of Elspeth’s inner thigh was so soft, so tender, it was all he could do not to toss up her skirt and plant fevered kisses there. But he didn’t want to spook her.
The curling hairs on her sex were like silk where his fingertips passed over them. And damp. Her whole body shuddered at his glancing caress.
She was ready for him.
His cock throbbed.
He covered her with his whole hand, holding her hot sex. Her heartbeat throbbed even there. Her thighs tensed, and a soft moan escaped her lips.
“Hush, lass,” he whispered. “Ye must be quiet, or Angus will fear I’m hurting ye.”
She nodded, her eyes enormous, and pulled his head down to kiss her again.
An excellent way to keep her quiet, he thought as his tongue chased hers in a languid, wet kiss. Isn’t she the canny one?
He explored her with exquisite slowness. Next time—please God, let there be a next time—he’d lie between her legs and revel in the slick delights of that soft, moist crevice, but for now, his fingers were his eyes.
He parted her, stroking each fold as he went. She quivered under his touch, swollen and sensitive. He found her most responsive spot with ease. The first time he grazed it with his fingertip, she gasped and pulled away from his kiss.
“What is that?” she asked shakily.
“A way for me to give ye joy, lass. Close your eyes and let me.”
Unlike with most of his directives, she obeyed this one. He could almost feel her curiosity burning into his questing hand. He pressed a soft kiss on each of her eyelids.
Since he was a lad of about twelve, he’d known what miracles his cock could perform. Still, it didn’t surprise him that Elspeth didn’t understand much about this part of her body.
Women were kept in ignorance, Fiona had told him. Some were even shackled in chastity belts by wary fathers or jealous husbands. Fiona said…
Guilt burned his soul. He hadn’t dreamed of her, hadn’t thought of Fiona in days. Why did she invade his mind now?
He looked down at Elspeth. Her brows drew together in agreeable distress as he continued to stroke her. Her mouth went passion slack.
Was he being unfaithful to Fiona’s memory by pleasuring Elspeth? The Stewart lass wouldn’t even be with him now if not for his wife and what had happened to her. Was he doing this as revenge on Drummond for Fiona? To delight Elspeth? Or to prove to himself that he could still satisfy a woman after such a long stint of abstinence?
His head pounded. It hurt to think so hard.
He decided not to try. Feeling was much easier than thinking.
Rob gave himself over to Elspeth’s soft sighs, to her slippery cleft and growing arousal, to the delights of her mouth. A wanting woman had a way of making a man feel grander than a king. He kissed his way down the white column of her throat to her exposed breast.
He nuzzled around her nipple, letting his warm breath tease her. Then when she made a soft sound of distress, he took her taut peak between his lips and devoured her.
Each time he suckled her, his balls clenched, poised for release.
He flicked her nipple with his tongue in rhythm with the movement of his fingers, and she stiffened, back arched, pelvis raised into his hand.
He feared he might come under his kilt.
Then she shattered beneath his touch.
He felt her inner spasms in the soft lips of her sex while her whole body shuddered with the force of her release. Her heart pounded against his hand between her legs.
Rob wondered if a body’s soul left it for a moment when the shimmering glory of bliss became too much for mortal flesh to bear. Was there a place between life and death where souls in the grip of ecstasy mingled together, a joining of spirits separate from the joining of bodies?
If such a place existed, Elspeth was there alone. Rob’s body still burned with unrelieved need.
And his head ached with daft thoughts that raced about like herring in a net.
Elspeth lay gasping, her chest rising and falling unevenly as she came back to herself from that shining place. Then she turned her head to look at him with such a trusting smile, Rob cringed inside.
A man who pleasured one woman while another flitted through his mind didn’t deserve that kind of trust.
She reached up a hand to palm his cheek.
“I never dreamed.”
He removed his hand from between her legs and smoothed down her skirt. Even though he ached to show her more, to finish their coupling and see if they could find that place where souls mingled, he was done. His cock tried to fight him, but his will held firm.
I never dreamed, she says.
Fiona hadn’t visited his dreams since he met Elspeth. He wondered if she ever would again.
***
“Almost, my lord,” Calum said, shielding his eyes against the glare of the loch. The crossbow bolt skipped over the waves and sank. The line attached to it floated for a bit before following the bolt down. If they couldn’t shoot an arrow into the yew tree on the far side of the loch, they’d never be able to rig a makeshift ferry to catch Mad Rob when he sailed back by. “Only shy by a few bow lengths. Still, a crossbow wasna meant for distance.”
Lachlan Drummond pressed his lips together in frustration as he signaled for Calum to pull the bolt back. Thanks to the attached line, at least he hadn’t lost any yet. “Ye have something against a crossbow?”
“I’ve heard my lord say they aren’t sporting, not when a bolt can slice through a man’s shield like it was butter.”
“If a man goes into battle, he ought to go to win. If he’s not canny enough to carry the most lethal weapon, he deserves to lose,” Lachlan said. He’d heard more than one man complain that a crossbow didn’t require the skill or strength of a longbow. The wicked wounds a crossbow left were enough to make it Lachlan’s weapon of choice. “A crossbow carries the day more often than not.”
Drummond reloaded his bow and shot another bolt. With the same result.
“Pity we’re no’ in battle, then,” Calum said.
“Do ye think ye can do better?”
“I dinna know, but I could try.” The Stewart’s retainer ran to fetch his longbow.
Drummond and his party had moved from the shore where they last spotted Elspeth and her captor to the rocky point jutting out into Loch Eireann. The body of water was narrow to begin with. From that jutting spit of land, it was no broader than a goodly sized river.
“If we can shoot an arrow with a line attached to it across the loch,” Calum had explained, “we can let the line rest below the water level and then pull it taut when the MacLaren comes sailing back by. If we clear the prow instead of sliding under the hull, the line will catch on the mast, and it ought to stop him dead in the water.”
“And then what?” Drummond demanded. “Lord Stewart doesn’t want us to shoot at him.”
“Aye, and he’s right. We might hit Lady Elspeth accidently,” Calum said. “Instead, we’ll build a raft and use the line to ferry ourselves out and board the boat.”
The Stewart’s man had all the answers, it seemed. So while Alistair Stewart and Drummond’s servant dismantled a henhouse for lumber to make a raft—and roasted a pair of chickens over a fire—Lachlan and Calum were trying to secure a line across the water.
Calum sucked in a deep breath, drew back his longbow till his knuckles grazed his ear. Then he pointed the arrow tip at the sky. He released the shaft with a twang of the string, along with his pent-up breath.
Lachlan shaded his eyes with his hand and followed the flight of the long shaft. The line attached to it coiled out with a whipping sound. The arrow found its mark in the big yew on the other side of the loch.
Calum gave the line a stout tug.
“Ye might pull it out!” Drummond warned.
“If it’s going to give, better to know now than when we’re trying to rescue Lady Elspeth.”
Drummond nodded his grudging approval. “This is shaping up to be a good plan. I thank ye.”
Calum glanced at him and tied the line off on a nearby boulder. “I didna do it for ye, Lord Drummond. I did it for the lady.”
***
Elspeth no longer felt like a lady. She knew enough about the business of losing a maidenhead to know she still possessed hers, but even so, she wasn’t the same.
Rob MacLaren had seen her naked.
Not just without her clothes. He’d glimpsed her soul at its neediest.
She had no language to describe what he’d done to her. She’d had no idea a mortal was capable of such shattering pleasure, no inkling that her body would so thoroughly become his willing ally.
She knew what they were doing was wicked, but she didn’t feel soiled till after. When he simply rolled over without saying a word.
Now, judging by his deep, rhythmic breathing, the smug brute was enjoying the sleep of the just.
Elspeth rolled onto her side, giving Rob her back, and pulled her knees up to her chest.
He’d been so tender and giving while he played her body, his touch as sure and exquisite as a bard plucking his harp. How could he be so cold when he was done?
His kisses had brought something to life in her. She no longer felt like a pawn, only one item in a long list of goods to be exchanged. When he touched her intimately, she felt as if he knew her.
And she mattered. Not for whatever cattle and agreements came with her. Just for herself.
How could what they’d done together mean so little to him?
She gnawed her lower lip. Maybe that was it. They hadn’t done anything together. He did something only to her.
She had certainly kissed him back. Merciful heaven, she’d even kissed him first. But aside from running her hand over his hair, she hadn’t touched him.
Maybe she should have reached beneath his kilt after all.
But he knew she was a maiden. How could she be expected to know what a man wants?
She drew a deep breath. When he first abducted her, she’d caught a few glimpses into his heart through the Sight. She’d felt his deep sadness, and it kept her from fearing him as much as she should have.
Now she sensed nothing from him.
Perhaps she’d been listening to her body so intently, it drowned out all the other, less-forceful voices. She’d never been able to call up her Gift at will, but if she concentrated mightily, maybe…
She rolled over and laid a hand lightly on Rob’s shoulder. He didn’t stir. She closed her eyes, matched the rhythm of his breathing, and tried to empty her mind of the riotous clamoring of her body.
Nothing came to her but the steady roll of the boat and the lap of water on the hull.
No vision flashed behind her eyes, but she remembered suddenly that she’d been given a brief impression when they were in the cave. In her glimpse into Rob’s mind she’d Seen a willowy, red-haired woman. Elspeth didn’t know who she was, but she was obviously important to him.
Perhaps that woman was why Rob turned away from her.
Elspeth pulled her hand from his shoulder and rolled over to face away from him again.
“I still hate ye verra, verra much, Rob MacLaren,” she whispered. “Dinna think otherwise.”