Across a Windswept Isle Read online

  Her soft caresses on his skin caused a series of bursts to move along his arms. Not painful, exactly. But not the pleasure such a touch should elicit. That he’d felt there … before. If she was repulsed by the feeling of it, neither her gaze nor her continued caress revealed it.

  Iain leaned in and kissed her again, as she gently slid her hands over his arms. He caught her sighs and tugged her closer so their bodies pressed against each other. Against her quiet protest, he moved his arm free of her grasp and reached up to loosen her hair. He wanted to see the curtain of silky tresses hanging around her. Only the silky tresses, if he had his way.

  As though she’d heard is thoughts, Ailis began to loosen the ties of her gown and the shift that lay beneath it. ‘Twas what he wanted, but he wouldn’t take her standing up fully dressed like a whore. She was a lady who deserved better treatment. She deserved pleasure and love.

  “Ailis,” he whispered as he moved her one very small step back from him. “Ye should go.” Every fiber of his body and soul and heart waited on her next words.

  “Do ye want me to leave, Iain?”

  “Nay, Ailis. I want ye to stay. But I think mayhap the best thing for ye would be to leave me now.”

  He could hear his breathing, shallow and quick. He listened to hers match his in the few seconds that seemed an eternity of waiting. Iain closed his eyes behind the damned mask and steeled himself for the inevitable disappointment that must come from such a lady.

  “I want to stay, Iain. For this night. To discover what truly lies between us.”

  His eyes opened to witness a smile that must have been like the one that Eve gave Adam to tempt him to sin. And, damn his soul and his desire for her, he would fall into that temptation. Iain spent only one moment finding and dropping the bar to secure the door before he turned back to her.

  “Get on the bed,” he said in a voice thick with desire and need. His hands itched now as they had as they’d healed but, this time, it was for her. “And take off yer gown.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ailis stared at Iain as he dropped the bar and faced her.

  Was he going to do this? Would they … ? How would they … ?

  Her body shuddered at his gruff command, but she quickly moved to his bed. Facing him, she reached for the edge of her gown and tugged it over her head. His breathing grew labored and he clenched and released his fists with every movement she made.

  It emboldened her. It heated her blood and made her breasts swell. It … aroused her. She’d not felt anything like this in so long, as though she were alive again. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. It would never be Lachlan again and she must accept that. In that moment, Ailis found herself wanting the touch of this man. The one before her, not the one she had mourned for so long.

  With no more delay, she reached down and took off the shift and climbed on his bed. Leaning against the pillows strewn along the headboard, Ailis waited to see how he would do this. He didn’t move for a while. He stood there, staring through that mask of his, watching her settle on top of the bedcovers. Her body readied itself for what she knew was coming.

  Then, without a word, he circled the chamber, dousing the fire in the hearth, closing the shutters on the window and extinguishing the candles that threw light around the room. The last one sat on the table next to the bed and she held her breath as he walked to it. He wet his fingers and squeezed out the flame, but as it flickered, she swore she felt that touch on her nipples.

  Now, the chamber was in darkness with only a sliver of light creeping in under the bottom of the door. It wasn’t enough to allow her to see him clearly. Then, the unmistakable sounds of him moving away and undressing followed. More desire flowed through her body as she imagined each layer of his garments coming off.

  She’d felt his muscular build under her hands when they kissed and now she would feel it against her skin as they … made love. Did the damage she’d felt on his arms extend everywhere? Had he been burned, as she had, to mar his skin in that way? The sounds of his footsteps approaching the bed gave her pause and she stilled, waiting for him to join her. When he didn’t, she slid from the bed and reached out to him.

  Her hands met a hard chest. Muscles, defined and strong, quivered under her fingers. Ailis skimmed over his chest and up to his shoulders, noticing that one side, his left side, had more damage than the other. He didn’t stop her exploration, but Ailis thought he would at any moment. Instead, he gathered her hair in his hands and tossed it over her shoulders. It tickled as it fell over her back and hips, the length of it reaching her thighs.

  “I have wanted to touch yer hair for a long time,” he whispered, sliding his hands around her shoulders and pulling her body to his.

  She gasped at the contact. His skin was hot and his prick was hard against her belly. And, unmarred, it seemed. Then he lifted her chin and took her mouth in a kiss that was both gentle and possessive. Ailis opened to him, feeling the strength of his male flesh as he pressed against her. When she reached out to hold him closer, he startled.

  “Lady. …”

  “Ailis,” she repeated. “Does it pain ye? If I touch ye there, will it bring ye pain?”

  “Nay. I think not.” He didn’t move away or push her hands down, which she took as a good sign.

  “Then, may I?” she asked.

  Not truly intending to allow him to naysay her, she didn’t wait for his permission. With a light touch, she eased her hands around his back and caressed him there. Wide patches of thickened flesh covered him. Unlike other injuries she’d seen, these were not raised as ridges, but the skin had melted and reformed roughly.

  The pain he’d endured must have been tenfold more than hers. She leaned her face to his chest and kissed him there before letting her hands glide over his body, down and up, across and over, trying to please him with her touch. Trying to erase some of the memories of pain and replace them with pleasure. That he remained under her touch brought a smile to her.

  He stood there unmoving, breathing in shallow gasps and allowing her to have her way, until he did not. One moment, they stood, her breasts on his chest, her belly against his erect manhood. The next, he lifted her from her feet and carried her to the bed. Then, she was on her back covered by him. The only shock was how good it felt. Her body, aroused and waiting, accepted his and he settled between her thighs before kissing her. And he kissed her again and again. She tried to slide her fingers into his hair to hold him closer, but he stopped her.

  “Nay, la … Ailis. Not there,” he said, leaning away.

  “Does it pain ye?” she asked. She felt him shake his head. “Then allow me my way in this, Iain. If I canna see ye, I would ken yer body and face through my hands.”

  This night would never happen again. He would never happen again. As much as she’d fought the inevitable, Ailis understood what her path must be and it would not include Iain. Hers would be a life of duty and vows. So she would take and savor every moment, every caress and sigh that this night, and this man, offered and remember it across the years.

  Without waiting, she reached up and touched his face. Beginning at his jaw, she slid her hands up, feeling every inch of him. Once again, the left side was damaged more than the right. Using the tip of her fingers, she outlined the angles of his cheeks and caressed his forehead. His mouth had been affected the least which is why his kisses never revealed much to her, other than stealing her wits and making her want more.

  His face, on one side, bore the brunt of the injury. Sliding her hands to his shoulders she drew him down to kiss her. He relaxed into her, his body easing down and pressing her into the surface of the bedding. His hair fell forward, tickling her face. When she moved her hands into it, Ailis felt the rest of his head and the damage wrought there. She couldn’t help it. She shifted from under him until they lay side by side.

  “Yer skin feels like mine … worse though.” Ailis paused before asking the question she truly wanted to a
sk. “Was it a fire?” she asked, smoothing his hair away from his face and wishing she could see him.

  “I dinna remember, but, aye, the brothers said ‘twas that.” His quiet admission gave them another thing in common.

  “Ye remember it not? None of it?”

  “Only the aftermath,” he said, reaching across the tiny space between them to rest his hand on her hip. “Most of the first months are lost to me.”

  “Yer back is the worst then?”

  The topic had not quenched the desire in each of them, for his flesh remained hard. He eased her leg up over his waist and opened her to his touch. Almost a challenge to her, continue talking or … pleasure? When he slid her leg along his, she knew the answer. His leg was just as bad. Then he caught her knee and brought it back to his waist. With his large hand around her thigh, he slid his fingers closer to the place between her legs and swirled them on her skin.

  She could not breathe. Or speak. Or do anything but feel the wonderful sensations that raced into the very center of her. When she shifted her hips to bring his hand to that heated flesh, he chuckled in that throaty, hoarse voice.

  “Ah, so now ye are ready?” he asked. “No more questions?”

  “None that I can think on,” she admitted.

  He pressed her shoulder and rolled their bodies. Ailis found herself on her back once more. But he remained at her side and she understood why. He could touch her now.

  He did touch her.

  Everywhere. Her breasts. Her neck. Her legs. The sensitive place behind her knees. The curls that both hid and led to the part of her that ached and throbbed for him.

  Her body was a mess of need and want. He teased her until she panted and was ready to beg him to finish this torment. His hand pushed between her legs and welcomed his touch. She moaned when he reached the throbbing flesh and rubbed it. Faster, harder and deeper, his fingers worked some enchantment on her until she fell apart. Something she had not felt in so long coiled within her, tighter and tighter, until it broke free and she cried out in the pleasure of it.

  Iain didn’t wait for the wave of release to ebb before he entered her. He shifted onto his knees, moved between her legs and placed himself at the sensitive entry to her woman’s core.

  One thrust and she was his.

  She clutched at his shoulders as he eased her knees up to his hips. He canted his and then plunged deeper. Her body took every inch of his flesh and swelled around his cock. He leaned his head down into the pool of her hair next to her neck and kissed and suckled her there as he moved deeper with every thrust.

  She gasped every time and began to move in rhythm with him. His body’s need to take hers overwhelmed whatever control he thought he had and he became relentless. Something lay just outside his grasp. Some truth, some realization, teased him even as he plundered the tightness of her channel. Her sighs, the way she moved and the way her hands clutched at his arse spurred him on until he could feel his own release growing closer.

  “Iain!” she cried out as she climaxed a second time.

  Tiny spasms surrounded his male flesh as she arched against him. His cock hardened, lengthened and thickened within her and his sac clenched until his seed pushed forth. He barely withdrew in time and even that was a near thing. He wanted to fill her with his seed even as he pushed beneath her and allowed its release under her buttocks.

  He lay on her, sweat making their skin slick. The heather and honey scent of her hair surrounded him and he didn’t want to let her go.

  Not now. Not ever.

  He must have fallen asleep, satiated and replete. One minute he was in the pitch dark of a bedchamber and the next, he lay on a plaid spread out in a sundrenched field.

  “For you, my love,” he said, holding out a bunch of just-picked wildflowers.

  Sitting up, he looked down on her naked body, covered only by the length of her hair. He began to place the blossoms on her, several across her breasts, another few over the lush blonde curls at the junction of her thighs. Then he knelt over her and decorated her hair with the rest.

  She laughed and pushed him back, climbing on him, spreading her legs over his hips and seating herself on his erect flesh. As she took him deep within her body, he arched his hips and thrust deeper. When she leaned forward, her hair fell in waves over him, the scent of the flowers mixing with those of honey and heather around him.

  “All the days of our lives,” she whispered as he poured his seed into her. “All the days of our lives.”

  Iain jolted awake, knowing he’d been dreaming. The feel of Ailis’ soft body next to his soothed him. But the dreams felt even more real now that they had joined in passion. The feel of his flesh in hers, the scent of her hair and the taste of her skin felt more like memories than phantom visions of a disturbed mind.

  No matter these visions or dreams. No matter how much he wanted to keep the woman who had given him a respite from the storm surrounding him and given him of herself. None of that mattered for, on the morrow, he would leave and she would live the life she was destined to live.

  She mumbled, clearly words of love, though he couldn’t make out the individual words. Though he would like to have seen her face when she’d reached satisfaction, he couldn’t chance it. This was the way it had to be. He’d arrived a stranger and had been given a special gift by this lady.

  She nestled closer to him, turning on her side and drawing him behind her. It took little time for his body, long-deprived of this kind of intimacy, to respond to her soft curves and enticing shape. When she eased her bottom back against his now-erect prick and whispered his name, he couldn’t resist the warm invitation.

  This time, their joining was slow and gentle, more sighs than moans, more caresses than thrusts. But the release they both found shattered him. And the soft words about her lost love and his lost life that they exchanged in the darkest hours of the night both surprised and soothed him.

  The bitter, angry young woman he’d discovered just days ago seemed more at peace now. ‘Twas as if she had taken a step out of her personal darkness and was ready to move into living once more, even as he would move on and try to discover his past.

  His resolve to leave before the dawn weakened until the last moment when the sun began to rise. Iain eased away from Ailis and found his garments on the chair where he’d placed them. It took little time to covered himself and place the mask into position over his face.

  Dawn’s light was pushing its way through the opening between the shutters when he carefully covered Ailis and walked to the door. After slowly lifting the bar and opening the door a scant inch or two, he turned back to take one last look at her. One to last him the rest of his days.

  The light from the torch on the wall illuminated her for a moment before he pulled the door closed. Tugging his hood closer to his face, Iain turned down the corridor and led the guard away from the bedchamber where the chieftain’s daughter yet slumbered.

  He broke his fast in silence in the hall with the others who began their tasks and duties at sunrise. Once finished, he was surprised when he was given a sack of food and a skin of ale for his journey by one of the servants. The laird’s orders, the girl said. She told him to seek out the stable master before leaving Dun Ara, again at The MacKinnon’s order.

  Another surprise awaited him there, for the chieftain gave him a horse to use on the rest of his journey. Iain laughed as he realized the reason behind these gestures. Finnan MacKinnon was rewarding him for his cooperation and his use in bringing the laird’s daughter to heel. Though he would like to stand on some principles and refuse, he knew only the wealthy or the foolish would reject such gifts.

  By the time the sun broke through the morning’s fog and rose above the mountains to the south and east, Iain was on his way out of the gates of Dun Ara. He would never know what caught his eye, but as he approached the end of the cluster of cottages and buildings that made up the village, he saw a woman making her way along the road.<
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  Dressed as every other goodwife here and carrying the usual basket in hand, Iain couldn’t figure out why he watched her. At least not until a long, blonde curl fell out from her kerchief over her shoulder. She handed off the basket and accepted the help of the blacksmith to climb upon a horse hidden behind his smithy. Iain wondered why Ailis MacKinnon was hiding her identity.

  And why she was sneaking out of Dun Ara?

  Chapter Ten

  Though she had not been to the cottage in many months, she could find the way with her eyes closed. Even the horse beneath her seemed to remember it, for it had carried her many times. The blacksmith let her borrow his horse when she had the need of it and never asked why. Other than Lachlan, his friend and Davina, no one knew where they met.

  This morn, as she crossed the miles south towards the coast, she ached. Her body ached in places she’d forgotten could feel such a thing. Her head throbbed from so little sleep these last days. And her heart hurt for what she must do now.

  This stranger, this man called Iain, had been some kind of catalyst for her since his arrival. She’d been mired in pain and grief. Her whole life had spun down around that. Ailis knew she shouldn’t treat her father and friend as she had, but it seemed out of her control. For all his real or imagined similarities to Lachlan, something about Iain had given her true comfort, providing a chance to break with the grief and the past. She could move forward, to be the woman she was meant to be. The woman Lachlan would have expected of her, a woman of honor, a woman who didn’t waste love when it came to her.

  And now she was ready for the next step.

  After more than an hour of riding, she turned down a path. It led to the place that held both happiness and complete sorrow for her. The cottage hadn’t been much, just a place where drovers would shelter as they took their herd to the south for the winter. Over the years, it had been built up from a simple shelter to more of a cabin with a real roof and walls and a door. Ailis tugged the reins and slid off the horse’s back.