Chapter 16 #2
Shawna sighed. The constable was a good man, good at arresting drunks, good at bringing stray children home, good at correcting youths who might mistakenly think the life of a robber superior to that of an honest laborer.
He was not, however, capable of dealing with the machinations of a truly evil mind, so it seemed.
“Surely,” she murmured, twisting around to meet his eyes once again, “we will find some clue in the crypts tomorrow. David, shots were fired. Shell casings will be found.”
“And it will prove that someone was down there shooting a gun in the crypts, nothing more. Hawk and I will find the shell casings tomorrow.”
“But they do prove that something is going on.”
“The fact that Sabrina is missing proves something is going on. The fact that I am here proves that something is going on.” He hesitated a moment, moving his fingers in her hair. “The problem,” he said softly, “is that it seems as if many people are involved in these evil deeds.”
She stiffened. “MacGinnises?”
He shrugged. “Most obviously, not all. You did not know the man tonight. But there is organization here. Remember the man who tried to kill you by the loch?”
“The one who is now deep at the bottom of it?”
“Aye.”
“Well?”
“He was clad exactly the same as the men—or women—who came down to the crypt tonight.”
“In a black cowled cape.”
“Aye. They were all exactly alike.”
“If you’re going to run around trying to be invisible in the darkness, a black cowled cape is probably a good choice of apparel.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“They were exactly alike.”
“So, these people all use the same tailor,” Shawna said with exasperation.
“The two I killed were men. But I think the cloaked figure accompanying the man I killed tonight was a woman.”
“Why?” Shawna demanded.
“The figure was quick and light on its feet. And much more determined to run than to fight.”
Shawna shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything. I was—was trying to stay alive.”
“Umm,” he murmured, his fingers tightening upon her shoulders where they rested. “Tomorrow—or today as it may be—you’re not to leave my brother, do you understand?”
“But if you intend to appear as yourself—”
“I do, but in my own good time.”
“What difference is there in a day?”
“I want to find out a few more things, if I’m able.”
Shawna sighed with exasperation. “But—”
“Do not leave my brother’s side. Do you understand?”
She pulled away angrily from his touch. “I understand that I have gone through my own hell for many years now! I understand that you have frightened me, bullied, condemned me, and mocked me, and still—”
“Ah! And saved your life upon occasion!” he reminded her, a sizzling spark in his deep green eyes.
“Only to torment me longer!” she accused him.
A smile curved into his lips. “’Tis pride,” he said softly.
“What?” she murmured suspiciously, drawing her blanket more tightly across her breasts.
“Pride, my lady.” He left his seat upon the trunk, hunkering down before her on the ledge, not touching her, yet meeting her eyes with a wickedly strange green fire in his own.
“I was the heir you see, the fine young Douglas, groomed to take his place in the political and social echelon of the Highlands! I was supposedly such a strong man, destined to be a leader. And one night a lass comes to me in a sheer gown…and I am made the fool. Very nearly killed—but sent to a strange—yet living—hell instead. It was not easy to forgive you.”
Shawna shook her head, searching out his eyes. “But I swear to you—”
“I believe you.”
“What?”
“I believe you,” he said very softly. “I believe that you were as arrogant as I—”
“Indeed!”
“Indeed!” he said and smiled deeply. “Arrogant, in that you thought you could flirt, kiss, and tease—and keep the laird’s young heir busy while your family saved your cousin’s arse.”
“Oh, really!”
“Aye!” And he laughed then, drawing her suddenly against him. “You did not intend what you got, any more than I might have imagined the result of the night’s work.”
“David—” she gasped in protest, yet the shiver that shot through her as he drew the blanket from her shoulders, letting it fall to the earth, was not from the cold.
He pressed her firmly back to the ground, the length of his body following hers, blanketing it.
His eyes remained locked with her own, amused, amazingly tender.
“M’laird…” she whispered, suddenly wondering why this should seem so different, why she should feel so vulnerable.
She had risen naked from the loch with him and been so accustomed to him that she had hardly noted her state.
Yet his tone now seemed so tender that it brought a strange fear racing into her.
She wanted that tenderness from him. Yet circumstances between them remained so very tense, and she was afraid to reach for what might be far too quickly snatched away again.
“Aye, m’lady, ’tis hard to forgive a woman for making a fool of a man. Especially when he craved her far too deeply when he fell!”
“David—”
His mouth covered hers, slow, gentle, at first, then forcing her into a deep, wet, open-mouthed kiss that seemed to go on forever, his tongue plunging deeply, ravaging subtly, then moving with sensual, gentle abandon again.
Her hands had laid against his chest. Now they moved, stroking the deep, rich, crisp dark hair that grew upon it, easing away the swatch of Douglas tartan crossed over his flesh.
He shifted against her, touching in turn, the stroke of his palm and fingers cradling her cheek, his thumb running from her throat to the valley between her breasts.
His thumb and forefinger found her nipple, rolled and rubbed it, sending fiery bursts of flame and heat through her breast to her whole body.
She moaned against his kiss, instinctively arching toward him, her own fingers falling lower upon his chest to tangle into the rest of the Douglas tartan that covered him.
Impatiently, he tossed away the woolen fabric himself, drawing her hand down to encompass the fullness of his arousal.
She was cold no longer. The fire he had built in the cavern seemed to warm the length and breadth of it. Golden light bathed them in a sweetly burning heat. His very breath was a touch of fire, singeing her flesh.
Her lips brushed over his chest. His fingers dug into her hair, for she teased with her kiss and her tongue while her fingers stroked and manipulated.
Life and fire seemed to burn within against her touch.
The strength of his ardor created a new trembling within her, a growing hunger that coiled and burned into the center of her being.
“Aye, lady…I can bear no more!” he groaned, his whisper deep and guttural as he captured her wrists, drawing her hands above her head as he straddled her body. “’Tis safe, I think, to say that you do, indeed, seduce…”
“Laird Douglas!” she whispered in protest. “In truth, you know that you are the one to prey upon the weakness in a lady who…”
“Aye?” His fingers curled into hers, holding them fiercely. His eyes impaled her there, as did the tension in his features.
She shook her head. His lips found hers again, slow, deep, passionate.
“I have wanted you forever, you know,” he whispered softly against her mouth.
She shook her head.
“Nay…I had not known…”
His hand ran up and down her body, cupping, teasing, caressing her breasts. Stroking her hip, covering the black triangle of her pelvic hair. Then stroked her thighs and slid between them.
“Forever…”
“Aye?” she gasped, struggling then against his hold, anxious to bury herself against him, desperate to end the torment that burned into her now, desperate as well for it to go on and on…
His lips were close to hers again. His touch…was wickedly intimate. Her breath came in gasps, she burned, she writhed.
“Aye, lady, you were young, you were impetuous, you were so very arrogant! But I was waiting, you know, because I supposed that I had loved you forever.”
“In…deed?” she gasped.
“Loved you, wanted you. And one way or the other, Shawna, would have had you…”
His whisper carried on the flames within the cavern, soft, echoing, sweeping around her.
Then play ceased, and he was over her and within her.
She didn’t feel the hardness of the earth beneath her, for the blanket that sheltered her back was as warm as the flesh that encompassed her, and she had again been seduced to such a point that she was desperate for fruition.
The earth seemed to rock with the grinding rhythm of his hips, the fever inside of her spiraled until she was aware of nothing but her need for him, and the golden fire that seemed to spill throughout the cavern and into her.
He stroked and withdrew, stroked and withdrew, found her lips, her throat, her breasts.
..She arched and thrashed and climbed until the wild rhythm exploded into a pinnacle of fiery light, bursting sweetly upon her so that she clung to him as she drifted back down to the reality of hard stone beneath her back and the chill of the cavern with only a single fire burning against the cold of the night.
But she fought not to shiver, for he lay at her side, holding her, trying to keep her from the cold, silent then as his eyes kept focus upon the rock above them. She stroked the contours of his face.
“’Tis a pity I am the one left without a coat of fur,” she said softly. “For ’tis said that I would control you, if you’re a demon, beast, or selkie, that is, if I could but steal that Douglas tartan perhaps, hide it away, and have you in my power.”
A slow smile curved into his lips, and he turned his gaze to her. “You don’t think that you’ve enough in your power, my lady?”
She shook her head. “I hold only what you give, Laird Douglas, and you are capable of being quite stingy!”