Chapter Three #2
She stood, her gloved fingers tracing the muscles of his chest, making them contract. “That type of heat might burn us both to ash,” she whispered. The contact of the soft material was cool on his heated skin.
“Then I will die in molten bliss.” His hands came up to cup her cheeks, and he lowered his head again to kiss her. His arm snaked around to her back, pressing her to him. Cyrus groaned against her lips as she rubbed her mound over his erection, and he cupped her arse to help her find a rhythm.
Her breaths were coming fast and shallow now to match his own.
Setting her between him and the bed, he rucked up her smock until he found the soft skin of her inner thighs.
Was she truly a virgin? If she was, he’d go slower.
His fingers teased the nub hidden between her curls, and she gasped, letting herself lie back on the bed.
Her arms moved over her head, lifting her breasts under her smock.
He could see the hard peaks of her nipples through the thin material.
She pressed into his hand as he rubbed against her, back and forth and around until she moaned and he slid his fingers inside.
Molten honey. And tight, but he felt no barrier. He had wondered if she’d spoken the truth below.
“Yesssss,” she hissed, and he stroked her.
“Are ye desperate yet?” he asked.
“Yes,” she exhaled and, propping herself on her elbows, she shrugged her shoulders so that her smock eased down her upper arms.
Her breasts crested the lace edging, rising out of the top.
They were the perfect handful, the nipples rose-hued and hard like pearls.
Bending his knees, he licked one, and he felt her channel tense around his fingers.
He sucked the whole nipple into his mouth, and his siren moaned and squirmed against his hand, her lips parted and her eyes half closed.
For long moments, he built the pleasure in her like a man kindling a wildfire.
“I would make ye sing, my sweet siren,” he said. Just viewing her stockinged legs hanging over the edge of the bed, parted around him, nearly drove him mad with want. They were long and slender, the sleek muscles evident through the silk.
Bending down, he kissed a trail up her inner thigh and heard her gasp softly as he tasted her, using all his skill against her opening body.
Even though she wasn’t a virgin, he thought she was a virgin to pleasure, something he had perfected and enjoyed giving.
The sounds of her rapid, shallow breathing mixed with her moans spiked through him, making him so incredibly hard.
If he hadn’t so much control, he’d have released right there on the side of the bed.
She began to thrash, and he held her there while he feasted, his fingers pressing into the tender flesh of her hips and upper thighs.
“Oh my God,” she cried out.
Cyrus rose, unable to think of anything but impaling her. The whole English army could come crashing through his door and he wouldn’t have stopped; his need was too strong. Lifting her higher on the bed, he positioned himself over her.
Her eyes opened, and he paused at her opening. “Permission granted?” The words came from behind his gritted teeth, the anticipation almost painful.
“Yes,” she said, her voice a soft hiss of want.
Holding himself before her, he plunged into her soaked heat as she met his thrust. His lips found hers in a wild kiss as their bodies came together, and Cyrus continued a powerful rhythm that she followed.
Wet heat and ripples of intense pleasure consumed him—she consumed him.
Her soft body and scent, her taste and small mews of pleasure, the strength in her limbs as she clung to him, all of it wrapped around him.
Her legs crossed over his back to pull him inside her to her very core.
Everything about this woman called to him as he drove into her, both of them wild, straining and panting, their breath mingling.
“Yes, oh yes,” she called out, and the clenching of her channel around him pulled Cyrus over the edge, too. They clung together as if falling into a canyon from which he never wanted to climb out.
He continued the thrusting rhythm, slowing with her body, wringing out every last drop of pleasure until they halted.
Cyrus rolled them to the side, their damp, heated bodies still linked, and her legs released to slip down off his arse.
Her cheek rested on his chest. Only the sounds of the fire in the hearth mixed with their breaths. Could she hear the thud of his heart?
“That was marvelous,” he said and stroked the tangled curls splayed out in wild disarray around her head. “Perhaps ye are a sea goddess, a true siren ready to steal my soul.” He kissed her gently. “I fear ye’ve already taken it.”
He expected a chuckle or teasing about his poetry.
Instead, she just clung to him. Cyrus pulled back, parting their bodies to look into her face.
There was a shine in her eyes that he feared meant tears.
He frowned, his chest tightening. “What’s wrong?
” His heart picked up speed. They hadn’t even considered the consequences of this wild union.
Did she worry about him getting her with child?
“Did I hurt ye?” You incompetent lad.
“No,” she said. “I am unhurt. I am…wonderful, in fact.”
Relief flooded him, and he inhaled fully. “Good.” He reached down beside the bed, stretching to reach the bottle he’d set there earlier. He handed it to her.
She held it to her lips and tipped it before handing it back to him. He took several long sips.
She studied his face, and a smile bloomed on her mouth. “I want you to have an extraordinary night with me.” She brushed her hand down his chest and abdomen to his cock, which was already stirring awake.
As she stroked him slowly, Cyrus pulled her face to his and kissed her with leisure. “We have all the time in the world, lass.”
Ignoring him, she began to kiss a wandering line over his chest to follow the path her hand had just made. Was she planning to take him in her mouth, those luscious, full lips closing around him? Now his cock was fully awake.
Where had this lass come from? Why was she here with him, ready to play all night? He should ask her why she’d disrupted the wedding. He should know her bloody name. But as her hot breath glided over his length, all his questions dissolved into bliss.
…
Laria stepped out from behind the privacy screen, wearing the trews and tunic she’d hidden earlier in the room. She held the satin gloves she’d peeled off and flexed her red, rough fingers—her ugly talons.
Cyrus was deeply asleep on the large bed, the sheets and blankets strewn and twisted.
Her body ached to return to the warmth and comfort of his arms, but she was on a mission.
She breathed past the prickly press of guilt.
There was no time for it. She must act now while the sleeping draught she’d put into the wine was working to dull the warrior’s sharp senses.
Her muscles felt overtaxed from the most amazing coupling she’d ever experienced.
Not that she had much experience, having only slept with her husband, who’d been as young and ignorant as she.
But the way Cyrus Mackinnon had teased out her pleasure, giving her so much before taking time to satisfy himself, had been telling.
He wasn’t a man who took advantage of a woman, seeking only his own pleasure.
Not at all. Even when she’d returned the favor by taking him in her mouth, his promises of what he’d do to her in exchange had been so heated that she felt the swift return of achy desire.
Move. She ordered her limbs to find her articles of clothing, scattered in the dim light from the fire.
Hurrying to the bookcase built into the wall, she slid out the copy of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which revealed the iron release bar.
She pulled it, and the secret door opened.
She glanced back at Cyrus, sleeping on the bed.
His trim stomach rose and fell in even breaths.
Slipping her hand into the dark gap, Laria pulled out a leather satchel and returned to the sleeping warrior on the bed.
She took another leisurely look down his glorious body, the muscles honed from swordplay, and his sculpted cheekbones.
Even in sleep, his jack was proud and heavy as it lay against his loins.
A sprinkling of dark hair lay over the contoured landscape of his chest. And those hands…
strong and talented. She reached gently for one, letting her scarred fingers press between his own warm ones.
She stilled as his fingers curled inward, clasping her naked hand in his sleep. The warmth and feel brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away. No one held her horrid hands.
After another full breath, Laria drew her fingers away.
He murmured something, but the herbs in the wine were holding him under.
Setting the satchel down, Laria pulled out coiled lengths of rope and a sharpened mattucashlass.
She turned back to Cyrus, and her heart thumped hard, like the heavy waves of a storm hitting the beach.
Holding the blade, she swallowed, feeling as though she were drowning.
Am I really doing this foul deed? I will surely go to Hell.
She closed her eyes and let the faces of her people swim in her thoughts.
Kate, Erskine, little Leah, sweet Oscar, brave Bonnie, and the others.
And her loving but confused grandmama, Sophie.
They would die this winter without provisions and shelter.
They would die if she didn’t sacrifice this man.
Laria opened her eyes, resolved, and hurried to tie a rope around each of Cyrus’s limbs, slowly spreading him out on the bed.
His brow pinched together, and he murmured.
She froze, but he didn’t wake. She almost wished he had, wished he’d leaped up demanding she leave, unable to finish her mission.
But Grandmama’s sleeping potion was too strong for that.
Laria moved around the bed, her bed that she’d slept in since moving to Tuath Tower as an innocent girl.
She vowed never to sleep in it again after this.
She pulled the ropes tighter and tied the ends to each post. She could have just killed him, but Iain wanted it to look ritualistic, like a sacrifice.
Perhaps he was planning to blame the killing on the witch that was said to live near Dunvegan.
Morag was Sara MacLeod’s aunt and could have followed her here to do this evil deed.
Stopping before the sleeping man, she whispered his name.
He didn’t move. She should slash across his neck like she would a deer that had been shot, ending its suffering quickly.
But this was a man, not a brute or raider without morals, nor an English soldier who had committed crimes against her or her people.
No, the fiend was her cousin, Iain Macqueen.
As usual, he’d ordered his henchman, Jasper Witt, to deliver his orders and bribes and threats.
Iain hid evidence of his scheming, murderous nature.
Iain orders ye to kill the Mackinnon son.
In return, yer people will have all the food, clothing, and shelter they need through this winter and next, perhaps every winter if ye do it well.
They can live unharried on Macqueen territory, all because ye found the courage to do something more than steal chickens and send yer foking otter in to upend his wedding.
When she’d emerged from her underwater cave to receive her orders, Jasper had leaned forward so that she felt his hot breath on her ear.
Do this, or not only will I skin that little beast, but he’s promised me that I can punish ye any way I wish.
The man had left tremors along her skin, like violent breaks on a calm sea when fish pop up to escape a shark.
Laria held the blade to Cyrus’s throat. His swallow pushed against it, and the honed edge cut easily into the skin. She gasped as blood swelled from it and snatched the blade back.
Cyrus’s eyes blinked open. “Siren?” He slid his lips together as if they were numb and tried to pull his arm down, but it wouldn’t come.
He glanced up, pulling harder, making his already impressive bicep bulge and the bed shudder.
The pigment outlines of a wave and ship curved over the taut skin of his upper arm.
Holy Mary’s tears, the man was perfectly made.
“I’m…tied.” He looked back at her and shook his head against the pillow, as if trying to rid himself of the sleeping draught. “Why am I tied?” He jerked his knees up, trying to free his feet from the binding, but the knots held.
Laria stared, her lips parted as she took in shallow breaths. “I am so very sorry,” she said, holding the blade with two hands. They shook, her whole body trembling, and she blinked back tears that were swelling like an incoming tide caught in the rocks.
Think of Grandmama and the others. They have nowhere to go.
But could she really do this? Kill an innocent man?
Damn her soul to save her people? Would she ever be able to sleep soundly again?
Murderers slept. I’m no murderer. No, she’d never sleep again.
Cyrus Mackinnon’s face would haunt her forever.
“Siren, put the knife down,” Cyrus said, his voice smooth. “Ye don’t want to have blood on yer hands.” With that, he looked closer at her horrid hands, the skin twisted from burns. It didn’t matter if he saw them now. Not when he was going to die.
With a sob, she lifted the blade to his neck, the warm neck that she’d nibbled and kissed. “I have no choice.” Tears streamed down her face. “I’m so sorry, Cyrus.”