Chapter 23
I am not quite sure whether
I am dreaming or remembering,
whether I have lived my life
or dreamed it.
—Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994)
Romanian-born French playwright
Alysandir plowed into Isobella, who was about to climb into bed, and the two of them went sprawling on the floor. He heard her gasp, then hiss, “Are you insane? Get off of me, you big oaf! And then get out of here.”
He had her pinned beneath him. The warm feel of her softness caused him to forget the flaming reprimand he planned to give her. Suddenly, chastening her did not seem as important as it had a few minutes earlier. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. He could see that she had nothing beneath that gown but lush, firm breasts, long legs, and the shadow of what lay in between.
She must have felt his desire, for she sucked in a horrified breath and shoved at him. “Get off before someone comes in and catches us like this.”
“I find I am quite comfortable just as I am. ’Tis the first time I have been on top of anything since I met ye. Ye have led me on a merry hunt, mistress, but the chase ends here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What merry hunt? Are you feeling well? If you are, then you’ve got your facts all wrong. You’ve been gone most of the time since I arrived. How could I lead you on a merry anything?”
He stroked and nuzzled her with his nose, nibbling and kissing her throat and neck, then her eyes. “Ye have done nothing but give me torment and trouble since I met ye. Ye willna listen to anything I say. Ye disobey my orders. Ye provoke me at every turn. Ye tell me preposterous stories.”
“That is easy enough to remedy. Let me go to the Macleans. I want to see my sister. Let me go, and rid yourself of me and my troublesome ways.”
Wait a minute. This was not going according to his plan. Leaving was precisely what he did not want her to do. He looked at her beautiful face with the flashing green eyes that said she cared for him, even if she was furious with him. Alysandir was angry. By staying angry, he could hold his yearning at bay.
Although he did not want to admit it even to himself, he realized that ever since he first met her, he was afraid, deep within his very soul. He feared he might fall in love with her, and loving a woman like her would strip a man bare, until he was naked and vulnerable. Already, he feared that after making love to her, he would not want to leave her as he did with other women. He feared he would want to hold her close. That he would wrap his arms and legs around her and surrender to the perfect peace of her closeness.
He couldn’t marry her and he couldn’t let her go, but he didn’t know how that equation equaled out. He wanted her, had wanted her for too long. He wasn’t going to wait any longer. He started kissing her neck and stroking just beneath her ear, which was soft as a moth’s wing, with the tips of his fingers. Then he was kissing the side of her face, her eyes, and the slender length of her nose. His lips brushed across her lips, skimming lightly over them, once… twice… thrice… until he groaned. He took her firmly in his arms and pressed himself against her, bringing his mouth down upon hers.
His hold on her was firm but gentle, his kiss long and drawn out. By the time it ended, he knew just what she liked, and how and where she liked to be kissed. He knew how to kiss a woman into submission, and he took his time, allowing her to warm up to the idea, to follow his lead, to become so full of desire that she forgot that only moments ago she had wanted to leave.
He sensed intuitively the moment the long and drawn-out heat of passion took over, burning away her anger. He felt her body relax as she melted, gasping a soft little cry when his hand slipped lower and touched her. She opened to his hand like a lilac in the sun. She was sweet… And lovely… And warm… And all his.
God, she was beautiful to touch, responsive to even the lightest caress. His hands cupped her face, and his fingers threaded through the long filaments of her hair. He found a sensitive spot at the nape of her neck and felt the first trembling of a shudder ripple across her shoulders. He lowered his head to the cove of her shoulder.
She moaned. Her head fell back to expose the full lustrous length of her warm throat. His lips moved lower, and he knew she felt the instant betrayal of her body rushing to meet him. She was intoxicated, mindless with wanting.
“Ye seduce me with your little moans,” he whispered, his voice husky as his mouth glided over her skin. He knew she was floating away from herself, that she was out of touch with all reason. For this moment, nothing was important but the feel of his arms, the taste of his mouth, the rough texture of his face, the fragrance of his skin. She whimpered softly and tried to pull away, but he held her against him.
“Tell me what you want. Am I frightening you? Don’t be shy… not with me… never with me.”
He released her with a gentle nuzzling as his tongue followed the outline of her ear. Her arms went around him, and she spread her fingers flat against his back as her other hand slid behind his neck and into his hair, pulling him closer.
He was undone. “I want to make love to ye.”
“Why?”
“Why?” He had never had a woman ask that. “Because I desire ye and canna think of anything else.” As soon as he said the words, he saw the disappointment on her face. She wanted something more from him. Something he could not, would not, give.
“You are taking unfair advantage,” she whispered.
“The rules of conduct do not apply in love or war.”
He felt her bubbling laugh just before she said, “So, which one are we doing now? We switch so often that I have trouble keeping up.”
***
He kissed his way across her face. “War is the furthermost thing from my mind at the moment.” He kissed her tenderly and long with a shattering intensity that left her feeling liquid and warm inside. He wanted to make love to her. She wanted him to make love to her, and she feared she was well on her way to being head over heels in love with him…
But, was he falling in love with her? No. That reality hit her flat out, and she felt devastated. How could she have been so na?ve? He had said nothing, done nothing, to make her think he was even close to loving her. Where did that leave her? He would bed her for a while and move on to someone else. What if she got pregnant? She had already seen firsthand how he treated his bastards.
She couldn’t think because he was kissing her throat, his lips traveling across the untouched softness of hidden places. Her body seemed to melt into his, and she wanted him to be her Mr. Darcy. She was in love with him but couldn’t bear to be a temporary lusting. God, she yearned for him, torn between what she wanted and what he offered her.
A static charge hung over the room. She knew he was frustrated, but she didn’t dare tell him that she was one of the weird ones who wanted to hold out for love and marriage. She looked at the bewildered face and almost gave in. Just once, she was thinking. What would it hurt to make love to him just once? Because you wouldn’t stop at just once, and you know it.
His arms went around her. “I know what ye want, lass. Ye want it all done proper with marriage and children. I canna promise ye any of those things. Dinna fear me or worrit aboot my casting ye aside. I willna hurt ye, Isobella. Not ever. I dinna want ye to fear me any more than I want ye to distrust me.
“I canna say I love ye. I dinna think I understand what love is. I dinna care aboot going there again. Some people are na destined to fall in love and live happily together until they die. Some people destroy each other. That doesna mean we canna be happy together or even grow old together. I desire ye. I care aboot ye. I dinna want ye to fear me.”
“I don’t fear you, Alysandir. I am not made of stone. Maybe it would have been better for both of us if you hadn’t rescued me. Or kissed me. I want to make love to you… so much that I ache. Stop looking at me like that.”
Her mind was racing. She had ruined Elisabeth’s life, dragging her back through the centuries to Scotland. She missed her family. Her heart ached for Alysandir and his wounded heart. Why does it hurt so much? She couldn’t bear to look at him.
“I know I’m making a complete fool of myself. I’m surprised you haven’t bolted from the room before now.” She was afraid she might cry so she turned away, but he caught her by the arm and whirled her around. She accidentally stepped on the front of her gown and heard a loud rip about the same time she felt the fabric slide down over her breasts.
He made a noise that sounded like a growl, followed by the calling of some ancient saint’s name. She started to speak, but her mind went blank. It was too late for words. What they thought, what they felt, whatever their differences didn’t stand a chance now. Their attraction was primal. Just one man and one half-naked woman. The rest was left to nature.
He said softly, “Aye, ye can make love wi’ me, lass. And I will prove it to ye.” And with that, he swept her up into his arms and carried her to her bed, pressing her back into the clean sheets that had been so carefully turned down earlier.
He covered her with his weight, his hips grinding against her with an agonizing heat that would have scorched the clothing between them if he wasn’t busy peeling it away. Soon their warm, naked flesh was pressed intimately together. Each time she opened her mouth to resist, he covered it with a mind-erasing kiss. She wanted him so much that the joy of it caused tears to seep from her eyes.
“I will have to say that this is the first time I have made love to a teary woman, but if ye are thinking it will cause me to change my mind, it willna. I intend to bed ye this night and bed ye well.”
She would have to say that he was a man of his word, for his hands knew precisely where to touch to make her moan with painful intensity while the rhythm of his hips filled her with a maddening throb, a throb that beat against her with the acute awareness of something beautiful happening between them.
For a fleeting moment, she imagined she was dreaming again and in the arms of her dream-lover and she held onto him tightly, afraid if she released him he would disappear forever. She felt the warmth of his palms cover her breasts, forming them like potter’s clay to the contours of his hands. She felt like she was floating, buoyant and weightless.
She gazed at him as if she had never seen him before, every square inch of her body acutely aware of him with such fierceness that it frightened her. Her insides felt like an overwound clock that had suddenly gone haywire with springs popping and flying everywhere, and she feared that she would never put herself back together again.
While his hand wreaked havoc at her breast, his lips began their own assault on her face, throat, and neck. She was breathing so rapidly that she barely managed to say four little words.
“You don’t play fair,” she whispered, then bit him on the shoulder.
He was kissing her face but paused long enough to say, “When ye are involved, I always play to win.” This time when he kissed her, it was hard, forceful, and passionate. She whimpered from somewhere deep inside and could not stop her hands, which slid upward to lock around his neck, pulling him closer and closer still.
“I won’t let ye go, Isobella. Ye are safe with me.”
He was wrong. She wasn’t safe. She was in over her head now, and she knew it. She kissed him intensely and felt a corresponding stab of longing curling deep within her. He was the embodiment of her fantasies, her dreams, and the reality of her imaginings.
She had to know what it was like to make love to him. She had to experience what it was like to have him want her to the point of insanity, even when she knew the insanity would pass, just as the wind passes, and the leaves are still once more.
Tomorrow she would regret this, she was certain, but for now, nothing mattered but him and the delicious stroke of his hands, the warm, soothing phrases that he uttered, and the lazy movement of his tongue—everything working separately, yet coming together to leave her incoherent.
“Make love to me, Alysandir. I want to make love with you. I have wanted you since I first saw you that day in the glen, and I have wondered with it would be like to lie with you like this. I don’t want to wonder and imagine anymore. I want to know. I want to feel. I want to live. I want to feel you inside me, not because you want it, but because I do.”
He groaned and rolled onto his back, flinging his arm over his eyes. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” he said, his breath coming in short pants, his face contorted in discomfort. Her hand shyly eased into his, and he pressed her fingers against him, his hips anxious for their merging and rising up to meet her. “Mon Dieu!” he said.
The overwhelming desire to share this moment overrode any hesitance, and she moaned when his hand slipped over her breast. His thumb brought her to the point of readiness. His kiss grew more urgent now, his breathing harder and more ragged. Then his body slid over hers, and he spoke softly in Gaelic. He was turgid and so vulnerable that she ached inside.
Her hands wandered with slow, easy movement to learn the contours of his back and then explore the strength of his neck before she threaded her hands into the silky texture of his hair. She luxuriated in the weight of his body pressing her down. He pressed hard against her, and her legs parted. A mounting heat began to build, spiraling around her with such intensity until she whispered against his ear, “Please…”
He eased himself inside her, feeling the heat, the aching warmth, the velvety drag as he began to move, slowly at first, until they moved as one, his strokes swift and sure. This was more than coupling and far different that it had ever been with any woman. There was rightness to it, a peace that drew him further, faster, and harder into her.
She cried out his name, and he covered her mouth with his kiss until he felt the crashing waves of pleasure that shot through him, intense and drawing him deeper into her, until he could no longer control it and the warm, liquid heat burst forth.
Her arms were around his neck. She drew him closer, and he could feel tears upon her face as she whispered, “So beautiful. I never knew it could be so beautiful.”
He rolled to one side, taking her with him, and her head nestled in the cove of his neck. He kissed the top of her head, and his hand stroked the silky length of her body. He kissed her eyes and her lips and held her close, and the two of them fell asleep.
She never knew how long they slept before she awoke to the touch of his hand stroking her until she writhed beneath him. She wanted to tell him to stop, that she couldn’t stand the torment any longer, yet somehow he knew. He covered her mouth with his kiss, and the objections died in her throat. She began to move, tentatively and slowly, until her movements began to match the rhythmic pace set by his hand. Then he kissed his way downward.
His mouth was warm, and she gasped at the intensity. Her breathing was ragged. She grew impatient and restless, her arms flung away from her body to grip the edge of the blankets, her sweat-dampened head turning from side to side. It felt so good, and yet it was like dying with slow agony. She moved against him in uncontrollable passion as strange rhythms washed over her, each ripple unbearably shattering and the next one stronger and more intense.
When she felt herself at the point of near insanity, he filled her and she cried out and called his name. From the ashes of the woman she was came the birth of a new being. Instinctively she knew the world would somehow be different, that she would never be the same.
She felt the solid burning warmth of his loins against her, his sweat-slicked body arched in driving need. He wrapped his arms around her and she did the same, hoping that she could hold him close enough that when the first rays of morning came through the window and she opened her eyes, she would not find him gone.
***
She was still asleep the next morning when he awoke. He kissed her cheek and then dressed quietly. He started to leave, but something seemed to reach out and touch him, as if she was calling him back to her side. He returned to her bedside, quiet and content to simply look at her. He thought of her amazing story, the undeniable and inexplicable proof of her truthfulness. It had been good with her, better than with those who had come before. He counted himself fortunate to have experienced it, for he doubted it could ever be that way again.
But she had surprised him before.
A beam of sunlight slipped between the drawn tapestries to bathe her in a golden frame of light. He released a long-held breath, fought the urge to undress and make love to her again, and then turned and quietly quit the room.
Later, when Isobella awoke, she lay in bed for quite some time, reliving each moment of the evening before. She no longer wanted to dream about the perfect man, for she had met him. She paused and looked around. It was a perfect time for the Black Douglas to poke his meddlesome nose into her affairs and voice his opinion.
Nothing…
She stretched lazily and curled her toes. Never had she dreamed it could be as it had been between them the night before. If she had any regrets about the Black Douglas bringing her back in time, they had evaporated in the heat of her lovemaking with Alysandir. She had never known there were so many ways to make love: her on top, him on top, face up, face down, hands and mouth. She smiled and hugged herself. Last night, Alysandir Mackinnon had flipped her like a pancake, and she had enjoyed every moment of it.
She was in love with him, and that scared her. She had no idea how long she would be here. The Black Douglas gave her no hope of returning one moment and made it seem like it could happen at any time the next. How could she be in love knowing she could declare her love one moment and vanish the next?
What if she was pregnant with Alysandir’s child and suddenly found herself back in the twenty-first century? He would never know his own child. And what if she had a child? Could she be taken back and her child left behind? It was a sobering thought, for how could she plan for the future with Alysandir when there might not be one?
She didn’t get to think further on the subject, for Mistress MacMorran came into the room with a breakfast tray. “The Mackinnon said to bring ye yer breakfast. Ye are na feeling the fever again, are ye?”
Isobella smiled and pulled the sheet up. “No, I’m just being lazy this morning.”
Mistress MacMorran nodded, as if giving her approval. “’Tis part of being human, to take it easy now and then,” she said, as she put the tray down.
After she was gone, Isobella finished her breakfast, stretched luxuriously, and hopped out of bed. She opened the lid of her trunk and withdrew the first garment her hand came in contact with, unaware of what she selected, her mind preoccupied with dreamy remembrances of the previous night. She hugged the dress against her and closed her eyes and wondered if she had ever been this happy.
She dressed, did her hair, and was about to depart when a chill went up her spine and settled across her shoulders. The window tapestries billowed. She looked around the room.
“I know you are here,” she said. “You are playing games again and moving your Alysandir and Isobella chess pieces. I recognize your manipulations. Show yourself, and admit your tampering!”
She waited to see if a ghostly chuckle would float into her consciousness, and when none was forthcoming, she said, “I would be reluctant to comment on this mess you’ve made of things, too, if I were you.”
“Vex not a ghost,” a voice behind her said.
She let out a yelp and turned quickly. Today, she didn’t see merriment dancing in his eyes, but something more along the line of mischief.
“I have learned that you come only when it pleases you and not when I invite you.”
“I am here, am I not?”
“Yes, after the fact.”
“Aye, I heard yer grumbling aboot being a chess piece.”
“Yes, and a good analogy, I thought. Strange things are going on here, and I am certain it is mostly your doing. I’m beginning to feel like I’m standing on a chessboard where all the players are human and someone is moving us around, for our feet move of their own accord and we are helpless to stop them. Does that sound familiar so far?”
He shrugged. “The absent are always to blame.”
“But I do turn to you. And I trust your judgment and do as you suggest.”
When he raised his brows, she added, “Well, at least most of the time. And even when I have doubts, I always think of you as my éminence grise. Please don’t tell me that you are not.”
His image glowed just a little bit brighter, and she thought even a ghost has his pride. “Mayhap I concur,” he said, “for ’tis true that I am secretly powerful.”
She was thinking controlling. “And you exercise great power and influence over me.”
“Aye… secretly, of course.”
“Of course… So, use some of your exceptional powers and tell me why all of this is happening?”
“’Tis yer fate. ’Tis a misconception ye mortals have… thinking ye are the master of yer fate, when, in truth, man is completely helpless in manipulating or changing his future. Affairs dinna always prosper. Friends are no’ all true. And happiness is never assured. Ye must learn to live each day as it comes.”
“That makes it frightfully difficult to plan for the future,” she said. “What do you know of mine?”
“I could tell ye more aboot cabbages.”
“Thank you. That was a great deal of help.”
“The future? What is there to know? Everything happens. Nothing happens. The unexpected happens. And life goes on in between. Ye want me to give ye a fixed image of yer future, and ’twill no’ happen. Mayhap I canna predict yer future. Mayhap I can. Mayhap I try to prevent it, or is it that I can change it? Ye canna have everything ye want, and ye doona want everything ye get. And yet there is balance of life.”
“My, that really makes me feel a whole lot better. Pardon me while I get my sackcloth and ashes and take a pilgrimage.”
“Ye worrit about the future when the effort is wasted. ’Tis like playing chess with the deil. The future is a deceiver, and he never tires of being a cheat. Heads I win, tails ye lose.”
“But…”
His image began to fade as the evening twilight fades… gradually… and by the time it is noticed, the sky is black and filled with stars. Only in her case, her room was empty, and her heart filled with hope.