One #4
She’d stared at him through the trees without a sound, without a hint of fear.
He’d looked wild, yet she sounded no alarm.
Rachel Brindle may be English, she may be the daughter of a swindler, she might even be a witch, but she was no coward.
Cunning and courage delivered her from Druim.
Alec rinsed the soap from his body and shook the heavy rainwater from his hair.
He turned just as Rachel’s scream shot out of the cave and straight into his heart.
Four
Rachel dangled. The toes of her torn slippers dug into any foothold she could find. Her fingers wrapped around a large rock. She’d merely been trying to find a private spot to see to her needs when she’d walked over the edge of this crater.
She panted. “Help!”
“Rachel!” Alec’s pounding footfalls washed relief through her trembling body.
“Stop!” she huffed. “You’ll fall.”
His footsteps stopped not too far from her in the absolute darkness. “Where are ye?” His feet shuffled, loose pebbles rolling along the jagged floor.
“Over a ledge.”
“Bloody hell,” he cursed. “Can ye light yerself? I canna see.”
“I think so.” Her words were breathless and she tried to keep the panic from weakening her hold. Rachel funnelled magic towards the faint cut on her leg. A blue glow flooded out of her hands, displaying the horn-shaped rock sticking out of the cliff wall less than a foot down.
“Bloody damn hell! Hold on!”
“That was the plan,” she panted.
His head appeared over the side. “Just look at me.”
Rachel stared at his perfect face. High cheekbones, a slender nose with just a small bump like it had been broken once.
He probably knew the date, place and person who had broken it.
His jaw was square and strong. His perfectly formed lips pinched tight with thought.
Wet hair framed his face as he leaned over.
A clean soap scent mixed with the smell of the dank earth before her face.
Alec’s chin nearly touched the rock to which she clung.
His hands encircled her wrists and he began to pull.
But before she could even let go of the rock, the ties holding her long sleeves ripped.
A small scream flew out of her as she felt herself begin to slip out of her sleeves.
She dug her toes in and stilled, her nose smashed into the dirt covered rock.
A string of curses, most in Gaelic, echoed. “I need to pull these bloody sleeves off so I can grab yer arms. Who bloody wears long sleeves in the summer?” She didn’t answer. “Are yer feet on a rock?”
“My toes.”
“One hand at a time.” He tugged gently on her right sleeve and Rachel released her fingers.
The sleeve ripped out of the bodice, and Alec was able to slide his hand around her bare wrist. “Now the other.” Rachel felt the tug but couldn’t seem to let go.
It was as if fear had captured her muscles and they no longer obeyed her will. She shook.
“Rachel.”
Rachel blinked, her gaze moving back up to Alec’s face. “I have yer wrist now.” He squeezed her right wrist gently. “Ye’re not going to fall, but to get ye up easier, I need both of yer arms.”
Rachel blinked. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
A lopsided grin broke along Alec’s face. “Ye jumped into battle, yanked an arrow from my bloody chest, rode with a horde of hostile Macbains, and escaped Druim on yer own, lass. And now ye’re afraid to give me yer sleeve.”
Rachel’s pinched lips relaxed as she breathed. “I’m ready.” He nodded. As soon as she released her grasp, the sleeve whooshed from her arm and Alec’s other hand caught her wrist. He dragged her up. Rachel’s toes dug at the side of the cliff. “Ahh!”
“What?” He froze.
“My dress, it’s caught.” Rachel felt the snag. She tried to kick a foot at it and began to slip. She gasped and Alec pulled hard.
Rrrrrip!
Rachel’s feet churned up the vertical granite and dirt wall until her knees found the edge. She let her light go out as she scrambled up, climbing into Alec’s lap.
Rachel wrapped trembling arms around his warm, hard chest. She burrowed her face into his skin, and inhaled his fresh scent.
Alec gently moved her arms up over his shoulders.
Some part of her realized that she straddled his lap.
Her thin chemise seemed to be the only material between them and it rode up high around her thighs.
But at the moment she didn’t care, didn’t care about anything except that she wasn’t falling into an unmarked grave on a remote Highland mountain.
Alec’s arms remained strong and unmoving around her waist. He neither pulled her closer nor let her go. Rachel sat in the dark listening to their shallow breaths. She rested her cheek on his chest and filtered her senses through his body. She glowed softly, piercing the shadows with her magic.
“Your blood is flowing so fast,” she whispered, her lips brushing the skin over the scar he’d earned that day.
“Your heart is racing like you’re in battle.
Your muscles hold so much excess energy you could probably lift a horse right now.
” Rachel pulled back enough to look at him – and forgot to breathe.
Alec’s eyes were black in the deep shadows of the cave; only the light from her body illuminated them.
They were piercing, smouldering as he stared at her.
Rachel swallowed hard, her own heart fluttering like a bird.
So slowly that she couldn’t be sure which one of them moved first, Alec’s face was before her own. And then he kissed her.
Rachel let her light fade, giving into the rush of sensation flooding her body.
Heat – a giddy churning, a burning pool of desire – poured through her blood, her muscles.
Alec tilted her face to slant against his lips.
When she felt the tip of his tongue touch her lip, she groaned and opened her mouth to taste him fully.
Alec drew her into his lap and her legs hiked up around his waist as the two of them sat on the cave floor.
He pushed intimately against the scrap of material separating them.
Rachel’s flush burned across her skin. She should be shocked, repelled at the carnal exposure, but instead her thrumming body gripped him tighter, her own blood begging for more.
He shifted her against him and a deep growl climbed up through his chest. He pulled back.
The cool air pressed against Rachel’s scorching cheeks. She took deep breaths to clear her head. Alec’s body was throbbing as fast and hot as her own.
He cleared his voice. “Ye’re welcome.”
“What?” Rachel gasped as Alec cupped her backside and rose, her legs still around his waist. He walked to the front of the cave.
“If that indeed was ye thanking me.”
Rachel’s blush intensified to a point near pain. Did he think this was how she thanked a man? As they stepped into the firelight, she struggled to get him to put her down. He lowered her slowly, letting her slide down his nude body. Rachel kept her eyes centred on the small scar on his forehead.
“Do you usually kiss your prisoners? Because there is a word for accosting young maids,” she snapped.
His grin hardened as his eyes turned to ice. “It seemed a mutual response.”
Rachel glanced down at her white cotton shift, careful to keep her gaze away from Alec’s body.
He didn’t seem to mind being totally naked in front of her.
Was he used to parading around women naked?
The thought twisted her stomach. Alec snatched up the wool blanket and tossed it to her as he strode to the mouth of the cave.
He came back tucking his kilt into place around his narrow hips.
Rachel draped the blanket around her shoulders, pulling the ends together in front of her barely concealed breasts.
She collapsed into a sitting position before the fire.
Her body still trembled from the near fatal fall.
And the kiss. Rachel kept her eyes on the fire.
Alec removed the hare from the spit, cut off some of the warm, delicious-smelling meat and handed it to her.
She barely stifled her automatic response of “thank you” as she took it.
Anger and embarrassment made the meal tasteless, but it stopped her stomach from growling.
“I have no sweets to finish the meal,” he said with a half grin. Was he trying to dispel the thick unease between them?
“Raspberries sweetened with honey,” Rachel murmured.
“Raspberries?”
“’Tis my favourite,” she mumbled but her mortification wouldn’t allow her to look him in the eye. He walked around her to place another blanket out on the ground furthest from the rain misting into the cave. Rachel stiffened as he neared.
Alec squatted down, his eyes level with hers. “I doona rape, Rachel. So ye can sleep soundly knowing that I willna kiss ye again.” A small grin played at the corners of his mouth. “At least not until ye ask me to.”
Munro Keep surged out of the cliffs as Alec’s horse loped through the tall pines.
Relief relaxed his face. He inhaled, craving the fresh heather-scented air off the moor that stretched before the village encircling his home.
The flowery scent that flowed into him, tangling his thoughts, though, was not of the field before him, but of the silky, dark tresses feathering against his face.
Alec frowned and purposely opened his mouth to breathe without being tempted by the lass’s sweetly edible scent.
He’d been riding since dawn with her lovely, barely-concealed backside pressed against him.
Her warmth melted into him each time his mount surged forward.
And her damnable curls teased him ceaselessly.
He’d stopped counting the times he almost buried his face in her hair.
What the hell had he been thinking, telling her he wouldn’t kiss her again?
Every inch of his body rebelled against his oath.