Bride for Glenmore (12 page)

‘OK.’ Fraser looked at him and something passed between them. An understanding. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Ethan said, a glimmer of a smile touching his usually serious face.

Logan looked at Kyla and then back at Ethan. ‘You two are filthy. Anyone would think you’d spent the evening scrabbling around in a dark tunnel. You’re a bad advert for the surgery. I’m the one on call so go home and have a shower. I’ll take over here but keep your phone switched on. If I need you, I’ll call.’

The storm struck at dawn.

Hearing a consistent hammering, Ethan woke from a restless sleep, wondering whether the wind was rattling the windows. Then he realised that the hammering was coming from the back door.

Trouble with Fraser?

He’d rung Logan before going to bed and his colleague had assured him that Fraser was sleeping and seemed comfortable. He’d been sick once but that was to be expected after a head injury and Logan hadn’t been unduly concerned. All his other signs were fine and they had been going to monitor him.

The hammering came again, louder this time, and Ethan forced himself out of bed.

Wondering what new crisis he was about to face, he tugged on a pair of jeans, jerked open the door and felt his entire body tense.

Kyla stood there, her face alight with excitement. ‘Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.’

Ethan pushed away the claws of sleep that were threatening to drag him down. ‘Something’s happened to Fraser? He was OK when I rang.’

‘As far as I know, he’s still OK. This isn’t about Fraser. It’s nothing to do with work.’ She held out a hand. ‘Come with me.’

‘Now?’

She smiled. ‘Now is the best time.’

‘It’s the middle of the night. There’s a storm building. It’s wild outside.’

‘It hasn’t even begun yet, and it’s dawn. There’s plenty of light.’ There was a strange gleam in her eyes. ‘Are you afraid, Ethan?’

Everything about her seemed vivid and full of life, and Ethan realised that the answer to her question should be yes. He was afraid.

But not of the storm. He was afraid of her. Of his feelings for her. Of where this wild, crazy chemistry was going to take them.

He still hadn’t told her the truth about himself.

‘There won’t be anything to see in this weather. It’s raining and the visibility is zero.’

‘Now you’re talking like an Englishman.’ She thrust his coat into his hands and opened the front door. The wind tried to slam it shut again but Kyla leaned against it with her shoulders and zipped up her jacket. ‘I hope you’re feeling fit, Ethan.’

‘Where are we going?’ They were outside now and he had to shout to make himself heard above the screaming, howling wind. It slammed into them as they left the cottage, as if fiercely angry that anyone should dare to venture into its territory.

‘Back up to the castle. Only this time we’re walking.’

‘Sorry?’ He shot her an incredulous look, wondering what had happened to her. ‘Kyla, we just came from there.’

‘This is different. You said that you hadn’t seen the ruins.’

‘There’s a storm and it’s not even fully light yet.’

‘It’s the best time. Trust me.’

This time she ignored the car and crossed the road towards the grassy hill that led to the ruins, her hair blowing across her face.

The jagged outline of the castle was barely visible through the driving rain, and Ethan grimaced and wiped the water from his eyes as the spray of the sea mixed with the rain. He tasted salt, felt the air sting his cheeks and looked at Kyla in disbelief.

Being out in this weather was crazy, but she didn’t seem to see anything odd in it.

The rain had turned her soft honey-coloured hair to sleek, dark gold and droplets of water clung to her lashes and her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to care. In fact, he would have said that she relished being so close to the elements. He’d never seen her happier.

And her response intrigued him because he knew no other woman who would have been so comfortable in such filthy weather conditions.

She was half-wild, he thought to himself, watching as she scrambled over a gate and started up the grassy slope. The wind crashed across her path, trying to turn her, but she was graceful and sure-footed as she ran, and Ethan could do nothing but follow, exhilaration mingling with exasperation.

She scrambled over the outer walls of the castle that were now no more than a few ruined rocks, and climbed across some uneven ground that led to the ancient, crumbling fort.

‘We have to climb up.’ She raised her voice to be heard above the wind and he followed her and then stopped, suddenly understanding why she’d brought him here.

Furious red streaks were splashed across the sky, as if an artist had just taken a brush and angrily thrown paint at a canvas. The grey, threatening outline of the ruins loomed from the rain and mist and beyond that stretched the sea, boiling and foaming with fury as the wind and the currents fought for supremacy.

‘You can imagine it, can’t you? The Vikings landing there?’ She steadied herself, pointed down to the beach, and then lifted her hand to anchor her hair, which was blowing wildly. With a shift of her feet she balanced herself against the wind as she stared across the west of the island. ‘They must have looked up and seen this castle and been afraid. They must have wondered whether to turn home and give up. When I stand up here in a storm I can feel the history of the place so strongly.’

He couldn’t take his eyes off her profile. ‘You’re as bad as Fraser.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being interested in your heritage.’ She turned to face him and smiled. ‘Was it worth the climb?’

He dragged his eyes away from her and stared at the ruins and then at the sea. He’d never seen a wilder, more atmospheric place. ‘It was worth the climb.’

‘This place is at its best when the weather is bad.’

He laughed and shook his head. ‘You’re crazy, do you know that?’

‘Am I?’ The wind gusted and she grabbed his arm for support. ‘If we drop down to just below the ruined tower, it’s sheltered. We can sit there and watch the sun come up.’

Ethan stared at the sky. ‘I don’t think there’s going to be any sun,’ he muttered, but he followed her across the patch of grass, over some stones and down again until they were sheltered by a large wall.

‘Do you have any idea how old this place is? They reckon it’s one of the earliest castles, although it’s been built on over the centuries, of course.’ She ran her hands over the grey, uneven bricks and looked through the tiny slit window. ‘When I was a child I used to come up here with Logan and play warriors. He used to be the invading army and I used to be the one defending the castle.’

He could imagine her doing exactly that, with her hair streaming down her back, her chin lifted and her eyes blazing as she and Logan argued over who was in charge.

‘Did you cover him in boiling oil?’

‘No. Buckets of ice-cold water. My aim was brilliant. He used to complain like mad.’ She stepped towards him and took the front of his jacket in her hands. ‘You were brave last night with Fraser. You acted like an islander.’

Her face was so close that her cheek almost brushed against his. Ethan clenched his jaw and kept his eyes ahead because he knew that to look at her now would be too great a test of his self-control. And then she moved her head fractionally and he felt her touch her lips to his, and he just couldn’t help himself. He was drawn to her in the same way that he’d been drawn to her on that very first day. He looked. And fell. Deep, deep into her stormy blue eyes that held both warning and invitation.

He issued his own warning. ‘I’m not an islander.’ There was so much that he still had to tell her and yet suddenly he couldn’t remember any of it with the heat and awareness devouring them both like a greedy animal.

Her mouth was so close to his that he could feel her breath mingling with his. ‘But you could be, Ethan. You could be.’

He was surrounded by her. The scent of her. The sound of her. The feel of her. His insides locked with lust. And in those tense, sexually charged few moments they both knew what was going to happen.

He was seeing it in her eyes and he knew that she was seeing it in his. And suddenly all the reasons that he shouldn’t be doing this were eclipsed by all the reasons that he should.

He lifted his hand and cupped the back of her head, drawing her face towards his. ‘It’s got to be here,’ he growled hoarsely, ‘and now.’ He was driven by an urgency that he didn’t understand and she obviously felt it, too, because she pressed closer and lifted her face.

‘Yes. Now.’ She met the hot burn of his kiss and struggled with the zip of his coat just as he reached for her clothes. There was no gentle fumbling. No smiles or laughter. Each was deadly serious, intent on the other, eyes clinging and hands brushing in a feverish determination to discover flesh and be together. His mouth still on hers, he stripped her of her coat and then grabbed the hem of her strap top and slid it upwards.

She lifted her arms in acquiescence and he broke the kiss just long enough to jerk the top over her head. He looked, just for a moment—saw high, firm breasts and nipples darkening to a peak—and then looking just wasn’t enough and he touched.

This time his hands were on bare, warm flesh and he held her against him, feeling the perfection of her slender body against his.

‘Ethan…Ethan…’ She murmured his name against his lips, pressing forward, boldly encouraging him. He felt her quiver under his hands—felt her skin sleek and soft as his fingers explored and discovered. She gasped against the relentless assault of his mouth and then he felt the scratch of her nails over the bare flesh of his chest and the nip of her teeth on his jaw. Only then did he realise that she’d ripped at his clothes with the same feverish desperation that he’d stripped her. His shirt hung open and her hands were on his chest.

And then she kissed and nipped and licked her way from his jaw to his neck and from his neck to his chest, touching, tasting and breathing in the scent of him until he was so aroused that his body ached with it.

And when he felt her fingers on the waistband of his jeans he sucked in a breath and clamped his hands over hers, his teeth gritted.

‘Wait.’ He held her away from him, struggling to find a control that had never eluded him before. ‘You have to wait.’

‘I can’t wait. And neither can you.’ She was on her toes, seeking his mouth with hers. ‘Why wait?’

‘Because I want you so badly.’

‘That’s the way I want you to want me, Ethan. What other way is there?’ Her voice soft, she moved her face against his and he felt the soft brush of her lashes against his cheek before her mouth found his again. Her tongue teased his lower lip and then the corner of his mouth, accelerating the excitement between them to such a pitch that the very idea of control became laughable.

His mind and vision blurred, Ethan dispensed with the barrier of her shorts and panties and slid his hands down over her bottom. And this time when he felt her fingers at his zip, he didn’t stop her but neither did he hesitate in his own quest to know all of her. He slid his fingers deep inside her and she was so wet and so hot that he cursed softly and buried his face in her neck.

‘Now, Ethan.’ She was almost sobbing as she freed him from his jeans and closed her hand around him. ‘Please, now.’

And afterwards when he thought about this moment, he realised that he’d never really had a choice.

From that first moment on the ferry, this had been inevitable. Not here, perhaps, and not in this way. This frantic, greedy, desperate coupling that was almost primitive in its intensity. But it had always been there, waiting for both of them.

And when he pushed her back against the ancient stone wall and lifted her, he wondered how many other such acts of such sensual desperation this castle had seen over the centuries.

And then thinking became impossible because it was all about feeling and acting on the most basic of human instincts. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he moved his hand down and guided himself into her tight, silken heat, driven by a devouring, dangerous force beyond his control. His need was primitive and he deepened his possession, his hands supporting her as he held her still for his most intimate invasion. Dimly he registered her cry and tried to pause, wondering whether he’d hurt her, and then he felt the frantic movement of her hips, encouraging him, and gave himself up to his body’s instinctive need to thrust into her.

The fire between them burned and licked as they moved and gasped and greedily devoured each other. And then the explosion came. Powerful and deadly, it took both of them with it and Ethan ground into her one last time, driven past control by the rhythmic contractions of her own body.

And then the storm left, as if satisfied that it had done its work.

Still breathing heavily, Ethan lowered her gently to the ground and tried to clear his head, still too stunned to form a coherent sentence. Would he ever be able to speak?

What was there to say?
After sharing something so perfect, what was there to say?

She was shaking in his arms, her hair tangled and loose, her body deliciously naked.

And suddenly he wanted her again. And he knew that he’d want her again after that. And again.

He cupped her face in his hands, needing to communicate the way he felt but silenced by his natural reticence. ‘Kyla—’

‘Don’t say anything,’ she said shakily, her eyes shy as she looked at him. ‘Don’t say anything at all.’

And he knew that she understood and felt the same way.

There were no words that could possibly do justice to what they’d just shared.

He gently stroked her hair away from her face, noticing things that he’d never noticed before. Like the fact that her blue eyes were darker than he’d first thought and she had a few tiny freckles over her nose. He dragged his thumb slowly over her full mouth and she nipped at it, the look in her eyes reflecting his own thoughts.

He wanted her again.

But not here.

‘The sun is coming up.’ He spoke softly, even though there was no one around to hear them. ‘The storm is over.’