Kate Wingo - Highland Mist 01 (6 page)

“God’s teeth, woman! I said I willna hurt ye.
And I willna take ye tonight in this dung heap, if that’s what’s got to you to shivering like a leaf.”

“Do you promise?”

“Aye, ye have my word on it. Now get into the bed. Such as it is,” Iain muttered as he held the corner of the plaid aloft.

Having secured his promise,
Yvette’s shoulders slumped, her relief so tangible she actually felt faint from it. Mercifully, she’d been granted a reprieve. At least for the one night.

Her heart hammering
against her breastbone, Yvette approached the makeshift bed. As she settled herself between the two halves of the plaid, Iain muttered something under his breath before rolling away from her.

Silently
, Yvette counted off the seconds as they slipped past, afraid to move, afraid to breathe too deeply lest she attract Iain’s unwanted attention. Despite the fact that he’d given his word, she did not fully trust him.

As she watched
the flickering play of shadows cast by the slowly dying fire, she was soon overcome with an enervating languor, unable to stave off the inevitable.

About to fall into a
deep slumber, Yvette suddenly heard rodents scurrying in the thatched roof overhead.

Frightened, she
instinctively inched closer to Iain . . . the fear instantly vanishing.

. . . m
oving a hand to the back of her head, he pulled her closer. Whimpering, she tightened her hold around his neck, inviting him to deepen the kiss. Over and over, his tongue thrust into the wet softness of her mouth. And though she was untutored, she responded with like passion. Sliding a hand across his muscled torso, she—

As the vivid dream abruptly ended, Yvette felt strangely bereft. Wanting to lose herself in that wanton revelry, she tried to return to the blissful realm of sleep.

But
try as she might, she could not. Her back ached. She had a crick in her neck. And an oppressive, suffocating weight pinned her to the hard surface on which she lay.

Where
am I? And why in the name of all that is holy did I dream about that savage Iain Mac—

Yvette’s eyes
instantly flew open, horrified to realize that she’d been dreaming about the laird of Clan MacKinnon. Although not nearly as horrified as she was to discover that not only did Iain have a naked leg wedged between her thighs, but his hand possessively cupped her breast.

The brute!

Uncertain how to rectify the situation, she worriedly gnawed on her bottom lip. Because this was the first time she’d ever awakened to find a naked man sprawled on top of her, Yvette feared what would happen if she roused the sleeping beast.

Mortified, she
lay motionless, hoping that he would eventually roll over to his side of the wool plaid. However, rather than rolling away from her, Iain shifted his weight, situating himself that much closer to her.

Which is when
Yvette felt something warm and hard insistently nudge against her right hand.

Sweet Jesu!
He’s in a state of heightened arousal!

Her heart hammering against her breastbone,
Yvette very carefully attempted to slide her hand away from him.

To no avail.

The moment she broke the shameful
attouchement
, Iain groaned, squeezed her breast, and thrust his hips in her direction, the tip of his phallus now firmly nestled in the palm of her hand.

God help
me! What am I to do?

Unbidden, an
image of Iain’s brazen posturing from the previous night flashed across her mind’s eye, Yvette vividly recalling his bold, masculine beauty as she’d glimpsed his turgid manhood. She’d never seen, let alone ever imagined, anything so shockingly virile.

Unable to banish that
deviant memory, Yvette shuddered.

Whether in response to her tremors, or mere happenstance, Iain nuzzled his lips against her earlobe
as he incoherently muttered in his sleep. Yvette closed her eyes, able to feel the coarse roughness of his unshaven cheek as it pressed against the side of her face. While the unwelcome caress should have disgusted her, to her bewilderment, it did not. Instead it made her feel
feverish.

And strangely curious.

So curious, Yvette wondered what would happen if she lightly squeezed her hand around Iain’s swollen member.

Tempted to find out, but too afraid to act on the impulse, she
remained motionless. Feigning sleep, she took what pleasure she could from the illicit moment. While she knew with complete certainty that she could never be attracted to a man like Iain MacKinnon, she was admittedly intrigued by the fact that in an age of enlightened reason and courtly civility, a ‘perfect savage’ could still roam at will.

“Ach, Fiona. W
rap yer hand around me,” Iain suddenly murmured, firmly shoving his groin against Yvette’s hand.

Devastated, angry tears pricked the corner of her eyes
. In his sleep Iain had mistaken her for another woman.

Curse
the man!

Overcome with humiliation,
Yvette yanked her hand away from him, not caring whether or not she woke the whoreson.

“Roll over onto yer knees, sweetings,” Iain crooned as he rocked his hips against Yvette’s out
er thigh.

Hearing his tender endearment, Yvett
e suffered a moment’s anguish. Until that instant, it’d not occurred to her that Iain might be married. Although it should have occurred to her. A man his age who was the laird of his clan would have a wife as a matter of course. If for no other reason than to provide him with a male heir.

Heartsick, Yvette
could not bear to contemplate Iain parading her in front of his wife in the same vile manner that her father had flaunted his mistresses for all to see. To this day, she could still vividly recall the shame of happening upon her father as he’d rutted with one of the household servants in a deserted vestibule.

I wonder if
Iain will treat me in the same base manner.

Just then, Iain groaned deeply as he suddenly
jerked wide awake.

With
a muttered curse, he went still as a corpse, his leg still wedged between Yvette’s sprawled thighs, his hand still clasped around her breast.

Mortified,
Yvette wasted no time pulling away from him.

“For the love of Christ!
” Iain rasped. “Don’t move or ye’ll cause me to shame the both of us.”

“But I need to
—”

“
Unless ye want me to spill my seed all over yer belly, don’t so much as breathe,” Iain harshly interjected before he buried his head in the crook of her neck.

To
Yvette’s mounting confusion, his last remark, crude and shocking as it was, evoked a tantalizing image. Although she didn’t want to be
any
man’s mistress, for some inexplicable reason Iain MacKinnon kindled within her a surfeit of turbulent emotions. Emotions that rendered her mindless of her station; her dire predicament; and even her uncertain future.

Several minutes passed before
Iain finally raised his head.

Hefting himself onto his forearm, he stared at
Yvette, a sheepish expression on his face. “’Twas a verra near thing. I thought it real, but ye were no’ but a dream.”

On the verge of pointing out to Iain that he’d been dreaming of another
woman, Yvette held her tongue, deciding to play the fool and feign ignorance.

In the predawn light that streamed through the various gaps and openings in the nearby wall,
Yvette watched as Iain impertinently raked the length of her linen-swathed body with his eyes, his frank appraisal inducing an unexpected spasm between her legs. In that heightened instant, she was at a loss to comprehend how a man she’d known less than one full day could have such a devastating effect on her.

A
s though he has bedeviled me.

“Ye have lovely teats,”
the demon seductively crooned as he fixed his blue-eyed gaze upon Yvette’s swollen nipples, the two nubs clearly visible through the sheer fabric of her chemise.

When
Iain inclined his head toward her breasts, Yvette frantically shoved her hand against his bare chest. “You gave me your word,” she reminded him.

Undeterred,
Iain gently shoved her hand aside. “Last night I gave my word . . . ’tis morning now,” he husked, rubbing the side of his unshaven cheek against her breast. Then, shocking her with his boldness, he clamped his lips around her nipple and began to suckle Yvette through the linen undergarment.

Caught in the throes of a near unbearable f
renzy, she bucked against him. Which only caused Iain to suck her nipple that much harder. And though there was pain, there was also an intense pleasure. Unlike anything Yvette had ever before experienced. Oft times she’d wondered, but now she knew . . .
this
was lust. The quivering ache of which the minstrels sang. The frenzy without end.

“Ach, woman, I want ye,” Iain muttered against her breast.
“It’s like a fever in my blood.”

Mine, too,
Yvette thought, but didn’t dare utter.

Just as Iain started to shove the
chemise to her waist, Diarmid unexpectedly charged pell-mell into the hovel. Catching sight of the tawny-haired Scotsman out of the corner of her eye, Yvette unthinkingly shrieked, utterly mortified.

“Damn ye!” Iain bellowed, a murderous look on his face as he glared at his cousin.

Clearly agitated, Diarmid began to hurriedly speak to Iain in Gaelic, Yvette unable to decipher their native tongue. Within seconds, Iain lunged to his feet and snatched his tunic from the ceiling hook.

“Hurry and get dressed,” he said to her over his
shoulder, his expression grim. “Riders have been sighted. There is no time to lose.”

Yvette was still scrambling from their makeshift bed when Iain unceremoniously yanked
the plaid out from under her. As his cousin laced him into the leather breastplate, he wrapped the kilt around his waist.

Her l
ust suddenly replaced with an unbounded hope, Yvette quickly dressed. Until just a few moments ago, she’d had no expectation of being rescued before they reached Iain’s Highland lair. The Earl of Angus was in Edinburgh on business and was not due to return to Castle Airlie until week’s end. And her father, having yet to receive the ransom demand, had no idea she’d been abducted. Which meant that the
only
person available to rescue her was the earl’s nephew, Sir Galen de Ogilvy.

I
n all honestly, Yvette had assumed that Sir Galen would be glad-hearted at her sudden disappearance. As the earl’s sole living heir, he had more incentive
not
to rescue her. If she wed the earl as planned, and then produced an heir, Sir Galen would lose his only chance at inheriting the title.

Obviously, I
misjudged Sir Galen.

And though she found
Sir Galen de Ogilvy odious, she’d welcome the devil himself if it meant her rescue from the clutches of Iain MacKinnon.

Dear God! How could I have p
ermitted the man to take such liberties with my body?

As he’d said so succinctly, it had been
‘a verra near thing.’
So near, Yvette had yet to catch her breath, her heart still beating an erratic tattoo. In truth, something wholly unexpected had transpired within the walls of the dank, cheerless hovel. And though arousing, it had been an illicit pleasure. She would even go so far as to call it a sinful indulgence. Still baffled as to why it happened, she only knew that for one brief, forbidden moment, she’d lost all sense of herself, having quickly succumbed to lust.

Fumbling with the buckle on her girdle
– her trembling fingers making it difficult to slide the metal-studded leather through the clasp – Yvette offered no protest when Iain took the belt from her hands and deftly buckled it around her waist. Then, snatching her fur-lined mantle from the ceiling hook, he draped the garment over her shoulders, hooking the jeweled brooch at her throat.

“We mustn’t tarry,” he said, wrapping a proprietary hand around her elbow as he ushered her to the
doorway. “If the bastards catch up to us, all will be lost.”

Yvette knew that he referred to the two thousand pound ransom, the fortune uppermost
in his mind. Iain MacKinnon didn’t care a pittance for her. While he might fondle her body and trifle with her feelings, he would do so only to amuse himself while he waited for her father’s gold to arrive.

As
Yvette exited the hovel, she noticed that the lusterless gray light of early dawn cast somber shadows onto Iain’s gathered kinsmen, the five men already mounted. Pulling her mantle closer to her chest, she braced herself against the chill, damp wind that blew with a ferocious intensity.

With a
n air of barely contained excitement, Diarmid led a saddled horse over to where they stood, Iain swinging himself onto the beast in one lithe, graceful motion. Extending his arm, he offered his hand to her. Unlike his younger cousin, Iain appeared impassively calm. Although there was no mistaking the fierce light, like blue fire, that gleamed in his eyes.

Suffering a moment’s indecision,
Yvette stared at Iain’s outstretched hand. If the brawny band of Highlanders managed to successfully elude Sir Galen and his men-at-arms, she would be at the fiend’s mercy for weeks, possibly even months.

S
urreptitiously, she glanced at the deserted village, wondering what would happen if she suddenly grabbed her skirts and took off running. Because Sir Galen and his men-at-arms would soon be upon them, the Highlanders might decline to give chase.

“Come, lass,”
Iain quietly urged, motioning her forward with his hand. “While the steed may be a bit fractious, there’s no need for ye to be afraid.”

Suddenly w
orried that her captor would indeed give chase should she attempt to escape, Yvette dejectedly took hold of Iain’s hand, allowing him to hoist her onto the horse’s back.

“Wrap y
er arms tight around my waist. We’re in for a hellish ride.”