Kate Wingo - Highland Mist 01 (8 page)

“You are mistaken on that count,” she bristled, glaring at
Iain as though he was a turd she’d just discovered on the bottom of her ridiculously ornate boot.

“I didna hear any complaints,” he
remarked, continuing the bloody work of butchering the dead boar. “Unless ye mean to tell me that the whimpers I heard were yer way of registering a complaint.”

“I did not whimper!”

“Aye, ye did,” Iain confirmed with a nod of the head. Then, winking slyly at her, he said, “’Twas music to my ears.”
And an enticing melody, at that.
One that highly aroused him.

Although
, had it not been for the dream he’d had just before he awakened, he might not have been so inflamed with lust. As usual, he’d been visited by the same dream that had nightly haunted him since Fiona’s death. At least, it began as the same familiar dream, he and Fiona on a windswept glen, making love beneath a gnarled oak tree . . . .

.
. . .
when she went down on all fours, seductively wiggling her bottom at him. Palming the rounded curves, Iain wasted no time mounting her from behind. As always, she took great pleasure in that position as it enabled him to tease her with his fingers.

Almost immediately, he
began to lose himself in the moist, womanly feel of her. But she felt different this time, tighter, her muscles sweetly milking him with each stroke. That was when he noticed that it wasn’t Fiona’s blond mane that caressed his bare chest . . . ’twas a wavy swath of sable-colored curls.

Stunned, he pulled out of her.
Placing a hand on the woman’s creamy white shoulder, he turned her around to face him, taken aback to find Yvette Beauchamp wantonly staring at him, softly panting as she leaned toward him. As she swirled her tongue across his nipple. As she begged him to ride her as hard and fast as he could.

But as
Iain had shamefully discovered when he woke near to bursting, it had been naught but a dream.

Och, but what a dream.

It was as if the Heavenly Father had answered his prayers when he awoke to find Yvette lying beneath him, her soft curves intimately pressed against his bare body. Truly, he didn’t know if he’d ever beheld a more beautiful sight than Yvette’s glorious dark hair spread across his plaid, her lush body draped in sheer linen.

“And I’m certain ye heard the same melody,”
Iain boldly continued, holding Yvette’s gaze as he spoke. “For ye gave no protest when I took yer nipple in my—” He stopped abruptly as he suddenly felt a vibration reverberate beneath his feet.

Grabbing
Yvette by the wrist, Iain yanked her toward him.

“Unhand me!” she loudly exclaimed,
wildly thrashing against him.

Afraid she’d
prove the death of them, Iain roughly pulled her off balance. No sooner did she topple over than he covered her writhing body with his, pinning her to the ground. A hellcat, she began to pummel his backside with her fists. Left with no choice, he grabbed her by the wrists and pulled her arms taut above her head, effectively putting an end to her resistance.

“Get off me, you great Scottish barbarian!”

“Quiet!” he ordered in a hushed voice before peering over his shoulder. “Riders approach!”

“I do not care if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are
—”

Iain shoved the palm of his hand against
Yvette’s mouth, silencing the harangue. “You
will
care if the MacDougalls were to get a hold of ye. Believe me, they’d not treat ye near as well as I do.”

Aware that he outweighed Yvette by a good seven stone,
Iain eased off her a bit; although he still held a firm grasp on her wrists. Clearly terror-stricken, she put him in mind of a frantic animal caught in a hunter’s snare.

Tearing his gaze from her, Iain stared at the horizon.
Waiting
.

Within moments, he
caught sight of the lead rider, the man’s long red hair flying behind him as he charged across the grassland.

Sibbald MacDougal
l!
Damn the man
, Iain silently cursed as he watched his adversary ride to within a five ells of where they lay in the tall marsh grass. Fortunately, he’d had the foresight to tether his mount out of sight.

Right behind Sibbald MacDougall there followed a contingent of plaid-swathed horsemen, Iain counting twelve ri
ders in all. If the MacDougalls, with their superior numbers, caught up to Diarmid and the others, it’d be a bloodbath.

As he lay motionless, waiting for the riders to pass out of sight,
Iain thought it no coincidence that Sibbald and his kinsmen were so far from their ancestral lands. Recently, he’d heard rumors that the Lord of the Lorne had not only pledged loyalty to England’s craven king, Edward Longshanks, but that he’d given the order to hunt down those clans forsworn to Robert the Bruce, to weaken the newly crowned king of Scotland’s defenses before he could muster an army.

“They’re gone,”
Iain muttered a few moments later when the last rider disappeared from sight. “We’re safe enough for the time being.”

The
assurance did little to mitigate Yvette’s fearful expression. “They could very well return,” she whispered, evidently too frightened to further protest the fact that he was still sprawled on top of her.

“They willna
,” he told her, shoving himself to his knees. “Sibbald MacDougall has rightly guessed that my kinsmen are on their way to Drumochter Pass.”

Rising
to his feet, Iain extended Yvette a helping hand. To his surprise, she readily accepted the offer of assistance, placing her beautifully tapered hand on top of his open palm. As he closed his fingers around her hand, he marveled at the softness of her skin, thinking her flesh as smooth as a flower petal on a newly opened blossom.

Iain then placed
a hand on the small of the lady’s back as he ushered her to a nearby flat stone. Concerned that she noticeably limped, he gestured for her to sit down.

“I’m going to get my horse.
Don’t move yer arse off that rock.”

No sooner was the order given than Iain turned and s
printed toward the pine grove. As he bounded across the meadow, his green and brown kilt billowed behind him, enabling Yvette to catch an occasional glimpse of her captor’s long, powerfully built thighs, the saddle-hardened muscles flexing with each long-legged stride.

Making him appear
every inch the untamed Highlander.

And though
modesty dictated that she avert her gaze, Yvette found that she could not.

What is
happening to me? Why is my heart suddenly set aquiver at the sight of a half-naked heathen?

Perhaps
Iain MacKinnon aroused her because he was unlike any man she’d ever known.
Earthy. Rough-hewn. Audacious.
And while he was as domineering as her father, unlike Lyndhurst, the laird of Clan MacKinnon did not pay lip service to the elaborate social rituals that distinguished the English nobility. A man given to blunt speech and bold action, Iain made it clear that he paid obeisance to no man. Or woman. He was ‘the MacKinnon.’ A law unto himself.

An
d may the devil take him for it
, she fumed, dismayed that she was once again Iain’s hostage.

When, a few moments later, she espied Iain astride his horse, Yvette purposefully turned her head in the opposite direction, not wanting him to think
that she’d been keeping watch for him.

As she listened to him dismount
, she idly plucked bits and pieces of debris from her woolen mantle, affecting an air of utter insouciance.

“Here, drink this,” Iain gruffly ordered, shoving a leather flask under her nose. “It’ll help to cut the pain.”

“How did you . . .?” Flummoxed, she gazed at him.

“I not
iced ye favored yer right leg. The whisky will dull the ache and speed the healing,” he said by way of explanation.

Wordlessly,
Yvette took the proffered flask, her pride preventing her from openly admitting that she’d twisted her left ankle when she’d thrown herself from his horse.

Uncertain whether she should imbibe
Iain’s whisky, she gnawed on her lower lip. She’d seen the effects the potent beverage had had on Iain the previous night. Soon after quaffing a goodly amount, he’d unabashedly stripped off all his clothing.

“Well get on with it,” he impatiently urged, jutting his ch
in at her. “’Tis good Scottish whisky, not the devil’s brew.”

Somewhat hesitantly, Yvette tipped the flask to her
lips and swallowed a mouthful. Unprepared for the fiery aftermath that ensued as the liquid made its way to her stomach, she noisily sputtered and hacked.

Chuckling, Iain thumped her on the b
ack with the palm of his hand.

“Sweet Mary!
It burns like fire!” she exclaimed, shooting Iain an accusing glare.

“Aye, it does at th
at,” he good-naturedly agreed. “But I’ll wager it took yer mind off the pain in yer foot.”

Taking the flask from her,
Iain hefted it to his own lips. Obviously well-accustomed to drinking the fiery brew, he took several deep swallows, Yvette’s gaze inexplicably drawn to the Adam’s apple that visibly bobbed in his throat.

“Ye best take another drink,” Iain suggested as he handed the flask back to her.
We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.” Then, a wry smile on his lips, he added, “A wee sip this time, aye?”

Yvette obediently
took a ‘wee sip,’ self-consciously aware of the fact that her lips were touching the very same spot that Iain’s lips had touched only moments before.
A proxy kiss
.

Chagrined that she would entertain such a ridiculous
notion, Yvette shoved the flask at him, refusing to meet his gaze. “Thank you,” she muttered, wondering if it was possible to become intoxicated after only two swallows worth.

“I need to finish butchering the boar,”
Iain said over his shoulder as he tied the whisky flask onto a metal buckle that dangled from his saddle.

Lifting
a shoulder, Yvette gave a disinterested shrug. Then, setting her gaze upon the loch, she stared at the reflection of the nearby mountains that glimmered on the water’s sunlit surface.

To her relief, the next few minutes passed in blessed quietude.

“So ye think me a Scottish barbarian, d’ye?” Iain unexpectedly inquired, his deep voice shattering the tranquil silence.

Yvette glanced over to where he knelt in front of the boar, his hands covered in blood.
‘If you must know, I think you the perfect savage,’
she nearly blurted.

While she
didn’t regret calling Iain MacKinnon a ‘great Scottish barbarian’ – the man did, after all, roughly yank her to the ground, holding her prisoner under the weight of his body – Yvette suspected that she was being purposefully baited.

“At that particular moment, yea
, I did think you a barbarian.”

“And
what of
this
moment in time?”

“Now I think you . . .
naught but a man,” she hedged. Then, in a gambit to change the subject, she said, “I am curious to know if you are married, my lord.”

Although Iain gave no indication that he was surprised by
her query, Yvette noticed that his hands momentarily stilled.

As the silent seconds slipped past, a faraway look stole across
Iain’s face; as though his thoughts had wandered far afield from his body.

“I
was
married,” he said after a long, drawn-out pause, his gaze fixed on the butchered animal in front of him. “My wife Fiona died in childbirth three years ago.”

Fiona.
‘Tis the name he’d moaned in his sleep.

Hearing the sorrow that
underwrote Iain’s reply, a lump settled in Yvette’s throat, three years a long time to grieve for one’s spouse. While she was admittedly relieved to discover that he wasn’t so lecherous as to bring a mistress into his wife’s household, she suddenly wished she’d not asked such a deeply personal question.

“And since we’re baring our souls, do ye mind telling why you did it?”

“I do not understand your question,” Yvette said with a baffled shake of the head.

“Why did you throw the rock at the boar?”

“Oh, that . . . I meant only to distract the beast as you appeared to be at a grave disadvantage,” she replied, not seeing any point in keeping the truth from him. “You were, after all, about to risk your life to save mine. It was the least I could do.”

Finished butchering the boar, Iain carefully placed the hacked pieces
of meat in a leather satchel. “Do ye think so little of my hunting skills?”

“Mos
t certainly not. I think you able-bodied and . . . and quite capable.”