Night Visitor (15 page)

And the impure impulses were winning. He could not stop them.

As quickly as possible, he moved her from the slippery wet rocks. Malcolm managed to stagger perhaps an arm’s length away from the falls. He would contemplate later what there was about
this woman that was so arousing to this inner beast in him, what it was that his lust could gain the strength to throw off his hard-learned voice of reason.

“Taffy, lass?” he heard himself growl, his fingers tangling in her dripping hair, turning her face up to his.

She answered with a small moan that was both question and agreement.

“Ye shouldna be shy with me
ever.
We were meant tae be as one.” Even as he said it, Malcolm knew that the reassuring words were superfluous. Taffy was not acting like a woman who was overcome with modesty. She seemed to sense the same hand of destiny that was now upon him and her own inner beast was awake and on the prowl.

He leaned back against the dry rock’s rough face and pulled her to him, melding her softer flesh into his own. The contact only inflamed the lustful beast and made it want more.

Taffy didn’t notice. All her previous worry about witnesses had been driven from her mind. Her sole ambition was to assuage the hunger prowling through her body, tightening her skin, weakening her knees, burning her alive. It was stunning—wonderful—to let all restraints slip and do what one wanted. She could not envision turning away from this world of feelings and sensations.
She couldn’t imagine why she had shut her eyes against it before.

“I’m not feeling at all shy,” she assured him in return, as her hands traced up his flank and over his shoulder blades until they encountered the hot stone that cut into his back.

“These walls are so hard,” she muttered, tremors rippling through her body as she pressed into him. “I might hurt you.”

“Nay.” The sharpened rocks at his shoulders should have been uncomfortable with their combined weight forcing them into the stony ledge, but he didn’t feel a thing beyond the lustful fire consuming every inch of his flesh.

“Hurry,” Taffy suggested, riding the wave of the licentious euphoria that had swept over her brain. It was a desire so strong she had no words for it.

Hard hands clamped around her waist, lifting Taffy into the air until they were pressed loin to loin. His hips moved and they both groaned.

A stray spray of ice-cold water hit Taffy’s back, shocking her into some semblance of intelligence. The wet stones near the falls would be dangerously slippery and there was a lovely bed of grass nearby.

“Malcolm.” Taffy tried to wiggle free of his iron grip.

“Aye?”

“Malcolm, love, not here. It isn’t safe. We have
to move.
Duine!”
Taffy bit his ear lightly to get his attention. She could tell that he was nearly beyond understanding her in any language. His pulse hammered against the bronze flesh of his throat. “We have to lie down before we fall down.”

His only answer was a growl and the scrape of his teeth along her neck. He tested the taste of the flesh stretched over her collar bone.

“Malcolm!” Her light smack sounded very loud on his wet skin. He paused his nuzzling. His usually gray eyes were dilated to complete blackness and eerie shadows were moving about in them.

“Taffy, lass, there’s no call tae be striking me,” he complained. “I cannae feel it anyway. Greedy woman, ye’ll be seen tae this time, I promise.”

“Malcolm,
duine
—pay attention. We have to move from these stones. Please—” She stared directly into his turbulent gaze. Her hands made a gentle frame at his cheeks. “You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

“Nay!” he denied immediately, his eyes finally focusing on her own.

“And you want to be seduced by me, don’t you?”

As a reply, Malcolm turned swiftly from the water, still holding her firmly around her waist, her tender feet well up off of the stony ground.

“Lie down,” she commanded in a shaky voice. “There. On the grass.”

He complied by kneeling in the patch of velvety green, but did not recline, preferring instead to drag her back against his lap and resume their kiss.

“No, lay back, love,” Taffy instructed, resisting his arms’ gentle but relentless pull. “It is my turn now.”

“Yer turn?” He stared at her.

“Yes. I want to make this decision. To direct this.”

“The decision ‘tis made. The direction is set. Ye needn’t worry, lass. I know where we are going.”

“Malcolm, please.” Taffy willed him to understand. “I have to know that I can do this.”

Bemused and frustrated by the delay, he nevertheless did as she commanded, lying readily as she laid an urgent palm on his chest—and then nearly sat up again as he felt her hands on his heated flesh and her weeping hair raining water down upon his abdomen as she stroked and tickled and kneaded. He arched unwilling into her touch.

“I have been like a leaf, too, blown about by everyone’s whims,” she said softly. “And I did not mind because I had no path of my own. But now I know what I want. Oh, sure. I was willful. But I’ve never made the choices that truly matter, or so it seems now.”

“Taffy, lass?” he croaked, his resolve to listen
to her words tested by the feel of her hands upon him. His most primitive instincts were roaring for permission to take what they needed and search for the meaning behind her actions later.

“I want you, Malcolm. More than anything in the world.” She kissed his stomach. “And I want to stop being moved about by others’ wills and conveniences. So I must be strong enough to choose my own course.”

“And this will give ye strength?”

“Yes. This gives me strength.”

“I do not understand ye, lass, but do as ye will.” He gritted his teeth and prepared to be patient. “Talk all ye like. I’ll listen.”

She smiled, her expression a mixture of elation and impishness.

“Don’t worry, I’m done with speaking,” she assured him. “It is time to act.”

“Aye? Then please do!”

She laughed softly at the mix of annoyance and desperation in his voice. Teasing him was irresistible.

“I heard about this interesting method from a French woman who moved to New York. She said that one did not need a saddle and bridle to enjoy riding a man. I didn’t understand what she meant then.”

“A French woman?” But he didn’t protest anymore as she lay down on top of him and returned to his mouth where she began to nibble, responding
instinctively to the roll of her hips that settled him into their cradle.

“Of course, she said that she usually used a crop as well.”

“A crop,” he repeated. Then the import of her words arrived in his foggy brain.
“Ride a man!
Ye brazen deil! Yer teasing me now, ye heartless wretch.”

“Only a little,” she said, laughing.

In an instant, she was rolled beneath him. The tides surging through his body could wait no more for jokes or exploration.
Ride him, was it?
And such brash kisses!

“Yer a wanton woman today, lass. And taking chances with yer teasing. I could pin ye here and devour ye an it was my wish.”

“Yes,” she answered, flexing against his hard palm. Her skin felt prickly and feverish. She snagged two handfuls of his hair and tugged. Her eyes remained wide open. “Yes. I am. And
I
want to do this. Now.”

“Then ‘tis my pleasure to serve ye, lass,”

Malcolm fitted himself against her. He surged once and Taffy’s long legs wrapped around him. Her hands wound into his hair, pulling his mouth down to hers with the strength of some new and urgent need.

Malcolm ceased attempting to understand her puzzling aggression and decided to simply enjoy the experience of making love with this now truly
passionate female. In his experience, women were usually passive—obedient. Especially the Sassenach. But something had changed in Taffy during this last night.

Then he couldn’t think anything at all. Taffy had tightened against him and cried out in enjoyment. He set his lips to hers and drank her in. It was shocking, this demure beauty taking such open pleasure in coupling! She had been affectionate before, willing certainly—

Then the ecstatic trembling that had overtaken Taffy came to him. A last surge into her and Malcolm stopped being shocked and instead flew over the edge of the precipice where his body had been continually hovering since Taffy came into his life. He buried his face in her golden hair and gave a muffled roar as the healing heat poured through his battered heart and mind, and sent his lustful inner beast in a contented state back to its lair.

Eventually, time restarted itself in the corrie. The grass regained texture. The waterfall resumed playing its watery chorus at normal volume. A gentle sun caressed his skin. But still, Malcolm did not move.

“Malcolm.” Taffy’s voice was worried. She smoothed down his damp hair. He seemed far too quiet, and she was concerned that he had perhaps passed out. Heaven knew that she had
left her own mind for a while there and had aspic where once her bones had been.

“Aye, love?” he finally asked in the laziest of voices, turning his head back and forth as he rubbed his face in her tresses and tangled the wet locks horribly.

“Are you well?” The question sounded idiotic but she wasn’t sure quite what else to say. She had never attacked a man before and wasn’t at all certain how he was taking it…or she was taking it. He had probably been shocked at her behavior. She was, herself, well-nigh reeling with astonishment.

One didn’t need a saddle and bridle to enjoy riding a man?
What monster of wickedness had said that?

“I am quite well. And ye, wanton creature?” he asked, echoing her thoughts. Malcolm raised up on his forearms and stared down at her blushing face. Plainly, he was amused rather than offended. “Have ye proven yer mettle?”

“Yes, thank you. I mean, I am fine,” she replied, falling back on good manners.

In point of fact, she wasn’t at all certain that she was
fine.
How could she be
fine
when she had just been the victim of overwhelming, wanton, abandoned compulsion? And the pleasure which had come of it…It seemed almost impossible to reconcile what she had been taught of the normal
feminine impulse and what had happened to her.

On the other hand, she felt strong and contented. And though that was not ladylike, it
was
wonderful.

“Taffy.” Malcolm looked suddenly very serious as he played with a lock of her hair.

“Yes?” she asked reluctantly, not wanting to spoil her tentative sense of balance, and not prepared to think any more until she had slept.

“I wish us tae marry. I know a priest, an Irishman. He’ll do this for us. I’d take ye tae an Anglican—an I knew one—and be married there, but there is nobody I can trust here. Not wi’ yer life.”

Taffy closed her eyes, trying to shut out returning reality. She wasn’t ready to again confront the danger of their situation.

“Is it that ye are hide-bound, lass? Not wishful of marrying a man o’ some other faith.”

“No. Of course not.”

As Malcolm remained silent, waiting for some further answer, she finally cracked open one lid and studied her lover’s expression.

His dark hair was thick and smooth and fell carelessly around the tanned face, partially hiding his prominent ears. His slightly arrogant—but entirely exciting—mouth was, for the moment, unsmiling.

But most compelling of all these attributes of
countenance were his fey eyes, fringed with the thickest lashes any human had ever possessed. It was a face that was vivid with life, sober for the most part, and very intelligent.

Taffy’s skin still prickled and there was a hunger inside, but something else as well. A babe, she was sure of it. For its sake, if not for her own, she should do as he asked. It was only some notion of the rituals of courtship from her previous life that made her hesitate.

“This would please you?” she finally asked.

“Aye. It would.”

“Very well, then. If it’s safe,” she added, laying a palm against Malcolm’s smooth cheek. “I don’t want you to take any risks.”

“Fear not, lass. I’ll take no chances with ye or the bairn,” he vowed.

Taffy’s eyes widened.

“You—you’re certain that there is a babe?”

“Aye.” Malcolm laid a hand over her belly. “ ’Tis a wee girl with yer golden hair and my eyes.”

Taffy exhaled slowly, assimilating his words and conviction.

“And does she have your ears?”

“Nay. They’re great pointy things. She takes them from her mother.”

Taffy’s lips trembled. So, it was true then.

And she was supposed to walk away from this man? To return home to—
what?
Her father? Her
former life of empty socializing? And how empty it would be! For she would have no one except her babe to share it with. And they would be ostracized for her being husbandless.

And yet, she couldn’t stay here, could she? Running away from Campbells and Covenanters, and all the other human carnivores who roamed this damaged land. Their only times of peace would be these moments they had snatched in these strange, magical oases provided by the still-folk.

Taffy turned her head, looking at the beautiful water, which spilled from the gray rock, feeling the unnaturally delicate grass woven into a blanket beneath them. Above them, the sun filled a clear, azure sky. At the mouth of the cavern, Smokey lay sleeping, filling the autumn air with gentle snores.

“Could we not stay here a while?” she asked, speaking her thoughts aloud.

Malcolm smiled sadly.

“Aye, we could. But the day would come—and soon—when we could never leave at all.”

She turned back to look at him.

“What does that mean?” she asked, touching the hard lines that had appeared suddenly at the side of his mouth. A touch of cold fear went through her sternum and pricked her heart. “Why couldn’t we leave?”

“Ye recall yer fairy tales, lass? Of what happens
tae men who go tae visit among the still-folk? The fiddlers who come and play for a night. The giddy maids who stay for the length o’ one reel?”

“They are gone for a hundred years, the stories say,” she whispered around the growing tightness in her throat. Tears of exhaustion and frustration began to pool in her eyes. “They turn to dust and die when they go home.”