Shared by the Highlanders (20 page)

He doesn’t ask my permission again, just continues, by tacit consent. I could ask him to stop and I know he would. I don’t though. I don’t want him to stop. Ever. I remain there, kneeling on all fours before him, absorbing every delightful stroke, allowing it to sink into my flesh, my bones.

“Open your legs a little more for me, sweetheart.” Robbie murmurs his command, but I obey without question. He removes his fingers from my cunt, but my protest at such abandonment soon dies when he takes my clit between his fingers and rubs it. “So hot, so plump and red. Such a hungry little slut. Shall we give you more, I wonder?”

“Please. I need it. I need…” My words trail away as I realise I have absolutely no idea what I need, apart from to come and to come hard. The sooner the better. Even so, I squeal as he taps my tender, sensitive clit with the switch. “No! Not there.”

“I think so.” More tapping.

“No. No.”

The tapping pauses. The switch is now pressed against my clit, which is throbbing, caught up in the throes of some crazy, masochistic fit of enthusiasm. My head and my body are at war. I have no idea what I want, what I crave, what I should ask for next.

“If you tell me no again, I
will
stop. You don’t have to do this, little one. I won’t force you. But maybe you’d like to try. Just once?”

I hesitate, confused. Terrified. Then, I nod.

“Open your legs as wide as you can, and hold still for me. Don’t move, and however much you might want to, do
not
close your legs.” Again his words are softly spoken, little more than a murmur, but the velvet tone is threaded with pure steel. He expects to be obeyed.

I shift my knees further apart, and nod once more. I’m beyond speaking now, even if he does insist.

He starts again, tapping the switch against the side of my clit, then pressing it hard. He lifts it, and drops a quick whack right on my tender nub.

“Oh. Oh, God…” I scream, though it hasn’t hurt, at least not much. Not as much as I expected. It’s just—so intense. Pure sensation shooting through my system, setting all my neurons alight.

“Again, on the other side. Then once more, right on the tip. Then, you’ll climax for me. Is that clear?” Robbie’s voice is low, sexy, and very serious. He means it.

“Yes, sir.”
Where did that come from? Who cares?

Robbie chuckles and taps the switch against the other side of my swollen clit. He presses, then…

“Aagh!” I let out a real scream this time, because it
does
hurt. It hurts like fuck. I half expect Will to come hurtling back from out of the darkness, intent on rescuing us from bears or wolves or whatever deadly creatures stalk these moors at night.

He doesn’t, and Robbie is positioning for the final stroke. Every instinct, every nerve ending is screaming at me to yell
no,
to close my legs, to do something, anything to protect my poor, vulnerable clitoris. I do nothing, just hold my breath as he drops the series of quick, staccato taps on the very tip of my clit. He presses, then my world explodes in a tsunami of pain and pleasure, swept up in the most excruciating, agonising, glorious orgasm. My climax is a kaleidoscope of pain, a cacophony of sensation, an explosion of white light behind my tight-closed eyes. I’m confused, senseless, my world spinning. I fall forward, writhing as the waves of pleasure pulse through me, taking my breath, turning my bones to liquid. Robbie is here too, beside me, holding me. He’s murmuring something, some nonsense about letting go, holding on, loving me, having me.

I’m still clinging to him as the ripples of pleasure subside, my body shaking under the enormity of the sensation, the dying ricochets still causing my pussy to spasm and my breath to hitch.

As my senses steady I’m aware that Robbie is lifting me. He carries me the short distance to the tent and crouches to take me inside. There, he unfastens my gown and helps me to peel it off. He must mean to make love to me, then, here in our bed. I’ll raise no objection, though I’m exhausted, utterly spent.

He strips my clothing away, then lays my naked body on the sleeping bag, pulling his plaid and Will’s up to my chin. He half stands in the confined space to strip off his own clothes, then joins me in the snug nest.

“Sleep now,” he whispers, the most welcome words I’ve heard in so long I can’t remember. I mould my body around his, and drift away.

* * *

I wake to see the watery tendrils of early dawn just poking through the entrance to the tent. It’s cold. Very cold. I shiver, and reach for the nearest heat source. Will. He throws an arm across me and I cuddle in.

It’s no good though. However warm and cosy I might be, nature is calling, and she is relentless. I need to get up.

I sit up, my breath coming in wisps of fog in front of me, and look for something to wear. Will’s plaid is the closest and I wriggle to my knees, wrapping the thick woollen fabric around me. Although I’ve yet to master the fine art of arranging the length of tartan to exclude all and every draught the way the men seem to, it’s still remarkably warm and I need that this morning. I clutch it to my chest as I get to my feet.

“Where are you going, girl?” Will’s voice, sleep-fuddled, reaches me from somewhere within the tangle of male bodies and vibrant Scottish colours.

“I need a wee.”

“Aye? Well, take a leak for me while you’re out there, would you?”

“Yeah, right.” I manage to locate my soft leather shoes, another generous gift from Elspeth’s now depleted wardrobe. I ram my feet in them and lift the tent flap.

It’s cool, still grey outside, misty but with the promise perhaps of warmth later. It can’t be much after first light. I guess at the time, perhaps going up to six in the morning. I scurry around to the rear of the tent and do what I have to do as quickly as I can. My immediate needs met, I return at a more leisurely pace, contemplating whether I should collect some wood and start a fire. We may have time for breakfast today as we’re not intending to gallop off anywhere else. At least not for a while.

The prospect of snuggling back up for another hour or so in that lovely warm space between Robbie and Will is a tempting one, but in an unusual fit of diligence I decide instead to scout around for some kindling. I gather the plaid more closely around myself and glance around me. This is the first time I’ve had a look at my surroundings in daylight but I seem to recall passing a clump of trees as we approached…

What. The. Fuck?

I stagger backwards, almost hurtling onto my bum as I catch my heel on the edge of the tent. I regain my balance then stand, transfixed, staring at the oak tree below me on the hillside, the remains of the drover’s ancient shelter beside it. The tree is dead, stark fingers of blackened, ancient wood silhouetted against the lightening sky. The building is in ruins, only the foundations and first few courses remaining. Much of the stone is gone altogether, carried away over the centuries as generation after generation of Cumbrian farmers had greater need of it.

Over the centuries. How many centuries? This was not the scene when we rode past in the semi-darkness, just hours ago.

I lift my gaze further, and believe I may be able to just make out the ribbon of asphalt that snakes over the Kirkstone Pass. The road, from Windermere to Ullswater. The modern, twenty-first first century road.

Oh, God! What?
Frantic, I spin around and grab the tent flap. I peer inside. Are they there? How can they be…?

Yes, two unmistakable shapes under the covers, both Will and Robbie are here, now, with me. Wherever, whenever this is.

My immediate joy at their presence dissipates as the implications of that fact come crashing at me. I may have somehow shifted again, though to God knows when, but they have too. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. Robbie and Will are now displaced, every bit as trapped in an alien time as I was just a day ago. We have no idea how this occurred—again. Whatever is happening is as much a mystery to us as it ever was; there’s no way to be sure of sending them back.

I should have come here alone. I could have taken my chances, they had no need to become caught up in this weirdness with me. Racked with guilt, I bend to go back into the tent. I have to tell them. I have to apologise. We need to work out what to do next.

A movement catches my eye, far away, on the horizon. I straighten and watch in impotent resignation as the graceful blades of the wind turbines sweep across the pale blue sky.

“Wake up. You need to wake up. Both of you.”

“Aye, lass. But not quite yet, eh?” Robbie rolls onto his side, his deep russet hair in sharp contrast to the pale lemon lining of my sleeping bag. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“Now. Please. Something’s happened.”

That gets his attention. He rolls onto his back to regard me with his shrewd gaze. “What?”

Will is awake too, and props himself up on his elbow. “Are you all right, wee Charlie? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have, sort of. Please, come outside.”

Perhaps it’s my tone, or my desperate expression. Neither man needs further urging. Robbie grabs his plaid, and Will reaches for the pair of leather leggings he usually wears. In seconds they are following me out into the daylight.

The mist has entirely cleared now and the sun is starting to cast shadows across the moors. The shimmer of purples, golds, vivid greens blend together in the light breeze. I ignore all that natural beauty and point to the manmade clues.

“Look. The shed. The tree.”

“Holy Mother of God.” Will’s low whisper says it all, for all three of us. I have no need to spell out what this means. They know.

“But, how…?” Robbie is gazing in wonder, his eyes taking in all that isn’t right, everything that shouldn’t be here. Yet. For several seconds no one speaks, then, “Are those the wind things you tried to describe?”

“Yes. Turbines. For generating electricity. They were put there in two thousand and eight.”

“Okay…” Robbie falls silent again, his eyes riveted to the slow, majestic glide of white across blue.

“I’m sorry. So sorry. I never imagined, I had no idea…”

“Me neither. I expected it to be a lot more difficult than this.” Will is the first to recover from the shock. “I’m guessing our horses didn’t come with us, then.”

“What?” I look to where the three mounts had been tethered last night, a few feet from our tent. There’s no sign of them, not even so much as a trampled patch of heather. “Oh, no, I suppose not. Perhaps this whatever it is doesn’t work on animals, only humans.”

His forehead furrows. “Aye, well, it’s not very convenient if that’s so. We must be fifty miles from anywhere.”

I stare at him, and at Robbie. Neither of them is displaying the dismay I would have anticipated, the shock and disbelief I experienced just few days ago, when the penny dropped.

“Not convenient? It’s a bloody disaster, and not just because we’ll have to walk. Anyway, Glenridding’s only three hours away.”

Robbie lets out a disgruntled snort. “Three hours? Aye, well, it could have been worse then, I daresay. Still, that’s a fair hike. Glenridding, did you say? Is that where we should be headed then, would you say, wee Charlie?”

Incredulous, I stare at them. Have they somehow failed to grasp the reality of their situation? Are the implications lost on them? Neither man has ever struck me as in any way obtuse, but they seem to be taking all this with a calmness bordering on deranged.

“Don’t you care? You’re stuck here, both of you. You don’t belong here, any more than I did back… then.”

Robbie shrugs. “Ah, well, that’s a matter of opinion, I suppose you’d say. But to answer your first question, yes, we do care. We’re bloody elated. It’s worked out just as we wanted, and with no effort from us. If we’d somehow managed to come across the way back for you, and the dear Lord alone knows how we might have recognised it, we feared the route would only work for you and we’d be left behind.”

“But… what? You
intended
this? Wanted it?”

“Aye. We decided that if there was any way we could achieve it, we’d be returning to your century with you.” Will crawls back into the tent to retrieve the rest of his clothing, a pair of soft leather knee-length boots and a loose cotton shirt. He re-emerges and proceeds to get dressed, then reaches in again for my velvet gown. “I’ll be right glad of my plaid back, when you’ve quite finished standing about gawking.”

He hands me my clothes, which I accept wordlessly. Robbie is also pulling on the rest of his attire. I’m still dumbfounded.

“When? When did you decide this? And why? How will you manage here? What if you can’t return?”

Robbie smiles at me, his expression perhaps a little rueful. “The day before yesterday, when we went hunting. We had a long talk, about ourselves, our lives. You.”

“Yes. You talked about protecting me. Marrying me, for Christ’s sake. You agreed you’d fuck me solo. You never mentioned you’d decided to also turn your entire lives upside down. Leave behind all you know, all you hold dear.”

“Well, as for what we might know, I’m thinking we still have that knowledge, such as it is. And it’s true we both have families who’ll miss us and we will surely miss them. But what else did we have to look forward to? An aimless existence fetching and carrying for a vain, incompetent monarch, occasional border skirmishes for a bit of excitement, and the rest of our time spent hanging around the Sinclair or MacBride lands like unwanted wedding guests. You whetted our appetite with your tales of science and medicine, and the fancy little toys in that bag of yours. So we talked, and we decided.” He pauses, offers me a wry smile. “We should have talked to you too. We intended to.”

“Intended? You had ample chance. I’ve been so scared, so sad. I thought I’d lose you.”

“We knew that, lassie,” Will says. “But we thought it best to leave it until we knew there
was
a way back, and all this was a possibility. We didn’t even know for sure that we’d be able to find this place again…”

I give a derisive snort. Even I could have navigated back here, and they know this terrain so much better than me.