Highland Sons: The Mackay Saga (14 page)

Desire tightened her stomach as his thrusts became more demanding, until she could think of nothing else but meeting the needs of her body, of experiencing the pleasure of their joining. Her hips rose to meet each of his thrusts as their sweat-slicked bodies glided against one another.

When the passion built and exploded, she cried out.

The first wave crested over her, her muscles contracting and locking up until it became nearly impossible to draw breath. She couldn’t tell where she ended and he began as the wave crashed and they were one. Yet even as the pleasure washed over her, she became aware of him continuing to move inside her. Passion soared and she exploded once again.

With a groan, he shuddered and pressed his body to hers, but he kept himself braced on his forearms. He panted heavily against her shoulder and rolled to his back. She snuggled up beside him, her head pillowed on his chest.

“That was . . .” he began.

She smiled and kissed his chest, running her hand along sleek, damp skin. “Amazing,” she filled in.

He squeezed her gently and kissed the top of her head as if they’d been lovers for years. “Amazing is a good word.”

The salt of his skin lingered on her tongue as she kissed a path down his chest. His hands tangled in her tousled curls, his roughened fingers a gentle caress as they trailed down her cheek, her neck. As she glided against him, her breasts became heavy, swollen and needy, wanting him again.

Desire built again as she leaned up and kissed him fiercely. It had been three years since she’d had a man—longer still since she’d wanted one—and yet, having had Cameron, she realized one taste, one touch would never be enough.

She threw her leg over him, straddling him as she had earlier straddled his horse. Inching her way up his body, she ran her breasts over his chest. Nuzzling up against his neck, she inhaled his scent, the smell of linen, wild sage and mint, and leather filling her nostrils, rugged and clean.

He fisted his hands in her hair and tipped her head back to look at her. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he gazed upon her, his eyes intense, as if he were memorizing her face. As if he thought this moment could be anything more than a mere moment.

The thought struck her. What if Seamus had followed them? Seamus was resourceful—he could find out where Cameron’s claim was, and she knew from experience what that man was capable of.

Regret nested in her heart like a great, black bird. This had to end. Here. Now. Her band would leave in a matter of days, and Cameron would forget her. As it should be.

But she could only protect him if she left now.

“Cameron . . .” she began, and the black birds of remorse rose up from the depths of her chest to choke her.

“Fiona.” His pale brows knit, and he cupped her face in his hands—hands she knew had to be strong from long hours working the mines, but which touched her with surprising tenderness. “Don’t say you regret this.”

“No,” she whispered. “I doona think I could ever regret this night.”

“Good,” he said. Grasping her about her waist, he rolled until she was underneath him, caged between his body and the bed. “Because I don’t.”

“I can’t stay, Cameron. I need to get back before Seamus—”

His lips against hers silenced her protest, and the muscles low in her belly clenched as a new wave of desire coursed through her.

“Don’t think about him,” Cameron whispered against her lips. “He’s not here in the room with us.”

“No, but he is the leader of my band,” she said. “We leave in a few days.”

He kissed her again, and her next words were silenced by the glide of his body against hers. “I’m not asking for forever,” he said, his voice little more than a breath against her lips. “Just a night.”

Just a night
. Not forever. He made her no promises beyond tonight, didn’t seek to placate her with empty declarations of love. They had a night, and that was all.

She had a future to think about. If Seamus discovered them . . .

“Please, Cameron,” she said.

Her words were lost as he claimed her mouth. His kiss stole the breath from her lungs and the anxiety of her heart. He said nothing to try to convince her to stay, but he didn’t have to.

His kiss did it for him.

She lifted her hips, and a laugh rumbled in his chest as he entered her. His fingers dug into her hips as she rocked against him, taking him deeper than she’d ever thought possible. Wanting more of him with each passing second, until she forgot her protests and Seamus, forgot her future and his. Until her whole world and her entire life was encompassed in these few precious moments. There was no future filled with uncertainty, and there was no past filled with loss and despair.

There was only now.

Only him.

Cameron woke slowly as the sun peeked over the dusty brown hills and flooded his single window with light.

He hadn’t slept this late in nine years.

Since his arrival in this godforsaken mining town, he’d been up before dawn, down in his rabbit hole from before the sun rose until after it set. After today, if all went well, he’d never have to work in that hellish tomb ever again. He’d be free to go back to Virginia, buy his land back, and do the one thing he’d loved more than anything. Be who he was meant to be.

Next to him Fiona stirred, her small, strong hands brushing against his abdomen.

His bed, built for only one, was barely enough to contain them both. He was neither accustomed to nor particularly fond of being touched, especially while he slept, but he didn’t mind so much right now. She sighed in her sleep and he took her into his arms, her head pillowed on his chest.

Contentment pierced his heart. Stroking the soft skin of her arms, he realized he hadn’t been so at peace since the war began. Beautiful in a way he couldn’t even begin to describe, her dark hair framed a face as pale and perfect as moonlight. Everything about her was so different from him. Her body. Her life. Her heart.

She was like the night, calm and still and perfect.

Gingerly, he moved out from beneath her. His chest ached from the loss of her warmth, her nearness. She sighed in her sleep.

His eyes lit on her clothes, scattered on the floor. He could go through her pockets and she would never know. If she had his ring, he’d reclaim it and his curiosity would be at least partially satisfied. He should have demanded it back before now, but the guilty voice in his head acknowledged that if he did, he’d have no reason to stay by her side. One thing was clear after last night.

He wanted to be near her, for however long they had.

The clothes stayed where they lay.

Cameron busied himself with making coffee. The scent filled his shack as he prepared them something to eat. He thought about those clothes again. About what might be inside her pockets.

She’d had ample opportunity to return his property to him, and more than a small part of him was angry with her for both the taking and the keeping of it. He still intended to reclaim his heritage, but he had time. Tonight, tomorrow. . . It didn't need to happen today.

That was what he told himself, anyway.

She stirred again, and her beauty stole his breath.

He poured some coffee into the same battered tin cup from the night before, his gaze shifting from her clothes to her face and back again. If she woke and found him going through her garments, she’d never forgive him.

Maybe she doesn’t have the ring
, the voice of hope whispered in the back of his brain.

If he didn’t go through her clothes, he’d never know, one way or the other. But if he did and she caught him, he might lose her.

He wasn’t prepared for that, either. If he hoped to make his meeting and sell his claim, he needed to leave, and soon. Coffee in hand, he knelt beside the bed.

“Fiona.”

She rolled over and blinked up at him. Full lips quirked up in a sleepy, slightly embarrassed smile, and his chest tightened. She stretched and beneath the sheet, her nipples hardened to taut little buds. He fought the urge to taste them again.

“Morning,” she said, and her sleep-sexy voice had him wanting to crawl back into bed with her and spend the rest of the day making love.

He handed her the cup in his hand. “I have a meeting in town in a little bit. I let you sleep as long as I could, but I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

Her features contorted into an expression of horror and she sat up quickly, clutching the sheet to her chest. “Oh, no!”

Fiona bolted out of bed. Concerned by her obvious distress, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

She shook him off, found her chemise, then threw it over her head. He got a glimpse of the pale globes of her breasts before the chemise covered them and his mouth watered at the sight. She collected her clothes and when she straightened abruptly, she seemed unstable on her feet.

His hand on her elbow to stabilize her, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Seamus is going to
kill
me!” she hissed, wrenching from his grasp.

Rage, sudden and unexpected, boiled below the surface of his skin. He clenched his teeth so tightly he thought they might break. “You can’t think I’d ever let him hurt you.”

The look she gave him could have wilted flowers. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth set into a defiant, angry line. “If he wanted to hurt me, you would be wholly unable to stop him.”

“I can protect you.”

With a derisive huff, she threw on her clothes and twisted her hair into a makeshift bun. As she tucked the strands up at the nape of her neck, their gazes collided and her expression softened. “I’m sure you would try. But he’s the leader of my band and I answer to him.” Though her eyes seemed unnaturally bright with what he suspected were unshed tears, her voice never faltered or wavered. “I think I’d like to go back now.”

He took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “You could stay here.”

Pain flashed in her eyes before she masked it. “Not forever. Take me back to my band.”

“You don’t need to go back to them. You understand that, don’t you? You don’t need them.”

She pursed her lips and backed away from him. Her arms folded against her chest, her stance stiff and anxious, she glanced away. “You doona know what I need.” Her voice lacked the bitterness he had expected from her. “Take me back.”

Anger twisted and curdled in his gut, but he nodded anyway. He couldn’t keep her unless she allowed it, and he was beginning to think she wouldn’t. “Very well.”

She surprised him when she curled her fingers around his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. Her hands were callused, but warm and small within his, and everything in him screamed at him to make her world right. He wanted to protect her, to touch her, to hear her sing. He wanted to spend his days loving her until neither one of them could stand.

He wanted to see her smile light the room and real joy in her eyes, but he suspected that was something else she would be unable to give him.

Wary eyes regarded him as he placed a blanket on Midnight’s back. He watched her out of the corner of his eyes while she watched him. Whenever she thought he wouldn’t notice, her expression held both pain and interest, like she didn’t know what to make of him. He mounted Midnight and went over to her, took her hand, and hoisted her up.

She moved with surprising grace as she settled herself behind him. Heat lit in his belly and tightened his chest when she circled him with her arms and pressed her chest against his back. Her hands, flat against his abdomen, caused his muscles to tense and bunch and blood to fire in his groin. She rested her cheek against his back.

He found himself unable to describe the feeling soaring through him.

While he didn’t want to examine the emotion too closely, he didn’t want to lose it either.

As they approached town, she said, “Leave me here, please. I’ll make my way back to the hotel on my own.”

He nodded and swallowed the lump forming in his throat. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? He didn’t behave like this, and he’d never mourned something he’d only had for a matter of days. When he’d first started pursuing her, he’d known there could never be anything lasting between them.

She was a gypsy and a thief, and he had no room in his life for a woman. Once he reclaimed his land in Virginia, got himself established, and made something of himself, he’d find himself a respectable wife. A fine, upstanding woman from a good family who would have made his mother proud.

But a tiny, forlorn voice in some forgotten corner of his heart whispered that maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He’d always had an affinity for wild things. Would he really be satisfied with fine and upstanding?

A part of him would mourn Fiona forever if he let her go. But she seemed determined to get back to her band, and he couldn’t force her to stay. He wouldn’t, even if he could.

Midnight slowed and stopped, and Cameron dismounted. As he assisted Fiona off the horse, he held her too close, for too long, and his body responded. Her proximity, her heat, her scent—like desert rain and fragrant spice—made for a heady combination. For a moment, he simply breathed her in, and she wrapped her thin, wiry arms around his body and held him tight.

As if listening to the drumming of his heart, she pressed her cheek to his chest and cleared her throat. “Thank you for last night. It meant . . . a lot to me.”

The resignation, the finality in her tone settled like a stone in his chest, and his heart lurched. “Meet me again tonight, Fiona.”

“I doona think . . .”

“I’m not asking for forever. Just dinner.”

Her lips curled in a self-conscious, anxious expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “That’s no’ a good idea.”

“Just dinner. Nothing more.”
Accept
, he silently commanded.
Say yes, Fiona.

She sighed heavily and looked away. Already, the heat of the day had begun to set in and dry wind brought billowing clouds of dust and the promise of late afternoon storms. Brushing her hair away from her face, she turned back to him. “All right.”

“What time?” Again, a strange, unfamiliar lightness—if he didn’t know better, he’d describe it as joy—soared through him.

She shrugged. “I’m supposed to read fortunes all afternoon, but I should be free around dusk.”

He nodded. “I’ll be waiting for you at The Globe. Same as last night.”

A line formed between her brows, but the smile she gave him lit the shadowy corners of his heart. “I look forward to it.”

He turned and mounted Midnight, and she simply stood there, still and silent. As he moved to leave, he felt her hand on his calf. “Cameron.” He glanced down at her and grinned, but her expression was immobile—set and serious. “I—I think you’ve been looking in the wrong direction for a long time. I think . . . I think you’ve always had what you were looking for.”

He scowled. He didn’t want the cryptic words and riddles of a fortune-teller; he only wanted the truth from her, the one thing she’d never give him. “What do you mean?”

She drew a breath. “This thing you say you’re looking for, this thing you lost. I doona think it’s what you really want. What you actually want is something you’ve had the whole time. Think about it, Cameron. Is all of this”—she gestured to the city around her—”really about the land and the ring? Or is it maybe something more than that?”

A chill coursed through his body despite the heat of the summer sun, and he frowned. “What else could it be?”

“You’re telling me you did all of this so you could buy back some dirt? That this isn’t about gaining the respect of your brother? Redeeming yourself because you think
you
lost the land
he
fought for?”

His jaw began to ache. He couldn't do this with her, not now. “This has nothing to do with Duncan. It's about my mother, and my land. About my legacy and my family. It's about roots.”

She nodded slowly, and her gaze darted away. “Well then, perhaps I’m wrong.”

Irritation, bordering on anger, itched beneath his skin. “Perhaps you are.” His tone was colder than he’d intended.

Unmistakable pain creased her features. “Well, then, I wish you well.”

“I’ll see you tonight,” he offered, softening his tone. He didn’t want to part with angry words.

He waited a long time for her to respond, and when she finally did, she gave him nothing more than a single nod.

Fiona trudged up to her hotel room, fingering the ring in her pocket as she ascended the stairs.

All the time they’d spent together, and he’d never once asked her if she had the ring. He must know she had it, but he’d never asked for it back.

What kind of game was he playing? He had to be working some kind of scheme. No one would just give up the quest for a thing of such value without some sort of motive. Was he trying to gain her trust so she’d
give
the jewel back? He hadn’t
given
her the ring, so why didn't he demand she give it back? What could he possibly want from her in payment?

Experience told her nothing came without a price.

Her stomach twisted into knots, her chest ached, and her breath came short and fast. Her vision swam as she thought of all the implications of what she had done, and what she continued to do. Seamus, if he knew where she’d been the night before, would demand his due as the leader of her band, and he would want more from her than just the ring in her pocket. Cameron had made her no promises beyond dinner tonight, and she didn’t expect any. After all, once he got his ring back, he would surely abandon her.

As well he should, since she continued to betray him every moment she kept it.

Heavy-hearted, Fiona turned her key. Before her door had opened all the way, an angry voice asked, “Where ha’ ye been, woman?”

Seamus.

“I was working,” Fiona responded, leaving the door open behind her.

“Working,” Seamus echoed bitterly. “I’m sure ye were. Earning a little extra on the side, Fi? Because if ye are, ye know what belongs to me.”

“Certainly no’!” She gritted her teeth against the suggestiveness in his voice.

He stalked toward her, his strides purposeful and angry. Leaning past her, he slammed the door behind her and grabbed her by the shoulders, his grip painful. “Where ha’ ye been?”

“I told you. I’ve been out working.”

“All night? Ye’ve been working all night?”

She swallowed against the fear rising in her throat. Sweat dotted her brow, and she wiped it away angrily. His nostrils flared and heat flamed in his eyes, and she wondered if he knew precisely what she’d been doing. “Of course no’.”

“Ye think me a fool, woman? Ye didn’t sleep in yer bed.”

“I was working,” she repeated.

“Tell me the truth!” With the back of his hand, he struck her face and she cried out. “Ye were with
him
last night!”