The man was watching her. He waved at the milk jug and the two pots of condiments. She wet a fingertip and tasted each: salt and sugar, as she had surmised. She added a pinch of both to the mixture and stirred, but she ignored the milk. With the added condiments, the mixture was better. She spooned it up and he grinned.
“Parritch!” he said nodding at the bowl.
She swallowed her mouthful and repeated. “Par-itch?”
“Aye, parritch. Ye like it?” His gestures made his meaning clear, and she shrugged and smiled. She scooped up some of the offal mixture with her fingers and sprinkled it over the top of thepar—itchand spooned it up.
She was amused by his apparent delight with watching her eat and wondered how she could turn that to her advantage. He was off guard and relaxed, leaning back on his hands behind him, his legs straight out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He was wearing breeches and boots today with a loosely tied neckcloth, shirt, and jacket. There was a casual masculinity to him that tugged at her in a disconcerting fashion. She recalled straddling him yesterday, and a pulse of warmth between her legs made her glance sideways at the front of his breeches. When he had flipped her and pressed her to the ground yesterday there had been a definite hardness there, and when she’d straddled him, it had happened again.
She continued eating, turning possibilities over in her mind. She waved at the offal and asked, “Name?”
He frowned a moment and then said, “Haggis.”
“Haggis,” she repeated. She then waved at each of the items on the tray to get their names too. He obliged, seemingly eager to communicate. She finished the bowl of par-itch with the haggis and drank the rest of the ale. And used one of the phrases shehad learned yesterday. “Thank ye.” She bowed her head, hands clasped.
“Ye’re welcome,” he responded, and bent to gather up the tray.
She found it odd that he would wait on her like a servant, when he was the laird. He must be poor and could not afford servants. She had certainly seen no evidence of servants, or any females, come to that. Was that why he wanted to keep her here?
She stayed him with a hand. She needed to keep him talking, distracted, while she figured out a way to get hold of that key. So she started pointing to things and asking for the names. He seemed happy to oblige her as she roamed around the cell. She pointed to the lock on the door, and he gave her the word for it.
“Padlock.”
She mimed turning a key in the lock, and he fished the key out of his pocket and held it up in his palm. “Key.”
She came towards him and knelt, straddling him, her hand covering his palm, but not attempting to wrest the key from him.
“Key,” she said softly. He drew in an audible breath as she settled on him, her eyes locked with his. She could see his pupils dilate as she watched, and feel the growing heat and firmness where their groins connected.
Her captor closed his fist over the key and dropped it in his pocket, his large hands coming to rest on her hips. She rested hers on his broad shoulders and eased herself against him, with a slow and deliberate forward pressure of her hips.
She could feel the hard outline of his male member as she pressed firmly against him, and it sent a thrill of pleasure through her body.
His hands flexed on her, gripping tightly, as a growl escaped his throat. He said something almost entirely unintelligible. The only thing she caught was her name.
She smiled, moving her hips in a slow, sensuous rhythm that gave her pleasurable thrills. He said something that sounded like a curse, and the next moment, she was plastered to his chest by the iron bands of his arms and his mouth was on hers in a plundering kiss that would have caused her legs to collapse had she been standing. He fell back on the mattress and pulled her with him. The kiss went on and on as she squirmed on him, blatantly using him for her own pleasure.
Good distraction!This man had not had a woman in a while. She could tell by the hunger in his kiss and the hard rubbing of his hands over her body. He broke the kiss with a kind of wrench, closing his eyes and panting for breath. She pushed herself up on her arms and regarded him. His expression was—anguished, that was the only word she could find to describe it. She would assume he was in physical pain if he had been injured. She could only conclude that this was emotional pain of some kind.
Abruptly, he lifted her off him and got up. She scrambled to her feet and tried to reach for him, but he was pushing the key into the padlock and shrugging her off. He shook his head and when she tried again, he rounded on her with a roar. “Nae!”
She stumbled backwards at this ferocity, and he left the cell, clanging the door and locking it with visibly shaking hands. He turned and left with rapid strides that took him out of her sight in moments. She could hear his boots on the stone steps for a few heartbeats and then silence.
Col stumbled up the steps and out into the courtyard, rattled to the core. Tears streaked his cheeks as he crossed the courtyard towards the rose garden and the site of Catriona’s grave. He staggered to a stop at the headstone and sank to his knees.
“Cat!” He gripped the headstone with one hand and wiped his face with the other. “I’m sorry, love! I dinnae know what came over me. She has bewitched me with her seelie ways!”
He couldn’t deny that his violent orgasm last night had been triggered by thoughts of Aihan, and his raw response to her just now underlined it unequivocally. He felt as if he had betrayed Catriona’s memory and the sacred bond they had shared.
Over the years since her death, he’d often come to her grave to talk to her and weep for the loss of her. The sheer raw agony of it had tempered with time, but he still missed her like a lost limb.
“Cat?” he asked softly. “What ails me, lass? Has she bespelled me, with her seelie magic?”
A picture rose in his mind’s eye of Cat, sitting in the rocking chair in their room with Callum to her breast, singing to him. Her dark hair loose round her shoulders, the robe she wore loosened to bare her breast for Callum’s greedy mouth. Those moments were so fleeting and, at the time, perhaps not treasured as they should be. The tears ran down his cheeks as he gazed into his memory, blind to his surroundings.
Cat stopped singing and raised her head to look at him and smiled.
“All will be well, Col, ye’ll see,” she said softly in her lilting tones. She had often said that to him, when he was angry or upset or worried over something. Hearing her say it now in his mind soothed him. Like it always did. His racing heart slowed, and his breathing slowed. The tears dried, and he sat a long time with his eyes closed, just holding the picture of her in his mind and the soothing calm of her presence in his heart.
