Page 1 of Sins of the Highlander

Chapter 1

The peat fire had burned out and the ash gone gray, but Rob MacLaren didn’t feel the least bit cold. Not while his hot-blooded woman writhed under him. Their breaths mingled in the frosty air of the bedchamber. Fiona tilted her hips, welcoming him deeper, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from emptying himself into her.

It was too soon.

He never wanted it to end, this joining, this loss of himself in the woman he adored.

Rob raised himself up on his arms and gazed down at her. The candles had burned down to nubs but still flickered enough to cast her in soft light. He could see his wife clearly. Her strawberry nipples peaked, with cold or arousal he couldn’t be sure, but he loved looking at them just the same.

“What are ye doing, daftie man? ’Tis too cold!” Fiona raised herself up and clung to him for warmth.

“That’s what ye get when ye marry a man on Christmas Day—a cold bridal night.” He gently pushed her back down, and she sank into the feather tick.

“It doesna have to be cold.” Her skin rippled with gooseflesh. “Come back under the covers, love.”

“I canna. I need to see the lass I wed,” he said. “I want to watch ye melt for me, to see your face when ye make that wee kitten noise just afore ye come.”

“Wee kitten noise, is it?” She shook with laughter. “Have a care, husband, lest I bare my claws.”

She raked her nails across his chest, and the sensation made his balls clench.

He lowered himself and kissed her, devouring her lips and chasing her tongue. He withdrew for a heartbeat for the sheer joy of sliding slowly back into her slick wetness. Then he raised himself again and reached between them to stroke her over the edge.

“Oh, Rob.” Her inner walls clenched around him, and he felt the soft tremor that signaled the start of her release. “When ye do that, I don’t care a fig if it’s so cold I catch my death…my death…my death…”

Her voice echoed round the chamber and faded into the distant thatch overhead.

Rob jerked awake.

He wasn’t in his bridal bedchamber. He was lying on stone-hard ground with a stone-hard cock still primed to make love to the woman in his dream. Stars wheeled above him in a frigid sky. His band of men snored nearby.

And the fact that Fiona was dead slammed into him afresh.

He’d married her two years ago at Christmas, and she’d been gone by Epiphany. Twelve days, he’d been a husband. Only twelve.

And now a night didn’t pass without his wife visiting him as some phantom, sometimes tender, sometimes terrifying. She lived in his dreams, but always he was powerless to hold her to earth.

She was so vibrant, so real by night, he suffered all the more in the waking world with the knowledge that he’d not find her there.

One of the men in the clearing let out a loud snore and mumbled in his sleep. It was hours till dawn, and even more till Rob could accomplish what he intended in the coming day. But he would not seek sleep.

He couldn’t bear to lose Fiona again so soon.

***

Rob narrowed his gaze at the stone kirk across the glen. The bagpipes’ celebratory tune ended with an off-key wheeze. He and his men, concealed on the edge of the forest, had watched the bridal procession and the arrival of the groom’s party. Now he heard nothing from the kirk. The only sound was the harsh cry of a jay from the branches above him.

The ceremony must have been beginning in earnest. Rob snorted, his breath like a curl of dragon smoke in the chilly air.

“’Tis time, Hamish.”

“I wish ye’d reconsider.” His friend shook his head, his scruff of red beard making him look like an alarmed hedgehog. Hamish never let his beard grow beyond the stubble stage. A metal worker couldn’t chance much facial hair. Even his eyebrows were habitually singed off. “If ye go through with this, folk will say ye’re…that ye’re—”

“Mad? They say that already.” Rob mounted his black stallion. The beast sensed his agitation and pawed the dirt, restive and spoiling for action. “I see no other path before me. Now will ye help me or no?”

“Aye, Rob, ye’ve no need to ask, but—”

“Then get the men ready to ride. I hope to be in a wee bit of a hurry when next ye see me.” He shot his friend a mirthless grin and spurred his mount into a gallop across the glen.