Page 68 of Sins of the Highlander

The world stopped spinning. Elspeth decided she wouldn’t care if she ever moved again.

He was still inside her, the precious connection still intact, but she began to be able to tell her limbs from his. He kissed her neck.

“Are ye pleased, lass?”

She smoothed his hair behind his ear. “Better than pleased. I’m alive now. I didna even realize I wasna before.”

They lay in contented silence even after he slid out of her. He shifted to lie beside her so he wouldn’t burden her with his weight. She stroked his spine. He drew little circles around her nipples. Then he licked one and blew on it to watch it pucker afresh.

“Are ye no’ tired of playing with me yet?” she asked with amusement.

“No,” Rob said. “And neither is wee ‘Robin.’”

When he rocked against her hip, she felt that he was stone hard again.

“I warned ye he was single-minded.”

“And persistent,” she said with a laugh. “What’s he thinking about now, I wonder?”

“I think he’s wondering if horses might no’ have a good idea, after all. What do ye think?”

Elspeth kissed him hard and deeply. “I think we ought to find out.”

***

Mrs. Christie rapped loudly on the door, but there was no answer except a rhythmic creaking. She almost pounded again, but she remembered the MacLaren’s surly orders from the last time she tried to deliver his supper.

“Verra well, my lord,” she muttered as she carried the tray back to the kitchen. “Another hour of rutting may make ye a happy man, but it willna improve this stew nary a bit.”

Chapter 23

Rob meant to leave with the first light, but it was midday before he woke with Elspeth still sleeping warm and soft beside him. He was sated and satisfied, with every knot untied and every coil unkinked. If Fiona had visited his dreams, he had no memory of it in the waking world.

His new arrangement with Elspeth was so pleasant, there was no sense in spoiling matters by living rough. A full day’s ride would see them to the gates of Caisteal Dubh and a solid roof over their heads. The money he’d put down to save the room at the inn for them had run out, so he paid for another night’s lodging. With delight unspeakable, he and Elspeth shut the world out of their little chamber.

The next day dawned drippy, and quickly bloomed into a downpour of freezing rain. Rob counted out more coin for another night and considered himself fortunate. The longer they lingered in Lochearnhead, the longer he could put off what was to come.

As long as he and Elspeth could dally and swive on the soft feather tick and talk of nothing but what pleased them, they could pretend there’d be no piper to pay for this exceedingly pleasant dance.

But Rob knew the piper would present his bill soon. And at Rob’s very gates. He climbed the stairs to their chamber, his tread slower than usual.

Elspeth was seated in the middle of their neatly made bed, stitching up the hem of his cloak.

“I dinna know when it was torn.” She tied a knot and bit off the thread with her white little teeth. “I probably caught it on something.”

“Thank ye. ’Tis a bit long for ye,” he said, settling next to her. “I’ve one at Caisteal Dubh that’ll be a better fit. And prettier too. As I recall, there’s a wee tassel on the hood and a fine copper brooch that goes with it.”

She glanced at him from under her lashes before she started on another raveled spot in the wool. “One of your wife’s castoffs?”

The question seemed innocent enough, but the hair on the back of his neck sent him a warning. The same warning that tells a wild creature a hunter has an arrow trained on his heart.

“Of course no’.” Even he knew a man didn’t put his dead wife’s clothes on another woman. Neither of them would appreciate it. “’Twas my mother’s.”

He couldn’t tell from her expression whether that was an improvement.

All of Fiona’s things were scattered with lavender, packed in a trunk, and bundled away to a room in the tower not used for anything else. Whenever he couldn’t sleep, he’d wander up there and open the trunk for the chance to imagine he could smell her unique scent over the faded floral.

Sometimes, he actually believed he could.