His to Claim (12 page)

Trevor tightened a possessive arm about her waist, while his other reached up to knead one of her lush breasts as if it were owned. “Until my princess has promised herself tae me, fo’ ever.”

Smiling enigmatically, Elaine placed her hand over his. Then taking a moment feeling the fluttering of her heart at his decree, breathed close to his wickedly beckoning mouth rising at the tip of her toes, “She has for ever been his.
His to claim
.”

*****

EPILOGUE

A
W
eek
L
ater..

T
he strident rhythm of Trevor’s indomitable heartbeats was hypnotic to Elaine. It wasn’t hard to conceive merely an hour ago their wild drumming were strong enough to feel beating against her own breast.

At the moment, she lay with her cheek reposed on his bare, muscular torso that was replete with virility he had treated her to all night long.

Drifting in gossamer gilt of its sweet reminiscence, she was absently stroking his chest when a slip of a cool band on her finger had her lifting her head inquisitively.

The bright, precious cut-stone gracing her left hand seemed like a piece of the sun itself.

“Let’s get married, lass.”

She felt her breath knocked out.

What he proposed was a forbidden dream Elaine had never permitted herself to dare see. But today, it was a reality so tangible it sat on her finger, waiting upon her to decide.

She watched Trevor’s hewn face smiling down at her.

There was no sign of doubt on that striking countenance. He loved her, and wanted to make her his every way a man could make a woman so. She also knew, deep within he was sure what her reply was going to be, just as she was certain, his love for her was unshakable.

But these last seven days between them had been so sweet, so amazingly radiant with sinful delights, that now she itched with an impish streak to see his certitude fade, if only for a tiny moment.

Elaine languidly sat up with the sheet held high to cover her modesty while seemingly examining the ring with a critical eye. “Get married?” The veil over her twin ambers rose to let his sea blue gaze look in. She hoped hers appeared convincingly cynic, cloaking the twinkle of mischief behind. “What makes you think I’ll accept?”

There, the tautness leaping in his tendons betrayed him. And a twinge of contrition pricked at her.

“Ye were eager enough tae accept, Whitler.” His tone deadpan, but the blue in his eyes glinted stormily.

The allure of his handsome face was rendered sharper by the shadow of his morning growth. She couldn’t resist feeling its grainy texture.

The roughness of his stubble against the softness of her palm was too arousing. She leaned toward him, letting the sheet slip, giving him an unimpeded view of her curves.

His mouth drawn in barely restrained aggression became even tenser, the very mouth which had stripped her of every inhibition in one night.

Her breasts teasingly brushed his solid width. “Yes, Henry is sweet. And good for me.”

She gasped from the tight, jealous grasp of Trevor’s hand latching onto her upper arm. But it failed to deter her from pursuing huskily, “he…he would have listened to me, asked for things first. You, on the other hand..”

His stormy glare dropped to the pout she made, as though prey lured to bait.

After deliberate infusion of a promising silence, Elaine flounced onto her stomach with a sulky, “you will make demands on me, and you wouldn’t ever let me wear pants in our relationship.”

Having gaged the drift of her scattered dots to their epiphanic design, Trevor side-swept her hair from the inviting slope of her beautiful nape and pressed his lips there in open intimacy. Her shiver from that kiss was still in tremor when he bit over the very spot, punishing her with a crazed mix of pleasure and pain.

An arm snaked under her belly, lifting her up from waist down just enough so..

Her breaths gone shallow, Elaine whimpered from a current of thrumming anticipation when she heard his gravelled voice. “Ye can wear the pants, lass–sae long as it’s me, who’s sporting a..,” he plunged, “cock.”

Elaine felt him enter her in one sure swoop. The fit, tight.

“And I ken how much ye love having my cock in ye. Even now, I can feel ye weeping fo’ it.”

To prove this, he moved in her, and the strokes became slicker and slicker with each glide.

She wasn’t the only one affected by it, the size of him grew impossibly thicker and longer in her.

“I need yer answer now, Elaine.” His face buried in the side of her neck, he stopped his motion.

“You know my answer Trevor, now start moving.” Her need had her literally screaming out at him. Her hands reaching back pulled at his hair in clawing hunger.

“Then say, yes, ye’ll marry me.”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

“Scream, ‘yes’ fo’ me.”

“Yes, yes, yeeessss..”

“That’s what I kent.”

She didn’t care that he sounded smug. Time would teach her what she needed to learn to turn the tables on him one day. All she cared for right this instant, was his driving her to that pinnacle again.

Trevor granted her wish with a ferocity. He flipped her on her back, seeing that their tempestuous connection wasn’t severed, whirling inside her an abyss that only widened with his thrusts.

When the explosion of white hot release hit her, crying out, she arched ever closer to him.

Elaine came and came from his hard, powerful, skilled plunging. Trevor was ravaging her body, and she wanted to be ravaged.

Her legs high up on the expanse his magnificent shoulders, he had her pinned down to the bed with his weight. The wet slap of their bodies, her moaning, his laboured breathing, all heightened their senses to this decadent pleasure. Its raking fire drowning them.

And every time she thought herself near breaking a surface that might bring her respite, a moment’s breath hopefully, the tempest of his endless love making would rope her in all over again into their fiery depths.

A mystical burr from the end of her spine spread to the centre of her stomach. Heat swirling through her convulsing hips began concentrating where he created the most lethal, coveted friction.

“Ye’ll always be mine, Elaine. I’ll love ye sae much..” He opened his heart, his life to her, seizing her body, her soul.

Their passion was matched.

She surged up as he swept down into her. Craving, lusty for all he gave, she came again.

And not that far behind her, Trevor, too, let himself go to the same climax, coming together with her in their high with an impassioned, “Elaine!”

They spent the dawn winded in gratified lethargy, gradually descending into a restful slumber. But this sublime tranquillity was routed when a heavy-metal music erupted by their bed.

Elaine woke up with a leap out of her skin. The stupid thing was Trevor’s phone.

Reaching for it, she reluctantly untangled herself from his warmth.

“H’llo?” Her voice scratchy from sleep instantly levelled to alert at the rapid, crisp dictates coming from the other side. “Oh, hi. Yes.., sure, hold on.”

She tried shaking Trevor awake, who had even in sleep shifted his position as she sat up, to place his head on her lap lying over his chest. “Trev, wake up. For God’s sake, it’s Damian.”

“Wha’ does he wan’ now?” Trevor grumbled groggily, but took the call just as well–his back muscles strikingly rippling. “Yeah?”

As he spoke into the phone, Elaine planted an affectionate peck on his strong profile, and before he could imprison her in his embrace, she slid off the bed to take her shower.

Under that hot spray of water though, all she could do was admire the light of day trapped within her stunning ring.

It made her positively glow with love. Her happiness, incandescent.

***

D
amian on phone with Trevor was striding over the tarmac to where his private jet awaited him–his P.A padding after him with a briefcase in one hand, and a laptop in the other.

“Never again, Trevor, try tae keep things from me concerning McBain Industries.”

Damian’s exasperation with his brother was clear in his whipcord voice and fearsome scowl. “I’ve dealt with Henry, but donna think ye being my brother gives ye some magic shield. I ‘ave half a mind tae tag ye along tae Antarctica with our next research team. Only my consideration fo’ Elaine is saving ye from it.”

Keeping with the tall, forbidding man’s long stride, Theodore Moore pushed his glasses up over the bridge of his nose. He observed his boss wasn’t in a good humour at all.

Not that he could tell when he had never seen the Hawk even relaxed completely. The dark countenance Damian McBain always wore would at best lighten when things were going as he wished. But when riding one of his black moods, people scurried from his vicinity as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, Theodore’s job had had long ago tied him to weathering those storms, no matter how ugly they got. And to him they always seemed so.

Theo was nothing out of ordinary looking. Average height, looks.

Damian McBain though, to him and most other men, enviably, was greatest specimen of manhood this side of the heaven. He had power, money, women, and a tall, dark, imposing personality that could drill fear in lesser hearts.

Ringing off, Damian handed Theodore back the phone, and as the hapless man was trying to better organise all the things he was carting, the laptop threatened to drop out of his grip, but
thank god
, he caught it in time.

Theodore checked with a brisk furtive look if Mr. McBain had seen his klutz.

But seemingly unaware, acknowledging the pilot’s greeting, his boss was climbing up the jet.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Theo quickly followed. He didn’t know how his clumsiness till now had gone unnoticed by the Hawk, but he prayed every day that it remained so. He knew well the money, the benefits McBain Industries was paying him, he couldn’t hope to see elsewhere.

Fastening his seatbelt, Theo had just sat across Mr. McBain on the jet when a sharp retort from his boss had him jumping. “I..I’m sorry, Mr. McBain. Wha.. what did you say?”
Was I wrong? Had he seen me make that near blunder? Please don’t let him fire me, God.

“Why’s Arthur not flying today?”

“What? Who?”

Those chilling blue eyes bore harder into his subservient gaze. Mr. McBain appeared as though he were close to losing his patience. Not a good sign for a P.A.

“My usual pilot, Theodore. Why’s he not here?”

“Oh!”
It wasn’t about him..
but then, Theo gloomily realised the unpleasant news he now had to convey. “Er.., umm.. Arthur Conley, sir, he..”

“Spit it out, Theodore.” After the strain his wee brother caused him, Damian had zero tolerance left for the jargons of his personal assistant.

“He asked for a day off, sir. It’s the anniversary.” The unnerving eyes pinned on Theo became even sharper, darker in its regard, making him shake like a withered leaf.

Unable to take it any longer he divulged rest of the explanation as if it were bitter bile in his mouth. “This is the day he and his girlfriend first went out on a date.”

“Fire him.”

“Sir?” Hit of this shock kicked Theodore’s glasses down to the tip of his nose.

“
Fired
, Moore. Fire him.” Damian repeated stonily. “I cannot abide a man who would put anything before his work, much less a woman. Fire him right now.”

With that ordained Damian occupied himself on his laptop, and Theodore, once again, was stuck with an unpleasant task.

He was dialling Arthur to inform him of the change in his work status to unemployed, when Damian summoned him again.

Has he reconsidered?
A relieved smile was beginning to form on his face. “Mr. McBain?”

“In future, see that you make no decisions before consulting me first.”

It wasn’t an advice, Theo saw it well, but a warning. And his face that had been on the verge of blooming, wilted once more as his fingers resumed punching the numbers on the phone.

***

T
hat Same Hour In The

S
cottish
H
ighlands

Anna was shivering so much she was sure she wouldn’t need to knock on the manor door. Someone was bound to come looking for all the clamour her chattering teeth created.

Readjusting a small tote bag over her shoulder, she dragged her mud filled shoes up the long drive of the magnificent big house. The nasty smell from the pack of mud coating her was attracting an assortment of winged bugs.

Anna had not planned to meet Trevor McBain like this. In her every innocent fancy, one of the most handsome and eligible men in America had had his breath stolen at the first glimpse of her beauty.

People had, on occasions, called her beautiful, and without conceit she knew she looked good.

Scanning her eyes down her body mired in fetid swamp muck, she wryly thought, ‘at the moment, however, even an old goat wouldn’t give her a time of day’.

As she reached the entrance of the house, she found there really was no need to knock. The doors lay wide open.

A flurry of uniformed men and women were flitting here and there. They seemed so absorbed in their duties that none paid her any attention.

One girl about her own age of near twenty, came round a corner ranting something about everyone blaming her for anything going wrong.