Highland Pull (Highland Destiny 2) (15 page)

Gabhran’s body had been inhabited by a dark spirit
, and it was determined to own him completely. This spirit was ancient, a disembodied blackness, its rapacious appetite unsated for hundreds of years, non-corporeal, dependent on others to attain his desires. It knew it was close to assuming Gabhran’s soul, and once it claimed him completely, the real Gabhran would cease to exist and the spirit could once again command a corporeal body.

A flash of understanding passed between them, and she knew the spirit would kill her this night if she failed to contain it somehow.

Gabhran rose on his knees, grabbed Miranda by her hair and threw her on the bed, bellowing with rage.

“You are my wife, how and when I take you is my prerogative.” He lowered himself so that his face was mere inches from her. “Since this room is so distasteful to you, mayhap on the morrow you will find yourself chained to a pallet in the far tower. I need merely keep you alive until you bear my babe. Doona think to complain about the way I treat you. You are nothing to me, but that which I purchased for a fair price.”

Miranda was so angry she nearly abandoned her plan and launched a full assault instead. She shoved against him trying to shift him off her. Then a voice she’d never heard before echoed deep in her head.
You must stop this, control your anger. The Spiorad Dubh, the Black Spirit, he will kill you.

Gabhran’s eyes glittered dangerously, he had goaded her to the limits of her tolerance, he rejoiced in watching her back down. Or rather, the Dark Spirit rejoiced. Randi knew instinctively that the Black Spirit got stronger the more they fought, and it wanted her to keep resisting.

She was pinned underneath him, and she needed to get him inside her, and get the gris gris around his neck. Both of their lives depended on it.

She forced herself to relax underneath him. “Gabhran, I need more, I want you inside me, please, let’s not fight anymore,” she whispered. Her voice was a seductive purr. Threading her fingers into his hair, she pulled his face to hers, and waited.

Gabhran shook with rage. It was time he taught his wife her proper place. By Danu, he had given her his best room. She had a maid, and he kept her fed and bathed. The ungrateful woman dared complain about how he was treating her! He should beat her soundly, fuck her, and then have her thrown in the tower for a sen’night, without any of the luxuries she had been given this past week. Ah yes, there was an appealing thought, and he started to rub his rock hard cock against her, thinking perhaps he should fuck her first, before he paddled her ass.

He had great fistfuls of her hair and his face was mere inches from hers. He struggled against the violence hovering just barely below the surface, and he reminded her he had paid a fair price for her services, his words and actions a not so subtle reminder she was naught but as good as a whore. When she tried to shove him away, his darkness roared with approval. It would not be denied
.

He felt Miranda soften suddenly underneath him, every muscle seemingly relaxed at once. Then her hands snaked into his hair, her nails grazing lightly against his scalp. She subtly shifted and pressed her hips upwards, increasing the pressure against his cock. Then her words penetrated the thick black fog surrounding his brain.

“Gabhran, I need more, I want you inside me, please, let’s not fight anymore.” She looked at him with something akin to love sparkling deep in her eyes.
Love, by Danu! How can that be?

Destiny,
a long lost Druid voice whispered.
Love her
. He nearly collapsed on top of her with the wave of emotion that washed over him. It was love, her love, and it was filling him.

It left him breathless, helpless to resist her. He looked deep into her eyes, trying to judge what he was feeling, and all that he sensed was pure, unfiltered love for him. With a physical shudder he felt the dark inside him coil itself into a protective ball, biding its time once again.

“Miranda,” he whispered, low in his throat, just before his lips sealed hers, in a kiss so hot, it threatened to ignite the very bed on which they lay. They each had fistfuls of the other’s hair, they pulled and twisted, rolled across the bed, legs tangled, biting, bumping, licking, and kissing, skin against skin. This was pure passion unleashed and untempered, nearly violent in its intensity.

Using his superior size and strength, Gabhran rolled suddenly and Miranda was on her back, both of her hands captured in one of his, raised above her head and pressed against the head of the bed. They stared at each other, each smiling slightly, their chests heaving from the exertion. Gabhran was poised between her legs, and Miranda wrapped her long limbs around his waist, and pulled him close.

He slipped his cock between her legs and found her wet and ready for him, and he entered her excruciatingly slowly, resisting her efforts to make him go faster, his body taut with restraint.

“Give me some time, lass, doona be in such a hurry, else I will peak too soon.” He laughed,
and it seemed the very sound caused her internal muscles to contract around him. He sucked in his breath at how tightly she squeezed him when she shivered.
Sweet Christ, how will I last another minute if she does that again? 

“Fast now, then we’ll go slow the next time,” she panted.

It was all the invitation he needed. She was promising hours of bed play and he would hold her to her word. He drove into her, feeling sheathed in the hot, wet velvet of her core, as though they had been forged of a single element, separated, and only now were they being put back together as intended. He released her hands, and his skin tingled everywhere she touched him.

He gave her hard and fast, knowing he
wouldna last overlong, especially not after watching her pleasure herself. Just thinking about that was nearly too much. He put his fingers to her mouth, “Lick me, lass. Make my fingers wet so I can pleasure you.”
Damn, there went that shiver again.

He pressed his fingers to her nub, and began to stroke, watching her face, seeing her eyes flutter as she felt the sensation. “Did it feel like this when you touched yourself, lass? Did you like it?”

Miranda kept her eyes closed, turned her face to the side, and made a small non-distinct sound. He stilled his hands and his hips. “Nay, lass. I wish to hear you; tell me what you want, what feels good, else I might stop.”

The words felt like an echo to him, though he was positive he had not said them to another lass. He waited, his brief pause helping him regain a small measure of his control. Miranda shifted her hips underneath him, before she finally met his gaze. Her lids were half lowered, sexy looking eyes that belonged in the bedroom.
In his bedroom.

“Did your own hand feel as good, Miranda? Did it feel as good as this?” He rubbed a small circle around her nub with his fingers. She gave a small shake of her head, and her breath hitched in her throat.

“Did you feel like this?” he asked as he pushed his cock deeper inside and moved his hips in a circular motion, filling her completely. Again, she shook her head.

“Tell me,” he rumbled, needing to hear her words.

“Nothing feels as good as you make me feel, please, don’t stop,” she breathed, looking up, and he saw the naked desire in her gold-flecked eyes.

He laughed again, and then, as she requested, he didna stop for a
verra long time.

****

Randi couldn’t control the sounds that escaped, and she nearly sobbed with pleasure as she came, her every sense filled with Gabhran. He roared as the first spasm of her orgasm hit, and with one final thrust he buried himself to the hilt, and spilled his essence deep inside. Their bodies shuddered and rocked as they continued to be pleasured by aftershocks.

Randi knew her pleasure was increased a thousand-fold by her feelings for this man. He might not be
her
Gabhran exactly, but she recognized enough of him, that when she fought through his barriers, pushed back the darkness, she felt that same passion, that same intense feeling of destiny stir deep in her soul. She might be inexperienced, but this was love and she let the feeling fill her as the pleasure of their shared orgasm lingered.

Gabhran leaned in to kiss her tenderly, covering her lips, her face, her hair, before he rolled
onto his side pulling her with him, so they remained face to face. He stroked her hair and gazed into her eyes, as if trying to read deep into her soul.

“Tell me what this is, wife?” he asked, but not in the accusatory tone he'd used before. His voice was filled with wonder, his eyes with hope. “What is it I feel from you, lass? Is it possible you have feelings for me? Could you grow to love me, Miranda?”

Randi gauged what he was feeling, the uncertainty in his steel-blue eyes and once again let the love she felt flow through her. She cupped his face in her hands and met his gaze, hers steady and strong. “It seems, dear husband, that somehow fate brought us together.”

Then she repeated a variation of the words he’d said to her in New Orleans, not knowing if his memories could be reached. “You have touched my heart, you make me want to stay in one place and one time with you forever. I don’t know how or why, but yes, husband, I do love you.”

Gabhran covered her hands with his and then placed them over his heart. “Och, woman, you shake me to my core, you make me question everything in which I believe. You hold the dark feelings I have inside at bay, and bring in the light, you make my verra soul sing. I doona know how or why, but aye, lass, I love you, too.”

Randi's heart nearly burst through her chest when he said those words, they were the same words of love he’d given her in another place in time. He loved her through the ages.

This time when they made love, it was slow and sweet, filled with many kisses and murmured words of love.

*

When the morning came, Randi snuggled deeper in the covers and listened as Gabhran stepped from her room into the hallway and called for the guards. He ordered a fire and breakfast for his chamber and a bath be prepared in hers whilst they were eating. He returned to her bed, kissed her sleep-tousled hair, and held her close.

“Good morrow, wife.”

Randi smiled at the endearment, remembering how barbaric it had sounded when she’d first heard him use it, now she loved hearing him refer to her that way. She liked calling him husband, too. If they ever made it back to…well, he would just have trouble ever taking those words back, no matter where they were.

He fingered the chain around her neck and traced its path to the small bag nestled just above her breasts. He hefted the bag in his palm, as if weighing it. “What is this, my love?”

There was no choice, she would tell a lie in order to save him.

“Do you believe in fortune tellers, Gabhran?” she asked smiling as she grasped his hand, keeping it firmly closed around the
gris gris. She sensed the malevolence of the Dark Spirit as it belatedly realized what she was doing.

He started to laugh at her question, but obviously realizing she was perfectly serious, he thought for a minute before answering.

“Do you believe in Druids, lass?” he finally countered.

His question took her completely off-guard. She was expecting a silly, romantic conversation, one in which she would convince him to wear this chain as a token reminder of her. Could she tell him more? Not the truth, or at least not all of it, but maybe some combination of the two stories.

“Yes,” she replied honestly, “I believe in Druids. So what about you, do you believe in Druids and fortunetellers, seers and magick?”

“Aye…” he trailed off as if he looked inward at an internal debate. “There was a time when I believed in a great many things. I think maybe I forgot for a while, but aye, I believe.”

“Then listen with your heart and I will tell you about my fortuneteller.” And Miranda began to weave a tale that was mostly true. She told of Marie, a fortuneteller who lived in a faraway village who had told Miranda her father would arrange a marriage for a price to a man who was her destiny. “Marie warned me that the man was filled with great power and passion but was being consumed by a terrible darkness. Marie said the man would either love me throughout time or he would kill me.”

She kept her hands around his, and he still held the
gris gris. His breath was rapid and shallow, his gaze intense.
Oh yes, he is going to believe me.

“Go on, lass,” he encouraged her.

“I asked her if I would know love with this man, and she said he was my destiny, that I would love him with every measure of God and man, but unless the darkness could be pushed back, he would kill me within the year. She gave me this to wear as a small measure of protection, but warned it would only be truly effective if the man wore it freely and without reservation. She said if I put it on my husband without telling him what it was or if he didn’t believe in the power it contained, then like as not, he would kill me.”

Her eyes were filled with tears as she met his gaze once again. “I know of your darkness, I can feel it sometimes. It harbors great hate for me. It knows me now, and it knows of this small charm. Will you wear it?” she finished simply.

She felt a moment of panic, as he started to remove his hand. Everything depended on his wearing the gris gris. She’d been so sure that he believed her, she had told him far more than she’d intended. She knew the Dark Spirit was hovering, just waiting for the opportunity to possess Gabhran completely. She was afraid.

She stilled his hand, and asked again, “Will you wear it, for me, Gabhran?”