Highland Pull (Highland Destiny 2) (6 page)

She watched the way his big body moved, sleek, like a giant, predatory cat. He was a
man who could make her forget her promises, get her to let down her guard. What was it about this man that made all her careful isolation, all the effort she made to protect her heart, seem like a wasted effort? If she walked home with him tonight, she had no doubt she would be protected from random street violence, but who would keep her safe from him?

****

Gav stalked back to her side and put his hand out, waiting for her to choose to go with him. He knew she would; he knew she would be his before this night was through. His darkness was in its element. When she put her hand in his, he pulled her to her feet. She staggered slightly, and Gabhran laughed softly.

They were less than two blocks from the town house, which was a good thing, the less time she had to recover the better. He was consumed by the darkness, he needed her, needed her now. It had been weeks since he was with Brianna, and that had ended badly, before he’d been fully sated. He kept his hand on her as they walked, but instead of keeping it chastely on her waist as he had earlier, now he slid it along her bare back, tracing up her side, and down her spine. He occasionally let his fingers slip inside the halter-top of her dress, a feather light caress on the side of her breast, but no more. He could see the hard buds of her nipples pressing against the cotton fabric.

“Come on, lass, time to put you to bed,” he purred. He pulled her protectively to his side and led her toward home.

Alysone had been deeply disturbed all day. She’d awakened unrested and anxious. It felt as though someone was watching everything she was doing. Despite living in a mental hospital, there really wasn’t anything remotely paranoid about her; she was at a loss to explain the feeling.

She and Gabhran had walked the grounds and sat in the courtyard most of the morning, while she’d tried to explain the dream she’d had. She recalled the fabric of the dress she’d worn, the sound it made as she moved, the feel of the material against her skin. She knew the texture of the stones, the smooth, polished wood of the door. She could describe every piece of furniture, every color, every scent in excruciating detail.

What she couldn’t explain were her feelings about the man she’d thought of as the master. Was he the Lord of the manor? Maybe she was a maid or maybe the Creole history of this place was seeping into her bones and in her dream she had been a slave. She shuddered at the cruelty associated with that thought.

At first she thought she’d never seen him, but in the way of dreams that seemed to change. When he called to her to come in, she’d looked everywhere to avoid looking at him. When she finally had looked, he was a massive expanse of golden flesh, black hair, and flashing black eyes. There was recognition in his gaze, and something more. Hunger? Passion? The intensity of his scrutiny scared her, because it was something she knew was futile to resist.

The whole experience was unlike any dream she’d ever known. Gabhran thought it was more than a dream, but she couldn’t bring herself to accept that. It couldn’t be a memory, because doors and stairways didn’t disappear in real life. But, if it wasn’t quite a dream and it wasn’t a memory, what was it?

With her hands clutching the railing of the wrought iron gate, Alysone pressed her face against the bars of her prison and stared out. She desperately wanted to leave the hospital grounds, just to get a way for a few hours. It wasn’t as though she had anywhere to go, no one she wanted to return home to. Just a short walk beyond the walls of the grounds would be liberating. She knew they wouldn’t let her leave, but she wasn’t really locked up. Could she sneak out for a few hours after bed check? Was it safe? She just couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched.

****

Liam waited outside the bar for Gabhran and the woman to emerge. He’d been following the doctor for two days, and the pattern was always the same. He worked at a mental hospital during the day, and at night he walked for miles. Each night he stopped to listen to music, then dinner at a local bar. Predictable was good when you were following someone, bad if you didn’t want to be found.

When the man had left his house earlier in the evening, he’d been alone, now he had picked up some woman, and with any luck, he would take her home and bed her. Liam was sure he’d be able to get in and recreate the scene with Brianna. If they were to convince Gabhran to come home, to join them, they needed some leverage.

Liam was a very powerful Druid, and his father was the Druid Master, Martin Worthington, III, an even more skilled Druid and sorcerer. Although they hadn’t been completely successful in recruiting Gabhran, they had been close enough to plant a dark claiming spell within him. If his father was correct and Gabhran wore the Talisman, the claiming spell would be impossible to resist. Worthington wanted the Talisman and he wanted Gabhran’s untapped power.

When Gabhran and the woman exited the bar, Liam knew instantly the game had changed. The dark was in charge now. Exactly what they’d been hoping for. Liam would stand back and let things play out.

****

Gabhran opened the carriage gate. He led her into the courtyard, and up the stairs to her apartment. After taking her keys and unlocking the door, he set the bag with the whisky bottles on the porch and turned to face her, standing close, crowding her. She swayed as she tried to look up at him through blurry eyes. He cradled her face in his hands, then ever so slowly he lowered his mouth until his lips were a hair’s breadth above hers. “Miranda.”

His voice caressed her senses. Randi’s body went soft, and she leaned in for the kiss she’d been thinking about all evening. His lips softly brushed hers, then again, before he pulled back, an intense look etching his handsome features.

Randi wanted more; she reached her hands behind his head and pulled him down into a fierce kiss. His lips were firm, and he parted them slightly before Randi went wild. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, finding his, engaging it in a sensual dance. She knew it was the alcohol, she recognized the lowering of her inhibitions, yet she felt powerless to resist. It had been too long since a man had held her; she needed to feel desired.

She slid her hands over his chest, her fingers tracing over the hard muscled ridges, before she ran them through his silky hair. She wondered what it would feel like to have that hair against her bare skin. She wanted to feel his kisses on her breasts, her stomach, lower.

Randi knew she was in over her head. She couldn’t seem to stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. If she just let him continue, she would be shed of her vow of abstinence, of self-flagellation, and recrimination. No one would know; there was no one left to care. She could blame it on the whisky.

She ran her hands down his back and settled them against his ass, pulling him even tighter against her, telegraphing her willingness to keep going. He pushed her hard against the wall, held her up with the press of his leg between her thighs. Her breasts were tight with desire, her nipples hard and achy, and her breath caught as he moved his hand to gently trace his fingers over the material covering them. She moaned with pleasure and wanted more.

When he loosened her top and began to knead and then suckle her breasts, she felt a thousand butterflies take flight deep in the pit of her stomach. Muscles deep within her clenched in anticipation, wondering what it would feel like to have that hard cock buried deep inside. Randi dropped one of her hands to scrape her nails up his thigh. Then he began a slow bump and grind, pumping his hips against hers.

Again, she sensed the duality of this man, a sweet, aching longing mixed with a mad desire
to take her.
Who is he, really?

Thoughts from her past rose, unbidden. Unwelcome. A wave of sadness mixed with her desire, creating a sense of desperation, and she pressed into him, seeking release. She longed to be free of the guilt.

****

The moment his lips touched hers, he felt the force of a thousand shocks as raw electricity surged through him. An unfamiliar sense of possessiveness coursed through his veins; he wanted this woman as he’d wanted no other. A small voice within him warned him to pull back; he would lose her if he took her tonight.

As she pulled him into a fierce kiss and placed her hands on his chest, he couldna hold back his groan of desire. With a sense of futility undermined by lust, Gav wrapped his arms around her and splayed his palms across her ass, then pressed her hips forward, molding her to his body. The darkness within him roared his approval.

Sliding his hands upward, along her rib cage, over her soft, bare shoulders until he cupped her head in his hands, he loosened her hair so that fell down her back in golden waves. With one hand he kept her pressed tightly to him, with the other, he threaded his fingers through her hair and held the back of her head. He deepened the kiss, stealing the breath from her. He felt her knees begin to weaken, and he tightened his grip.

Gabhran pulled his kiss back and slowly ran his tongue over her lips, tasting her innocence, her innate goodness. When he moved his mouth to her neck, planting open-mouth kisses along her collarbone and shoulders, he felt the shiver that passed through her. He dragged his tongue up the long column of her neck then returned to her sweet lips. He sucked her full bottom lip into his mouth, pulling it gently, before releasing it slowly, nibbling.

Gabhran held her face in his hands, and slanted his mouth over hers and his kiss possessed her completely. He thrust his tongue in,
then pulled it slowly back, intimating acts yet to come. The darkness pressed for release, knew it would have her.

He followed the signals her body was telegraphing, and deepened his kiss, pressed their bodies together, and the darkness knew it had won.
Take her now, carry her inside, and fuck her.
He pushed her hard against the wall, and slid his leg between her thighs, never releasing her from his kiss.

Miranda’s moan of pleasure was swallowed in his kiss, as he untied the knot on her halter-top, exposing her. One hand began to knead her breasts, alternating between them, while the other kept her head in position for his kisses. He lowered his lips to scatter kisses before he roughly sucked a nipple into his mouth.

Gabhran could feel the intensity of her desire wash over him, her inhibitions were lowered. She was ready; he would take her now. His darkness rejoiced. Then Gabhran was hit by sadness interlaced with her desire, before a flood of heartbreak and desperation washed over him with the force of an icy wave.

Gabhran reached out to try to sense Miranda’s intentions. There was confusion, sadness was emanating from her in waves, yet her body was telegraphing desire. The darkness within took over his thoughts, his sense of honor. It would not be denied; it knew she wanted him. He would take her now; make her forget any objections. He grabbed a fistful of hair and ruthlessly yanked her head, exposing the column of her neck, and bit down hard.

“You are mine, Miranda. Mine, do you hear me? Do not think to deny me now. I will fuck you until the dawn, so doona be thinking you can change your mind.”

Gabhran dominated her with his big body; she was firmly between the proverbial rock and the hard place, between his chest and the wall. He sensed the awakening fear within her as she recognized the danger too late. He
was
going to take her. With her head still pulled back by his hand in her hair, he covered her mouth with a savage kiss, all gentleness gone.

Her police training could make her a worthy opponent in a fair fight, but there was nothing fair about the way he had her pinned. She was helpless to struggle against him, and that heated his desire to a painful intensity. She pushed her hands against his chest and tried to raise her knee to his groin, causing him to laugh darkly.

“So that’s the way of it, lass? A bit of a tease for you, then you think to cry off? Not this time. If ‘tis rough you be wanting it, lass, ‘tis rough you will be getting from me.”

Gav took his hand from her hair, and captured both of her wrists in one big hand and pulled her arms tightly above her head. When she took a deep breath, as if to scream, he swallowed it with a fierce kiss. When he pulled his mouth away from hers, she gave him a head butt that split his lip.

He covered her mouth with his free hand, her arms were still pinned above her head in the other, and her body was smashed against his. He forced one big thigh between her legs, and ground it against her mound. She shuddered at the intimacy.

Without releasing his hold, his mouth went to work on her breasts. They were deliciously exposed, and he ran his tongue over her silky skin, her nipples like firm pearls as he licked and nipped them. He pulled his head back and admired his handy work; her breasts had become tight and swollen from his kisses. He
couldna resist returning to her nipple, drawing it deeply into his mouth, the hard suction making her whimper, whether with pain or pleasure, he didna know, didna care.

His cock was so hard he thought he might come right here on her porch. He needed this woman naked and beneath him. He needed to bury his shaft deep within her.
He needed to hear her cry his name in protest or passion, it mattered not. In one swift motion, least she draw blood again, he removed his hand from her mouth and replaced it with his lips.

He was pressing bruising kisses on her lips, when he felt her mind sigh. Her surrender was full of sadness and layered with regret. The darkness celebrated its victory. Yet from
somewhere deep within himself, his tattered and nearly broken honor roared, a rusty coat of armor, charging forward as though on a steed of old.

With a shudder, Gabhran steeled himself and waged an inner battle against the darkness.
I’ll not take her this way, she’s far too important to me.
The darkness flexed, refusing to lie down.
I want her now.

With a groan, Gabhran pulled his mouth from hers, dropped his hands to his sides, and then turned his back to her.
What the bloody hell am I thinking? Christ, I might not even be here tomorrow, I can never be with her.

His breath was ragged, blood roared in his ears. Had he not felt that sadness, not been able to read her despair, he would have succumbed to the vilest of
temptations. He was disgusted with himself.
What kind of man takes a woman by force?

“Gabhran?” Miranda asked.

He looked back at her, at her sleepy sexy eyes, her kiss-swollen lips, the uncertainty and fear clouding her face. Her hair spilled in soft waves down her back and around her shoulders. Her bare breasts were breath-taking in the moonlight. He bent over to pick up the bag near her feet, and tasted the scent of her on his tongue.

“You have had much to drink tonight, lass. Go to bed, I will see you on the morrow.” Before she could react, he took his bag,
then went down the steps, and forcing one foot in front of the other, he crossed the courtyard to his own house.

****

Miranda stood glued to the spot, stunned at Gav’s abrupt departure. Emotions roiled within her. What the hell had just happened? She felt bereft, intoxicated by his passion, confused by the two faces of the man she had been with tonight.

Her nipples were hard and tight, and so sensitive that she moaned when the fabric of her dress rubbed against them, as she redressed herself. He’d been a gentle giant at first, then that door had closed and another person…another thing…emerged.
A thing not quite human and definitely not Gabhran. Yes, it was possible that she was confusing gratitude he hadn’t raped her with real feelings, but she was sure it was more than that.

There were times that it had been Gabhran’s hands and lips on her, and other times when she recognized another presence with them, something dark, not of this world. 

She ached in the very core of her, between her legs, and still craved his hard shaft. She needed release from a tension she’d not known she had. She wanted him to fill her, to fulfill her fantasies, to take her burden. She was afraid of the feelings that had stirred within her tonight.

She’d long ago vowed never to be emotionally involved with another man. It wasn’t worth the cost. Yet somehow, Gabhran had nearly broken through her carefully erected barriers. She had no doubt, that despite the overwhelming sadness that had washed over her mere minutes ago, she would have taken him to her bed, if he’d only asked instead of tried to take.

She’d had too much to drink tonight, not enough to be sloppy drunk, just enough to relax her rigid rules. Enough to let down her hair, so to speak. All those years ago, she’d been in nearly an identical situation, drinking, dangerously flirting with sexual desire, hovering between should she or shouldn’t she. That time it had been she who had put a stop to it, but she’d waited a perilously long time, nearly too late to stop. She was young, a high school senior, and she just wasn’t sure enough. Bobby, her boyfriend of nearly two years had been royally pissed.

It wasn’t the first time they had flirted with going all the way, but it had been the closest they’d ever gotten. They’d actually planned for it, or at least Bobby had. She’d not told him no, so agreement was implied as far as he was concerned.

It was a sultry summer eve and they were parked on the access road that ran along the levee. Sitting in the bed of his truck, they watched the fireflies hover in the bushes while they drank beer from the cooler and spoke of their dreams. The sounds of summer were everywhere; crickets competed with the locusts, punctuated by the splash of an occasional fish jumping from the water.

It wasn’t until he began to slip her panties off that a cold slap of reality hit her in the face. She didn’t want to spend her life with him. She loved him, but in the way that high school kids loved. She felt no overwhelming sadness that their dreams would lead them to separate places. She was excited to go to college, to get on with life. He wanted nothing more than to marry her and raise babies. It was not the life she pictured for herself. Did she really want to give away her virginity to Bobby, to someone who would hold her back?
To someone who had no real dreams after high school? 

She stopped his hand just as it slipped between her thighs. Bobby had tried every trick in the book to get her to change her mind. He’d pleaded, begged, and called her a prick tease. And she’d agreed. She was, even though she hadn’t meant to be, not really. Then he’d told her his life would be over if she left him. His threats and name-calling had rolled off her like water on a duck. Randi was determined, she had made up her mind, saw her life through a new reality.

Feeling relieved by her decision, Randi stood on the tailgate preparing to jump down, when she was hit from behind, the way the high school star fullback could hit when he was fully pissed off. She flew from the truck bed, landing face first on the shell road. When she came to, the truck was gone and it was a long walk back to town.

She saw the fire long before she reached it, unsure what it was until she was nearly upon it. Bobby’s truck had gone off the road, careened over the top of a drainage ditch and head first into one of the giant live oaks that characterized southern Louisiana.

Randi screamed his name and tried to get close to the burning truck, trying to see if he was in there or if he’d been thrown clear. The hair on her arms singed, her lungs burned, she couldn’t see anything. Strong arms pulled her away from the fire and up to the road where she was placed on a stretcher and immobilized, before the ambulance whisked her away.

No one blamed her for Bobby’s
death, they all thought she had been lucky to survive the accident. They thought she had been brave to try to get him out of the burning truck. They offered comforting platitudes, telling her he died on impact.

She didn’t tell them she hadn’t been in the truck. She didn’t tell them it was her fault. She didn’t tell them Bobby had done it on purpose.

Sadly, she turned and went into her apartment, alone. She wondered if Gabhran had done her any favors by walking away.

****

Sweet fucking heaven.
He nearly doubled over with the pain when he’d closed the door. What was wrong with him, what had he tried to do to her? He’d lost his moral compass, was adrift on waves of desire, willing to resort to getting a lass drunk to have his way with her. He had very nearly forced himself on her. Nay, call it by its true name, he had nearly raped her.

Go find another woman, now.

“No!” This was not him, this was some debauched stranger taking him over, freeing the darkness. He would not have it. He roared with the pain, fighting it, denying its bloodlust.

He stomped upstairs determined to wash away this lust with a cold shower. He saw his gris-gris on the bathroom counter and pulled it over his head, praying it would bring release from the darkness he felt consuming him. As soon as the pouch lay against his chest, his vision blackened, the roaring in his ears reached a crescendo, and his heart pounded. He fell to his knees on the hard tile and leaned his face against the cool porcelain of the toilet, unsure if the bile in the back of his throat would stay there.

Unable to move for a very long time, he thought of Miranda, of what he’d tried to do tonight, and of what had happened to Brianna. What had possessed him to risk Miranda’s life? Because he knew that was what he had done, he would not have stopped until she was dead. Whether by his own hand or another’s, God help him, he would not have stopped.