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Authors: Michelle Marcos

BOOK: Secrets to Seducing a Scot
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Malcolm … a look from his emerald eyes could stop her heart, and his kiss could make it start again. She had been seasoning in her longing for him for weeks, and now the opportunity had arisen to indulge her desire. Here, with not another human soul for miles, was the chance to forget that she was Serena Marsh, the proper daughter of an English ambassador, and just let herself be a woman who desperately wanted to pleasure—and be pleasured by—the man she had come to love.
Her hand trailed down his chest. His body felt like a marble statue enrobed in warm velvet. The legs beneath the kilt were long and sculpted, and she yearned to see what was covered by the black wool garment. Her prior experience with a man had resolved the mystery of what such an organ looked like. But she couldn’t help wondering what Malcolm looked like. He was such a large man otherwise. Was a man’s manhood proportionate to his height?
Slowly, she let her hand descend to his thigh. What a muscle that was. His lap went on forever, firm and inviting. But it was inward her hand wanted to go. Suddenly she felt as men must, driven mad by desire to reach what was underneath a skirt. So easy to get to, and yet …
And then she felt it. His penis had raised the front of his kilt. Though she touched it only briefly, her question as to length was finally answered.
She tried not to, but she couldn’t help smiling through their kiss. It gave away her bashful naughtiness.
Malcolm seized her by the waist and hauled her onto
his lap. “Come here, ya wee besom, if ye be wanting it so much. It wants to meet ye, too.”
Serena shrieked. Now that she was in full contact with the object of her curiosity, she burst into giggles.
Malcolm laughed, too, a deep-throated rumble that thrummed against her body. “I love how yer big blue eyes disappear when ye smile,” he said.
She placed a hand on his cheek, delighting in the emerging roughness. The firelight danced upon his masculine features, making him even more handsome. The crease in his cheeks deepened when he smiled thus, and his eyes acquired a warmth she had never seen before.
“I’m no’ a man of tender words, Serena. I dinna know how to express m’self too well. But I want ye to know how much I love ye. And I’ll always look after ye.”
His breath was warm on her face, but it was the light behind his eyes that made her warm all over. If only time could stand still in this one moment …
But well she knew that life was made up of many moments, some just as memorable but wholly unpleasant. The last time a man told her he loved her, it was also a good moment. But the ones that followed were anything but. And though she knew that Malcolm truly loved her, lurking somewhere in her mind was a niggling doubt about his intentions. What if she gave herself to Malcolm, and then lost him because of it? What if all men were just like Ben, her Mistake, charming until they get a woman to give her most precious, intimate gifts, only to then walk away—in search, no less, of a woman who wouldn’t be as promiscuous?
She couldn’t bear it if Malcolm turned away from her for that. She would be angry with him for a short while, but she would hate herself for years to come. She couldn’t go through that again. And though out
here in the wilderness, no one would ever find out if they had made love, she would know it. And her mirror would give her no solace.
And God forbid she should emerge from their tryst with a belly. She was lucky enough to have escaped that humiliating fate with Ben. But that particular sort of luck runs out every month. And if there was one thing that Malcolm had taught her, it was that danger always struck when everything appeared safe.
His hand caressed that particular spot at the bend of her elbow, the spot that always disintegrated her resolve.
“Malcolm,” she breathed before her strength gave out. “I love you, too. And I know you love me not just in words, but in actions. Tonight, I need you to show me how much you love me. By waiting.”
He closed his eyes and let his forehead touch hers. She watched him as he talked his body down. Regret twisted her features for putting him through that again.
“Do you ken how difficult it is for me to keep m’hands off ye? It’s getting harder and harder. No pun intended.”
She chuckled nervously. “I’m sorry. I wish I could make love to you as well.”
His hand tightened on her waist. “Tell me one thing. Are ye still comparing me to him?”
Her chest caved. She’d had no idea he could read her so. Her chin tucked into her chest. “In some ways, yes. We … made love … only the one time. Afterward, it was disastrous. But you should know, Malcolm, that there is no more ‘him.’ There is only you.”
He nodded. He lifted her off his lap, stood up, and then lifted her onto the hammock made from his plaid. Once she was comfortably ensconced in the floating bed, he placed a kiss upon her lips.
“I wish to God I had been yer first. Because then ye
would have bonded with me, and not with some arse who broke yer heart.”
Her heart twisted inside her. As Malcolm lay down on the moss-covered floor, she realized he was right. She
had
bonded with Ben first. In her hurry to know the pleasure that other women knew, she gave away the beautiful opportunity to bond forever with Malcolm. The regret returned, as strong and insistent as the day Ben told her it was over.
As she curled up in the black woolen hammock, enveloping herself in Malcolm’s woodsy smell, she valiantly kept from crying herself to sleep.
 
The chirring of the nightjars roused Serena from sleep. She opened her eyes to the diminishing fire, a weak flame beneath a prison of charred twigs. Beside her, Malcolm slept peacefully on the moss-covered ground.
She’d been to balls that boasted dancing, drinking, and parlor games. She’d been to operas, galleries, and the exalted houses of England. She’d had conversations with the most informed and erudite people in the world. But none of those experiences even compared to just watching Malcolm sleep.
She rolled herself off the hammock, falling soundlessly to the floor. Malcolm’s deep slumber was undisturbed. His chest rose and fell evenly, his body motionless.
She gazed into his face. Now that she had come down off her high place and down to his level, she could see him more clearly. Moonlight caressed one side of his face and cast a blue glow on his raven’s-wing hair. His hooded brows cast his eyes into shadow, but twin sets of eyelashes feathered down from the recess.
The fire sparked and crackled to life. Serena sat
upon her haunches as she eyed Malcolm’s body. His white shirt draped over his massive chest, outlining the divide down the middle and each of the hard lines that furrowed across his muscled abdomen. The shirt fell open at his throat, exposing a V of skin. His wide shoulders hung from a cobra hood of muscle at his neck.
Serena backed away on all fours, her loose mane spilling down the sides of her face, until she was kneeling at his feet. His long legs were relaxed, falling open slightly. Serena’s gaze wended up the sturdy calves, the powerful thighs, and came to rest on the mound in between his slender hips.
Flames licked up from the gathering fire in response to the mounting hunger between Serena’s legs. She let out a tense breath, reveling in the rising heat. She wedged herself between his legs and placed a hand on each of his knees.
Malcolm’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked down at her. “Serena? What are ye—”
“Shh,” she whispered, one finger at her lips. Slowly, she pushed back the fabric of his kilt, higher and higher up his tensing thighs, until she exposed the object of her desire.
In the intensifying orange light, Serena could see his sleeping cock lying over one thigh amid a black nest of hair. It was long and dark, sheathed in plaited skin all the way to the tip. Malcolm rose to his elbows, regarding her in curious excitement. She reached out a hand and covered it with her palm.
Malcolm’s chest expanded with the unexpected touch, and so did his cock. Instantaneously, it shifted under her touch. She closed her eyes to the sensation, marveling at how the lifeless organ slowly thickened and hardened. She wrapped her inquisitive fingers around his rising
manhood, defying gravity with each passing second. Beneath her hand, his furred sac, the softest skin she’d ever touched, tightened under his shaft.
Malcolm’s breath came in rough gasps as her hand climbed higher on the veined pole. Between her legs, she could feel her own organ tightening, demanding connection with his rigid cock. Her chin jutted with the infusion of her sexual power over him. Behind her, the fire blazed, enveloping them both in consuming heat.
Malcolm was panting, begging for release from the gathering pressure in his loins. She would give him what he asked for.
She walked on all fours up his body until she was face-to-face with his passionate scowl. Her knees imprisoned his narrow waist, her breasts hanging decadently over his broad chest. He tried to kiss her but she pulled away. Serena was not now a creature to be coddled.
She pulled up her blue-printed muslin dress, a thing that now seemed completely foreign to her. Her sheath constricted within her, squeezing the slippery moistness from her folds. She lowered her hips, her opening seeking out the erect phallus beneath her. Just then, she found it, his tip kissing her nether mouth. Something feral awakened in her and she sank down upon him. But his girth was far too great for her slender channel, and she grimaced in pain. Involuntarily, she let out a cry as her body adapted itself to his size. The pain was fierce, tearing almost, but she endured it.
She opened up her eyes to find Malcolm gazing at her with passion and devotion. Then something happened inside her heart. Her desire and her care was for him. Her respect and her love was for him. She became for him alone.
In that moment, Serena bonded with Malcolm.
She let out a satisfied sigh. But her unmet need spurred her to action. She raised and thrust her hips, sliding his stiff cock in and out of her slick passage. The pain had diminished to a dull ache, but pleasure at her fullness quickly overcame any discomfort. Up and down, in and out, their bodies coupled in mutual pleasure. Malcolm writhed on the ground, his hands on her hips holding her to him. Her hands helped themselves to the feel of his chest and abdomen, her long hair caressing his neck. Serena rocked back and forth upon him, savoring the sensation that altering speeds and positions afforded her own gratification. The tiny bud between her folds was heated with the stimulation of their joining, and his enormous cock stretched her beyond herself.
Her moans began to signal her upcoming release. Serena bounced on top of him, hastening her nearing ecstasy. The wanton position, the heat from the fire, the wilderness around her, the animal lust, the bruising coupling—in a delirious, memorable moment, Serena exploded in a blaze of passion and contentment.
 
Serena gasped, opening her eyes. Her womanhood was still pulsating as she looked around in the pink-tinged dawn. Perspiration sheened on her face as she looked over her shoulder from the cocoon of Malcolm’s fly plaid. There, on the ground, Malcolm lay sleeping.
She sighed in satisfaction as she relived the glorious dream, detail by delicious detail, still enveloped in the heady scent of his plaid. A wicked smile cut across her face as one day she vowed to make this particular dream come true.
In the morning, memories of Serena’s wanton dream filled her every thought. Every word that Malcolm uttered seemed to have a double meaning. When he asked her to please put out the fire, she chuckled. When he asked her to give him a hand with something, she giggled. And when he complained how hard he slept, she laughed outright.
But her merriment was short-lived, coming to a halt the moment he offered to help her onto one of the horses.
“Bareback?” she exclaimed, aghast.
He steadied the horse against a fallen tree. “Certainly bareback. Can’t ye ride?”
“Of course I can ride. But I use a sidesaddle, as propriety dictates.”
“Well,
necessity
now dictates that ye not only ride without a sidesaddle, but also without a saddle. I’ll use my fly plaid to put between ye and the beast.”
“That is not the only consideration. My skirt will simply not allow me to spread my legs over the animal.”
“I can fix that,” he said, lifting her onto the fallen tree trunk. He pulled out his
sgian achlais
from the sheath strapped under his arm and began to cut a slit up the side of her skirt.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed, but it was
already too late. He had sliced open the narrow skirt from ankle to hip.
Malcolm stood back and eyed his handiwork, resheathing his knife. “Hmm,” he began with a wicked grin. “I like the look of it even more.”
She pinned her fists to her hips. “I wouldn’t hang up your couturier’s shingle yet if I were you. Just look at me!” It was surely a grievous sin to mutilate such a beautiful garment. But her modesty objected to the exposed stockinged leg that protruded from the slit. “I can’t go riding into Cannich like this, like some version of Lady Godiva.”
Malcolm chuckled. “I doubt that the men in Cannich will have the decency to avert their eyes when they see ye coming. Come on, then. Up ye get.”
He helped her seat the horse, which was no easy feat without stirrups or pommel. The horse blustered and tossed back its head. She felt completely insecure, as if she was about to slide off at any moment.
“Now, just relax. Don’t squeeze the horse with yer legs, or he’ll think ye want him to go faster. Just move with the horse. We’ll go at a slow pace. If ye feel like ye’re slipping, grab the horse’s mane to steady yerself, not the reins. And dinna fret. I’ll be right next to ye the whole time.”
It was just about midday when they arrived at their destination. Cannich was a small village nestled in the valley at the foot of the Cairngorms. It was green but largely deserted, except for a pub, a church, a smattering of cottages—and Ronan McLeish.
McLeish was a great bear of a man, with an explosion of curly brown hair and a beard as thick as a fox’s tail. His house was as far removed from the village center as it could be, shouldered by thick forests and scattered with chickens, goats, and a passel of children.
He greeted Malcolm with a large, booming voice and a noisy embrace.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Look at what the road vomited on my doorstep!”
Malcolm’s feet left the ground as McLeish lifted him in the air. “And ye’re a sight from best-forgotten days. I can’t think of yer face without seeing prison bars in front of it.”
His large belly jiggled up and down with his guttural laugh. “And who’s this sweet ye brought for my dessert?”
Malcolm put his hand on her shoulder. “Serena Marsh, this is Ronan McLeish, the most slippery fugitive I’ve ever had the displeasure of pursuing.”
“What a comely lass. Come in, come in. Meet my wife. Una!” His voice trumpeted across the rustic house.
A full-bosomed woman came down the stairs with a rosy-headed child on her hip. She was thick-necked and tough looking, but the dusting of freckles on the apples of her cheeks and her smooth ginger hair gave her a youthful, friendly quality.
“I want ye to meet Malcolm Slayter, the man I told ye aboot.”
She smiled at him, crescents of cheek forming under her blue eyes. “Welcome to oor home, Mr. Slayter.”
“And he’s brought this beautiful young thing that he intends to share with his host.”
“Wheesht now, ye peppery auld sod.” She clouted him on the arm. “Where are yer manners? He isna always a boorish lout, my dear. Only on days that end in
day.
”
Serena smiled. “You’ll have to forgive the state I’m in,” she said, clutching the panels of her skirt together. “I’m afraid Malcolm has taken up elementary dressmaking.”
Una blinked. “Ye’re English?”
Serena glanced uncertainly at Malcolm before returning her attention to Una. “I hope that’s all right.”
“O’ course, o’ course. It’s just that we don’t see many English up oor way unless—” Now it was Una’s turn to look uncomfortably at her husband. “It’s a verra pretty frock.”
Serena shrugged nervously. “Just something I threw on.”
McLeish stroked his beard. “I should throw it off again.”
“McLeish!” cried his wife in mock despair. “Ye’ll get yer head in yer hands to play with!”
“I only meant that ye should offer her somethin’ to change into, ma dear heart.” As soon as Una looked away, he turned to Malcolm and shook his head. He meant what he had said.
Una nodded suspiciously. “Ye’ll have to overlook ma husband’s randy mooth, Miss Marsh. He’s as harmless as a dead bee. Come along. I’ll show ye where ye kin freshen up from yer journey.”
“Noo then. Ye come wi’ me, Malcolm Slayter,” said McLeish. “I’m sure I kin find a dram of whiskey for us to share.”
“So long as ye don’t tell me where ye got it from.” Malcolm pulled up a chair at the long kitchen table. Una seemed to have been plucking a chicken for white feathers billowed across the wooden tabletop.
“So,” he began, pouring the amber liquid into two small glasses. “Where did ye find that English filly?”
Malcolm gave a sidewise smile. “She’s my current job. I’m her
seastnán.
”
McLeish’s bushy eyebrows knit together. “Why would
she need one? Who would want to hurt a pretty thing like her?”
“There are wicked people about. As well ye know.”
“Aye, I do. So …” A naughty gleam illuminated McLeish’s eyes. “Have ye plowed that field yet? Eh? Shaped the passage to yer measure?” McLeish jabbed an elbow into Malcolm’s side.
For the first time in all the years since he’d been a boy, Malcolm blushed. “Not yet.”
“Come on, man! Dinna spare the details. I saw how ye ripped open her dress. Give me a little image to rest ma head on. Una’s fair boilin’ at me for no’ fixing the roof, and she won’t let me in oor bed. D’ye knoo how desperate I am? Ye know me—I live for only two things. A pail full of ale—”
“—and lasses with fine asses. I remember.” Malcolm laughed, and then his face sobered. “McLeish, I’m after ye on another matter. A matter I hope ye can aim some light on. There’s been angry words against the English. I hear tell about war for independence. And to draw first blood, someone’s taken the English ambassador hostage.”
“Aye. I heard the whisperings.”
“Do ye also know who took him?”
McLeish nodded. “Some Sassenach expatriate named Neville. Bad seed, even among us colorful folk. A real brutal sort. No honor in him.”
“Who hired him?”
“I hear tell it’s the McCullough. The son of Duncan McCullough.”
“The one they call Brandubh?”
“That’s the one.”
“Where have they taken him?”
McLeish leaned back in his chair. “What is this
aboot? Why all the interest in the McCullough? And what’s the connection with the Sassenach lass?”
Malcolm leaned his elbows on the table. “I know ye’re not in the game anymore. And I don’t want to put ye in harm’s way. Let’s just say ye don’t need to know what ye don’t need to know.”
“Dammit, Malcolm. If ye’re asking me to put ma family’s life in danger, then give me the truth of the matter.”
Malcolm thought quickly. A partial truth was better than none. “I’m no’ after the McCullough. I just want to get the ambassador back.”
“Why?”
“I don’t care about the politics. War, no war … it matters not to me. I want to rescue the man … for the sake of his daughter.” Malcolm’s head jerked in the direction Serena was taken.
Illumination dawned on McLeish’s florid face. “I see. So ye’re willing to go and take back the McCullough’s own hostage because of this girl.”
Malcolm nodded.
“Ye’re more than just her
seastnán
then.”
Malcolm nodded.
McLeish shook his head. “I feel sorry for ye, Malcolm. Women make us do strange things. Raise chickens, fix roofs. Risk our lives by challenging the most powerful chief in the whole of the Highlands.”
“Will ye help me?” Malcolm asked.
McLeish shook his head. “No. Ye were a pain in my arse for years. But I don’t want to see ye killed, either.”
Malcolm’s eyes took on a fierceness. “Leave that to me. Just tell me where they’ve hidden him.”
“Sorry, my auld friend. I’ve done a lot of my work in the dark, and I’ve been called a good many things. But I’m no
slaighteur.
This here is McCullough land now.
And though I don’t belong to the McCullough, I’ve a family to look after. I want to help ye, if for nothing other than good times’ sake. But not at the expense of my family.” McLeish stood up, placed a conciliatory hand on Malcolm’s shoulder, and walked out of the kitchen.
Malcolm’s heart sank. Without McLeish’s direction, they would be going into this blind. It would take weeks—months even—to track down where McCullough could have taken the ambassador. And given the current political climate, there was very little chance that the ambassador would be found alive.
“I simply can’t take this,” said Serena, smoothing out the dress Una had given her to wear. “It’s yours.”
“Och. The last time I wore it, I had nineteen summers. Before the children came. Ma waist will ne’er be this tiny again. Nor ma teats.”
Serena blushed. “But surely you’d like to leave it for your daughters.”
“The only daughter bairn to me died at two, may she rest in peace. And the seven boys willna be wantin’ it. Besides, I was wearing it when Ronan and I were hand-fasted. ’Twould be a shame to cut it up and use it for somethin’ else.”
Serena smoothed out the striped skirt in white and green. Though the waist was lower than the fashion currently dictated, she had to admit that it was much more comfortable having a belt cinch at her natural waist than at her rib cage. And the full skirt allowed for ease of movement. The white camisole had yellowed somewhat, but it was still beautiful. And though the brown jacket was less ornate than any of her spencers, it fit her perfectly.
She gazed at her reflection in the windowpanes. She
hardly recognized herself. Who would think that the woman in the glass was London’s celebrated sophisticate, the chronicler of balls and parties, the paradigm of fashion and Society? She smiled at the image she now presented.
But it suddenly occurred to her that her opinion alone was not enough. “Do you mind if I show Malcolm ?”
“’Course not. And if he doesna like it, I’ve a castiron skillet ye can use to convince him that he does.”
She went downstairs with Una close behind. She found Malcolm sitting at the kitchen table.
“How do I look?”
Malcolm turned around and got up out of his chair. He looked her up and down. And smiled such a great big smile that it took her breath away.
“That’s my girl,” he said, his chest swelling with pride.
Una came up behind her. “Doesn’t she look a picture?”
“Aye. That she does.”
Serena bit her smile. His approval made her feel giddy. She had always dressed up to impress, but now it seemed it was her state of
undress
that impressed him the most.
Una stuck her head out the window and yelled something at the children playing in the forest behind the house. She then turned to Serena. “Do me a blissin’, Serena. Can ye bring the little ones in to dinner? I’m just about to bring the pot to the table.”
“Certainly.” Serena walked out the front door.
Malcolm leaned his hands onto the windowsill, watching her walk between the trees.
Una put the plates on the dinner table. “She’s an amiable one, that one. Pretty, too.”
“Aye,” he said, his gaze riveted to Serena. His lips began to move, silently, mouthing inaudible words.
Una watched him for a few moments. “What are ye doing?”
He gave her a sidewise glance before looking out of the window again. “Praying.”
“Aye. These be troubled times. Are ye praying that nothing happens to ye?”
Malcolm straightened. “No. I’m praying that if something should happen to me, He’ll take care of Serena.”

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