To Marry A Scottish Laird (6 page)

Jo instinctively caught at his shoulders and leaned her upper body forward to avoid it being scraped across the rock. It put her head by his ear, which was the only reason he heard her moan as he eased her down onto his erection. Cam caught the last of the moan with his mouth, kissing her as he began to thrust in and out of her at an angle that allowed him to rub against her core as he withdrew and surged back in. Jo’s kisses were hot and wet in response, her legs wrapped around him, crossed at the ankle and drove into his behind egging him on, and her fingers knotted in his hair and tugged almost painfully with demand as she sought the release she now knew waited for her.

It excited the hell out of Cam and made him drive harder and faster into her. Even so, he didn’t think either of them were prepared for release when it came. It hit hard and fast, exploding over him like lightning so that he clawed his fingers into her hips and broke their kiss on a shout of triumph that drowned out Jo’s own scream.

When it ended, Cam was left sagging against Jo, pinning her to the cliff face with his body as he rested his forehead against the cold stone beside her head. He felt weak as a kitten, as if every last drop of strength in his body had been sucked out of him. He was even trembling. Afraid his legs might give out beneath them did he stay here much longer, Cam eased away from Jo. She immediately unhooked her legs and let them drop to the ground to take her own weight, but her head didn’t move from his shoulder and her arms remained clasped around his upper back. After a brief hesitation where he debated whether he could manage the feat or not, Cam scooped her up in his arms and turned to jump off the large boulders that made up the ledge they stood on. The water in front of the falls was about shoulder deep. They were both briefly submerged as he instinctively bent his knees to reduce the impact of the landing, but it was very briefly. Fortunately, Jo had apparently been prepared for that. At least she didn’t come out sputtering and spitting up water when he straightened and the water dropped to shoulder level.

The water was taking some of her weight now and Jo was barely more than floating in his arms, so Cam paused briefly to allow his muscles to regain some of their strength. Not that she was heavy, but weak as he was, he was concerned about carrying her out of the water otherwise.

When he paused, Jo lifted her head to him in question and Cam couldn’t resist lowering his head to kiss her again. He’d meant it to merely be an affectionate brushing of lips, but the moment his mouth touched hers, something began to fizzle inside him and he found himself deepening the kiss. Jo responded in kind and that just made the reawakening passion explode back to full blown life between them.

The returning passion brought his strength back with it, and even as he kissed her, Cam began moving through the water toward shore. By the time the water fell away, leaving him to bear her full weight, he had no problem carrying her and in a trice he was laying her on his plaid and coming down on top of her.

Jo welcomed him with open arms, legs spreading when he nudged them with one knee and Cam settled between her open legs, his quickly growing erection nestling against the heat of her. He started to lower his head, intending to kiss her again, but spotting a drop of water trembling on the tip of her nipple, he changed direction and licked the deep rose tip instead, catching the droplet on his tongue. Jo shivered and released a little sigh at the teasing caress. When she then cupped his head in her hands, urging him on, he stopped to attend the breast more fully, laving and suckling at it before letting it slip from his mouth so that he could turn his attention to the other breast as well.

His hips were rocking between hers as he did, his shaft rubbing against her without entering, and Jo was moaning and gasping by turn in response. The sounds were sweet music to Cam’s ears. He loved to hear her laugh, but he loved these sounds more. They seemed to feed his soul, so he was disappointed when she suddenly pressed on his shoulders, pushing him away.

Frowning, he gave up what he was doing and pulled back, then sat up on his heels between her legs when she kept pushing.

“What—?” he began with worry, but paused when she shifted to her own knees before him and began to explore his chest with fingers and lips. A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, and he almost told her gently that this had little effect on a man and she should concentrate her attentions lower if she wanted to please him, but he enjoyed her hands roaming over the muscles of his chest, squeezing and massaging here and there. And when she closed her lips over one of his nipples and began to tease it with lips and tongue, he was rather shocked to feel a string of excitement pull tight within him.

Damn, I like that too, Cam realized, eyes sliding closed. He then stiffened, eyes popping open when she released the nipple and began to kiss her way down his chest and across his stomach. He caught his hand in her hair and stopped her just as she reached his manhood, and Jo peered up at him, eyes wide and wounded and said, “But I want to please you like you did me.”

He stared into her wide, pleading eyes, glanced to her full sweet lips just inches away from his shaft, and then let go of her hair and tried to steel himself against what was to come as her lips moved toward his erection. It had been semi-erect in the water, fully erect as he’d kissed and caressed her on his plaid, but now was so big the skin was stretched almost painfully tight. That situation only increased as she began to press tentative kisses to his hot flesh. The woman didn’t have a clue what she was doing, and that didn’t matter worth a damn. Just watching her mouth moving over him was so damned erotic he was having trouble holding back his release. He had to shift his gaze to prevent that, but it didn’t help much when his eyes moved down her back to the two curves of her behind.

When Joan took him into her mouth experimentally, he could take no more. Cam caught one hand in her hair again, and grabbed her upper arm with the other to draw her upright and kissed her almost punishingly. When she slid her arms around his shoulders and kissed him passionately back, he released her arm to reach between her legs and caress her again, eager to bring her to the boiling point, as he was.

It didn’t take long to get her there, within moments she was breaking the kiss and shifting to straddle him. Cam helped direct her onto his erection and then clasped her hips to aid her in raising and lowering herself at a rhythm pleasing to them both. The position put her breasts in front of his face and he couldn’t resist catching one in his mouth and covering the other with one hand to caress her as she rode him.

Joan’s cry of pleasure as she found release caught Cam a little by surprise, but the way her muscles spasmed around his cock had him following on her heels, his own shout coming before hers had ended.

Chapter 6

J
O
AN BREATHED A LITTLE
SIGH OF RELIEF WHEN
she found the road they’d been traveling on. She hadn’t been at all sure she’d be able to find it on her own when she’d set out, but in the end it hadn’t been that hard. Cam obviously wasn’t the first to find the waterfall and there had been a narrow trail through the underbrush to follow.

Setting off in the direction they’d been headed before leaving the road, she began moving more quickly, eager to get as far away as possible before Cam woke up. Jo wasn’t sure that was even necessary, he might be glad to be relieved of her company when he woke. On the other hand, he might have been planning on bedding her all the way to the MacKays and might be angry to lose the opportunity. She just didn’t know. She didn’t even know why he had done it in the first place, or the second or third. Her face was still a horrible mess, her clothing was less than attractive, and she hadn’t got the chance to ask him. She’d meant to speak to him first thing on his waking, but then he’d startled her under the waterfall and then he’d begun kissing her and . . .

Biting her lip, Jo forced those memories determinedly from her mind, afraid that if she thought too much about it, she’d turn around and head right back to camp and wake Cam up for a fourth go around. The man was temptation in a plaid . . . and out of it. Honestly, he made her feel things she’d never before experienced. Things she’d never even imagined existed. The moment he kissed her, she forgot that he was a noble and she a commoner. She forgot that she was just a dalliance for him, that this was a sin. She even forgot her long-lived fears of the birthing bed as something began to quiver deep down inside her, and then erupted into a hunger that wouldn’t be denied. She lost all good sense around the man.

That’s why when he’d pulled her down to lie with him after the last time they’d done it, she’d waited for him to fall asleep and then had slipped out from the cocoon of his arms, dressed, collected her bag and set out on her own. Since she couldn’t seem to resist the temptation he offered, it seemed better to avoid that temptation altogether.

Sighing, Joan glanced to the sky, trying to judge how much time she had left before the sun set and she had to stop traveling. Not much, seemed the answer, she decided with disgust as she noted that the sun was already approaching the horizon. An hour, maybe less was her guess and that couldn’t be good. Chances were, Cam would sleep until dark. At least, that was her hope, and then he surely wouldn’t set out tonight, another hope of hers. Still, even if she got lucky and both hopes were fulfilled, he would no doubt be up and on the road first thing come sunrise. Even if they started out at the same time, he was on horseback, she on foot. He would overtake her rather quickly.

Joan had barely had the thought when she heard the thunder of a fast moving horse. Not horses, horse, she realized. For one moment she was so panicked at the realization and the fear that it might be Cam that she froze on the road like a deer before oncoming hunters. But then her brain kicked in and sent her scurrying to the side of the road and the bushes that waited there. She dove into them without looking back, then hunkered down, trying to make herself as small as possible so that the bush would hide her. She knew she’d failed when the approaching horse suddenly slowed and then stopped just on the other side of the bushes.

“Joan?”

“No,” she instinctively blurted and then could have kicked herself. No? For the sake of the good Lord, what was the matter with her? She should have kept her mouth shut and hoped he’d ride on. Surely he hadn’t seen her? And if he had, he’d only caught a glimpse and couldn’t have been sure it was her. At least not until she’d said no, not even bothering to try to disguise her voice.

“Are ye comin’ out? Or shall I come join ye in the bushes?” Cam asked calmly.

Joan closed her eyes briefly and then sighed and stood up to scowl at him. “How did you know I was here?”

“I saw ye rush over and throw yerself behind the bush,” he answered quietly.

“Well surely you only caught a glimpse. I could have been anyone,” she pointed out with irritation.

“Aye,” he allowed. “Except that yer behind was poking out of the bush, and I’d know that derriere anywhere, under any circumstances.”

Aware she was blushing, Joan scowled at the man and then made her way back around the bush and walked stiffly to the road. Coming out just ahead of him, she turned her back and started walking as if he wasn’t there. But Cam merely urged his horse up beside her.

“Come on. Up with ye,” he ordered, holding his hand down to her.

Joan shook her head, refusing to do more than glance at the hand. “No, thank you. I’m fine walking.”

“Why?” he asked, and she knew he didn’t just mean why wouldn’t she get on his horse. He wanted to know why she’d run off and left him behind too.

Joan bit her lip, and then glanced to him apologetically. “I appreciate your help with Toothless and his men. Thank you.”

“Ye’re welcome,” he said solemnly. “And thank ye fer savin’ me life.”

She nodded to acknowledge his words and then said, “But I think ’tis best do I travel on me own from here.”

“Ye ken I can no’ allow that Joan. ’Tis no’ safe fer ye to travel alone.”

“ ’Tis safer than traveling with you,” she said, and then grimaced. She hadn’t meant to be accusatory. Sighing, she paused and turned to look up at him, not surprised when he immediately stopped his horse. “I—we shouldn’t have . . . why did you—? I mean, I’m not very attractive just now, yet you—”

Pausing, she stared at him helplessly. Joan hadn’t expected this to be as difficult as it was turning out to be. She was a healer, which meant she’d had to discuss some very personal things with her clients. After years of training, she now could do so without any discomfort or embarrassment, but trying to talk to Cam about their having sex? Well, she was stammering, blushing and floundering like . . . well, like the virgin she’d been until that morning. Dear God, she thought suddenly. Had it only been that morning that she’d lost her innocence? And she’d lost it twice more since then already?

Well, okay, she reasoned, she had only lost her innocence once, but he’d bedded her three times. In one day. And it wasn’t even over yet, she thought with dismay and then gasped with surprise when Cam suddenly leaned to the side, caught her under the arms and pulled her up on his horse before him.

“First o’ all,” he said patiently as he urged his horse to move again. “Ye’re right. We should no’ ha’e. I should ha’e realized you were an innocent and left you alone. I also should ha’e pulled out or used something to keep ye safe from getting with child. Howbeit I did no’ think. I wanted ye so bad I could no’ think,” he corrected himself and then said grimly, “As fer this nonsense about yer no’ being attractive and why did I . . . Well,” he shook his head. “It should be obvious I find ye very attractive. So attractive in fact, that ’tis hard to keep me hands off ye.”

When Jo shifted to glance up and over her shoulder at him with surprise, he nodded solemnly, and added, “Even now, I’m fightin’ the urge to raise me hand just that little bit needed to cup and fondle yer breasts.”

Jo glanced down at the hand he’d placed around her waist just below her breasts. Glancing back to his face, she blurted, “They’re bound right now. You couldn’t feel anything anyway.”

“Thank ye fer tellin’ me that. It helps me resist,” he said, his lips twitching with amusement.

Jo merely frowned at his words and asked, “But how can you find me attractive? I am far away from my best. My face is all swollen and bruised, my hair stuffed under my hat, and my clothes are not exactly flattering.”

“Ye’re jesting, are ye no’?” he asked with disbelief. “Woman, ye’re wearing tight braies that do nothing but emphasize what a fine behind ye ha’e. As fer yer hair, while I can no’ see it now, I’ve seen it down and ken it’s there. And yer face grows better every day.”

“Aye, but—”

“I like ye, Jo,” he interrupted quietly. “I like talkin’ to ye, and travelin’ with ye. I like the way yer mind thinks, I like yer laugh, and I like ye as a person.” He shrugged helplessly. “It makes me want to hear ye laugh more, and find out what yer thinkin’, and it makes me want to strip yer clothes away one by one and sink me cock into yer warm wet body over and over and over again.”

Joan stared at him wide-eyed, unconsciously licking her lips as his words bounced around inside her head, forming images that made butterflies flutter low in her belly.

“But I ken I should no’,” he added solemnly, raising his hand to run one finger lightly over her lips in the trail left by her tongue. “And I shall try to behave meself fer the rest o’ the journey, but I must insist ye ride with me. Ye saved me life lass, and I’ll no’ make ye risk yers by travelin’ alone because ye’re afraid o’ me.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Joan admitted on a sigh as she turned her head away. “I’m afraid of myself. I don’t seem to be able to resist you and know I should. It seemed better to avoid the temptation than to fail again at resisting it.”

“Well, I ha’e no’ helped with that. But from here on out, I’ll do me best to keep me hands to meself. Deal?” he asked.

Joan glanced back to him, managed a smile and nodded.

“Good,” he said and then urged his horse off the trail.

“Where are we going now?” she asked with surprise.

“Back to our camp. When I realized ye’d left, I mounted up and hurried after ye without thinkin’ to grab me bag or the pheasant.”

Eyes widening, Joan glanced around, wondering how she could have missed that he’d turned back the way they’d come when he’d taken her up before him. Obviously, she’d been distracted, Joan thought, not really that surprised. The man had a powerful effect on her . . . and she knew she was foolish to give in and not continue on her own, but she just couldn’t seem to say no, slip off his mount and walk away.

Joan rationalized it away by telling herself that it wouldn’t happen again, that now that they’d talked, they would resist the attraction they had for each other. But she knew that was a lie even as she thought it. If Cam kissed her, she would kiss back, and there was no doubt in her mind where it would go from there. She also knew that he would kiss her eventually. It might not be tonight, it might not even be tomorrow, but eventually, he’d kiss her and they’d both be lost again. She knew all of that, but it was easier to lie to herself so she did.

“The pheasant is still here.”

Jo glanced around as they rode into the clearing and noted the pheasant still over the fire, as well as his saddle bag beside the dead fire, but she merely nodded and slid off the horse as he brought it to a halt. Once on the ground, she simply stood there, unsure what to do. Were they staying, or just gathering the pheasant and bag and setting out?

“We’ll stay here again tonight and set out at first light,” Cam announced as he dismounted and began to unsaddle his mount.

Well that answered that, Jo thought wryly, but found herself staring at Cam as he worked. He hadn’t bothered with his shirt when he’d dressed to come after her. In fact, his plaid was merely wrapped around his waist rather than donned properly. It left his chest and back bare and she couldn’t seem to stop watching the play of muscles in his back as he worked. The man was a feast for the eyes.

And this was going to be a very long journey indeed, she thought grimly as her gaze dropped to his naked legs below the plaid. There was no way she was going to resist him. She may as well just give in and enjoy him while she had the chance. Joan was pretty sure no other man would stir her as he did. Cam would probably be the only lover she ever had, a fond memory to keep her warm on countless cold nights. She may as well make as many memories as she could, she reasoned.

“If ye do no’ stop looking at me like that, lass, ye’re likely to bring on something ye do no’ want,” Cam warned suddenly, turning to eye her with his hands on his hips in a manner that suggested he was annoyed.

“Mayhap I’m wantin’ to start something,” Joan said quietly.

Cam stilled briefly and then tilted his head, confusion playing on his face. “Did we no’ just agree we’d try to behave?”

“Aye,” she said and then shrugged helplessly. “But I don’t want to. That’s why I was leaving, because I knew so long as I was with you I’d want you. And it just seems to me we aren’t likely to succeed at behaving, at least not for more than a day or two. Then we’ll give in to it, but we’ll have wasted those two days, so why bother? Besides, ’tis not as if you can put the eggs back in the shell once you’ve cracked them.”

“Eggs?” he asked blankly, and she clarified.

“My innocence is gone, and I can’t get it back. Denying ourselves will not change that. ’Tis a long journey and—”

That was as far as she got before Cam closed the distance between them and drew her into his arms. Joan went willingly with only a pinch of regret and self-recrimination. There would be much more of that at the journey’s end she was sure, but for now, her conscience was content to wait.

“
W
AKE UP, LASS.
W
E’RE IN
S
COTLAND.”

Joan blinked her eyes open and peered sleepily around, confused at first as to where she was. But then she realized she was sleeping in Cam’s lap on his horse. She’d obviously dozed off and shortly after they’d set out, from what she could tell. At least she didn’t recall being awake for long after they’d broken camp and set out. Joan wasn’t terribly surprised that she had, they’d been up most of the night as Cam had taught her several ways to find the release he gave her.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, straightening in front of him.

“Fer what?” he asked with surprise.

“For falling asleep on you,” Joan explained. “You must be tired too after last night.”

“I slept all day yesterday,” Cam reminded her gently. “I am fine. And ye’ve naught to apologize for. Ye need yer rest. In fact, I only woke ye because there is an inn just around the bend that I was thinking we could stop at fer the nooning meal.”