The room was spacious and warm. A pile of logs awaited lighting in the hearth, and a braided rug covered the wide plank floor.
Catherine strode all the way in and looked around. “It will feel like heaven to sleep here tonight,” she said, swinging around to face him in the open doorway. Slowly, she approached him. “You won’t disappoint me, will you? You will come?”
The double meaning in her words caused Lachlan’s blood to quicken in his veins, and he had to fight the urge to sweep her into his arms, carry her to the bed right then and there, and take her like a horny savage.
“Aye,” he flatly said. “I’ll make sure the others eat and drink plenty; then I’ll let them know I’ll be on watch until morning.” A shiver ran through him—one of feverish impatience. “But once we are alone, lass,” he added, “I’ll need you to help keep the situation under control. You must not tempt me into doing certain things I cannot do.”
“Of course,” she replied, reaching out to straighten his tartan over his shoulder.
He wondered suddenly if he should not take this risk after all, for he was overwhelmed by the intensity of his desires. Each day they drew closer to Edinburgh—and closer to the end of his torment—the more eager he became. It disturbed him, to want her so badly.
She pursed her lush, cherry lips, and he was done for. He bent forward to kiss her but recognized something else in her eyes. Something apprehensive…
He drew back. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she answered, too quickly. “It was a long ride today, that’s all, and I have been able to think of nothing but you.”
“My feelings were no different,” he confessed. “But are you certain there is nothing else you wish to tell me?”
She stood for a moment wetting her lips, then moved against him and slid her hands up and down his chest. “Only that I will not rest until you come back to me.”
She tugged his shirt out from under his kilt and proceeded to kiss the sensitive flesh over his rib cage, then stimulated his nipples with her tongue.
Lachlan’s blood pounded through his veins. His warrior’s body ached with need. As he slid a hand around the back of her neck and toyed with the loose tendrils of hair at her nape, he said, “I thought you were going to help keep things under control, lass, but when you do things like this, I worry that we’ll forget ourselves.”
She lifted her heated gaze and grinned up at him. “It’s much too late forme,” she told him. “I’ve already forgotten everything.”
With a small grin, he gently pushed her away. “You’re a danger to my sanity, you know.” He quickly tucked his shirt back in. “I must be raving mad, agreeing to come here tonight to frolic with such a lusty wench. How can I be sure you won’t take advantage of me, when I’m most vulnerable?”
She followed him to the door. “You’ll just have to trust me, I suppose.”
He stopped and faced her. “I’m serious, lass.”
Catherine’s expression darkened. “I know. But it will be all right,” she assured him. “I promise I will be good. Just please, do not change your mind.”
He gazed down at her moist lips, the soft pale flesh of her bosom, then back up at her beguiling blue eyes, stormy as the winter sea. He wanted to lose himself in those eyes, and every other part of her, and give to her what she had given to him the night before.
“I won’t,” he gruffly replied before he finally tore himself away from her greedy hands and strove to quiet his heedless passions. At least until midnight.
***
Lachlan did not see Catherine again throughout the evening, for she bathed privately in her chamber, then ate a small supper alone, which was sent up on a tray, while Alex guarded her door.
Lachlan in turn kept himself busy and distracted by arranging for a coach and driver to take her the remaining distance to Edinburgh. A wheeled vehicle had been an impossible luxury before Killen, for in the north there were few roads adequate for such means of travel. But they were in the Lowlands now. Everything was different.
He ate supper with the clansmen in the tavern across the street from the inn while waiting for the clock to strike twelve. When at last it marked the critical hour, he took a careful look around and decided it was time to take over the night watch.
As he left the tavern and crossed the muddy street, a gentle breeze fluttered his kilt and the world seemed different somehow. He felt rejuvenated. Hopeful. Tonight he would share a bed with a woman he desired and cared for, and it was not so very frightening, for he knew she understood his limits—she understood hisheart—and tomorrow they would travel to Edinburgh to meet Raonaid, her sister, who might finally put an end to his suffering.
There was some hope now, he supposed, and over the next few hours, he would allow himself to take some pleasure in that hope while doing everything he could to give generously to Catherine in return. Just the thought of it caused his blood to race, and his desire for her increased tenfold.
Climbing the stairs to her room, he focused on the internal workings of his body, determined this time to satisfy her before he satisfied himself, and by God, he would make it last much longer than before. Till dawn if she was keen.
Reaching the top of the stairs, however, he stopped at the sight of young Alex, who had volunteered to be on watch until Lachlan arrived. Alex was sitting on the floor outside her door, his legs stretched in a V across the corridor, his musket clutched tightly at his chest.
The top stair creaked under Lachlan’s weight. Alex leaped to his feet and aimed the musket. The flame in the wall sconce danced alarmingly.
“I cannot allow you to go in there, sir,” he said. “Angus the Lion sent me to protect Lady Catherine, and it’s my duty on this night to protect her fromyou.”
