Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

W hen Aihan appeared at breakfast for the fourth morning in a row in the same gown, Col realised he needed to give her some more dresses to wear. So, after breakfast, he went up to the attic and fetched down one of the trunks he had packed Cat’s things in. He took it to the Daffodil Room and left it on the floor at the foot of the bed. He salved his conscience with the thought that Cat wouldn’t want her things mouldering away in the attic if they could be used. She was very practical like that. A trait she and Aihan seemed to share.

He had expected there to be awkwardness at breakfast after what happened between them last night, but when he entered the dining room, Rory and Callum were having a fight. How it started he wasn’t sure, but by the time he arrived they were tussling on the floor, and Rory had Callum pinned down with a hand to his throat.

He was about to intervene when Aihan rushed past him, setting the tray of food she was carrying on the table, and applied a swift kick to Rory’s ribs, which sent him sprawling. Callum scrambled to his feet, his face red and tear-streaked as he got the table between himself and his brother, and Aihan grabbed Rory and threw him with a blindingly quick twist so that he landed on his back. Then she put a booted foot lightly on his throat.

“How ye like it, huh?” she asked, bending over him.

Rory blinked, staring up at her, stunned and winded.

“Ye leave him alone.” She indicated Callum. “I teach ye to fight, Chinese style. You like?”

Rory nodded, and she lifted her foot and gave him a hand up.

The boys took their seats at the table as Fergus and Willy came in with the rest of the breakfast things.

Helping himself to parritch, Callum said shyly, “Will ye teach me to fight too?”

“Sure,” said Aihan with a broad smile. She nodded at Willy, “Ye too?”

Willy nodded enthusiastically, as his mouth was full of bread.

Taking his seat at the table, Col wondered what just happened. Peace seemed restored, at any rate. He leaned towards her and murmured, “Thank ye.”

“No problem, I need to train every day. This just kill two birds with one rock.” She smiled. “I get that right?”

“Generally, we use stone instead of rock, but aye, ye used the expression correctly.” She was a very fast learner. There was so much more he wanted to know about her. She was intelligent and strong and fierce and brave. No highland warrior had more courage, he thought. And she was unabashedly passionate. He winced internally at that. He needed to keep his distance on that front. It would be difficult. He would be careful not to be alone with her again.

Aihan arranged to meet the boys in the courtyard mid-morning for their first lesson. All three of them were there ahead of her, waiting.

She bowed to them, placing her clenched fist against her flat palm and bending at the waist.

They all three blinked at her, then Callum imitated her, and she smiled. “Good.”

Willy followed suit and then, reluctantly, Rory.

“I am shīfù. Teacher. You obey me.”

“Shīfù,” they echoed awkwardly.

She bowed again. “Good. We begin with breathing.”

“I know how to breathe,” objected Rory. “I want to learn how to fight.”

“I do this long time. I know more than ye. Accept this or I not teach.”

“How long?” asked Rory.

“Since five years old.”

“How old are ye now?”

“Twenty-five.” She met his sceptical glare with calm. “Ye want to fight?”

He nodded.

“Good, ye listen and learn.”

Col, watching the lesson from the lee of the back entrance to the kitchen, marvelled at Aihan’s ability to get the boys to obey her. Even the truculent Rory seemed in thrall to her. He hid a smile, like father like son’s. For he was as surely in thrall to her as much as the boys, if for a different reason.

She was twenty-five, older than she looked. But then her calm demeanour spoke of maturity. She was no girl, and based on last night’s encounter, no virgin either. He shuddered with remembered desire, his cock thickening. He took a breath, trying to push the memories away. What they did last night, the way they did it, he’d never done before. Even courting Cat—and they had done everything but fuck, before the wedding—he’d never rubbed himself fully clothed against her and come. And so hard too, he’d practically blacked out. He took another breath, bringing his attention back to the activities in the courtyard, resolutely blocking out thoughts of a repeat of last night.

At the end of the lesson, she sent them off with instructions to create a mattress so that they could practice throws without hurting themselves. They raced off to obey her, and she headed towards the kitchen. Not wanting to be caught spying on her, he beat a hasty retreat to his study. An hour later, she came in to let him know luncheon was ready and to thank him for the trunk of clothes.

“They belong to yer wife?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Ye don’t mind I wear them?”

“Nae.” He cleared his throat. “Better they be used. Cat would be glad they were getting worn. She wouldn’t want them going to waste.”

“Thank ye,” she said, accompanying him to the dining room. “I found sewing kit in drawers,” she said, indicating the changes she had made to the gown she was wearing.

“I noticed,” he said with a smile. “Ye’re shorter and smaller than Cat.”

The fact that she was smaller-breasted didn’t bother him. He had always thought he preferred larger ones. Seemed the size wasn’t the deciding factor. For all his determination to stay away from her, he was failing miserably. She was like a lodestone luring him in. A magnetic force as powerful as a current.

He could feel his body reacting to her proximity, and it was addictive. He liked the thrill of arousal her mere presence stirred in him. He couldn’t even pinpoint the cause. It was something in her aura, rather than anything in particular about the way she looked. He’d likened her to a seelie fae at first sight, with her slender build and indefinable air of glamour. But he didn’t think it was that, unless it was in the power of her beautiful black eyes, which seemed to see right through to the heart of him?

He took his seat at the table after seating her and surveyed today’s meal. More traditional fare today. Tatties and neeps, stew, and fresh bread. But the flavouring in the stew pointed to Aihan’s touch. It was spicy and slightly sweet and salty. She had made her mark in a matter of days on all of them.

That evening, Aihan appeared for dinner in one of Cat’s other gowns, and he was forced to eat his words about her attraction having nothing to do with her appearance. She had done something with her hair and altered the gown to fit. The neckline was low-cut and the deep blood-red of the gown’s velvet fabric altered her colouring somehow. Made her appear more vibrant. It certainly drew the eye. A wide sash emphasised her waistline in a way that wasn’t necessarily fashionable, but showed off her slender form. I definitely cannot be alone with her tonight in that!

Aihan had spent considerable time and effort on her appearance tonight, altering the gown to fit, pinning up her hair, washing thoroughly, and applying some rose water she had found in a sealed bottle. She had an agenda. She wanted more information, and she was prepared to use any methods to get it. And if she was honest, she wouldn’t mind more of what last night had promised. The man aroused her. She wanted him, and she knew he wanted her. She could see no reason not to act on that.

Mac took the dogs out for their evening walk, and she went to his study again. The library was a treasure trove of knowledge that pulled at her. She was frustrated by her inability to read any of the texts, but the illustrations in many of the books were fascinating. She found one about animals with lots of pictures of creatures she had never seen.

Sitting down with it, she waited for Mac to return from his walk. He was gone much longer this time. It was almost ten o’clock, and she was dozing over the book when the door opened and the dogs muscled in, panting.

Like last night, she greeted them, putting the book aside to do so, and glanced over at the door where Mac stood, looking at her.

“I thought ye’d be in bed by now,” he said.

So, he has stayed out to avoid me? Where has he been all this time? She rose and came towards him and the smell of whisky on his breath told her he’d been at the Spotted Chicken.

“I wait for ye,” she said simply. She put a hand on his chest and looked up at him. He was a big man. His scent, a whiff of sweat, wood smoke and tobacco, something that was intrinsically him, made the place between her legs throb.

“Aihan,” he said helplessly, his blue eyes glowing with a fire that made her pulse race.

“Dinnae fight it,” she whispered, reaching up to kiss him.

He shut the door with a backward kick of his foot and drew her tight against him with a noise part-way between a groan and a growl. “Lass, ye’re killing me,” he whispered between heated kisses.

“Me too,” she said, panting, pressing her body closer to him. She wanted to climb him like a tree. Make him take her to heaven, fully, properly. She had prepared for this with a strategically placed vinegar-soaked sponge. His big hands seized her bottom and squeezed, pressing her against him, so she could feel the hard heat of him. She wanted that.

He walked her backwards towards the fireplace and pulled her down into his lap on the chair. She squirmed about to straddle him. All the while they kissed, deep, devouring kisses, tongues and teeth clashing wanting to get as close to each other as possible.

She bunched the heavy fabric of her gown up to get closer to him, and he loosened the laces of her bodice, his mouth tracing kisses up and down her neck. She arched it for him and reached between them to find the buttons on his breeches.

One of his hands dipped inside her bodice to cup a breast and fondle a nipple, causing her to whimper with need, hot throbs of sensation between her legs making her wetter. The razor-sharp ache of desire made her hips buck, she was so desperate for touch there. Her shaking fingers scrabbled at his buttons, trying to work them loose and get at the treasure within.

His other hand reached under her skirts and ran up her thigh, and she moaned when his fingers finally touched her twitching, weeping flesh.

“Mac, please,” she begged.

He groaned. “Ye’ll be the death of me, lass!” he muttered against her shoulder, his teeth grazing her skin. His fingers stroked her flesh and she groaned, her voice cracking as she cried out with the relief and the increased ache all at once. His fingers slid along the wet channel of her sensitised flesh, stirring her to more intense desire. It was almost too much and yet not enough. Her fingers faltered on the buttons of his breeches as his stroking touch tipped her abruptly over the edge with a convulsive jerk of her hips and a whimpering moan. The quick pulse of desire throbbed through her body as she caught her breath, a half-orgasm brought on by her overwrought condition. Not the full-body satisfaction she was looking for.

She renewed her attack on his breeches and got the last stubborn button undone, reaching within for the hard, hot length of him. His girth challenged the grip of her hand, her fingers wrapping round him as she stroked the hot, smooth flesh, iron encased in velvet. Provoking him to swear.

“Fook, woman!”

She would have laughed if she weren’t so overcome with desire. The rippling peak she had experienced moments before had only whetted her appetite for more. She moved, wriggling forward and kneeling up to guide him inside her. Her flesh engaged the head and she sank down, impaling herself on him with a groan of satisfaction, echoed by a guttural noise from him as his hands squeezed her hips.

He was big and firm within her, filling her, stretching her, assuaging the aching emptiness that had been plaguing her. She gripped his shoulders for balance and rode him hard, bent on her own satisfaction. Her gaze fixed on his face, mesmerised by his blazing blue eyes. He wore an expression of desperate, fierce hunger and something she couldn’t define. Awe?

She panted, pushing herself to her goal, her hips grinding against his flesh in just the right way to drive herself over the edge. It was glorious, and she flung her head back at the last, closing her eyes as the pleasure peaked fully this time, flooding her body with bliss, sending a cascade of tingles to the soles of her feet and all the way to her scalp. She cried out in joy, wringing the last drops of pleasure from her flesh and collapsing forward on his chest in breathless delight.

His arms gripped her tight, and he muttered something she couldn’t understand. She suspected it might be in his native tongue, Gaelic. He had a habit of lapsing into that in moments of extreme emotion.

“Thank ye,” she murmured against his neck.

Col shuddered with barely controlled desire, as he felt the ebbing contractions of her orgasm on his sensitised flesh. How he had not lost it when she hit her peak, he didnae know. He listened to her breathing slow, and braced himself to move her up and off him. If he didn’t do it now, he’d lose the battle, and loose his seed inside her. The temptation was overpowering.

In the next moment, she confounded him by moving her hips in a sinuous, seductive circle and murmuring in his ear, “Yer turn.”

“Nae, lass, the risk . . . ” After losing Cat and the child together, he’d not risk another woman’s life for his own pleasure.

“I use sponge,” she said, interrupting him.

Her words penetrated his desire-soaked brain, and he groaned as his flesh pulsed. It knew what she meant before he fully comprehended it consciously. Obeying instinct, he surged forward off the edge of the chair, taking her down onto the hearth rug, which smelled of wood smoke, but in his frenzied condition he didn’t care. Pinning her beneath him, he felt her legs go round him as he thrust forward deep and hard.

She surged up into him, meeting his every thrust with a twist of her hips, panting and moaning encouragement. She was insatiable, and he didn’t think he could hold out any longer. His balls were practically blue with aching desire. He found her mouth and kissed her, speeding up his thrusts. Desire, held in check for so long, teased him with throbs of pleasure, and he groaned, pushing himself deeper and harder. Her gown bunch up between them, made him think fleetingly that next time, they’d do this naked and in a bed.

The pleasure escalated, winding tighter and tighter, and she cried out, “Mac!” with a kind of wail, just as he hit the point of no return, and the wave crashed over him, flooding his body with tingling bliss, centred on his cock and radiating outwards in intense waves of pleasure. His grunts and groans went on for a seeming eternity as successive waves of delight gradually wound down until he collapsed on her in a panting heap, his body gone boneless and his mind completely empty.

Eventually, he stirred sufficiently to get an elbow under him and lift his head to look down into her face. She had her eyes closed, and her mouth was curved in a satisfied smile. Her hair had come loose from its pins and scattered round her head in a dark fall. Her pushed-down bodice partially revealed her small breasts, and her thighs had fallen slack either side of his hips.

“Are ye well, lass?” he asked, croaky-voiced.

“Aye,” she said dreamily, her eyes still closed. “Wonderful!” she added. She cracked one eye open and looked at him. “Ye?”

“Aye, lass,” he said with a smile. “Never better.”

“Good,” she said sleepily.

He shifted, and the movement dislodged his softening cock. He withdrew slowly, flopping over onto his side. He should feel guilty, but he didn’t. He felt satisfied and relaxed. Happy. The emotion was so foreign he had trouble recognising it.

He rolled onto his back and his eyes caught the portrait of Cat and the boys above the fireplace. From this angle the picture was a series of shapes and colours, but he didn’t need to see it to know what the images were. They were seared into his brain. And for the first time, looking at it didn’t bring pain.

Instead, he was conscious of a warm sense of affection. He loved her, he always would, but perhaps he was finally accepting that what they had shared could never be restored, but might be replaced by something different? He hardly dared to hope. He turned his head as Aihan rolled towards him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder and her hand on his chest.

He clasped that hand and squeezed it. He would investigate the possibility of that embassy journey; if he could get her included, she could go home. He looked at her dark head beneath his chin and wrapped an arm round her thin shoulders, conscious of a vague ache in his chest at the notion of her going away. But if it would make her happy, he would do it. The least he could do for what she had just given him. His first taste of happiness in six years.

He drifted a bit, in the borderland between sleeping and waking. They should get up off the floor and go to bed, but he was too boneless to move. By his foot, Hector whuffled in his sleep, and Gussie snored by his head. The pack only lacked the boys to be complete, he thought nonsensically.

When the clock on the mantle struck twelve, it woke him with a jerk, and he blinked in the rosy darkness. The candles had guttered out and the fire had banked to a warm glow of embers. He nudged Aihan, who was still draped across his chest.

“Lass, we should go to bed.”

“Hm,” she stirred, raising her head and blinking. “Huh,” she muttered, sitting up. He rose and pulled her to her feet, her crumpled skirts falling round her ankles as she leaned drunkenly against him, obviously still half asleep.

“Wake up, Hana,” he said gently. “Bed.”

“Aye.” She raised her head and blinked at him, smiling. “Goodnight, Mac.” She reached up, kissed him on the lips, and wended her way towards the door.

He watched her go, his heart oddly full of conflicting feelings that were by far too complex to disentangle right now. He checked the fire, called the dogs, and made his way to his own room. He stripped, washed, and crawled into bed with the dogs at his feet, collapsing onto the mattress with a contented sigh.