Wicked Highlander

Twelve

Quinn had never tasted anything so sweet as Marcail’s kisses. He hadn’t wanted her near him, but at the first touch of her hand on his back, he had been powerless to push her away.

Now, with her pliant body against him and her soft moans filling his ears as he kissed her, all he wanted to do was make love to her. To sink into her softness, to have her legs wrap around his waist. To hear her scream his name. He ran his hands down her body to her small waist and over her hips that flared ever so invitingly.

But he couldn’t stop kissing her. It had been hundreds of years since he kissed, and he had never had a woman kiss him with as much fervor and need as Marcail.

His cock throbbed with need, and his hands shook as he cupped her buttocks and drew her against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. She groaned, making his already heated blood boil with need. Desire. Longing.

With the hunger to taste more of her hounding him, he forgot everything but the wildly beautiful woman in his arms.

Quinn didn’t stop kissing her as he lifted her off the ground and wrapped her legs around his waist. Only then did he lower her onto her back.

“I love to feel you,” she whispered in his ear when his weight settled on her.

He groaned and kissed her again. He could kiss her for an eternity and it would never be enough. With her hands roaming over his back and shoulders, Quinn cupped her breast. Her nails dug into his back when his finger circled her nipple through her gown and he felt the peak grow.

Her startled gasp told him she had never known that kind of enjoyment, and he was determined to give her even more.

She didn’t stop him when he bunched up her skirt until he could touch her inner thigh. For a moment he let his hands rest on the smooth skin of her leg before he moved to her sex. His balls tightened when he felt the wetness between her legs.

Unable to hold back, Quinn placed his hand over her sex before sliding a finger inside her.

“Quinn. By the saints,” she whispered into his shoulder. “What are you doing to me?”

“I’m giving you pleasure.”

He kissed her again while his finger circled her clitoris. Marcail’s body shook in his arms. He had barely begun to touch her, yet he knew she was close to peaking.

Quinn slid another finger deep inside her and began to move within her while letting his thumb tease her clitoris, slowly and lightly.

He altered the tempo of his fingers. First plunging inside her hard and fast, then soft and unhurried. Her hips shifted and rose in time with his thrusts, her breathing coming in ragged gasps. Quinn had never seen anything so beautiful.

Until she came apart in his arms.

He stared transfixed at her face and the pleasure that consumed her. He knew in that instant, once would never be enough when it came to Marcail.

Quinn removed his hand and pushed down her skirts before he could plunge his aching cock deep within her. He would have her, but the reality of where they were descended upon him all too soon.

Marcail’s eyes opened and she smiled at him with a look of pure contentment. “What did you do to me?”

“Have you never climaxed before?”

She shook her head. “Does it happen often?”

“It will every time I touch you,” he vowed.

She cupped his face with both hands before she kissed him. Slowly, leisurely. “You didn’t take me. As a man does,” she finished softly.

Quinn wanted to dig her husband out of the ground and tear off his head for being so insensitive to a woman such as Marcail.

“I want to. More than anything, I want you, Marcail.” He took her hand and placed it over his shaft. “I want to kiss you again, to taste you again.”

“I hope you do.”

He sighed and lowered his forehead to hers. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear those words until she’d said them.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

It was then Quinn realized all the emotions that had consumed him with the taking of Ian were gone. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “What did you do?”

Marcail shrugged. “It is my magic. It doesn’t always work. Remember when I told you that I could sense people’s emotions? I can also take those feelings away.”

Quinn blinked. The thought of all that rage inside Marcail made his heart drop to his feet. “You took them into yourself?”

“I have in the past, but this time…this time with you was different.”

“Different how?”

“The few times I’ve used my magic that way, I became ill. But not with you. You gave me pleasure beyond anything I knew existed.”

Quinn gazed at her a moment before he kissed her again.

And then everything shattered with Duncan’s bellow.

It had taken Duncan all of a heartbeat to recall that Deirdre had taken his twin.

Ian!

In all their years, they had never been apart. They were connected in ways that most people couldn’t understand, and that was before their god was unbound. With the added power from their god, their bond had only strengthened.

Duncan couldn’t control the fury inside him. He had to let it out some way or explode.

“Easy, Duncan.”

He ignored Arran and tried to rise to his feet, but the crushing weight of the loss of Ian was too much. Duncan’s claws tore into his palms and his vision swam with the anger churning inside him.

The roar rose up in him, and he was powerless to stop it. But that small release did nothing to staunch the loss of his twin.

Quinn raced into the cave and came to a stop before Duncan. “If I had known what she would do—”

“Don’t,” Duncan stopped him. “None of us could have known. You did what any of us would have done. I do not fault you for that.”

“You should,” his leader said. “I do.”

If there was anyone who could begin to understand what Duncan was going through, it was Quinn. Duncan climbed to his feet until he looked Quinn in the eye. A part of him wanted to blame Quinn, but the blame lay squarely with Deirdre.

“Hit me,” Quinn said. “Take your rage out on me before it consumes you.”

Duncan lowered his gaze and shook his head. “I willna, Quinn. She could have taken any one of us.”

“I’ll get him back,” Quinn said as he clasped Duncan’s shoulder. “I swear it.”

Duncan nodded, though he knew the chances were slim that his brother would be returned to him the man that he had been. They had all seen what Deirdre was capable of, and they all knew their time in the mountain was limited.

But it had never occurred to Duncan that his twin might be taken.

Duncan took a deep breath. “Did Deirdre see Marcail?”

“Nay,” Arran said. “She would have taken her instead of Ian, I’m sure.”

“Go to Marcail,” Duncan told Quinn.

“I will make this right,” Quinn vowed again. “I will get Ian back.”

With one last look, Quinn left the cave. Duncan lowered himself onto one of the small boulders they used for seats and put his head in his hands.

What the others didn’t know was that Duncan would feel every cut, every punch that was dealt to Ian. Whatever Ian suffered, so would Duncan.

Marcail stretched lazily, her body still pleasured beyond her wildest dreams. She sat up and hugged her legs to her chest. She found herself smiling dreamily, her thoughts centered on a handsome, immortal Highlander.

In those precious moments with Quinn, Marcail had forgotten where they were, had forgotten about Deirdre and her evil plan, had even forgotten that her very life hung in the balance. All that had mattered was the exquisite way Quinn had touched her body.

Reality, however, had crashed down upon them all too soon. Marcail rubbed her hands over her arms through the sleeves of her gown. The only time she was warm was when she was with Quinn. Any other time, the cool temperatures sucked every last bit of heat from her body.

The first notes of a melody floated through her mind, a tune that she recognized instantly. A heartbeat later and the chanting began. As suddenly as it had come, it vanished, leaving Marcail feeling bereft and wishing she could hear the music again.

She rose to her feet in an effort to stay warm when she caught sight of the copper Warrior across the way. Charon’s gaze, like always, was riveted on Quinn.

Marcail didn’t need to be in Duncan’s cave to know that was who Charon stared at. Why the copper Warrior was so intrigued by Quinn she didn’t know.

Duncan had told her he hadn’t sided with Quinn. Why, then, was Charon so interested in everything Quinn did?

Marcail took a step toward Charon to ask him when Quinn strode back into his cave. Her gaze fastened on Quinn, and the smile she had worn just moments ago reappeared.

Quinn’s steps slowed when he caught sight of her. His tunic was still gone, and he had once again transformed into his god.

She met him in the middle of the cave. She lifted his hand in hers, examining the black skin and claws. Just as she touched one of those deadly long claws he began to shift back.

“Nay,” she begged. “Let me feel you. All of you.”

He hesitated for a moment, and when he didn’t move, she again touched his claw. His claws were longer than her fingers and, she imagined, sharper than any blade.

It was amazing to watch him change from man to Warrior and back again. She didn’t know where the claws and fangs went, and she didn’t care.

Before her stood the very reason Rome didn’t rule Britain, and for that she was grateful.

“What do you see?” Quinn asked.

She glanced into his black eyes. That was the one part of a Warrior she would never become accustomed to. She missed seeing Quinn’s green eyes, but more than that, when the entire eye changed, removing any iris and the whites of the eyes, it was…disturbing.

“I see strength and power,” she whispered. “The evidence of magic is standing before me in all its stunning ebony glory.”

“Magic?”

She nodded and lifted his hand so that his palm faced her. “You need no sword or dagger to defend yourself. You have your weapons right here. Ten, in fact. Is that not magic?”

“It’s evil.”

“Is it?” She dropped his hand and reached up to touch one of his fangs. “Do you not feel the magic coursing through your blood each time you allow your god to show? Are you not reminded how the Druids and Celts sacrificed so much just to save this land?”

“I’m reminded every damned day, Marcail. How can you look at me and not be repulsed? I have fangs and claws like a beast,” he said with a growl.

She understood in that moment that there was nothing she could say to Quinn to prove to him that, even in his Warrior form, he was magnificent to her.

Maybe it was because she had just had the most wondrous experience of her life, but Marcail felt daring. She rose up on her toes and kissed Quinn.

The tips of his fangs snagged her lips but she didn’t care. At the first contact of his mouth against hers, the heat that had filled her body a short while before surged through her once more.

Quinn’s arms wound around her as he slanted his mouth over hers. He was careful not to cut her lips, and no matter how hard she tried to deepen the kiss, he wouldn’t let her.

“My God,” he whispered when he ended the kiss. “What are you trying to do to me?”

Marcail smiled. “I wanted to show you what I think of you as either the man Quinn MacLeod or the legendary Warrior all of Scotland is talking about.”

“If you keep this up, I’ll have you on your back again.”

She loved how he teased her, but she also knew he was deadly serious. And it thrilled her beyond reason. “Really?”

He sighed and pulled her against him as he wrapped his arms around her. “You are like the first rays of sun after a hard winter. You shouldn’t be in this dark, evil place, Marcail.”

“Neither should you, Quinn.”