Page 82 of Sinful Scottish Laird
“No, no, all is well. You must stay here with Ellis—there is something I must do.”
“What must you do? Where are you going?” Belinda exclaimed, rushing after Daisy as she tossed her hat onto a chair.
“Riding!”
“Riding!You haven’t been riding since we’ve been here. Where are yougoing,Daisy? It’s unsafe! You must tell me!” Belinda frantically begged her as she followed Daisy out to the drive.
There was very little time. Daisy whirled around to Belinda and grabbed her arms. “Promise me you will not shriek.”
“What?No!”
“I’m riding to Arrandale,” she said and braced herself for the lecture she was sure would come, along with the warnings of riding too fast and the risk of breaking her fool neck.
Belinda’s face darkened. She pressed her lips together a moment. “Have a care,” she said simply.
Daisy blinked with surprise. “I will,” she said. She impulsively kissed Belinda’s cheek before hurrying on to the stables.
Mr. Green helped her onto a horse and pointed the way to Arrandale. “Just the other side of those trees, mu’um. A mile or so, not more.”
She spurred the horse, shrieking with surprise when the feisty thing broke into a gallop.
In only a few minutes, Daisy saw the chimney tops and what looked like a spire above the treetops. The horse followed a worn path down to the house and when the tree line opened, Daisy gasped with surprise and pride for Cailean—the house was beautiful. It was built of limestone, with two wings and a spired turret anchoring one end. It was not as large as her house in Nottinghamshire, but it was larger than Auchenard.
But it seemed deserted. There was no one about, no animal, not even a chicken. Daisy’s heart began to race erratically—she didn’t know what she would do if he was not there. Ride on to Balhaire? No—she couldn’t even say what direction Balhaire was from there.
He had to be there. He simply had tobethere.
In the front lawn—more of an untended meadow, really—she hopped down from her mount and walked up to the door, which, oddly, stood open. Daisy leaned inside and glanced around. “Good afternoon!”
There was no response. She noticed very few furnishings in one room off the entry, but nothing else. The house looked uninhabited. She stepped cautiously inside, glancing back over her shoulder to assure herself her horse was still there before walking into the foyer. She paused and glanced up at the simple, clean lines of the plasterwork, then down at the stone tiles at her feet. The house was elegant but not overly so. It reminded her of the lodge, only finer. She turned a slow circle, taking it all in. It was odd, a house of such beauty, peaceful and soothing, standing empty on the shores of the lake. When she looked out the front door, she could see the Highlands rising up around her.
She heard the sound of boots on the stone floor and whirled around. “Good afternoon!” she called.
There was a moment of silence, and then Cailean appeared at the end of the hall before her, stepping out from another room. He was wearing buckskins and a lawn shirt, open at the collar. His hair was in a loose queue. He was holding something in his hands, but Daisy couldn’t see it and didn’t care—her heart hammered in her chest, and she felt almost sick with the thought that this might be the last time she ever saw him, this man she desired beyond sanity.
“Daisy?” he said and took a cautious step forward.
“Cailean.”Her voice shook when she said it, and so did she. She suddenly broke into a run.
Whatever Cailean was holding shattered on the floor when she leaped for him. He caught her in his arms, his mouth landing on hers as he twirled her around. “Are you barmy?” he asked, roughly pushing loose tresses of hair from her face. “What are you doing here?”
“In the Highlands, if you want something, you reach for it.”
“Mi Diah,”he muttered, and kissed her again, carrying her into a room that was somewhat furnished. He put her down on a settee and kissed her décolletage, his hands sliding up her sides, his breath warm and intoxicating on her skin. They were fevered, both of them frantically clawing at each other’s clothing. Daisy pushed his shirt over his head, pulling it off him while he caressed her with his hands and his mouth. There was no need for words between them; their ardent desire was mutually shared. But Daisy was impatient—she pushed Cailean back, forcing him to sit on the settee, then lifted her skirts to straddle him.
She kissed him as she slid her hands down his chest, over his nipples, to his abdomen. She nuzzled his neck, pressed her breasts against him.
“You bewitch me, Daisy,” he said gruffly. “From the moment I laid eyes on you, you have bewitched me.” He slid his hands under her skirt, to her thighs, and then between her legs.
The touch was startling, and Daisy released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Cailean watched her as he slipped his fingers inside her, then out, glancing against the tip of her pleasure, then sliding slow and long inside her again. Her eyes slid shut, and she clung to his shoulders as he buried his face in her breasts.
He began to unlace her gown. Their craving was equally potent, so ethereal, so in tune. It was love! Intense, burninglove. His fingers slid into her again, and Daisy had to hold the back of the settee as he brought her to the edge of the abyss and then happily sent her into that seemingly bottomless cavern of pleasure. She cried out with her climax, gasping for air.
Cailean fumbled with his buckskins to free his arousal as Daisy pushed her gown from her body. He made a guttural sound of pleasure when she tossed it aside and sat up, holding her tightly on his lap to take one breast in his mouth, sucking the hardened peak into his tongue.
Blinded by desire and beyond redemption, Daisy wanted to give him what he had given her. She lifted herself up, then guided herself onto his cock as she covered his face with kisses, a mix of desire and adoration filling her body and soul, spilling out of her, enveloping him. It didn’t seem possible that she could feel so profoundly for another human being, to want him and his touch so bad that nothing else mattered.
He was moving in her, driving her to the brink again. Daisy trembled with sheer anticipation; the fever between them overwhelmed her, and Cailean, too, because he suddenly yanked her up like a doll and twisted them around, so that she was on her back on the settee. His actions grew more urgent, and he slipped his hand between her legs and stroked her in time to his movements.
