Warrior's Moon

practice to her at all.

“I am not ignoring you.”

“Really?” she asked mockingly.

He flipped back his kilt, revealing his sex, dark and swollen with need. “I want to be in that room with you under me, our bodies joined.”

“We need to talk, not copulate,” she said from a suddenly dry throat.

He wasn’t the only one affected by the strong pull between them. She wanted to touch and be touched, which was exactly why she’d refused to retire to her borrowed room to talk.

“You need to go back into the bedchamber and bar the door. Now.” His hands were curled into fists at his sides, a fine sheen of sweat gracing his upper lip and temple.

His hardness lay heavy against his thigh, the kilt outlining it lewdly. But she was not horrified as a proper lady should be.

No, she wanted to touch it, taste the clear drop of fluid pearled on the tip.

Whatever else he was feeling, there could be no doubt that Caelis wanted her with a need so fierce it was all she could do to deny him.

“I can smell your feminine desire, mo toilichte. Get you gone before I do something you will rant at me for tomorrow.”

Before she could promise she would not, she hurried back into her room and slammed the door, leaning against it as she heaved deep, near-sobbing breaths. How could she go from anger to hungry desire so quickly?

“Bar it,” he instructed in her mind.

She nodded. Yes, that was what she needed to do. But she did not move.

She could not.

The sound of his head thumping the wall made her jump, even though it was hardly loud.

“I want you,” he said in a barely understandable tone inside her mind.

The very intimacy of the mindspeak making her ache all the more for the man she was on the brink of admitting would always be her beloved. Even that knowledge was not enough to cool her ardor.

“I am touching myself and thinking of your hand on me as I do it.”

She moaned, the image in her mind near impossible to resist.

Were the sounds of pleasure he made in her mind or was she hearing them through the door? Fevered desire burned through her, making her thighs clench together, the moisture there so great she could not ignore it.

Could he smell her need through the barriers of stone and wood even? She turned to face the door, but made no move to drop the bar into place.

Shona leaned forward, her hands pressed into the wood. “Tell me. Am I like you now?”

The sigh that came across their mental link filled with vexation, but was it because he was angry with her or frustrated by his sexual need? “Nay.”

“You are telling the truth?” She was not one of them; she could not smell a lie.

Oh. “I cannot smell a lie.”

“Nay.”

“I am still as human as I ever was.”

“Aye.”

Relief poured through her—not that she was not Chrechte, but that he had not hidden anything else from her.

Or at least she thought he hadn’t. How would she know? So much had been withheld from her to this point.

“Are there any more secrets?”

He said something in her mind that sounded like a curse, but she did not know. It had been in that ancient language he spoke with the other Chrechte.

“What?” she asked.

“Every word you speak increases my arousal.”

“But that’s not possible.”

The sound of his groan definitely came through the door. “I assure you, it is.”

“You are still touching yourself.”

“Aye. But I would rather be touching you.”

There was something wrong with her. She should be scandalized, but the knowledge excited her.

“You should stop.”

“You should keep talking to me so intimately.”

“I am not saying anything of an intimate nature.”

“Every word inside my head is confirmation of our bond.” His voice was replete with satisfaction and sexual urgency.

He was going to climax from the stimulation of their mental bond. Again, she should be appalled, but she could feel nothing but gratified by the possibility.

“Secrets,” she said in a desperate bid to turn the tide of her own thoughts and desires. “Are there any further secrets?”

She could feel the pain of unfulfilled desire so strongly, it felt like her own, but she knew it was his. Was this another effect of the true mate bond?

“You have worked out for yourself that I plan to return to the MacLeod and take over the clan, have you not?”

She nodded against the door, her heart contracting at the thought of Caelis fighting Uven for the right to lead the clan. Even in a marginally fair fight, there was no way that Uven could come out victorious.

But the man was a weasel and no fight with him would be without treachery.

“Shona?” Caelis asked in her head, his voice strained.

She knew the source of that strain and did her best to ignore it.

“I am here,” she said aloud, knowing he would hear her through the door.

“I must do this thing.”

“I know.” And she did.

Uven had to be stopped, for the sake of their clan, but also for the good of all Chrechte. He was an evil man who would do untold damage if he was left to continue his current path. She was not sure how she knew that to be true, but it was a certainty inside her she could not shake.

“You have not dropped the bar.”

“No.”

“If you wish me to remain out here, do so.” His desire reached out to her through the thick wood and found a corresponding need in her heart.

She could not admit to it, but neither could she make herself drop the thick plank of wood that would keep Caelis on the other side. She didn’t want him touching himself. She wanted to be the one giving him pleasure.

The door began to move inward and Shona stepped back, her heart in her throat.

Chapter 19

The Faol do well not to underestimate the cunning and resourcefulness of humans.

—EMILY OF THE BALMORAL