The Highlander's Forbidden Bride Read online

  And then suddenly, like a dam giving way, he’s on me.

  Or rather, his mouth is on me.

  The cry shatters from my lips, my pulse skyrocketing and my entire body convulsing with pleasure as his mouth finds my pussy. I’d heard stories of men doing this to their women back in France, but it’s nothing I was expecting, and the shock and blistering heat of it sends me reeling. I moan deeply, my hips rolling off the wall and against his mouth as his tongue slides slowly between my lips. I whimper as he drags it higher and higher, and when it bumps over my little nub and sends lighting sparking through my very core, I melt for him.

  His hands grip my hips tightly, pulling me against his eager mouth as his tongue pushes deep between my lips. I moan in pleasure, gasping for air and feeling my whole-body trembling as I just stare at the man of my dreams, on his knees in front of me with his mouth on my most private place. I drop my hands… tentatively at first, but when they slide into his hair, Lachlan groans and starts tongue me deeper, and faster.

  The sounds of my pleasure fill my room, along with his deep, masculine groans as he licks every inch of me. My body rocks against his face—eagerly, wantonly, hedonistically. But Lachlan only seems to tongue me even harder and with more passion the more I shamelessly buck against his face. His fingers dig into my skin, his tongue drags up to swirl around my aching clit, and very quickly, I can feel the entire world start to melt around me.

  “Oh God, Lachlan,” I moan as the pleasure begins to drag me closer to that edge. “What are—”

  “Tasting,” he growls, pulling away and looking up at me with pure lust in his dark eyes. “Tasting what I’ve been dying to taste for far longer than you know, my little tease.”

  He growls as he moves back in, bringing a cry of pleasure to my lip as his tongue swirls around my clit again and again. His hands slide around to cup my ass, pulling me tight against his mouth as he tongues me faster, and harder, until I’m moaning louder and louder as my entire reality starts to blur. I feel one hand pull away, and when it comes back in a sharp smack across my ass, I cry out in pure lust as a fire I’ve never known blooms through me.

  “I—Oh God…”

  Lachlan only groans into me, his tongue batting at my clit over and over as his hand spanks my ass again, until suddenly, I know I’m about to shatter for him.

  “I’m going to—oh GOD!”

  It’s pure bliss, heat, and light as his wicked tongue pushes me screaming over the edge, and when my climax slams into me, I’m only dimly aware of screaming his name as he tongues me right through the orgasm. I buck against his face, coming again, and again, until I’m gasping for air and my legs are about to give out.

  Then and only then, does he finally slow his tongue, giving me one last long, slow lick all the way up to my clit again before he pulls away. I moan as he moves against me, and when he kisses me, there’s no denying the taste of my own sweet honey on his lips, which I taste hungrily as I kiss him deeply.

  “If this is wrong, little one,” he groans quietly, pulling back just enough to let our eyes lock on one another’s. “Then I never want to be right.”

  This time, it’s me who attacks him, bruising my lips to his as I kiss him with everything I have.

  …And that’s when there’s a knocking at my door.

  I gasp, and Lachlan bolts upright taking one step back from me as his dark eyes flash with fire and dart past me at the door.

  “Lady Iona?”

  I swallow, my face bright red and my body still trembling with the aftershocks of my climax as I try and catch my breath and find my words.

  “Yes?” I somehow manage to squeak. I reach out, my fingers entwining with Lachlan’s, and he grins as his guard lowers and he moves back into me. I stifle my gasp as his hands slide back to my ass and his mouth begins to nibble at my neck.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “My lady,” the man’s voice says slightly muffled through the door. “She’s just arrived, but she wanted me to make sure I told you first.”

  I frown, and I can feel Lachlan stop.

  “Who’s here?”

  “Lady McDou—” the man stops abruptly, but the color is already draining from my face, because I already know who he means.

  “Pardon, my lady. I mean Lady Bruce. She’s just arrived for the wedding, my lady.”

  Lachlan takes a step back from me, his mouth tight as the floor drops out beneath me.

  Cat is here. My best friend. And I just came on her dad’s tongue.

  Chapter 7

  Iona

  I pause outside the library, where I’ve been told Cat is unwinding after her journey from Bruce Castle. My pulse races, and there’s a knot in my stomach that twists like a knife. On the one hand, what’s just happened is… well, amazing, and unlike anything I’ve ever felt or imagined in my life. On the one hand, the man of quite literally my dreams has just put his mouth on me—there.

  But on the other hand? On the other hand, that man happens to be my best friend’s father. And five minutes after he made me come on his tongue, I’m about to go say hi to her with a smile on my face and a knife twisting in my stomach.

  I take a final breath, trying to clear my head, and then I step into the room.

  “Hey!”

  Cat whirls and beams at me, dropping the book she was paging through and running over to me. She collides into me, making me giggle as she throws her arms around me, and for a moment, I forget the horrible tinge of betrayal that’s burning through my heart. She pulls back, beaming at me before she sighs and raises a sharp eyebrow.

  “So.”

  I cringe. Even without her knowing about what just happened, I am still marrying her father. In one damn day.

  “Cat—”

  “So, it’s really happening, huh?”

  I cringe harder, my lip twisting in my teeth as I look at the floor. “Look, Cat—”

  My best friend sighs, smiling as she shakes her head and reaches out to take my hands in hers.

  “Look, I know it’s all politics, okay? I mean, it’s weird, yeah, but I get it. And honestly, I should be thanking you.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” I mumble quietly. “Trust me.”

  Cat laughs. “No, I should. Iona, you’re doing our family a huge favor. What, you thought I’d be mad that you were helping my father keep his lands and avoid war with Darcy’s crazy family?”

  I smile wryly. “Cat, I am marrying your father. That’s… I know that’s weird for you.”

  She shrugs. “Yeah, a little, but…” Cat waves her hand. “It’s all for show.” She laughs, grinning at me. “It’s not like you’re actually going to be sharing his bed. Gross.”

  I force a dry laugh through my lips. “Hah, yeah…”

  Cat, mercifully, seems to not pick up on the awkward stumble of my words or the blush on my face, or the horribly guilty look in my eyes. She winks at me instead.

  “I’ll talk to my dad. I’m sure once things are established; you can have discreet…” she grins mischievously. “You know, affairs.”

  My brows knit.

  “Cat, I don’t think—”

  “Some of those boys from France, maybe?” She says with wink.

  I force another laugh, shaking my head.

  “Yeah, maybe…”

  Or maybe once things are “established,” you’d be hard pressed to find me not sharing Lachlan’s bed…

  “Anyways,” Cat shrugs, squeezing my hands with hers. “This is going to be fun, fake or not. I get to help my best friend get married!”

  Another nervous laugh titters from my mouth. “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’ll be fun.”

  Cat grins as she arches a brow at me. “Hey, are you okay?”

  “Hmm?” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Yeah, I’m… I’m good.”

  Cat gives me a sympathetic look and pulls me into a hug.

  “I know this isn’t what we ever dreamed about when we were kids imagining our weddings, Cat.”

  Except,
it is.

  Because back then, as blushing girls giggling about our future husbands, who would of course be dashingly handsome roguish men living in castles and riding big horses with charming, winning smiles and beautiful eyes, there was only one man who was ever in my head. Our dream husbands were make-believe, or at least, they were supposed to be. And so, I kept who mine really was a secret. Now, we’ve grown up, and Cat really has married her fantasy man. Callum is all the things we used to dream about—tall, handsome, kind, strong, and fiercely loyal and protective. Plus, he’s got a great smile, rides a gorgeous and huge horse, and lives in a gorgeous and huge castle. She did it. She actually married her fantasy man.

  But the thing is… I’m about to, too. Because Callum Bruce might fit Cat’s fantasy man from those daydreams when we were young. But it’s Lachlan who checks every single box of mine.

  …Because he quite literally is the man from those daydream sessions.

  “You’re doing us such a huge favor, Iona,” Cat says sincerely, hugging me tight once more before she pulls away, grinning as she takes my hands. “Now come on. Una is almost here, and Rhona’s coming later tonight. Weird or not, we’re going to make this a great wedding. This is going to be fun!”

  Right, fun.

  Except what happens when I stop being able to hide the truth? What happens when Cat learns that I’m not just marrying her father, but that I’ve been fantasizing about him for years. What happens when she figures out that marrying Lachlan McDougall is a fantasy come true? What happens when she learns about what we’ve just done? Or about the things that are quite possible we’ll be doing as well?

  Cat giggles, blissfully unaware of the guilt eating me up as she grabs my hands and drags me from the room.

  …This is going to be a disaster.

  Chapter 8

  Lachlan

  “Cheers, my friend.”

  My glass of whiskey clinks as I tap it against Callum, Hamish, and Tor’s, and with a nod of thanks, I bring it to my lips.

  “Gods that’s good,” I growl, my brow arching as I look at the glass after taking a sip.

  “Thank Malcolm,” Hamish says with a chuckle. “He had it delivered to my castle to bring to you as wedding gift.” He grins. “His way of apologizing for he and Ailith not being able to make it.”

  I shake my head. “It was short notice, and I know he’s down in the south.” I smile, raising my glass. “The whiskey will do just fine.”

  I turn to Callum, who’s become not just my son-in-law, being Catriona’s husband, but a good friend as well. He’s a good, honest man. As is Hamish, and Malcolm as well. It helps that all of us have a military background, having served in the Crusades over in the Holy Land in another time. The three of them might be younger than me by a decade, but there’s a camaraderie there that we’ve all found, which also has the benefit of bringing all of our lands together in a sort of alliance, for a stronger Scotland.

  “You’ve been quiet.”

  Tor snorts. “He’s always quiet.”

  I chuckle along with him and Hamish, and Callum grins, shaking his head. “Just trying to put myself in your boots, Lachlan, with all of this.”

  “And how are you doing with that?”

  He chuckles. “I’m quite happy being in my own shoes, thank you very much.”

  I smile, shaking my head as I tap my glass to his. For a small while there, after things went off the cliff with Darcy, I think Callum had some guilt that he’d been the cause of it. After all, it was Darcy trying to seduce him and sow lies in order to destroy his wedding to Catriona that ended up being the final straw with me. Callum of course didn’t act on Darcy’s poor attempt at flaunting her “wiles” on him—for one, because he’s a good, honest man, and loves my daughter. And for two, because Darcy is a transparent witch of a woman. I was never angry at him, nor did I ever blame him, though I knew he still felt guilt for it all. Eventually though, I finally got it through to him that if anything, I owed him—a debt for finally getting me to get out from under the perpetual darkness of having Darcy around.

  “You know it’s a political move,” I nod, taking a heavy sip of my whiskey to cover the lie on my tongue.

  And it is a lie. Because I can tell myself that marrying Iona is purely a chess move, but I know damn well it’s more than that. I know damn well that it’s also, if not mostly, about the feelings for her I’ve tried so hard to bury. And I’m not foolish enough to think those reasons will stay buried forever once she and I are married. But that’s a bridge I’ll come to when I get to it. Telling the world, and my friends, and my daughter that I’ve married a girl less than half my age who damn well grew up under my eye not so much for political reason, but because I crave her, and need her, and want no one else but her?

  That’s a conversation I’ll have to find answers to soon.

  Tor chuckles, shaking his head, which is a good few inches above the rest of us, and that’s saying something. The huge Norseman and feared Viking was once a scourge on these lands, marauding up and down the coast. But as of late, he and most of his crew have given up the ravaging life to settle on these shores. It’d didn’t hurt that he and Catriona’s other friend, Rhona, and him fell in love and married. It’s funny the way the world works out sometimes. There was a time when Tor Odinson in my halls would mean we were at war and fighting each other to the death. But after his help with a good many troubles involving Callum, Hamish, Malcolm, and myself, he’s a friend now. And the settlement his people are building on neighboring lands is coming along nicely.

  The Viking grins as he shakes his head. “You Highlanders and your ‘politics,’” he chuckles. “It’s simpler up in the North, you know. You like a woman, you tell her, she agrees, you make her your woman.”

  “And how exactly does kidnapping her figure into that tradition?” Callum says with a smile, arching a brow in reference to the, well, unorthodox way Tor and Rhona first got together.”

  The Norsemen grins as he slugs back his glass of whiskey. “Well, I’d say,” he grins. “Considering she’s my wife.”

  The rest of us chuckle, shaking our heads.

  “Well, here, we have politics,” I mutter.

  “Aye, it’s what separates us from the savages like your lot,” Callum chuckles, nudging Tor. The big man laughs, giving Hamish a Viking cursing gesture with his thumb and his teeth in good fun.

  “Well, politics it may be,” Hamish growls, turning to eye me. “But she’s a pretty little political reason, isn’t she?”

  I turn my eye on him, my jaw tightening dangerously. He either misses it, or knowing him, sees it but continues anyways.

  “That’s convenient, now isn’t it?”

  “Careful,” I growl in warning.

  Hamish doesn’t flinch though, his eyes meeting mine.

  “A weaker man might give in to temptation, Lachlan,” he says quietly, eyeing me.

  I turn away, pouring another splash of whiskey into my glass.

  “It won’t be a problem.”

  “And if it is?”

  I look at Callum, seeing the same questioning look on his face. Tor looks amused, like he’s not remotely believing my “political reasons” speech.

  “It won’t be.”

  “You understand that no one—least of all us—would begrudge you, after, well, you know.”

  “After Darcy,” I growl.

  Callum nods. “Aye.”

  “Well, it’s not part of this.”

  The three of them glance at each other, clearing their throats before they look back.

  “Yes?” I mutter.

  “If it were,” Hamish says lowly, folding his arms across his chest.

  “It—”

  “But if it were…” He arches a brow at me. “Lachlan, she’s a pretty girl, and a good one at that. She’s strong, and wise, and sharp. You could do far worse having to marry for ‘political reasons.’ If it were a thing, I don’t see who would begrudge you marrying her for more than that.”
<
br />   “Oh?” I growl sharply. “Not the fact that I was married to her mother? No one would have a thing to say about that, aye?”

  Tor shrugs. “I’ve heard of similar situations, up North.”

  Callum clears his throat. “You did have it annulled. Darcy and you.”

  Hamish frowns. “Lachlan, I’ve never asked, and you can tell me to fuck right off, but—”

  “It’s a true annulment,” I mutter quietly. True, as in, not a bought one. That’s been known to happen here and there when a Lord and his wife part for whatever reasons. Annulment is the only way, of course, and annulment can only truly happen if the marriage has never been consummated. Plenty of people have found ways of… convincing certain unscrupulous or coin-hungry members of the clergy. Obviously, that wasn’t the case with me.

  Hamish whistles lowly. Tor swears loudly. Callum stares at me in surprise.

  “Truly?”

  I nod. “Truly.”

  My son-in-law swears. “Gods, Lachlan, you were married for ten fucking years.”

  “I’m aware,” I growl.

  “How…” Tor scowls, shaking his head and looking at me like I’ve just told him I have the plague. “But how?”

  “It’s complicated,” I mutter.

  “It’s insane is what it is,” he growls back.

  “And not a single dalliance?” Hamish says quietly. “Not a single mistress?”

  I scowl. “You do know me, right?” I growl. “Would you ever have a mistress?”

  Hamish frowns deeply. “Not a chance. I’ve got Una.”

  “Tor?”

  The Norseman shakes his head, his gaze even. “Not ever. I’ll never want a woman besides Rhona. Ever.”

  I turn to Callum, but before I can even open my mouth, he’s beating me to it.

  “Absolutely fucking not,” he hisses fiercely.

  I smile. Good man. And good answer, especially since his wife is my daughter. But I know he’s not just saying it for my benefit, as they know I’m not just talking out of my arse either.

  “Ten years though,” Hamish whistles. “Well now I’m sure of it.”