At least not yet.James was just a pawn in Moira’s game.
When Duncan reached Moira, he grabbed her by her arms and lifted her out of her seat.
“What do ye think you’re doing, Duncan MacDonald?” she said, as he dragged her away. “Connor! Do something!”
“Halt!” James called and started after them, but he thought better of it when all of the MacDonalds of Sleat began hooting and clapping.
Duncan was too full of fury to feel gratified by the cheers.
“I’ll strangle ye in your sleep! I’ll burn your cottage!” Moira was spewing a stream of useless threats.
He hauled her through the arched doorway to the stairwell, then tossed her over his shoulder and headed up the stairs. She was pounding his back and calling him all manner of vile names, which for some perverse reason did bring him a measure of satisfaction.
Duncan flung open the door to the sacrosanct bedchamber belonging to the adored chieftain’s daughter, the room he was never permitted to violate with his lowly presence even as a child. As a young man, he would have been beaten within an inch of his life if he had been caught invading this hallowed place.
Well, he was here now.
Duncan kicked the door shut behind him. As soon as he set Moira on her feet, he grabbed her arms before she could scratch his eyes out. Judging from the fire in hers, that was precisely what she wished to do to him.
Good. He was in the mood for a fight.
“What in hell were ye doing down there in the hall?” he shouted at her.
“What wasIdoing?” she asked. “I was enjoying a civil conversation with a civilized man before ye interrupted us acting like a madman.”
“I won’t have your games, Moira. I put up with them when I was nineteen, but I won’t now,” he said as he backed her up against the door. “I’ll no stand by while ye flirt and bat your eyes and God knows what else with another man!”
“We have an important guest,” she said between her teeth. “I was merely being a gracious hostess—not that it’s any business of yours.”
The edges of his vision turned blood-red. “Does being a gracious hostess involve taking our highborn guest to bed?”
He had released her arms, which was a mistake. Moira tried to slap his face, but years of practice with a sword made him far too quick for her. He caught her wrists again and pinned them against the door.
“What do ye mean, it’s no my business?” he said an inch from her face. “I thought we had an understanding.”
“An understanding?” she said, her eyes narrow slits of blue fire. “And what understanding would that be?”
“That you’re mine.”
Duncan kissed her—not the sweet, tender kisses he had been giving her, but hard on the mouth. She said she was no fragile flower, and he hoped to God she was right, because he was in no mood for caution. His need for her was as violent as the storm that had torn their boat apart.
Ever since he had found her again, he had banked his passion, made himself be the gentle lover she needed him to be. But he could hold back no longer. Control was beyond him. His hunger for her was boundless.
He wanted to strip her bare to her soul and make her his, utterly and completely.
Moira gripped her hands in his hair and held on as he thrust his tongue into her mouth and devoured her with his kisses. Her nails dug into his shoulders through his clothes. When he grasped her buttocks and lifted her against his throbbing erection, she wrapped her legs around him in a vise. He wanted desperately to take her right now, fast and hard against the door.
But he had spent too many nights in his younger years dreaming of her in that bed.
Without lifting his mouth from hers, he carried her to it. When he broke the kiss to pull back the bed curtains and set her down, she looked at him with velvet eyes that were dark with desire.
“Ye don’t seem quite so concerned about propriety now,” she said in a throaty voice as her mouth curved up in a slow smile. When she ran the tip of her tongue over her swollen lips, all the blood in his head went straight to his cock.
This was the old Moira. Without realizing it, Duncan had been waiting for her—the wild and free Moira he had first fallen in love with. And yet, she was so much more now. He loved this complex, deeper woman even more than he had loved the carefree girl.
“Just because I want to protect ye,” he said between harsh breaths, “does not mean I think you’re weak.”
Moira fisted her hands in his shirt and pulled him down. They fell across the bed, legs tangled and hands tearing at each other’s clothes with a frantic desperation. Duncan ignored the sound of her gown ripping as he pulled the bodice down and filled his hands with her full, rounded breasts. While he rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, he moved down her throat with his mouth, leaving his mark on her with sucking kisses. She moaned and arched her back, egging him on.