Page 38 of A Time & Place for Every Laird (A Laird for All Time #2)

“What the fuck? It’s one in the morning!”

Hugh’s pounding on Danny’s door was met with those irritable words as it swung open.

Claire pursed her lips impatiently. “Oh, give it a rest. It’s not like you were asleep yet.”

He might not have been sleeping but he did look like hell. “Claire? What are you doing here?”

Danny scratched his head as he looked with confusion from his watch to the suitcases they carried. “You’re supposed to meet Jake at the boat in like an hour.”

“Obviously there’s been a change of plans, lad,”

Hugh said pleasantly, his present mood clearly a far sight better than either of the siblings’. “Would ye hae us stand in the hallway for the remainder of the night or might we come in?”

Danny must have realized that Hugh was asking in a far more amiable manner than Claire might have, given her fatigue and raw emotions, because he stepped back and waved them in without further comment.

“There were agents surveying the ferry,”

Hugh continued before Claire could say anything more. “We managed tae evade them but our escape route was compromised.”

Danny frowned at that. “Why come here? Why didn’t you just call me? I’m sure they would have held the boat for you. You’ll never make it now.”

“I don’t intend to,”

Claire said flatly but didn’t offer anything further on her newly minted plan. Better not to alert either of them at this point and inadvertently compromise her next escape route as well. “We can work it out tomorrow, but right now I just want to sleep. Can we use your room?”

“What if I was sleeping there?”

Danny asked.

Claire snorted at that, noting that though her brother was alone in the loft, a bank of active computer monitors cast the only light in the room. “Any sleep you get is probably done between eight and noon. Do you mind? Please?”

“Well since you used the magic word …”

Danny shrugged and waved an arm toward one of the bedrooms and turned his back on them to wander into the kitchen. He pulled out a can of Red Bull before returning to his computer station, leaving them to make their own way.

They undressed in silence down to their undergarments and Hugh pulled Claire tightly into his embrace as they slipped under the tangled sheets. Absorbing the warmth of his presence, she set to memorizing the feel of his body next to hers while in the back of her mind she examined the variables of her plan. “Ye should sleep, lass.”

“How did you know I’m not?”

“Because ye keep wriggling yer arse against me. What is on yer mind?”

“I keep wondering if the sheets are sanitary,”

Claire quipped in a whisper and felt the warm rush of Hugh’s laughter against her hair.

“It looked clean enough,”

he said. “I would wager he doesnae rest here often.”

“You’re probably right.”

Silence reigned for a moment with only the hum of electronics to break the peace. “I’m going to ask Danny to take you to Canada,”

Claire said into the dark room, feeling Hugh’s negative response in the tightening of his body behind hers before he even spoke.

“Nae, my love. We will go on together as planned.”

The denial of Claire’s newly conceived Option C came as no surprise. In truth, she hadn’t expected him to accept total abandonment as a possibility any easier now than he had at the ferry terminal. At least now she wasn’t in a position to be forcibly bent to his will.

But she couldn’t bend him to hers, either, which left them at an impasse of sorts. During the nearly two-hour drive it had taken to get to her brother’s loft by swinging completely south of Puget Sound and traversing Tacoma, she had weighed her options, hoping for inspiration. The term stubborn Scot was something Claire had heard before, but with Hugh she now knew exactly what it meant. He was stalwart and implacable in the face of her pleas to drive on without him. Even if she refused to drive the car any further, there was nothing she could do to force him to drive it away from her. She was stuck with him, Hugh said, and there was nothing she could do to change his mind.

But she had to try.

“A logical man, a man of reason,”

she drew out the word, “would see that you would have better success without me.”

“I suppose that would depend on how ye define success,”

he whispered into her ear. “If success tae me is having ye wi’ me and that instinct is pursuant tae my pleasure then reason argues that I hae the right of it.”

Of course Hugh would pull out a classic argument of Voltaire’s from the enlightenment period that a man’s desire to pursue his personal happiness above all else was instinctive and therefore reasonable. Self-entitled duke or not, Claire thought it was awfully convenient that he would argue such a thing now, and told him so, adding as she rolled onto her back to look up at him, “That’s a pretty liberal interpretation of the original philosophy. Voltaire didn’t mean that just because you want something, that makes it all right.”

“Betwixt the two of us, who can better say what he meant?”

Hugh argued, pushing himself up onto one elbow, his free hand splayed across her midsection. “Personal freedoms are given tae us by God and right.”

“This is no time for a philosophical debate, Hugh,”

Claire said, though as with many conversations they’d had over the past week, a thrill of challenge shot through her at the thought of engaging in just that. That they would do it half-naked and in bed made it all the more interesting. There could be nothing sexier than Hugh arguing philosophy wearing nothing but his boxers, and nothing harder than making a logical argument due to the distraction offered by the same. “A statement like that can lead to all sorts of arguments, like the rights of governments and monarchs over those personal liberties you use so high-handedly. What do you do when their edicts and the law are at odds with your personal desires?”

“What did my countrymen do at Culloden? What hae ye done for the past sennight?”

Hugh countered, making a fine, irrefutable point, much to Claire’s consternation. Everything she had done for the past week had walked a fine line between what was right and what was legal. “A man’s will is nae alone in driving his reason. Reason itself is often a slave to his passions.”

“You’re going to pull Hume into this? Your buddy Francois-Marie said that if a man did whatever his passions led him to do then he was putting morality at risk.”

It was a springboard launching them into free will, and Hugh latched on to the topic happily; clearly it was a favorite of his, arguing against his old friend’s well-documented philosophies and supporting individual freedoms and free will.

“So ye see, moral distinctions between good and evil are nae derived from reason at all,”

Hugh pointed out. “Besides, if we have nae free will and our fate is already determined, why do we fight at all?”

“Hume again?”

Claire sighed, wondering when her argument had been lost. Not defeated but rather misplaced amid what had been a remarkably enjoyable—if somewhat off-topic—debate. Damn, she wanted more of these mad, outrageous, wonderful moments with him. She reached up to caress his whisker-roughened cheek. “Ah, Hugh, I’m sure we could argue all this for days on end, but it’s past two in the morning, we’ve got the NSA closing in on us, I’m too tired to think straight anymore, and we haven’t even gotten to Kant yet.”

“Kant?”

Hugh asked. “Immanuel Kant? That puppy?”

Claire stifled a laugh. “I’m not going there right now, and I want to be well rested before we get to Sartre.”

“Who is that?”

“Later.”

“Later?”

he questioned with a smile, skimming his hand over her ribs and under the T-shirt she wore to cup her breast.

“Much later,”

she said, taking a deep breath to fill his palm more fully. It was no use. The time had come for truth. “Oh, Hugh, you do know that even if I did go with you to Canada, I cannot come to Scotland with you.”

His hand stilled on her breast. “I see.”

“No, you don’t. Danny was right.”

Claire clutched his hand to her breast, refusing to let him pull away, and explained to him all of the annoyingly logical points her brother had made. “I guess we both just thought that once we were out of the country it would all be over, but it won’t. If I go with you, Jameson will follow.”

“I will stay here then.”

Claire shook her head, though her heart ached tenderly that he should even voice such a sacrifice. “Then what? Live out of a suitcase for the rest of your life? Survive off of three pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts, a couple dress shirts and a sport coat for the rest of your life? It’s just like what I was saying before. I am the danger now. You will never be free to live your own life as long as I’m around.”

“We will find another way.”

“Do you want to live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder?”

She smoothed his hair back from his forehead with a tender hand, meeting his gaze and reading there all the resolve she had been trying to overcome still burning strong.

“I will, if need be.”

He was never going to let it go. Ignoring the dangers, he would have an answer for everything. If she had it in her, she would truly do what was best for him. There were any number of things she could say to force his abandonment. Things that would have made him angry enough to leave. Things to make him hate her. She could convince him that she’d had enough of him and was ready for him to go. But she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t cheapen what they had shared together. Claire sighed heavily. “Another way it is, then.”

“Does that mean ye’ve given up this mad notion of me leaving ye behind?”

“It means you’ve worn me down until I’m unwilling to fight with you anymore,”

she allowed.

Bending his head to nuzzle her neck, Hugh whispered, “Will ye ne’er admit defeat, lass?”

“I will if and when I’m truly defeated.”

Hugh laughed softly at that, his warm breath teasing at her hair. No, Claire thought again. Not defeated, only disappointed over his stubborn refusal to see what was from her point of view reasonable, but it wasn’t unexpected and maybe inwardly she was a little thrilled that he didn’t want to let her go any more than she wanted to be gotten rid of.

“Let me take care of ye for a change, lass,”

Hugh said, brushing his lips against her hair. “Gi’ me a chance tae find a way.”

“I’ll give you a chance to kiss me,”

Claire whispered in lieu of a promise she couldn’t keep. “I mean, it’s been at least a couple of hours.”

“And that is too long?”

he murmured as he nuzzled her neck, but she could hear the smile in his words.

Claire rolled toward him, sliding her hand over his back and downward over his taut backside. “Way too long.”

Diving his fingers into the tangle of her hair, Hugh tipped her head back and brought his lips down on hers gently. They brushed and tugged playfully while his tongue stroked across her teeth and the sensitive inside of her lip. The scruff of his whiskers grazing lightly against her tickled and teased, and Claire moaned softly, parting her lips and urging him to explore more deeply as she slipped her tongue against his.

A husky groan echoed her impassioned sigh and Hugh rolled her back, coming over her without breaking the kiss. Lean hips pressed between her thighs as he descended, letting every inch of his body surge across hers, letting Claire feel the weight and power of his body and the strength of his arousal as he thrust against her. His hard length ground against her core and Claire gasped, sharing the breath of astonishment with Hugh before their lips met once more.

Sweeping her hands down his back and buttocks, Claire lifted her legs high around his hips and urged Hugh even closer as their passion ignited and flared. Rough hands skimmed over her shoulder, pushing her bra strap down until her breast was freed. Breaking the kiss, Hugh dipped his head lower, capturing her nipple between his lips while his hand slipped beneath her to nimbly unclasp her bra. He dragged it away, and, freed from the garment, Claire’s eager hands resumed their exploration of the powerful body that had delivered such frustration over the past week and such fulfillment over the past days.

Over the defined ridges of his stomach her hands slipped, and around once more to dip into the indentation of his spine and down under the band of his boxers, over his sculpted backside and around, slipping her hands between them to rake her fingernails up his abdomen, just grazing his rigid length. Hugh growled against her breast, hooking the side of her panties with his thumb and forcing them down even while Claire nudged off his boxers.

Soon they were freed of barriers. Hugh tossed her panties aside and caught her ankle, running his palm roughly up her calf and thigh before delving into the warmth between them. Claire panted harshly when his fingers found her, teasing and circling without mercy as he suckled at her breast. Cradling his head to her, Claire arched helplessly against his hand as heat pooled and clenched low in her belly.

Hugh had already proven he could deliver her into the arms of mind-numbing ecstasy in moments; indeed, it seemed as if he felt obligated to bring her to one soul-shattering release after another before finding his own pleasure. Even now her body was beginning to pulse as he drove her to the edge of rapture with the taunting thrust of his fingers, but Claire wanted more. She wanted to share that rapture with him, fall over that cliff together … one last time.

Her fingers slid around his thick length, and Hugh hissed, drawing in a harsh breath that melted into an agonized groan as she stroked him, guiding him to her weeping center. Nipping at his neck and earlobe, Claire whispered, “Please, Hugh. Love me now.”

Hugh lifted his head and looked down at her with blue eyes blazing with mesmeric fire. There were questions there, perhaps protests for the expediency of their lovemaking, but wordlessly he pressed forward, nudging against her before thrusting slowly into her silken depths. His eyes held her, sharing the wonder and rapture of his unhurried possession until he was buried deep within her.

Claire lifted her hands to his cheeks, overwhelmed by the unguarded moment, by the emotion in his gaze. “Hugh …”

Claire bit her lip, denying the words she longed to say. Her heart cried, yearning for confession, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t deliberately gift her love, knowing that it would only make worse what was to come.

Instead, she clenched her muscles around his erection, gripping him tightly with her thighs and Hugh’s eyes closed as he helplessly arched his hips against her, tendons tightening in his neck as he fought for restraint. But Claire wouldn’t have restraint. She wanted her wild, impassioned Highlander to lose control and yield to their uncontrollable desire. “Yes,”

she whispered, urging him deeper with her thighs once more and Hugh complied, gathering her tightly in his arms as he retreated and thrust. One arm slid beneath her hips, lifting her against him as he drove into her again and again, his harsh breaths matching hers until they were both panting desperately for the release neither of them wanted to surrender to yet.

His lips took hers ardently as his body grew taut, and Claire abandoned herself to the molten desire coursing through her, letting the mighty orgasm take her as Hugh erupted inside her with a hoarse cry against her lips. The full weight of his body covered hers but Claire only gloried in it, wrapping her arms and legs around him more fully as his mouth trailed down her cheek, jaw, and neck, murmuring those same foreign words as before against her skin: “Mé grá tú gcónaí, mo Sorcha.”

Hugh’s lips returned to hers for one last tender kiss before he rolled to his side, drawing her along with him until Claire was nestled against his side. His heaving chest was damp and hot against her cheek but no more so than the tears that began to spill from her eyes as she brushed her lips softly against his skin. Her fingers skimmed across his hard abdomen as the taut muscles relaxed beneath her hand. She hugged him against her as he slipped into Morpheus’s embrace.

Damn, she thought as she suppressed the heaving sobs within her as best she could. Her chest burned with agonizing pain that warred with the joy Hugh had given her, and the base of her throat was raw and thick with misery. It shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t end like this. “Oh, God, Hugh,”

she whispered inaudibly, swiping uselessly at the tears as they continued to flow freely. She knew what those words meant now. They had resonated with emotion she shared. “I love you, too.”