Free A Faerie Fated Forever by Mary Anne Graham Page A

as she tucked the breast in. Her stare increased the problem so he seated himself on the sofa to hide his discomfort.
    Bonnie and Carrick entered and he had to stand back up to greet them. When he seated himself again, Sorcha sat down right beside him. He knew that was a bad idea. Having the widow close would not decrease his discomfort, but he was loathe to stand again, as he had noted a quizzical degree of curiosity in Carrick’s eyes at his demeanor.
    Carrick and Heather became embroiled in a lively debate over how many days service a crofter should owe a laird, and Nial would normally have joined right in. Heather glanced at him in surprise at his continued silence. She thought his smile seemed rather strained.
    Maclee sat with his legs crossed to disguise the bulge in his kilt. He wasn’t thinking well, so his legs were crossed towards the widow. She grinned and crossed hers towards him just as one of the elders issued a reminder that they all expected to speak with him after dinner.
    He was conversing with them instead of paying attention to his sofa mate who used the opportunity to pick her hand up. Behind the shield of their crossed legs, she placed her hand directly over his straining member. He nearly came off the sofa.
    “Stop it,” he hissed. She raised her brows innocently and gave his erection a distinct squeeze. He was trapped so she continued to fondle and squeeze until he was forced to address her again.
    “Move your hand,” he insisted in a tone that was lower and more gravelly than it should have been.
    “It doesn’t sound like you want me to move my hand, Nial,” she insisted playfully, punctuating each word with a measuring squeeze. His erect tarse was throbbing and relief battered at the base of his spine, just a couple of pulses away. He was only short moments from disgracing himself in the parlor of his home in front of the assembled guests. He really needed her to remove that hand, although it was the last thing his body wanted.
    “Damnation,” he muttered.
    “I see that your goblet is empty. As much as I hate to move my hand, perhaps I could fetch you some more wine?”
    “I would appreciate that, thank you,” he said, though not from a desire for more wine. He had drunk enough already, and it seemed to be effecting him oddly of late. Tonight he needed to manage events so that Heather would lose interest without coming to hate him and the control he had spent his life erecting and reinforcing seemed strangely beyond him.
    The dinner gong sounded before the widow returned. He should have escorted Heather but although his rampant erection had calmed a bit, it was far from sedate. He lurked behind, using the excuse of speaking with a servant to make him the last one in to the dining room. He followed closely behind old Eosaph, to provide additional cover.
    He seated himself at the table and nearly groaned to find himself across from Heather, and between Calum and Sorcha. Both of them seemed vastly pleased by the seating arrangement for some reason.
    Calum asked about his decision in an amusing dispute between a tenant and his brother, ostensibly over ownership of a cow that had belonged to their father, but really over the wife of one coveted by the other. When he looked back down at his plate, his goblet was full again. He shrugged and picked it up.
    Things progressed normally through the first two courses, yet strangely the pressure of his arousal kept increasing and had now reached the point of continuous pain. His unruly libido caused him to spend a fair amount of the meal staring at Sorcha’s breasts, which hardened under his perusal and pebbled against the thin fabric of her gown. Old Seaumas, who was seated across from Sorcha and next to Heather, cleared his throat loudly to indicate to Nial that he was making a spectacle of himself with his pointed and noticeable attention.
    He acted stranger still when he suddenly looked at Heather and asked, “So how do you find life on