Free Desire in Tartan: 2 (Highland Vampires) by Suz deMello Page A

and he responded by snarling out his climax before he buried his face in her hair—to quiet his cries, she supposed. He ground his hips hard against her cunny and she screamed into his neck as the colors surrounded her.
    A sharp sting bit her throat, a bright counterpoint to the afterglow that already was dragging her down into sleep. Dugald was nibbling on her neck as he spurted, his seed shooting over her belly, a sign that life could continue even in this tiny, wretched grotto surrounded by rot and death. He sucked hard at her throat and she arched her body with a whimper that betokened her utter surrender.

Chapter Seven
     
    Sometime during the long, cold night Alice slept, cuddled within Dugald’s strong embrace. But as the gray fingers of a chilly dawn managed to poke into their grotto, she was awakened by a creak and then a snap.
    She opened her eyes to see Dugald half-crouched, twisting the metal gate caging them in his sturdy grip. He pulled the bars from side to side, up, down and around until they freed themselves from the rusty hinges in a series of squeals and cracks.
    He winced at the sound. “‘Twill bring the carrion crows upon us, I fear.”
    “You don’t seem afraid.”
    He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I am afeared for ye, mistress, not me. Tuck yourself into the back of this little cavern and doonae come out, ye hear? Stay quiet as the little mouse ye fancy yourself.”
    She nodded and he pushed hard at the metal as pounding footsteps came toward them. The gate gave way and he flung it into the cave. Alice heard a whack and a screech. She realized that the gate had hit someone. She grinned as she obeyed Dugald’s command. She was curious but she believed in him with all her soul. If he gave an order, he had a reason.
    She looked around for something, anything she could use as a weapon if necessary. Nothing much except a sharp stone, p’raps one of the several that had jabbed her in the back all night long. Fortunately she’d been distracted most of the time.
    Screams and shouts outside her grotto told her that Dugald had found their enemies. She shrank to the cave’s farthest corner and huddled there while a series of bangs, crashes and shrieks turned her blood into ice. But she didn’t hear Dugald’s voice and was grateful.
    Nothing bad is happening , she told herself. He’s just banging a few heads together, like men at an inn do when they’re in their cups. But she remembered a snatch of their conversation.
    She’d asked, “B-but how will we get away?”
    “Och, lassie, that’s nae the question,” he’d said, smiling.
    “Umm…what is?”
    “The question is, how might they get away?”
    Alice guessed that they—the Beans—weren’t getting away. In hindsight, she realized that Dugald had allowed himself to be “captured”. ’Twas far easier for me to trick them into taking me to ye, he’d said. At the time they’d talked, what he’d said had been clear but she hadn’t been hearing, or listening. Frozen by fear, she supposed.
    But after spending the night with Dugald—from where had she gained the courage to do such a shocking thing?—she had total confidence in his ability to protect her. Certainly he’d timed his escape carefully. He could have freed them at any time but had picked the dawn. She knew that normally she slept most deeply at dawn. Her father had also. P’raps many did.
    His plans seemed to have been good, because after only ten minutes or so he returned to their grotto. Blocking out the light, he called, “Mistress Alice? Alice!”
    “I’m here.” Her voice was steady, which startled her. She crept forward to the lip of the cave to see him wiping his sleeve across his mouth. The cloth came away red. “You’re hurt!”
    “Nay, mistress, ’tis naught. But what’s this ye have?” He pried the pebble from between her fingers, looking startled. “Do ye fancy this wee stone?”
    “Uh, no, I thought…I thought I might have to hit someone