Quarterback's Secret Baby(120)

I laughed out loud for the first time that evening at Darach's comment and it immediately softened the atmosphere between us.

So we climbed back into the Land Rover and drove down a series of dark, winding lanes for about ten minutes until we got to an open field with a small hill situated in the center of it.

"Do you think you can handle getting a little closer, Jennifer? Or is it all too much for you?"

"I don't know," I said, played along, "You might need to help me stand up if start to feel overcome."

We walked along a footpath giggling like children until we got to the top of the hill. It was too dark to really see anything so Darach reached down and took my hand, placing it on the stone's face so I could trace my fingers along the swirling carvings.

"How old is this?"

"It's probably about two thousand years old, give or take. It's called a 'Pictish stone' and it basically just means a stone carved by the Picts. It may not have been put here originally, some of them have been moved."

"Who are the Picts?" I asked, still following the patterns on the rough stone with my hand and suddenly more intrigued than I had expected to be.

"No one really knows. They're thought to have lived here around the Iron Age and they were either wiped out or assimilated sometime around the Viking Age, a thousand or so years ago."

I'd never heard of the Picts. It was nevertheless a strange and wonderful feeling to be standing in a field underneath a sky studded with clear, bright stars and running my fingers over symbols carved by someone who had been dead for two millennia. I looked up at Darach even though it was too dark to see him properly.

"Wow. This is...this is actually really cool. I want to come back during the day and take a photo."

"Absolutely - we can do it this week, Cameron loves it here."

The mention of Cameron made us both quiet for a moment. I remember the night air feeling cool but not cold. When the Laird put his hand on my back it was as if that had been the one thing I was waiting for. I leaned back into his touch, inhaling sharply.

"Jennifer." Darach whispered my name and brushed the hair off the back of my neck so he could lean down and kiss me and my fingers tightened on the stone's surface at the torturously slow kisses Darach trailed across my nape.

"I've wanted to do this to you ever since I lay eyes on you that first day, in the kitchen."

Mrs. Clyde's warnings about Darach's charm, my own memories of being hurt before and the simple known rules about fraternizing with your employers - none of it mattered as long as his hands were on me. He grasped my hips and pulled me back against him, holding his body tightly against mine so I was pushed up against the cool roughness of the stone. When I felt him - hard - against my back, it made me gasp at the quick, hot need that bloomed between my legs.

"Oh my God...Darach." I didn't mean to say it and I certainly didn't intend the helpless tone I could hear in my voice when I did, but there was no room inside me for embarrassment at that point. I turned around to face him and he bent his head down to mine, opening my mouth with his and pushing his tongue inside.

In one instant I suddenly knew what all the books and songs were talking about. I had kissed men before - I would even have said I enjoyed it - but Darach was different. The driving, insistent male hunger I could feel in him took away my will. I didn't choose to respond to him the way I did, he compelled it - he demanded it - and I found myself responding without conscious thought. It was almost as if I'd been waiting my whole life for someone to pull that reaction out of me.

I wasn't surprised at the aggression in Darach - I knew where it was coming from. I suppose any surprise I felt was at my own response. When he grasped one of my wrists and pinned my hand hard enough against the stone that it started to hurt I didn't want him to stop - in fact I wanted him to push harder, I wanted to take away as much of whatever stress and pain was driving him as I could.

"I'm sorry, am I hurting you?" he asked at one point, reaching down with his free hand and running it down my body before digging his fingers into my hip and pulling me against him.

"No, Darach, no you're not hurting me." It was a lie, but I didn't want him to stop. The fabric of my panties and my thin cotton pants was soaked through - I could feel the slickness between my legs every time I moved.

When he took the hem of my shirt in his hands I lifted my arms willingly and let him pull it off over my head. All I could hear was the sound of my blood rushing in my ears and my own short, halting breaths. He stood in front of me for a few seconds after taking my bra off, looking down at my breasts and adjusting himself in his pants.

"Jesus, Jennifer."