Wednesday, 21 October 1987, Lochbuie, Isle of Mull, Scotland
Duke and Anna parked the tiny rental car just past Lochbuie Church and trudged up and over the hill, hand in hand, toward the ruined keep. "Here it is," Duke said, indicating the tumbledown walls of craggy, rough-hewn stone. "It's all that's left of my illustrious ancestry," he said with a wry half-smile. "Moy Castle. My mother's mother's mother was a Maclean-it's their plaid I wore for the ceremony."
"And that you wrapped me in," Anna added impishly.
"That, too," Duke grinned at her. "Watch your step," he warned her as they walked up to the entrance door.
He let Anna precede him inside, and their footsteps echoed loudly off the stone floor. "Look at that view," Anna breathed, spying Loch Buie framed by the opening in the wall that served as a window. She turned slowly in a circle, taking it all in. "What's this?" she asked, indicating a hole in the floor. Looking in, she saw reflected light-the cavity contained water. "A well. Indoor plumbing! It's nearly as well-appointed as the manor house," she joked.
"Not quite," Duke smiled. "That other hole over there is the latrine."
She wrinkled her nose. "And what about here?" She pointed to a wooden door in the floor.
"That, my love, is the dungeon."
"Really?!" she said excitedly. She reached for the large iron ring handle on the top of the door, as if to open it.
Duke grabbed her hand. "Don't be daft! You could be hurt, down there in the dark."
"Well, that's the point of a dungeon, now isn't it?"
"C'mon," Duke answered, still holding her hand. "Let's look at the rest." He pulled her after him, toward a spiral staircase built from the same stone that made up the rest of the structure.
"No sense of adventure," Anna lamented. Duke guided her ahead of him again as they climbed the stairs. They briefly explored the long, narrow chamber on the second floor, and then ascended the stairs again to the top level, peering through the turret windows as they went.
Up in the garret, Duke wrapped an arm tightly around Anna's waist, standing well back from the parapet. He didn't like heights-never had-though he was willing to brave it to show Anna all the splendor that was Scotland. With her at his side, he felt, there was nothing he could not face. "Look," he pointed, extending his other arm to indicate a pastoral dreamscape in the distance. "There're your sheepdogs."
Anna rushed toward the parapet and leaned out over the low defensive wall to get a better look at the black-and-white border collies that were tearing around a field and nipping at the heels of a bleating flock. "The sheep-they'll make blue jumpers," she smiled, looking at the fleeces marked with cerulean paint to distinguish them from those of neighboring farms.
She walked along the garret to the opposite side of the tower. "God, it's so gorgeous," she marveled, leaning against the outside wall and looking out again over the loch. Suddenly, the ancient mortar of the battlements began to give way beneath her-the lichen-covered sandstone disintegrating under her weight. She let out a short, startled scream as she nimbly jumped back away from the boulders that were plummeting three stories and smashing on the ground below.
"Anna!" Duke yelled, grabbing her and pulling her into the safety of his arms. He crushed her against him and buried his face in her hair, kissing her head, then held her face between his hands and kissed her again and again.
"Duke...," she said, her voice unsteady.
"Are you alright? Say you're alright. My god..."
"I'm fine. Yes. I'm fine," she asserted, recovering.
"Let's get the hell out of here." He began to hurry her back toward the stairs, going ahead of her and tugging at her hand clasped in his. "Come on."
"Duke." She pulled at his arm, holding him back. "Duke, it's alright. Look at me. It's okay. Really."
"What do you mean, 'It's alright?' Of course it's not. You could've been killed."
"It is alright. It is. You 'saved' me," she insisted irreverently, trying to talk him down from what she saw as his overreaction. "My dark knight...," she cajoled, smiling adoringly at him and caressing his furrowed brow and then the inkiness of his hair. "…In wooly armor...," she teased, running her hand down the front of the thick sweater he wore beneath his tan jacket.
He sniffed dismissively but could not prevent a flattered half-grin from creeping over his face. Anna grabbed a fistful of the sweater and pulled him to her for a kiss. He embraced her and then broke his mouth from hers to look at her, his heart skipping a beat at the sight of her, so vibrant and beautiful with the brisk autumn breeze stirring wisps of her hair around her rosy cheeks. With adrenaline still coursing through their veins, he kissed her again, smiling.
Still clutching his sweater, she turned and backed herself up against the thick, solid wall of the tower turret. Duke kissed her neck and slid his hands beneath her sweater. Her skin erupted in gooseflesh and she laughed, "Your hands are cold!"
"Mmm," he murmured against her ear. "And you are so warm." His hands roamed over her belly, ribs and back. "So hot..." He kissed her mouth again and leaned against her, and Anna drew warmth from the heat of his body and the feel of him, hard and enticing through his jeans. She thrust her hips toward his in a slow grind against the bulging denim, and he moved with her, both of them exhilarated by the ascetic friction.
Before long, Duke pulled back with a quiet groan, and knelt in front of her. His hands, warm now from their extended travels under her sweater, lifted that apparel, and his mouth played across her belly. Anna moaned softly and stroked his hair, and his agile fingers released the button of her jeans, drew down the zipper, and pulled the denim along with her panties over her hips and down to her ankles. She gasped loudly at the shock of the cold air hitting her moist, most private places-and then again, more softly, as Duke's warm mouth covered those same secret spots. "Mmmm," Duke hummed against her with a vibration that reverberated through her entire body. "The sweet cream does rise to the top, doesn't it, luv?" He chuckled, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Anna twisted her fingers into the waves of his hair and gave a sharp tug, playfully scolding, "Oh, shut uuuup!" with a groaning laugh. He laughed with her, the sound deep and muffled against her, and Anna was eminently grateful that she'd somehow been singled out for a lifetime of this-this joy...this lusty love and laughter. Duke held her gaze, and she watched his eyes gleam warm as jade while he tongued her precisely and accurately. So quickly, he teased her keen climax from her, making her brace her back against the wall as her clit beat like a second heart and her elated laugh was lost in the wind.
Duke rose from his knees and stood, so close to her, while freeing himself from his now torturously tight jeans. With a quick, fluid motion, he was inside her and lifting her from the stone floor, pinning her between the wall and his pivoting hips.
Marvelous, he thought. She felt marvelous. He couldn't think of anything on earth or in heaven-or even in hell, for that matter-that could be better than this moment with his beautiful Anna in his beautiful homeland on a beautiful day. And the best of it was that he and Anna could look forward to a lifetime of days and nights that were just as sweet.
Duke's sanguine train of thought and Anna's ready body had him hurtling toward ecstasy, and he notched up his tempo to get there all the faster. "Storming the castle, are we?" Anna giggled of his particular enthusiasm.
"You shut up, now, lady." He punctuated the growling laugh with a grinding, piercing thrust.
"Oh..." Anna's face and voice lost just a little of their teasing quality. "Do that again...," she continued as she felt the promise of another climax, deep inside her. She hadn't expected that, but she wanted it, she realized, as Duke hiked her a few inches farther up the wall and repeated the performance with a husky chuckle. Then he was forging on, single-minded. She'd meant to let him, to allow him the quick, selfish pleasure he'd granted her. But this feeling within her was as compelling as pain-if he didn't soothe it, she felt, it might kill her. The DVX and WSB had trained her to bear all manner of physical challenges and tortures, yet somehow even that had not prepared her for this merciless pleasure Duke inflicted every time their bodies came together. "Wait...," she pleaded laughingly, surprised by how much she dreaded him leaving her behind.
"Are you serious, woman?" Duke asked raggedly, completely caught up in the feel of her.
"Yes, yes, wait. Please..."
Duke body-checked her again, with a rough groan through clenched teeth that he then sank into the thick layers of jacket and sweater covering the slope of Anna's shoulder. She laughed again as he made what seemed a superhuman effort to slow his rutting hips. "Greedy bloody minx," he grumbled.
Anna turned her head to kiss his ear, mocking, "Oh, you poor, poor thing," as she clamped her thighs more tightly against his hips. He had managed to still himself but for an occasional lone thrust, and Anna reveled in the intensity of the moment, loving his gorgeous face next to hers, his strong, warm body pressing against her, his hefty cock buried inside her-even the rough stone wall at her back and the cold air that swirled around them. It was easy, as she kissed his temple and clenched her tensed body around his, to let the pleasure well up inside her until it came flooding over her. She clung tightly to Duke and moaned his name as she came.
Duke gave her a peck on the lips and then another, more thorough kiss. "Happy now?"
"Very happy," she smiled breathlessly, her heart thudding loudly in her chest.
"Good." Duke kissed her again, his hips moving purposefully once more. Her interruption had only redoubled his arousal, he realized, feeling himself on the verge of an orgasm that had grown in intensity with every second she had postponed it. "Good," he repeated, thinking only of himself now as his cock throbbed within the warm, wet embrace of Anna's body. "Uh, that's good... So good... Good..." He pressed his face into Anna's hair again as he exploded inside her. "Uhhhhhhh..."
Trying to kiss Duke, Anna got a mouthful of wooly turtleneck. "This honeymoon is great," she laughed sincerely, pulling her face back.
"Uh-huh," Duke gasped. "I'm enjoying it." He set her back down on the ground, and they both rearranged their displaced clothing, shivering.
"So, what now, then?" Anna asked, thinking that they seemed to have exhausted the possibilities of the old castle.
"Would you like to have some lunch? Meet some of my family? I've some cousins on the way back to the manor house."
"Your family? Really? I'd love to meet them. Of course I would."
"Come on, then," Duke told her, taking her hand in his and leading her back to the stairs.