Mary Reed McCall (19 page)

With a growl, he clasped her closer to him, and she
sighed and opened her mouth to him, restraint finally abandoned as she deepened their kiss. The warmth of her, the voluptuous feel of her in his arms threatened to drive him beyond the edge of reason. Through the jolt of sensation, he realized that it was as he’d always imagined it would be. She fit to him. Even through their clothing, her warmth and her contours melded to his as if their bodies were made for each other.

Perfect
.

When she pulled back, it was to place her palms flat on his chest. A tentative smile curved her lips as she pulled her fingers gently down his body, her progress un-hurried. His body sang under her touch, his flesh burning with tantalizing fire. When she reached his waist, she slowed even more, slipping her hands around behind him and bringing them to a stop only when her palms rested atop his buttocks with a touch that was unbearably erotic in its gentle artlessness.

Then she shyly tugged him to her, leaning in to whisper hot against the skin of his neck and shoulder, “Perhaps you’re right, Duncan. I do believe that I’m in far over my head. So far that I do not care if I drown because of it.”

Her touch, coupled with the innocence of her admission, sent his desire bubbling over. With a deep-throated sound, he slid his hands down to cup her sweet curves in the same way that she held him, pulling her more fully against him and eliciting a gasp of pleasure from her. “Then it seems we’ll be drowning together,” he murmured, interspersing his words with kisses along her jaw and across the warm, sensitive point beneath her ear. “But it will be a blissful death, to be sure.”

She trembled, tilting her head back as his lips trailed a burning path along her throat. When he could bear
the delicious torment, the tempting taste of her no longer without tearing her garments off where they stood, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

He stretched out beside her, and she gazed at him with a desire that matched his own. “Hold me close to you, Duncan,” she whispered. “Please. After all of those nights when you carried me to your bed—” she broke off, biting at her bottom lip and glancing away for a moment before directing the full and beautiful force of her gaze on him. “In my most secret of hearts I wished that just once during one of those nights you might forget what had brought us together and pull me close to you. Do it now, Duncan. Let me feel you next to me, touch me and let me touch you as I’ve yearned to for so long…”

A tide of love swept through Duncan. But he couldn’t tell her of it. Not yet. He lacked the courage, though perhaps in time…Heat and joy and tenderness rushed in all at once, and he cupped her face to kiss her again.

But she shook her head even as she gripped his hand, stopping him. “Wait.” Lifting herself to one elbow, she pulled off his left gauntlet. “We must be rid of this.” She gripped his other hand. “And this.”

Before he realized, she’d started pulling the glove from his right hand as well. A thrill of fear shot down his spine. She would be repulsed. It would be a cruel irony to have it so now, when they had just taken this first, difficult step. Roughly, he jerked back.

“Nay. I cannot take this one off.”

She sat quiet for a moment. Then she reached out and stroked a lock of tawny hair that fell across his brow, tracing the scar that threaded from there to his jaw. He couldn’t meet her gaze, but her voice caressed him with
sweet reassurance. “There is no shame in what lies beneath that gauntlet, Duncan. Your captors may have done their worst, but they could not ruin you. I do not care how your hand looks. It is you that I admire—all of you just as you are.”

He half sat up. Pain mixed with a vulnerability that threatened to rip him apart inside. “Nay, Aileana; it is an ugly thing. No one who has seen it uncovered has—” He broke off, feeling the old shame twisting deep again, and so he ground it down with vicious determination. “The truth is that any woman who has ever seen my hand has cringed at the thought of my touching her with it, even though some tried well to hide their feelings. Do not ask this of me.”

“But it has already happened, Duncan, and it was of no matter. I saw your scars that day I woke after you’d tended me during the plague.” Unshed tears sparkled in Aileana’s eyes, making them look like gems in the light filtering through the windows. “I tell you that I felt naught but respect and pride for the courage you must have shown to make the English hurt you in such a cowardly way.”

Duncan was silent, fighting the hot emotions warring in his heart. But he found that he could resist no further when she lifted his hand and gently stripped the glove away. His gaze locked to her face as she raised his ruined fingers to her lips and kissed them, letting the drops of her tears splash hot, now, onto his skin. She pressed his palm to her cheek, whispering, “I see you for all that you are, Duncan MacRae, and if anything I esteem you more because of this. Please say that you’ll forgive me for closing you in the storage chamber. I did not know, until Kinnon told me, what such a place would make you remember.”

A broken growl rumbled from his throat, and he pulled her fiercely into his embrace. “Hush, lass…” The rush of emotion choked him. “It is no worse than what I’ve done to you, confining you in here, and I am truly sorry for it.” He brushed the hair from her face, watching her suck in her breath at the promise he knew that she read in his eyes.

Tenderly, gently, he stroked his scarred fingers from her temple to her mouth, reveling in the sensation of his skin against hers with no barriers remaining. When his thumb rubbed across her lower lip, her eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned more fully into him. A tingling heaviness burgeoned, hardening him and intensifying when he replaced his thumb with his lips to feel the silky heat of her pliant mouth beneath his. His kiss was deep, probing, and he lingered for a long moment, wanting to taste his fill. She pressed closer to him, burying her face in his shoulder as his hand slid around to cup her breast. He relished her sweet fullness, the gently rounded warmth of her in his palm, and he nuzzled her hair as he touched her, her delicate fragrance filling his senses.

Easing her back against the bed, Duncan kissed her eyelids, the freckled bridge of her nose, along the curve of her jaw and neck as he deftly loosened her plaid and unlaced her tunic. It fell away to reveal the creamy expanse of her that had haunted his imagination since that very first day in the glen.

Leaning over, he brushed gentle kisses around each of her breasts, and she breathed in, arching against him. When he captured a taut peak in his mouth, suckling gently, Aileana clung to his shoulders. But he kept her prisoner of the pleasure until a soft cry of surrender spilled from her throat. “Please, Duncan…it feels wonderful, but you make me ache for something more—”

“Soon, Aileana,” he murmured, flowering kisses across her stomach and dipping his tongue into the tiny hollow there, until she shuddered with the pleasure of it. “But not too soon. I want to savor you, lady, and it is our good fortune to have an entire afternoon ahead of us…”

With a gasping laugh, she stroked her hands over him as he kissed all the way back up her body to take her mouth again, his passion surging as he realized that she was helping him to remove his clothing. Soon he was as naked as she, and when she brushed her hand across the now bared skin of his chest, he felt a jolt of pleasure that was almost painful.

“By God, Aileana,” he said raggedly, “you’ve bewitched me.” He sucked in his breath as her hand slid down the expanse of his chest to his abdomen, his muscles tightening under her, stroking to an almost unbearable tautness. Burning need pulsated like flames as her fingers edged ever closer to where he ached most for her touch. A groan wrenched from his throat when her hand finally closed over his erection. Her grip was silk and fire; she stroked him, her touch tentative and innocent, and he struggled with the desire to bury himself deep into her in the way that would make her truly his.

“Ah, Aileana,” he whispered, “it’s been so long, and I don’t think I can hold back more. Are you ready for me?” As he spoke, he nestled his fingers in the soft curls between her thighs, groaning again when he felt her slick wetness. When he parted her swollen folds and stroked upward, rubbing the sweet nub of flesh hidden there, she whimpered and arched into his touch.

“Aye, Duncan, please. I cannot wait longer either,” she breathed against his lips. Her hips squirmed deliciously as he stroked her, her own hand gripping reflex
ively around him in similar rhythm, until he thought he would explode from the pleasure of it. She tangled her other hand in his hair, pulling him closer. “I want you now, Duncan. Right now.”

In one, fluid motion he positioned himself between her legs, but he forced himself to pause, lifting his head to gaze at her. Her breath was soft against his cheek, her beautiful eyes trusting, filled with a need and passion that matched his own. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything, Aileana,” he murmured, “and yet I do not want to hurt you. There may be some pain in this first time.”

She placed her finger to his lips, hushing him even as she shifted to open wider to him. He held his breath at the exquisite sensation of his turgid flesh sliding against the heated, wet silk of her.

“I fear nothing with you, Duncan,” she whispered. “I want to be yours, in every way. Yours completely…” She rocked her hips up against his a little more, and he thought he’d go senseless from need. Teeth gritted with his struggle to keep his control, Duncan nudged against her entrance and slipped inside. Then he pressed deeper, inch by tantalizing inch.

He felt her tense beneath him, felt her nails clench into his back as he pushed with one, smooth stroke through the barrier of her innocence. She made a muffled sound against his shoulder. He slid a little farther inside, her woman’s flesh wrapped with tight, smooth heat around him. Desire beat in his blood, feverish and throbbing, and every instinct told him to drive himself deep. His muscles strained to take her in the wild abandon that burned in him—but he held still, giving her time to accommodate to the feel of him inside of her.

She began to relax a little, and when he thought the
pain had eased enough for her to feel pleasure again, he began to move slowly, rocking against her gently. The muscles in his arms corded with effort, and his sight hazed with need as he struggled to hold back. But then Aileana moaned and arched against him, pulling him deeper and splintering his mind into shards of raw sensation. Bracing his weight on his palms, he deepened his strokes, matching his rhythm to the throbbing beat of their hearts, to the pounding urgency of their bodies joined together.

“Look at me, Aileana,” he growled soft in her ear, “I need you to look at me now. To know that you’re mine, as I am yours.”

She tipped her head back against the pillows, meeting his gaze, her eyes heavy with passion and something softer, too. Her hands crept up to cup his face, pulling his lips down to hers in a kiss of surrender and abandon, as she clung to him. He squeezed his eyes shut, reveling in the beauty of what was happening between them, feeling his passion spiral higher as her whimpers became murmurs of entreaty, and then cries of fulfillment.

Her woman’s core began to pulsate around him an instant before he lost the battle with self-control. Aileana’s name burst from his throat as he gave in to the devastating pleasure. And with a wordless roar of pure ecstasy, Duncan spilled himself into her soft, welcoming body, surrendering at last to the only sorceress who had proved powerful enough to banish the demons that had haunted him for thirteen long years.

Steady. Reassuring. Aileana listened to the slow, even tempo of Duncan’s heart. She lay nestled into him, her legs twined with his, her head resting on his chest. His
eyes were closed, his arms wrapped snug around her, and she felt the warmth of his breath through her hair.

All was quiet.

Peaceful.

She breathed deep, savoring the vague throbbing between her legs; she was Duncan’s in truth now. When she closed her eyes, a trickle of wetness slid down her cheek, and smiling, she nuzzled closer to him. His skin was warm and smooth, and he smelled of pine and sunshine…and of her. The scent of their lovemaking lingered with his natural fragrance, making her heart twist with unbearable love.

“What’s this?” Duncan murmured in a soft, teasing lilt. “I hope I did not disappoint you, then.”

“It was wonderful, as you know very well. I am happy, that’s all.”

“Ah. Well, in that case, I’ll have to strive harder to make you sad, so that I can see you smile.”

She laughed then and jabbed her knuckles into the ticklish area of his side until he rolled onto her with a shout of laughter, playfully dragging her wrists above her head.

“Mutiny, is it?” He grinned, his eyes crinkled at the corners, their silvery depths caressing her. Then he tilted his head toward her ear to breathe the seductive threat, “You do not realize, I see, that I have methods of taming such a rebel as you. Ways like this…” He nipped tingling kisses down the side of her neck, lingering with sweet, hot tenderness at the sensitive skin beneath her jaw. “And this…” His mouth feathered up over her chin to brush across her lips.

When he deepened the kiss, Aileana opened to the subtle pressure. She made a little sound deep in her throat
when his tongue slipped inside to gently stroke hers, rising up to meet his passion with the force of her own.

“Ah, Aileana, I cannot get enough of you,” Duncan said, finally, releasing her hands to brush her hair back with his fingers. He pressed another kiss on her forehead, murmuring, “But before I give in to the pleasures of loving you again, there’s something I must do first.”

Surprise edged through the happy, sensual haze Duncan had woven around her with his kisses and his touch. She sat up a little as he slid off of her and out of bed to pad across the chamber toward one of the massive wooden chests that stood along the wall.

The afternoon sun streamed between the edges of the tapestries, making his naked skin tawny and his honey-brown hair lit with gold. He moved with an inborn grace, his muscles sleek and powerful, even in the simple act of walking, and Aileana smiled at the shiver that tingled up her spine. But when he turned to face her, having found what he’d sought, she felt a rush of love so strong that, were she standing, she knew her knees would have failed to support her. She tucked the cover under her chin, trying to get a glimpse of what he held in his hand, as he came back to bed and slid under the blankets.