AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Fingal’s muscles clenched to the point of turning him into a cold statue. Her reason for having married him hit like a rock plummeting full-speed down a mountain. No wonder she issued little protest when he fairly dragged her back to Scotland for the wedding. She stated he did not need to do it, that she could have got away with their…story. But having taken her from her house in London to spend a week bumping on the roads unchaperoned had ripped the decision from her hands yet again. Just like her own father did. The realisation did not make him proud; it made him feel like the lowest villain on the planet.
She had acted not like a spoiled ninny going after her sole self-satisfaction. The responsibility and consequences of her choices she carried with not an ounce of hesitation. Added to what he already witnessed about her—the empathy for those who needed help, her courage to face challenges, the wherewithal to change the fate others chose for her, to stand for what she believed worth the effort—gave him pause. Something exploded inside him, hot, ineluctable, inevitable. A feeling so deep and encompassing no name for it occurred to him. But it made him want to bury his face in the mass of her glossy, dark hair, and hold her to the end of every galaxy ever present in this universe. Inhale her, rain kisses on every inch of her satiny skin. He had this urge to express the tremendous sentiment physically, to communicate with her through each channel available to him.
Only he would never know whether, given the chance, she would have picked him.
Silence had fallen in the room adamantine and thrumming with extreme tension. All eyes attacked Angus with disproval.
“I do think you might be done here, Laird McTavish.” Aileen broke the stalemate with her usual nonconformity.
Though the marriage agreement had not been discussed, everyone’s unwillingness to abide the older man seemed to have put an end to the meeting. Said man also proved incapable of producing a reply to his daughter, probably seeing for the first time the strong woman she had become. His eyes snapped to the speaker ebbed of all that excessive pride and belligerence he had displayed. A long moment elapsed until he gave a dry nod before pivoting and leaving the room without a backward glance.
Fingal registered his wife sagging against him, releasing a pent-up breath. He enfolded her in both his arms for a long while before Baxter announced dinner.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Her husband banged their bedchamber door shut and pressed her against it, full body, sculpted mouth clamping on hers in a famished kiss.
They were just entering the old manor after dinner with his family. Fingal had sat in the carriage wordless, with his cinnamon glare fixed on her in the dim lantern light. Catriona did not know what to make of it, intending to ask as soon as they came home. But now, it appeared the cause had been this.
With a moan, she arched into him, arms twining around his taut shoulders for dear life. He held her by the waist while a hand lined her nape, keeping her in place for his plunder. Whisky, horse, and man mingled in his scent as his stubble caressed her satiny chin. Their heat created pure fire, hotter than the one blazing in the fireplace.
Somehow, he had divested her of her outer garments, giving her the freedom to wrap her legs around him to cradle a voluminous, pulsing erection that would not be denied. Long, dark hair escaped its confines to fall over her shoulders.
“I’ve been lusting after you for hours!” he rasped as he dragged those whiskers down her neck to suck on the pulse at the base of it.
How could he? They had been in the middle of a clan squabble!
A square hand tore at her chemise, causing her insides to erupt in a sweltering reaction. When would she have imagined that having her husband unclothe her in such a primal way would arouse her to madness? She lost her power of thought when he latched those hungry lips on one breast and took her to mindless pleasure. Her core ached so much, she feared it would combust.
“Take me, Fingal, please.” It came out as a faint breath because his expert fingers had found her dampness and feasted on it.
The wood rattled on the hinges with their urgent passion. “Yes, Catriona.” An insidious finger glided on a sensitive spot between her entrance and the nub above it, making her see stars. “I’ll be the stallion to your mare.” The image he planted in her mind nearly undid her; she could barely wait.
This was one of the few…delights he had yet to have her sample.
An unyielding bicep held her by the waist and he strode to the large bed. “On all fours,” he demanded as impatient, strong hands rucked up the tartan from his sinewy thighs to bend over her, half-undone, askew shirt still on him.
A deep, true thrust filled her unceremoniously as a masculine grunt aired on her ear. Hair everywhere, she arched more to give him ampler access, the heat of him scalding her spine. One of his arms braced him on the mattress while the other hand cupped one breast to tease it, increasing the excruciating effect of his possession.
And then he started lunging in earnest. In this position, he went deeper. She felt every inch of him in every inch of her. She was so close that in his next move she fell apart with a ragged scream.
He lost control. His steel arm banded her middle, making her open more for his taut hips to accelerate. In between pants, his still clad body rubbed on the delicate skin in pure desperation. “One of these days I’ll bend you over my desk,” he drawled and got her on the edge all over again. Erratic, rough, he kept going, and caused another wrenching deflagration in her.
It did not take long for him to lurch the farthest and explode with a strained growl, lifting his torso and pouring in her like a powerful feline.
Their sated bodies collapsed on the bed breathless, sweaty, and surrendered.
She lost track of time, or they drowsed off, she did not know. Her eyes squinted on the dark night beyond the still parted drapes. They lay in a tangle of limbs, bedsheets, and steamy intimacy. Her head turned to him in the firelight and found his attention clasped on her. Long minutes passed with them merged in each other.
His now bare, muscled frame came over her. His lips took hers, arms circling the feminine form, and then he was taking her while she held onto him with arms, legs and inner flesh like a vice. Naked this time, their warm skins touched everywhere. The hair-sprinkled torso abraded her breasts, the hair on his sex abraded her nub. This time, however, he took her slow, excruciatingly so. He savoured her with his mouth, his hands, his skin. That mouth of his murmured sensual words, naughty words, crude ones. Crude promises. They moved in tandem as he kissed and caressed her like a man possessed. Like a man tortured. Like a man in agony. After they found their culmination, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and fell asleep, never letting go.
Would she come out as needy if she admitted she missed him? Catriona looked through the window to the grey morning a week later. A week when she had barely seen her husband.
On her escritoire in her dressing room, a letter to Anna awaited to be finished and sealed. In fact, it awaited to go beyond the first paragraph.
He had left early for the stables while she lay awake in their bed—a bed from which he had been absent the whole night. Every night since the one they shared after the meeting. That had been the last.
The last and the most memorable, with its sultry passion and lethal lasciviousness.
