“Let them see what we have and how badly I must have ye.” His words disappeared in her breathless mouth as he ground his lips to hers.
She squirmed and writhed under his tight hold. Each time he slammed into her, she shuddered as her back slid over the tree trunk, the only piece of the world that she could hold onto as Sawny's kisses and ardent cock drew her to greater and greater heights. If she did not have the tree, surely she would have fallen off the earth itself . . .
His lips slid from her mouth to her cheek, and when he spoke, his breath was hot on her cheek and mixed with the yeasty scent of mead and his own musky scent.
“Let them all watch.” His voice was little more than a harsh whisper, his breathing jagged. He was reaching his moment with her, rocking harder. “Let them see what it is when a man loves his woman with abandon, loves her more than any other, with all of his soul . . .”
His words drifted off in a moan with his final thrusts, hard, deeper inside her than she thought possible. And as she opened her mouth to screech out her moment, her body quivering in waves, he crushed his mouth over hers, capturing her cries of desire as if he needed to consume them, as if letting free any moment of their joining was to waste it.
As he swallowed her gasping out his name, he surged inside her, pouring his essence into her in a few final clenches of his body.
He slid one hand off her waist and rested it against the erstwhile beech tree. When he lifted his face to look at her, it glowed in the late afternoon sun, making his ruddy cheeks and sparkling eyes even more engaging and casting him in a golden-brown glow. Adaira cupped the stubble along his jaw, and he shifted, pulling out of her.
The sense of loss, of emptiness, a dismaying contrast to the joy of how he filled her.
God, how she loved him.
“Christ's blood, Ada. I canna wed ye fast enough. If for naught else than to plow ye in a decent bed. My legs always quake after I take ye."
She giggled lightly at his observation. "I canna agree more. Far too many of my kirtles have stains on the backside, and I dinna think I can make many more excuses for the state of my gowns.”
Sawny shifted to lean on his arm against the tree next to her. He traced her bodice neckline to where it disappeared underneath her bounteous breasts.
“Ye shall have all the gowns ye need once we are wed. I'd no' have the worry of a stained gown stop me from having ye whenever and wherever we want.”
Brushing away a long lock of golden blonde hair from where it stuck along her cheek, she twisted her face to his.
“Ye might want to see about hiring more weavers then. I dinna believe there's enough wool in all the highlands to satisfy that need.”
“Ye satisfymyevery need,” he murmured and kissed her nose.
Chapter Three
Thatevening,asthestars began to sparkle against the navy-blue sky and after sneaking back into her chambers without any servants or, God forbid, her mother seeing her, Adaira changed out of her kirtle and set it upon her trunk.
She and Sawny might be getting married in a fortnight, but that did not mean her parents, Sorcha or Seamus, would approve of their illicit trysts.
Fortunately, this time they had remained upright as they coupled, which saved her from the work of scrubbing out yet another set of dirt and grass stains.
In nothing but her chemise and bare feet, she padded over to her tall wardrobe, a gift from her parents when she had started her monthly courses, signifying she had become a woman. Her mother, the bull of a woman that was Sorcha MacDonald, had insisted on the magnificent gift, and Seamus denied his wife nothing. A new wardrobe for the new woman.
Although, Adaira would have liked the wardrobe to have been bit shorter in construction. Sorcha might have hoped that her daughter would reach similar heights as her sons, but nay. The sons took after their tall father, while Adaira was nearly a perfect duplicate of their shorter, buxom mother.
Thus, in addition to the wardrobe, her father had also gifted her a step stool so Adaira might reach the top shelves.
Selecting a pair of soft leather shoes, a clean chemise, and a heather-purple-hued gown, Adaira set the stool in its place to the side of the wardrobe and slipped the chemise and gown over her head.
Adaira finished pinning her shiny gold hair atop her head as she waited for her mother or one of the servants to check on her and help adjust her gown and hair, because she wanted it to be perfect. Tonight was another feast, this one with more than merely her family and close kin. This feast included her soon-to-be close kin, the MacDonalds of Keppoch.
More specifically, her betrothed Sawny.
Though she had just spent a lascivious afternoon with the man, time clicked by at an agonizingly slow pace until the moment she saw him again. Time was a thief, and every second she was not with him was another moment robbed from them. Over the past year, Sawny had become her everything.
Alexander Argyle MacDonald, whom everyone had called Sawny since he was a wee bairn, had arrived at Glenachulish with his father to discuss Highland politics with her father, Seamus MacDonald, and her uncles less than two years ago.
Neither she nor Sawny had been interested in Highland politics, rather they had been much more interested in each other.
Reade, the protective older brother he was, had tried to keep Sawny’s puppy-ish eyes far from Adaira, but her voluptuous curves and sprightly character had caught him in her web, and he had been trapped ever since. Maddock, her other older brother, had slapped Reade’s shoulder and laughed.
