He kissed me then, and his mouth was hungry and possessive, his tongue thrusting into my mouth as he began to move himself within me in a conjoined rhythm.
“I want to feel you pulse around me, lass,” he growled. “I want your pleasure to release me.”
“We’ll burn together.”
“Aye,” he said. “We’ll die together.”
And it was then that the discomfort began to turn. The rubbing, burning friction of his extreme fullness inside me seemed to sprout little wings that softened the pain into something else altogether. All sense and all feeling concentrated in the core of my body, now stretched to accommodate his deeply nudging strokes. Sparking tufts of beauty lurked around the edges of my body’s tight-sprung tension, funneling ever so slightly, from the inside out.
Wilkie heard the tone of my soft exhale, reading there the response I was beginning to find as he nudged faster, finding the perfect balance of flesh and feeling. He kept his pace steady, controlled, rooting out twinges of ecstasy, only to have it retreat again, just out of reach. “Let go, Roses. Surrender to me.”
He lifted one of my arms over my head, then the other, locking both my wrists easily in one of his powerful hands. My legs were fully bent, my knees clasping against his hips.
I was pinned under him, held down by him, impaled by him. His mouth took mine. I could only submit to him. He was all I could feel or remember. And as I soon as I embraced this total submission, a streaming current began to fill my body and my mind, as a subtle,energetic hum from within. It began in my soul, it seemed, coiling both into and out of the center of me. Wilkie’s deep strokes enticed it and forced it higher and ever higher, melting me utterly until there was nothing of me except this overloading devastating pleasure. This escalating tide consumed me in a white-lit explosion of bliss, which held and glided in an expanding spell. And as it did, I felt his own soul inside me. As though to capture Wilkie within me, my body clenched tightly around him in welcoming bursts, pulling at the length of him in rhythmic tugs, inviting all he had to give. Wilkie sighed in a spoken breath, mindless. And I had never felt such an all-consuming joy as then, when his essence pooled hotly into me, flooding me and killing me with vibrant sensation, extending my pleasure into long lush brimming shudders that rolled and waved and met no resistance.
It was a long time before either of us could move or speak. We were dazed and entwined, so completely connected in every way it was possible to be.
* * *
IRESURFACEDSOMEtime later to find he had repositioned us so we lay face-to-face on our sides, my leg hitched over his hip and held by his hand. His eyes were open, watching me as I dozed. The masculine features of his face, so dark and shadowed by low light and primal intentions, were heartbreaking. My throat and my inner chest felt fluttery and reckless at the sight of him, aching with desperation, such was his beauty to me.
“Angel,” he whispered, staring deeply into my eyes, his own desperation there in equal measure. It was too much and not enough, as though we might die if we were ever to draw apart.
“Beautiful warrior, you are my heart.”
And with barely any movement at all, Wilkie gave a hint of a slow nudge where our bodies met. That barely there pressure was enough, stoking sweet rapture, which coursed through my body, holding on, as though I was riding Wilkie’s energy. Sensation spun from my center outward in a continuously flowing wave that caressed him peacefully from within and brought him a slow, resounding release that filled me with warmth and love and life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“YOUMUSTBEPREPAREDto be watched and talked about today, Roses,” Wilkie said softly. “I will keep you with me as much as I can, but there will times when I will be required to train, to discuss matters of our alliance with the Morrison and Munro armies, and to host our visitors. Fergus will guard you at all times. If you’d like to spend some time assisting Effie, it would give credence to your alibi, and my sisters will do their best to give you as much company as they can.”
“I don’t need them to keep me company. I’m fine to entertain myself, and I can help them, and Effie, in any way they require.”
His hold on me remained equally as tight as when he’d held me during his fevered fugue, yet this hold was more complete, with his heavy limbs wrapped around me and his body tucked against mine. During the night, I’d awoken more than once in the darkness to the intimate caresses of his mouth, his strong hands, his insistent hardness. He spilled his seed into me many times, each release spurred by the rippling responses of my body to his bliss-inducing possession. The night seemed as one long ride of beautiful sensation. The ecstasy never faded, just rolled and undulated through wakefulness and sleep.
“I could have been more subtle about our departurefrom the gathering last night,” he said, rueful. “Such is my desire for you, sweet. It blinds me to everyone and everything but you. You will most likely be questioned and engaged on the subject. ’Tis best to keep them guessing, for now. My discussions with my brother are not yet resolved. But they will be, soon enough.”
“Whatever you ask, warrior. I will keep them guessing, then.”
“Now I’m going to pull myself from your body and wash you. Then you’ll dress in the adjoining chambers and come downstairs at your leisure. I will see you in a few hours.”
“All right.” I didn’t want him to pull himself from me or leave me. But I felt supremely peaceful. I was subdued with rapture, my body and mind so satiated I might have never known a care in the world.
He didn’t move immediately. Still on top of me, he kissed the tip of my nose. “You’ve a light sprinkling of freckles here, across your nose and your cheeks.” He made a point of kissing each one. “And here, across the tops of your beautiful breasts, as though you’ve been sun-kissed and dusted with gold.” He continued his mapped exploration. “Your blond hair catches all the light in the room.” He swirled a strand of my hair around his finger, then he traced the feathery line of my eyebrow with his thumb. “The glory of you, Roses. I have never known anything like it. I want to immerse myself in you forevermore. To follow you and feel the sun and the heat and the beauty of you. You’re more than my heart can bear.”
“I will be waiting for you to return to me, always. I want to lie here, like this, with you, every day and night until the end of time. You are my life.” And ifI’d been capable of it at that moment, I might have felt disconcerted at the blunt and far-reaching truth of my own words.
He kissed me once more, then he pulled away from me, and I felt saddened already by the separation. Then again—although I hadn’t realized it until now—I was quite painfully sore.
Wilkie went to a side table, where a porcelain pitcher of water and a bowl sat. He poured some of the water into the bowl and brought it to the bed, along with a small cloth. He proceeded to wash me carefully with the cool water, wiping me clean of his seed and my own blood. Then he washed himself.
“You belong to me now,” he said. The statement infused me with an undiluted happiness.
“And you to me,” I replied, marveling at the lingering liquid warmth of his seed within me. And only me. I thought of the possibility of a child, but it wasn’t my most pressing thought. A child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, whether already begun or not to be, seemed a far-off concern. More importantly now was the stunning knowledge that Wilkie’s essence had now truly mixed with my own. The very core of not only my body but also my spirit felt joyful at the significance of this. I felt, as Wilkie described, like the sun—or that a glowing, vibrant orb of beauty was within me, where our spirits had mingled and continued to dance even now.
“I believe Ailie and Christie are taking the women on a walk through the gardens this morning, after they have eaten the morning meal. You might accompany them if you choose to.” The suggestion was tinged by only the slightest lurk of anxiety, at the memory of my last walk through the gardens. But Wilkie added, “The guards are doubled and readied, and patrol the outside walls, the grounds and the gate. There will be no more surprise raids, I can assure you. And Fergus will be with you.”
I sat up, excited. I’d explored the gardens only twice in all the days and weeks I’d been at Kinloch. I couldn’t count the duration of it, of our healing, erotic confinement; the span of time had a surreal, dreamlike quality to it that felt difficult to quantify.
