Page 63 of Hold Fast

Ewan was panting now, his chest rising and falling rapidly against hers. She untied the bow that held her shift, the fabric still clinging to her shoulders.

In a hoarse whisper, he asked, “May I?”

She nodded.

Ewan slid his fingertips up her thighs, hooking them under the hem of her shift and drawing it slowly up her body, his fingers dragging gently over her hips, up her sides, even across the ticklish plane of her armpits, driving the shift up her body. She lifted her arms, and he drew it up the long lengths of her arms as carefully as if handling a holy relic. He groaned at the sight of her naked body and squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

She paused, worried suddenly. But then his eyes flew open and he shot to his feet, taking her with him. His hands gripped her arse, and he held her close against him. Her legs wrapped instinctively around his waist. He turned, depositing her in the middle of the bed. The plaid, unbelted, had fallen to the floor around his feet when he’d stood, and Una couldn’t help but stare as he crawled toward her.

Una parted her thighs, leaving room for Ewan to settle between them. He kissed her deeply, and she melted into that kiss. The textures of his body felt so different against hers, hard where she was soft, callused where she was not, hair in different places, heat in different places too. She knew the body well. It was her trade. But she’d never known the body like this. She’d never known what it was to have every single part of her body alight with sensation as his tongue delved into her mouth and his hands roamed.

Ewan shifted his weight to the side so that he could slip his hand over her hip, stopping just above her mound.

“Una,” he panted, looking into her eyes. “Are you well?”

She nodded, feeling itchy and hot, needing something. Knowing that he could give it to her. “Touch me. Touch me, Ewan.Please.”

He slid a finger against her slick seam.

“God’s bones, Una. You’re soaking,” he groaned against her ear. “Can I—”

“Please!” she cried out, cutting him off.

She was tired of talking. She was tired of thinking. She wanted to feel good, for herbodyto feel good. He slipped a thick finger into her sheath and she gasped. He added a second, his thumb grazing just above the hood of her pearl. Una’s back bowed off the bed with a moan.

“Shhh, mo cridhe,” he whispered into her mouth. “You must be quiet. You are nae supposed to be here. I may be compromising your virtue, but I ken you dinnae want the whole keep hearing it.”

“What virtue?” Una protested, her breath coming in short, insufficient bursts.

How was she supposed to stay quiet with his fingers moving in and out like that, gentle but insistent? He pressed them even deeper, curling them toward a place within her that made her toes curl so tightly that her feet cramped. He beckoned and swallowed her groan with another kiss.

“You dinnae want there to be talk. I respect that. So we must be verra,verraquiet, Una.”

Pleasure shot through her limbs and her legs quivered around his forearm from where she’d clamped them shut against the rising tide.

“Can you be quiet, mo cridhe?”

Breathless, she clutched at him and nodded, hissing through clenched teeth as he thrust his fingers deeper and beckoned with them again, alternating that pattern until she was shaking.Thrust. Beckon. Thrust. Beckon. Thrust. Beckon. All the while, he traced featherlight circles around her pearl with his thumb.

Una had touched herself before. She had brought herself to silent climaxes in the dark emptiness of her bed. But those climaxes had always been short, white-hot bursts of feeling rocketing from her head to her toes, there and gone in an instant, satisfying, but not sating.

As good as her fingers had felt, it had done nothing to prepare her for the lightning that Ewan was creating in her body. Her muscles were tight, every one of them, and she fought against the pleasure—too sharp, too consuming, toomuch. But he was there, his lips against her ear as he circled his thumb, never changing the speed or pressure, a constant that she could cling to as her body fell apart.

“Let me take care of you, mo cridhe,” he whispered in her ear.

With those words, what had begun as a writhing, almost torturous heat liquified and spread, a sizzling wave that traveled down her body, making her feel almost suspended in space, hovering above the bed, above the world. She bucked her hips against his hand and gasped, arching her neck and driving her head back into the mattress. She bit her bottom lip to contain her cry with such force that she tasted blood. All the while, Ewan kissed her throat and crooned in her ear as she rode his hand until the tremors subsided and she drifted back to earth.

Una felt a drunk, hazy euphoria settle over her. Ewan withdrew his fingers from her channel with great care. In the firelight, she saw her arousal glistening and her mouth fell open as he sucked on his fingers, closing his eyes as he groaned.

“You taste so good, Una,” he growled before bending his head to kiss her, letting her taste her own sharpness from his tongue.

Una reached down and wrapped her fingers around his cock, sliding them from base to crown, catching a bead of his own arousal on the pad of her thumb. He gripped her wrist.

“Nay,” he groaned, pressing his forehead against her shoulder.

“You dinnae want me to touch you?” she asked, surprised, momentarily hurt.

He huffed out a breath, sounding very much like Calman. “Una, I want you to touch me more than I want to take my next breath. But I dinnae want you to pleasure me like that. Nae this time. I want you to come with me.”