Page 58 of Twelfth Knight’s Bride

“Ye’ve made great peace with my people and taken care with me. I’m nay averse to, eh, reconsidering my original plan.”

What was she saying? That she might stay? Or more importantly, she wanted to? His heart leaped at the thought. He searched her eyes for some sort of clue.

“Be clear with me, lass, so I’m nay led astray. Do ye want to remain with me?” he asked, the words raking over his unusually gruff throat. “Do ye wish to make this marriage permanent?”

She gazed shyly up at him, nodding. “Could it be that I’ve grown to care for my nàmhaid, too?” she whispered.

He grinned and took her upper arms in hand, wanting to hold on tightly, and dropped his lips to hers.

“And does that mean ye want to lie with me?” he murmured, his mouth renewing its dance with hers, his nose nuzzling hers.

Again, she nodded. And this time she ducked her head in embarrassment. “Will it hurt?”

Sakes, but the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. His dipped to her ear, nipping the lobe, felt her sharp intakes of breath as her grip upon him regained strength, felt his frustrated loins surge with renewed desire.

“I’ll have care, Allie. And I promise, I’ll do my best to please ye.”

She lifted her chin in that defiant way that she always did, as if prepared for any challenge.

“Then, Jamie Moidartach MacDonald. I’m willing to lie with ye and give myself to ye as yer wife, if ye promise to always treat me with the goodness ye’ve used so far.”

He nodded, dragging his finger down her cheek to linger on her lip. “Aye, nàmhaid,” he murmured so fondly this time, it was a wonder the word had ever been an insult.

He felt her lips curl up in a smile, and God, but it felt good, and new, and profound to know he’d be a husband honestly, as if they’d only playacted to this point. “And we’ll call upon a priest so that we can make this right with the church. I’ll give ye a proper ceremony, and together, we’ll align our clans, and lands, instead of remaining divided.”

She turned her face into his to capture his lips, and he gave them willingly. Ought he to take her to his chamber? Bed her like a proper husband would bed his new bride instead of rutting in a sheep shed like a lad and lass evading their laird’s scrutiny, as she’d jested? Except she was pulling him in. She was holding him and drawing him close to her.

He shed his mantle from her shoulders once more, letting it slip through his fingers to drop to the straw, easing her back down upon it. She lay beneath him, and he sank to his knees, straddling her, wanting her, and eased her bodice back down over her bosom.

“So beautiful,” he murmured with appreciation, caressing a callused finger over the mounds and down the valley between them. “Curse the souls whoever told ye ye were plain.”

She shivered but arched toward his touch. So bold. So confident. So Aileana, to seize the moment instead of shying from it.

He lifted her hands and placed them upon his knees, skin to skin, sliding them upward. “Have yer way, lass. As I would with ye.”

At this, she turned her head away with embarrassment. He held still, waiting for her curiosity to get the better of her. He guided her face back with his finger, and she swallowed, then trailed her hands over the hair upon his thighs, the sensation both tickling and agitating in the most delightful way, inching closer, closer, to the mark. His breath caught. His bollocks tightened. It had been so long since he’d been touched so, and to feel Aileana now, to have won her stubborn heart, made this moment so delectable, he couldn’t imagine thinking of another—

“Jesu,” he hissed as she grazed over his bollocks, and he looked down to see sheer fascination on her face as she explored this unknown, the veil of his kilt obstructing her view, turning this into a game of touch and exploration.

He tightened at the base of his spine, within his bollocks, and blast it! He was about to finish like a green lad! He ripped her hands away, dropping down atop her, and fought to drag up her mass of skirts.

“I want a union with ye, before ye make me so pleasured, I end this before I can even start it,” he growled, nipping at her ear, her cheek, her chin, returning his lips to hers.

He found her core with an urgent finger, felt along her seam, swallowed the hitch in her breath such a touch induced, and positioned his helm at her entrance. Plunging with barely harnessed control, she cried out, arching, and tensed beneath him, and God above, he fought to remain still, fought to regain his patience so that her untouched flesh might soften to him.

He kissed her idly, plied her breasts gently, as he held the union, sheathed to the hilt, waiting, as she relaxed, as her tight warmth gripped him and caused him to tremble with need.

“There,” he whispered against her ear, clenching her tightly, feeling his heart open farther in ways he never knew it could. “Ye’re mine, as I’m yers. I want it no other way.”

She nodded against him, clinging hard to him, her nails biting through his tunic to clench his back, her legs cinched tightly around his rear. “Aye, Jamie, my…l—”

He froze, then his pride, like a strong wind, soared away with his heart. Was she about to say what he thought she was? Surely it was much too soon, as she’d concluded by silencing herself. But as he tried hard not to grin a lopsided grin, he sank into slow, gliding thrusts, easing himself upon his woman and basking in this Yuletide miracle binding their people, and their hearts, together.

Yet her ankles came around his legs, clinging to him, as soft cries welled from her throat at the new sensation of loving, encouraging him to give more. Try as he might to be gentle, her encouragement teased him. He felt her fingers glide up his abdomen, around his rear, clenching him, pulling him more forcefully to her as if she needed him, and as his thighs and arms trembled from holding himself steady, he relented to the wildness he felt.

He pulled back on his haunches, gripped each of her creamy thighs, and dropped back his head as his cock thrust harder and faster, galloping his way home. She cried out, a seductive, pleasured sound that rolled over his ears and infused him with energy. A groan, low and rumbling, vibrated in his throat, the primal pride a man felt when he pleased the woman who seized his heart, bubbling over his lips, where it had been brimming. With a thread of control, he gazed down at her, his eyes hooded with hot lust. Her face was tossed to one side, eyes pinched closed, sweet moans of pleasure encouraging him from her delicious lips as her fingers moved frantically upon him to grasp hold.

“Jamie, Jamie,” she murmured, though there was no direction to the utterance, and he dropped down upon her to capture her lips in his as the tingling of release throbbed low in his spine, tightened his bollocks, hastened his pace…