Page 33 of Tempting the Highland Captive

Ron must have sensed that she needed a moment as he did not press her further. Instead, he squeezed her leg affectionately under the table and turned to speak with Lucas. Amelia, grateful for the reprieve, sat and ate in silence for a time watching the comings and goings of her people. Elspeth and her husband were not far down one of the trestle tables wrestling with their bairns. Amelia imagined what it would be like if she and Ron were to have children. She could just see them in her mind, a little boy with brown hair and green eyes like his mother but tall and muscular like his father, a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes like her father but the delicate featured beauty of her mother. The thought caused an ache in her chest that nearly robbed her of breath it was so profound. Until that moment, she had not realized just how badly she wanted a life like Elspeth’s.

“Are ye well, lass?” Father Jacob asked, seeing her disquiet.

“Aye, I am well,” Amelia replied, forcing her eyes away from the children and back toward her dining companion. “Just admiring the bairns.”

“Oh, aye.” He nodded his head smiling. “They are a bonnie handful.” He studied Amelia’s face for a moment. “Have ye given any thought tae havin’ a bairn o’ yer own?”

Amelia nearly choked on her ale. “Have ye taken tae readin’ minds now, Faither?”

Father Jacob laughed and shook his head. “Nae, I have nae, but in readin’ yer face, I have much experience.”

Amelia frowned at him good-naturedly. “Someday,” she murmured at last, unable to keep the sad wistful tone out of her voice. She saw Ron shift next to her out of the corner of her eye, but she did not turn around to face him. She did not know what she would see in his eyes had he overheard her, and she did not think her heart could take it if he were upset by it, or even willing. She was not certain which would be worse given their circumstances. She hoped that he had not heard, but when he placed a kiss on her neck behind her ear, she knew that he had.

“Ye would make a fine maither,” he murmured, his breath heating her ear. “Any man would be fortunate indeed tae have ye tae bear his bairns.” There was a possessive growl to this last claim and Amelia leaned back against him, letting his chest cradle her back and shoulders.

Sighing, she leaned her cheek against his and whispered, “If only,” before pulling away and turning back to her conversation with the priest.

Ron let his fingers trail down her back causing shivers of delight and longing to course through her being. The minstrels began a new song and everyone’s attention turned to the space that had been cleared for dancing. A few of the young couples arose from the tables and started to dance a reel. Ron leaned forward once more, taking her hand in his. “Dance with me,” he more demanded than asked, pulling her up with him and leading her to join the other dancers.

They were well matched for the physical aspects of dancing, each attacking the moves with energy and passion. It was as if the music flowed through them as they came together and parted, then came together again. The crowds whooped and hollered, stomping and clapping in time to the music. It was wonderful fun and got their blood to pumping quite fiercely. When the song came to an end, Ron did not release her but instead pulled her toward the back side of the hall where there was a little door leading out into her mother’s flower garden. “Walk with me?” this time he asked, gently, entreatingly.

“Aye.” Amelia nodded, and he pushed open the door to reveal a small chapel where her mother had prayed. Closing this door, he moved to the next one on the other side and opened it to reveal the garden beyond. “This was my mother’s favorite place here at the castle,” she confided in him.

“’Tis beautiful,” Ron admitted, leading her over to a stone bench. Amelia sat down on the cold stone and Ron lowered himself down to the ground at her feet making their heights more even. He leaned his back against the stone and surveyed the flowers around them. The spring flowers had long since come and gone, but the late summer early autumn blooms were in their full glory. “I can see why she liked it.”

“It was her escape from my faither and his many mistresses,” Amelia admitted, a slightly angry, but resigned tone to her voice. The mixing of ale and wine during the festivities was starting to get to her and she was finding it harder to suppress her feelings.

“Yer faither was nae a faithful man.” Ron nodded in acknowledgement. “Nor was mine.”

It was the first time that he had shared anything personal about his father and Amelia laid her hand on his shoulder in comfort. “Many aren’t,” she admitted. “It is one o’ my fears about marriage. I dinnae want tae be with a man such as my faither was with my maither. They were miserable their entire lives together. She had four bairns die afore I was born. After that, the midwife said if she had another she would surely die. When I was born a daughter, my faither was devastated and sought to pup a male heir on any lass that would have him. There were many, but he ne’er produced a boy nae matter how hard he tried.”

“God saw that he already had the perfect heir in ye and chose nae tae reward yer faither’s bad behavior,” Ron explained, laying a hand on the top of her foot, and squeezing it in reassurance.

Amelia smiled. “Ye think so?”

“Oh, aye, I do.” Ron nodded. “Ye dinnae reject perfection, lass.”

Amelia chuckled. “I am nae perfect.”

“Ye are tae me,” Ron murmured, his eyes holding hers.

Amelia reached out and ran her fingers through his shoulder length blond hair. It fell from her fingertips as silken strands of gold. She was mesmerized by the way it caught in the torch light. “Why do ye speak thusly tae me when ye ken that ye will be leavin’ and there is nae tae be gotten by it? I married ye tae use ye thinkin’ that ye would be dead and I would ne’er have tae lay eyes upon ye again. I dinnae deserve yer praise for such an unchristian thing.”

“I speak only the truth for truth’s sake, nae for any ulterior motive. Ye need tae ken just how grand a lass ye are while I am still here tae tell it tae ye.” Taking her fingers in his, he kissed each individual tip as if it were the most delectable delicacy. Desire coursed through Amelia’s body, causing her breasts and nether regions to ache with need. “Ye did nae use me any more than I intended tae use ye, if ye recall,” he met her eyes with raised brows.

“Aye, I remember.” Amelia flushed at the thought of what he had desired of her in the prison on their wedding day but had never gotten. “Ye said that I owed ye. I am sorry that I left ye as I did.”

“Aye, I did say that, and I meant it at the time,” he murmured, running his hands up the sides of her legs under her skirts. “And ye have agreed tae pay with coin instead. A deal I ken that ye will keep. Ye have nae need tae feel sorry for anything that ye have done.” The mention of the coin caused Amelia to stiffen slightly, and she could see that he regretted saying it in his eyes. “Perhaps we could begin again,” he murmured and reached up to caress her cheek, pulling her head down to meet his.

Amelia’s body had a mind of its own and allowed him to pull her down off the stone bench and onto the grass beside him. His lips came down upon hers in a warm and gentle whisper at first, that quickly turned into a roaring flame. Passion coursed through them both threatening to consume them. Ron’s hands roamed over her body exploring every aspect that he could reach. Amelia wrapped her arms around him, digging her fingers into the corded muscle of his broad back and shoulders, then down to his buttocks.

Groaning, Ron laid Amelia down upon the grass beneath the weight of his body and continued his explorations. His lips moved down her throat to her breasts and he pulled the front of her gown down to expose them to the cool night air. Taking each bud in his mouth in turn, he suckled them causing Amelia to dissolve into a near frenzy of need. She wrapped her legs around his hips and lifted herself up towards him in barely conscious invitation. She was not thinking straight, she knew it, and did not care. Growling, Ron ground his hips against the juncture of her legs and Amelia cried out at the delicious friction of it. She clutched him ever tighter to her, pressing him harder against her most secret places.

“I need ye,” she gasped, her passion addled mind completely having given over to the animalistic drive to possess his body in every way that she could.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Ron rasped, and took one of her nipples between his teeth. “I want ye with a fire that I fear will ne’er be quenched.”

Amelia cried out once more at the feel of his teeth and pressed him even harder against her. “I need ye now!”

In the next instant, Ron had her skirts up about her waist and had moved his hand down to between her legs, gently massaging the nub hidden within her womanly folds. Amelia raised her hips to meet the pressure of his fingers and moaned. “Do ye like that, wife?” he whispered against her sensitive flesh.

“More,” Amelia demanded of him, pressing herself into his touch.

Growling, Ron kissed his way down her torso, to where his fingers had just been and delved his tongue into the wetness that they had caused. Lathing her with a fierceness that nearly made Amelia scream had she not bit down on her own hand, Ron left no part of her untouched. His tongue went into places that she had no idea it could go and made her feel as if she were losing her mind, or dying, or both. He slid his fingers up inside of her sheath but stopped just short of breaking the seal of her virginity. The pressure was more than Amelia could take and she fell over the edge into ecstatic oblivion. Stars burst behind her eyes, and she hung onto the grass as if it were a lifeline to the living.

Ron rolled off her and lay on his back panting. His engorged rod throbbed visibly beneath the fabric of his trews. Amelia, wanting to reciprocate the joy he had just brought her, reached out to caress it. No sooner did her fingertips meet cloth, but Ron’s hand came down swift as lightening and pulled her away. “Why?” she stammered out, offended that he would reject her touch.

“Because if ye touch me, I will make love tae ye, and ye will be a virgin nae more.”

“Aye,” Amelia acknowledged.

“If ye are nae longer a virgin by my doing, then we cannae get an annulment.”

Hurt coursed through Amelia at his words. It did not matter that they were true or that he was only trying to give her what she had wanted all along. Anger surged through her passion and wine addled mind. Reason did not exist in that moment or place, and she scrambled to her feet.

“The sooner the better,” she nearly snarled, then turned and ran from the garden back into the castle, leaving Ron staring after her still sitting in the grass.