Beyond the Highland Myst(293)

Two fingers.

The fullness!

Three. "Relax, lass. I doona wish to hurt you overmuch. I am—"

"I know," she panted. "You are. I saw you." She was awed and a little afraid.

His hands were magic, her body eased open, only to contract swiftly when he removed his fingers. The ache, oh, the unbearable ache.

"Please," she groaned.

He raised himself above her and positioned himself between her legs. But he didn't enter—nay, he took her lips with his and kissed her: light and teasing, kissed her deeply; kissed her so hard that his teeth bumped against hers, which she'd always thought might seem clumsy but it wasn't, it made her nearly wild beneath him. She arched her lower body, pressing against that hot male part of him, and he pressed back against her, hard.

"In me," she cried.

He laughed against her lips. "Impatient lass."

"Yes I am. In me."

"Aye aye, mistress," he whispered.

He gave it to her slowly. The first inch was a most unusual sensation and she doubted she could take him. The second inch promised pain. The third and fourth were painful, but the seventh and eighth promised heaven. Lisa closed her eyes and devoted her full attention to the hard man inside her. She had never felt such a pressure, such a completing sensation in her life. She could have stayed like that forever.

And then he rocked slowly within her. "Squeeze me," he whispered.

"What?"

"With your muscles." When she stared at him blankly, he tickled her suddenly, causing her to laugh. The muscles inside her contracted and she understood.

"Squeeze like that, you mean?"

He went completely still inside her. "Squeeze."

It was the most incredible sensation. She could use her woman's muscles to contract on him and release, and every time she contracted around him it sent her perilously close to the edge. He lay motionless atop her, letting her feel him, grow used to him, develop an insatiable hunger for the pleasure of him buried within her.

"Does it arouse you?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she murmured.

He withdrew slowly, savoring every sweet contraction of her muscles, then filled her to the mouth of her womb.

The night was young, and over the course of it he made a wee bit of progress down his endless list of things he wanted to do with her. Her insatiable curiosity extended into the bedchamber, as he had hoped it would. She was a most willing conspirator throughout the long night of passion-slicked bodies and yielding hearts.

When he rose, bracing his hands wide on the bed to either side of her, threw back his head and lost a part of himself deep within her, he nearly doubled over in agony. His muscles wrenched tightly in his abdomen, his heart pounded alarmingly, and his head felt it might split. In all his life, he had never permitted himself to spill inside a woman, refusing to have children. First because he'd not been ready, then because of what Adam had done to him.

But he'd laid his fears aside, and this time he let go. And at the precise moment he filled her, he felt a bond flare into life between the two of them, as if a channel had been cut between their souls, allowing a bit of her to seep into him, and a bit of him into her. It burned through his body, tunneling to the part of his mind that held magic. It was like a blinding white heat that roared inside him and exploded in a flash of heightened awareness.

It was the most incredible sensation he had ever experienced.

Suddenly he could feel her pleasure, could even sense that she felt grateful to him for helping her forget her pain and making her first time such an incredible experience.

Hmm, he thought, liking this new bond. He had exceeded her expectations for lovemaking. His gaze flew to hers and he saw that it had been the same for her. But she didn't know, because this was her first and only time of physical intimacy, that such an awareness of each other was not a normal result of lovemaking. Her eyes were huge and filled with wonder.

He didn't understand what had transpired in the creation of their strange bond, and he wondered what lasting effects it might have on her. He wondered if perhaps the immortality potion had changed him, so that if he spilled seed into a woman's body they became linked. There was much he did not understand about himself.

And then he wondered no more, but cradled her in his arms and felt at peace for the first time in centuries.

* * *

Afterward, Lisa lay with her cheek pressed to Circenn's chest, one of his strong arms curled around her waist, wondering at the God who had seen fit to take so much from her, yet give her this incredible man. She'd never known that lovemaking would make her so much more aware of his feelings. It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside her: A dazzling white heat filled her, and suddenly she was able to sense his emotions; even now he was worrying for her, wondering if he'd pleased her. It was a strange awareness, a pressure that he was near, surrounding her; she'd never before felt so linked to anyone, not even her mother, who'd carried her inside her body.