The Laird Takes a Bride(72)

It was easy to imagine that despite their prosaic surroundings, he, they, had been transported to some kind of mystical paradise.

Here they were, here was Fiona, naked as the day she’d been born. With her hair streaming about her like a shimmering silvery-blonde cloak, here was his Eve, he was her Adam, and he had just tasted of the Fruit of Knowledge: the sweet musky taste of her still lingered, but he hadn’t had enough and he wanted nothing more than—why, he wanted more of her.

As he had come to her closed dressing-room door, he’d been confident that their marital relations—sex—could be improved, but never in a million years would he have guessed this would happen. That the nice little flame he’d expected had instead exploded into a roaring conflagration of desire: a bonfire of absolute, devouring, splendid lust that took them both, remaking them anew. Had he really once thought her too thin, unappealing? Christ, but he’d been blind. She was magnificent. And with that same ravenous longing he wanted to run his hands along the long slim line of her torso, devour her beautifully rounded little breasts, and more, so much more, but she had said firmly to him:

Kiss me again.

Who was he to disobey?

Especially with that pretty mouth, the color of pink spring roses, so temptingly close, revealing between parted lips a glimpse of white straight teeth. Maybe she wanted to devour him too. Alasdair knew a strong impulse to ravage her mouth with his own, but instead, acting on a kind of deep instinct, he remained still, meeting her eyes with his own, and didn’t even pull her against him.

“You,” he said, quietly, calmly, affably, “kiss me.”

He could feel her react. The indrawn breath, her fingers tightening against his face.

“Do you want me to?” she asked.

“My God, yes.”

She seemed to be satisfied then. She smiled slightly. Leaned closer, and closer still, until there was only the merest hairsbreadth between their mouths. A kiss without a kiss. How could such a thing be so erotic? But it was: he was hard now, ragingly hard, she had to know it and feel it, his shaft beneath his robe pressed insistently between her legs as she sat with wonderful abandon on him, the silken barrier between them damp with the wetness of her desire, her readiness. Hurry, hurry, clamored his body, but with a supreme effort of will, guided by instinct, he did not hurry. Instead, he waited. His breath came faster and his own lips parted; expectancy surged through him like a storm.

But he waited.

She did not kiss him, though their mouths were so close and he could feel the warmth of her breath like a siren’s song. No, she slid her fingers down along the column of his throat, to the muscles of his shoulders, slid caressingly around his biceps, and then up again, to travel across his chest, lingering, dipping into the hollows of his collarbone and trailing down his chest.

He couldn’t prevent himself from groaning a little.

“You’re torturing me, lass.”

“Am I?” She didn’t sound at all sorry. She sounded rather pleased. And she shifted herself upon his lap a little, in a very purposeful, very cruel way.

He groaned again.

“You,” he said, “are not a nice person.”

“No,” she agreed, in a pleased voice. “I’m really not, am I?”

But she did touch her lips to his, just a little, a whisper-light touch, and Alasdair broke out in a sweat.

“More?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“Very well.” She tilted her head, kissed his upper lip, licked it. Pleasure shot through him, keen and exquisite.

“Again?” she asked.

“Aye.”

She licked his lip again, boldly now, then brought her lips more fully upon his, and when she gave a long, soft, satisfied sort of sigh, he judged the time was right, and he deepened the kiss, touched his tongue to hers, explored her, tasted her, but with a slow approach, without haste, sensitive to her response, and savoring—relishing—experiencing every second of it. Yielding, returning, she was all wetness and heat here, too; Alasdair groaned again, a raw, rough sound which seemed to give her considerable enjoyment, for she gave a little purring noise, broke the kiss, and pressed herself against him, whispering against his ear, “You do like this, don’t you?”

“You know I do.”

“Good.” She bit his earlobe, just sharply enough to make him twitch with surprise and excitement.

“No, you’re not a nice person at all,” growled Alasdair, and took his revenge at once by wrapping his hands around her shoulders, creating a distance between them, and taking one pink, hard tip of her sweet little breast into his mouth, suckling at her and enjoying very much the spasmodic way she twitched. Two could play at that game, after all. After a while he went to her other breast, glorying in the way she clutched at him, murmured feverishly, “Oh, Alasdair, oh my God . . .”