He could have gone on like this forever, yet did not object when her hands found the silk sash at his waist, fumbled at it. Her face was flushed, her expression one of intense urgency.
In a lazy, leisurely way he leaned back from her, bracing his hands behind him, amazed at his own self-control. It seemed possible that he’d never been quite so racked with lust, but here he was, not even assisting her one tiny bit to speed things along.
“Your hands are trembling,” he remarked.
“Help me, you awful man,” she hissed.
He smiled. “If you insist.” He lay back onto the soft carpet, Fiona shifting to straddle his thighs. He undid the knot she had created in his sash, but did not open the robe, only folded his crossed arms behind his head. “There.”
Fiona sat back a little, breathing deeply, and said, politely, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, just as courteously, then commented, “You’ve stopped trembling.”
“For now.”
There was a pause. Alasdair wondered what was going to happen next. He hoped his body wouldn’t disintegrate into a million little pieces of unfulfilled desire. He gazed up at Fiona, slim and strong and naked and with her magnificent hair all about her.
“You look like Belisama, lass.” The mystical goddess of light and fire.
“That’s a lovely thing to say.”
“I mean it. You’re beautiful.”
“When you say it like that, I almost believe you.”
“Believe it.”
“I’ll try. Alasdair.”
“Yes, Fiona?”
“I wish our wedding night had been like this.”
“So do I. I’m sorry I was such an ass.”
She smiled a little, and he admired again the lovely curves of her rose-pink lips, although he did wish they weren’t so far away from his own mouth.
“Better late than never,” she said.
“True.”
“Will it always be like this?”
“Like how?”
“Magical.”
“No.”
Her dark brows went up. “No?”
“It will be better,” he told her.
“That seems impossible.”
“Trust me.”
“I will.”
“Fiona,” he said.
“Yes?”
“There’s a very real chance I’ll die unless I have you very soon.”
“We wouldn’t want that to happen.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.”
Still she didn’t move. “Alasdair.”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember what you asked me to do on our wedding night?”
“Aye, to my shame. Must you remind me again of my boorishness?”
“I only brought it up because—well, I want to do it.”
He really was dreaming, Alasdair thought, in a kind of wonderful agony. “Fine.”
“Is it all right for a wife to do that?”
“Yes.”
“And you would like it too?”
“Yes.” He lay at his ease—or with as much appearance of it as a man could in his situation, with a blatantly erect shaft, poorly concealed by a panel of silk, and his naked wife only inches from it—and waited for her to make the next move, for still that deep instinct of his told him to do so. He wondered if she would slide open the panels of his robe with a certain tentativeness, but instead she whipped them aside. And then, in a heartbeat, she was upon him, he was within her, they were joined completely and it was, in fact, magical.
Fiona could not have said how long it was after they had made love, after they had both reached their peaks, first her, then Alasdair, that she lay next to him on the carpet in her dressing-room, still rather breathless. She had cried out, had lifted her voice in joyful abandon, and oh, how wonderful it felt to do that.
Now her head rested comfortably on the perfect hollow between the base of his neck and his collarbone. One of her legs was draped across his; one of her arms lay across his broad chest. Her hair was everywhere. Tomorrow it would take her a long time to smooth out the snarls and tangles. But why consider tomorrow when the present moment was so delightful?
She said to Alasdair:
“Thank you.”
One big hand had been stroking her arm, but it stopped. “Don’t be daft, lass.”
“Why am I daft?”
“If anyone’s to be doing the thanking, it should be me.”
“Really? Why?”
“Do you need to ask?”
Fiona smiled. His pleasure had been as exciting, as satisfying, as her own. She reached out and ran a teasing finger along those sensual lines near his mouth, then down the firm hardness of his chin. Now that was a chin for you. Manly, handsome, neither too protuberant nor receding.