The Laird Takes a Bride(86)

She put her hand on the doorknob, reassuring in its solidity. Turned the knob. Slipped into their bedchamber. Oh, God, what if he wasn’t even there?

He was, he was. The candles were extinguished—or had burned down—but the heavy draperies had been left open to admit wan, spectral moonlight, and she could make out his big long form in the bed.

Fiona waited for her heart to slow its rapid beat, but it seemed she might have to wait forever for it to do that: a frantic need had her in its grip and her heart, her body, knew it. She had to span the divide between them, she had to turn back the clock and restore what they’d had, only a day before. She took five, six paces into the room. And in a strange reversal, into the dimness she said:

“Are you awake?”

There was a pause.

“Aye,” he answered, without inflection. Even so, that one word was enough. In an instant she was at the bed—and ripping back the covers—and on the bed, on him. He was on his back and with unhesitating boldness she straddled him, groin to groin, her elegant, delicate gown of celestial blue crêpe puddling in disarray around her thighs.

Was it genuine desire that was driving her? Or something else (pure desperation, for example) that made her behave like an animal leaping upon its prey? Not for the world would Fiona pause to try and figure it out. It was time for action, not words, or so she told herself, and so she grabbed Alasdair’s wrists, shoved them up and back on either side of his head as if restraining unwilling arms; leaned down and pressed her breasts onto his bare hard chest, and urgently found his mouth with her own. She kissed him roughly, wildly, all moistness and heat and sinuous urgency.

For a few moments—possibly the longest, most terrible interlude in her whole entire life—his only response was absolute stillness. Cold, cold despair threatened to rise up within her and defiantly Fiona tightened her fingers around Alasdair’s wrists and ground her hips against his.

Then:

His tongue met her own, demandingly; his shaft, now rapidly hardening beneath her. From Fiona’s throat rose a guttural noise of satisfaction and with a provocative twist of her head she withdrew from their kiss, only to slide her tongue, wet, knowing, along the underside of his jaw, to the hard column of his throat to where the skin was tender. And without warning, but with provocative deliberation, she bit him—just hard enough to leave her mark upon him.

Alasdair jerked, and softly she laughed. Laughed when with ridiculous ease he broke her hold upon his wrists, brought his hands to her shoulders, pushed her upright and slid his hands down to play upon her breasts, still hidden within the soft silken bodice of her gown.

But her laughter was silenced as Alasdair’s clever fingers, his strong body beneath hers, evoked unspoken answer from her own body, and Fiona heard herself begin to pant, felt a molten energy begin to ignite within her. Lust. Glorious all-consuming lust. She lifted her hands to cover his, pressed fiercely upon them as if to urge him on. He laughed then, pulled down upon the fabric of her bodice, and when it resisted, with a casual purposefulness he simply tore it apart, baring her breasts to him.

Fiona registered first the sound of the crêpe ripping and gasped, a giddy half-shocked excitement rippling through her; next she felt the sudden sensation of cool air upon her exposed chest, and then Alasdair was sitting up, arms wrapped around her, his mouth suckling at her so insistently, so hungrily and hotly, that she began pulling at her skirts, wrenching them up and out of the way, until she found his hardness, until she was upon him, until she joined them together, and they were one, together, moving in the most primal dance of all, and all at once she knew.

He was the center of everything.

He was home to her, everything that was familiar and real and solid.

And wonderful.

And true.

The past had been swept away; she had opened up her heart again, she had changed. And change had made her free.

The words tumbled out of her in a breathless rush.

“Oh, Alasdair, oh, Alasdair, I’m so sorry for what I said, please forgive me,” and then the naked vulnerable truth, “I love you, I love you so much, I—”

He didn’t stop, but kissed her, his mouth slanted hard on hers as they moved together, and she thought she might go mad with pleasure, but even as she kissed him back she felt the cool machinery of her mind stir to life. She tried to push aside the unwelcome intrusion, to drift away on the powerful tide of passion, but her brain wouldn’t be denied. It pointed out, in a horrible, dry, rational way:

You told him you loved him. Then what happened?

Be quiet, you. Go away. This feels too good. We’re back where we were last night, everything is all right again. Oh God, this feels so good.