Highlander Mine (24 page)

“Poor Laird Mackenzie,” I replied softly, barely sardonic. The mysteries of his body, which he had not yet allowed me to explore, were within my grasp. I let my hands rove. To the wool of his kilt.

He kissed me.

As soon as his mouth touched mine, my lips parted. I licked his lips with inviting, tender supplication. He groaned. His tongue sank into my mouth, filling my entire being with want. I sucked on his tongue, gently greedy, desperate to take more of any part of his body into any part of mine.

“Amelia,” he gasped. His voice was rasped with lust and...not indecision, but turmoil over a decision already made. “The taste of you is more than I can take.”

“You can take it,” I whispered, kissing his perfect lips.

I wanted more from this towering monarch than I had ever before imagined, ruled entirely by the pull of his intention and the promise of his touch. I had never done anything like this before—except once, nearly, by the shores of his loch—but I knew exactly what to do. My instincts were suddenly highly attuned, understanding this connection, knowing entirely how to play my role. And I wouldn’t take nay for an answer this time. I had a feeling, too, that nay wouldn’t be the answer he would be giving. My breasts were close to his mouth and felt sensually full and appealing. I touched myself, playing with my nipples, pinching them. “Taste more of me,” I said. I offered myself to him, equal parts innocence and impulse. He took my breasts in his big, warm hands, plumping them to his mouth, taking a nipple in ravenous, lust-driven pulls. One, then the other. I moaned with the billowing sensation he inspired.

And it wasn’t enough. Each tug sent a flood of liquid feeling to my softening core that was profound and ripe and nearly unbearable.

My hands were on his impossibly solid thighs, wandering farther until I felt the miraculous hard, hot length of his manhood.
“Oh, holy God,”
I whispered, to which he made no response. He was silken and dusky and immense. I lifted his kilt away, entranced. I had no basis for comparison, but he was clearly laird of lairds in every possible measurement. I thought he might protest, but he was unusually acquiescent as I took him in my hands and caressed the long, rigid length of him, touching him tenderly with both hands, feathering my fingertips everywhere. This inquisitive, tactile exploration caused him to gasp in a low growl. A string of oaths, if I heard him correctly, that would have rivaled any in the backstreets or gaming halls. Both the sound and the sensation stoked my longing, bathing my body in a humid, wanting flush.

And we weren’t close enough.

We’d stepped across some invisible threshold of need. He was as frantic as I was. He lifted me and I willingly climbed onto him, straddling his hips as he slid farther back in the chair. His strength was brutal, his grasp almost painful, and this only fueled my lust. His hands were wrapped around my thighs. Gently yet forcefully, he pulled me closer, and closer, until the intimacy was almost too much to bear. My moist, delicate flesh touched him, rubbing along his length, wetting him with the slickness of my desire. The hot bulk of his shaft pressed against me, kneading the soft furls of my sex, pressing against the tiny nub, causing piercing shards of astounding pleasure to build and to hold. His thumb circled my dewy folds, centering. With the squeeze of his fingers, he pulled softly on that little erect bud, igniting a potent bloom that almost undid me.

Blind with need, I guided the broad tip of his cock to my snug, slippery entrance. He swore under his breath, the sound agonized. Wild and more uncontrolled than I’d ever seen him, he bucked upward, at the same time grasping my hips in his secure grip, thrusting into me, once, and again. I had expected pain but the brief pang was swathed in an aching sweetness. The tight constriction of my body hindered him, yet his insistent, thrusting drives forced his thick shaft deeper. He lifted me slightly, moving my hips in a careful swivel, allowing my arousal to moisten him, to ease his passage. My body began to open to his lusty invasion. As he sank deeper with each drive, the sensation built with feverish momentum. He said my name. Each thrust stoked the unfurling rapture, until I was fully impaled and riding a wave of pleasure that promised to rise and break at an astoundingly intense summit. Adjusting, I clenched my soft core invitingly around the huge length of him as I moved with him, arching my back and pivoting my hips to take him deeper. I was aware of nothing but the harmony and the rising pleasure of our joined bodies, the bliss overflowing with heartbreaking effect. The ecstasy began inside me where I gripped him, erupting into a million pinpoints of blind rapture. I lost myself, engulfed by a release so powerful that my body writhed with the overload. My inner muscles drew so forcefully around him that he groaned as if in pain. He was saying something but I could barely comprehend.
Wait. I can’t hold on.
But my body was too slippery, too overcome and too possessive. I was still riding, still pulling him deeply, again and again.
“Christ,”
he groaned, and his voice was rasped and euphoric: “God Almighty.” I thought he might be praying. I felt the flooding wetness, the violent pulse deep inside me. The silky beat of his climax rubbed sensually against a miraculous catalyst, causing another wash of spiraling waves that milked him softly until I had collapsed on top of him, wrapped naked around his big, hard, sweat-dampened body.

We sat that way for some time, rocked by the intensity of our passion. My head rested on his chest, and his arms were around me. I could hear his heart racing. After what might have been several minutes, the pace of his heart began to slow.

I could have felt remorseful for the brazen totality of our actions. In fact, I felt a million miles removed from remorse. What I felt was joy and a permeating peace. It was true that consequences of what I—what
we
—had just done could be far-reaching. Whatever ensued from this intense, beautiful bond would bring me more comfort than temperance and distance ever would: of this I felt certain. I was warm, and serenely elated, cocooned in a guarded haven far from the merciless city, wrapped in the arms of my peerless prince and still wetly connected to him. I didn’t want to move. I savored the lingering bliss, the recalcitrant pleasure that, even now, held on.

Knox held my head against his chest with his hand, caressing my hair. He held me that way for a minute or more, and it was the right kind of comfort. Our actions had been rash, to say the least, but there was no turning back. We were bound now, already and tightly; it was the way of it. We allowed that truth to settle into our minds as it had done so eagerly into our bodies.

It was the most perfect, complete happiness I had ever known.

“Amelia?” he said.

“Aye.”

“Are you all right, lass?”

“Aye,” I replied, and it was true. There was something so
right
about this tempestuous link that I could only wonder at the beauty of the moment and how good it had felt, how good it
still
felt, with his body wedged inside mine, his strong arms secure around me. My body felt more sated and more alive than it had ever been, but already I could feel my spirit disengaging. I knew I had to leave him. I looked into his unusual, sparking, black-rimmed eyes. “Knox.”

“Aye, lass.”

“I want to tell you something.”

He waited and I cupped his jaw in my hands, tracing the lines of his cheekbones, feathering down to his mouth and his chin. In another time and place I might have held back; I might have kept my emotions to myself, to be confessed at a later time, when this bond was better forged, safer, without risk. I might have waited until I was absolutely certain that the sentiment was mutual, to save face or to spare myself from heartache if his attraction was merely physical, and limited. Such a time would very likely never come. I wanted to say it, and to leave this piece of myself behind.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I felt it when I saw you that very first time. I knew I wanted you even then. Even if I couldn’t have you. I’ve loved everything about you from that first moment I saw you in the apple orchard. You were framed with sunlight. And you were the most perfect vision I had ever seen.” I touched his hair. “I love your hair. And your eyes. I love how decent you are, and kind. You make me feel safe.” I kissed his lips. “I love your mouth. Your face. Your hands. I treasure every moment I’ve spent in your company. You have touched my heart. I would like a thousand more nights with you, just like this.”

There was an unmistakable anguish in his eyes. He started to open his mouth and I put my fingers across his lips to silence him.

I wanted him to remember these words and be reassured by them, in whatever way they might reassure, after I was gone, but I didn’t want him to feel obliged to return the sentiment, when there was no need to do so. “I will cherish this night as long as I live,” I said. “I feel you inside me, inside the very heart of me, and this is how I’ll remember you forevermore.”

Holding his face in my hands, I kissed him. His closed eyes, his mouth. I nipped at his lips, parting them to my supple appreciation. I touched the tip of my tongue to his.

I could feel him hardening again, growing inside me. There was a quiet ferocity in him that was freer, and looser, than I had yet witnessed. The barrier of his restraint was gone, and his lust was tempered by vast hidden oceans of emotion. His manhood had revived. Sitting astride him as I was, he felt immense, rearing deep into my body. The liquid of his release made my own tightness slippery. The sensation, of his thick possession eased and entranced by the silky embrace, was riveting, vivid with beauty. I tilted my hips against him, working him, squeezing, drawing him deeper and then retreating in an undulating enticement. Each time I drew toward him, taking him, he lunged with subtle, perceptive force. Without disengaging or breaking this rhythm, he picked me up as though I weighed no more than a feather. I was reminded again of his brute strength, his height, his utter splendor. I wrapped my legs around his hips and he carried me to the large couch. He lay on top of me, thrusting deeply into me, where he held me as he gazed into my eyes. The beginnings of the succulent tremors teased me. The welcoming constriction of my tight, wet core gripped him mercilessly. I could have summoned the ecstatic spasms with only the slightest movement. I sensed his own precipice was equally tantalizing. Yet we lay motionless save the sweet, cadenced clasp of my intimate invitation.

I might have preferred, if I’d thought about this beforehand, that he not return my immoderate endearments. I don’t know why I almost flinched at his reply, even as he thrust again and so exquisitely that my innermost muscles began a sensual, gripping dance that threw me into irrepressible throes of euphoria. I would have silenced him, but I was too overcome. Even as my body sang with the worship of his skewering aggression, my soul shrank back from his words.

“Amelia,”
he groaned as his shaft leaped inside me, gushing out its warm life in surging bursts. His litany spewed out along with his pleasure, spooling and uncontrolled. “I cannot sleep without dreaming of your hair and your womanly body and your soft, willful mouth. You are milk and honey and innocence and lust. You are agony and pure, pure ecstasy. So sweet, so sweet, I want you.
I love you.
”

So Knox Mackenzie
was
a romantic, not only virile beyond comparison but highly eloquent at that. Damn him. And
I
was a lost cause. So in love my heart felt heavy and constrained by its physical inadequacy, as though it was but a small earthly vessel that couldn’t contain the heavenly potency of what had just taken place.

I have to leave him.

It couldn’t be. This—us—
we
couldn’t
be. We couldn’t be star-crossed lovers or destined soul mates. We were strangers, temporary acquaintances, two ships that pass in a star-studded night:
that
was our destiny.

Not
this.

Not this complete, symmetrical perfection of body and soul.

My mind grappled with the unexpected as my joyful sex continued to flutter tightly around his softening manhood in beatific, luscious ripples.

I existed wholly in this moment. Tomorrow’s landscape would be vastly different from tonight’s. But I was here now. This nirvana was mine.

We whispered the words again and again. We couldn’t get close enough. We kissed endlessly, wrapped tightly around each other, connected in every way it was possible to be.

And it was this way we remained until long into the night. Each of us was reluctant to disengage. We were each mesmerized by the eyes and face and mouth of the other, the textures and the warmth. In time and at the encouragement of my intimate caresses, he rose again. He spilled his seed inside me several more times. After his first release, which could have been considered a mistake or an act of desperation, it hardly seemed to matter if the abandon was compounded or prolonged; this abandon was simply too sweet to refuse. He made no move to retreat and I didn’t ask him to. Instead, our bodies remained moistly locked in greedy harmony until, much later, we drifted into an enchanted sleep.

I awoke to the light of early morning. A single candle burned low, flickering out.

I was curled up next to Knox’s big, warm body. He had draped a fur over us. Under it, I was entirely naked. And so was he. Knox was still asleep, his face peaceful, his black hair in wild disarray.

Very carefully, I climbed over his sleeping form, taking care not to wake him. I was sore, my thighs stained by traces of my virginal blood. A trickle of milky liquid seeped from my body as I stood, reminding me of the magnitude of all that had taken place during the dreamlike night. My virtue had been not only compromised but practically obliterated by Knox Mackenzie’s thorough possession, and his seed even now warmed me from within.

I regretted nothing, but I felt different. I was changed, not just in a physical sense but a spiritual one. Emotionally, I knew I had been profoundly altered by Knox Mackenzie’s lovemaking in all its spectacular fervor, but on this I did not dwell. An unfamiliar tightness in my chest accompanied that thought process, and for this reason I chose to avoid it altogether. I had known how this relationship would play out. It had begun as a finite phenomenon, and so it would remain.