Her eyes did not leave him. “More,” she said, and he stripped off his hose and loincloth and stood before her, bare of body and bare-souled.
Overwhelmed by the sight of her and needing her body against his, he crawled onto the bed and rolled over with her wrapped in his arms, pulling apart her clothing. First her gown, tugging it down over her buttocks and she kicked it off, then he grabbed the thin chemise with birds stitched carefully along the neck, and she stopped him.
“Do not tear it! Please. See the birds? Mairi stitched it for me. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever worn against my skin,” she said reverently.
He slipped it off her shoulders, one at a time, and down to her waist. Turning over, his hands spread open on her ribs, amazed that they were so small, then slowly his hands moved upward to take her breasts, thumbs stroking. She sucked in a breath, and he lowered his head, her hands splayed in his hair and held him to her, her breathing in small gasps.
They kissed each other in every way, mouths seeking and tasting, lips touching, tongues and hands, discovering new ways to give and take pleasure. Desire was a force beyond them and they rolled all over the bed and each other, absorbed beyond thought in the wild vortex of it, soft breast to hard-muscled chest, the tease of tight curly hair brushing against soft skin, a strong knee between her legs and they touched and found each other’s secret places, learning the textures and scents, the soft and hard places where sensation lived inside their bodies.
On his back, Lyall kissed her deeply and wrapped her long hair over them, and it cloaked them like the shadows of the night. And when he looked at her, her face was flushed with love and her eyes misty with passion. There were men who traveled leagues and whole lifetimes, across mountains and seas and hot desert sands, in search of miracles, and yet here he had found his. Glenna…his Glenna.
“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever had against my skin,” he told her.
“Lyall,” she said his name.
He gripped her soft buttocks and rolled over, settling inside her legs and he kissed his way down her body and back, tasting and pleasuring, her skin so soft he could lose himself in her. Drawing up her knees, he slowly sank into her and they became one heart.
“My love,” he murmured. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
She opened those black eyes of hers. He braced himself on his elbows and held her head in his hands. “You are almost mine. Almost.”
“Take me. Fill me.”
He thrust forward catching her sharp cry with his mouth, and he did not move, but waited. At that moment, so sweet, so pure, so deeply inside of her, he was someplace he had never been, almost like heaven.I could stay here forever.And he had no idea he’d spoken aloud until she laughed and smiled softly before she said, “I doubt we would get much done in our lives.”
He laughed then, dropping his brow to her chest. “Do you think we would care?”
“Nay,” she said. “Kiss me. I love your mouth over mine.”
“You and your kisses.”
“Aye, me and your kisses.”
At her wit, he smiled, this joy inside him a foreign thing, then as the moment passed into passion, into desire, and their looks melted into one another. “‘Tis the moment.” He grew serious. “I am going to make you mine completely.” Gently at first, he began to move. “I am going to swive you slowly, stroke inside you and thrust until you cry with joy, my love, and spill my seed deep into your womb.”
He moved with exquisite slowness, feeling each sensation, sliding into her as she grew hotter and he stroked faster, their breathing rapid and their bodies moving together, a timeless rhythm. She began to whimper and clutch, growing closer tocompletion, and he kissed her open-mouthed, his tongue mimicking his staff, again and again, and she cried out his name and clutched him with deep spasms. He came hard, spilling inside her, and he shouted his love for her, his voice like an echo in his own ears.
I love you, I love you, I love you…
Some part of him was dying and he arched his back, taking all of her deeply until it was done. As he lowered his head to the crook in her neck, he felt all that he doubted leave him, all that he hated disappear, and all of the past fly up and away and out of the present. His life, for what it was, had at that moment, begun again.
Glenna awoketo the odd silence of dawn and new twinges and small aches she had never felt, in places virgin before, proof what she’d experienced was not a dream. Sighing she slid a hand across the bed linen, but there was no hard muscled body beside her, so she sat up, the warm furs falling to her side. The heavy bed curtains were open to reveal his silhouette at the window.
He wore nothing but the pink light of dawn, and she could study him without scrutiny, his tall form and wide shoulders, his narrow waist and muscled buttocks, the sinew of strong leg that belonged to an experienced warrior, a man who could control a great and wild war horse with his thighs and knees, or use the same to pin her to the mattress and love her all night long.
There was a white scar along his hip. She knew that now. The secrets of his body were hers, the touch of his hand and lips, his skin, his scent and the sound of his voice when he said ‘I love you.’
He is thinking about us.
Tossing the covers aside, she left the bed and joined him, slipping an arm around his waist and he shifted so she wastucked safely against his side, her cheek touching the short curly hair on his chest and her hand resting on his strong, broad ribs.
“See that tree down by the bend in the river?” he said.
“Aye.”
“When I was young, that first summer here, I used it for target practice with a bow and arrows until the bark was all gone and the trunk was chipped.” He laughed softly. “I cannot believe it still stands. One good wind should have toppled it years ago.”
"A bow and arrows?"
