She could not breathe. Or speak. Or do anything but feel the wonderful sensations that raced into the very center of her. When she shifted her hips to bring his hand to that heated flesh, he chuckled in that throaty, hoarse voice.
“Ah, so now ye are ready?” he asked. “No more questions?”
“None that I can think on,” she admitted.
He pressed her shoulder and rolled their bodies. Ailis found herself on her back once more. But he remained at her side and she understood why. He could touch her now.
He did touch her.
Everywhere. Her breasts. Her neck. Her legs. The sensitive place behind her knees. The curls that both hid and led to the part of her that ached and throbbed for him.
Her body was a mess of need and want. He teased her until she panted and was ready to beg him to finish this torment. His hand pushed between her legs and welcomed his touch. She moaned when he reached the throbbing flesh and rubbed it. Faster, harder and deeper, his fingers worked some enchantment on her until she fell apart. Something she had not felt in so long coiled within her, tighter and tighter, until it broke free and she cried out in the pleasure of it.
Iain didn’t wait for the wave of release to ebb before he entered her. He shifted onto his knees, moved between her legs and placed himself at the sensitive entry to her woman’s core.
One thrust and she was his.
She clutched at his shoulders as he eased her knees up to his hips. He canted his and then plunged deeper. Her body took every inch of his flesh and swelled around his cock. He leaned his head down into the pool of her hair next to her neck and kissed and suckled her there as he moved deeper with every thrust.
She gasped every time and began to move in rhythm with him. His body’s need to take hers overwhelmed whatever control he thought he had and he became relentless. Something lay just outside his grasp. Some truth, some realization, teased him even as he plundered the tightness of her channel. Her sighs, the way she moved and the way her hands clutched at his arse spurred him on until he could feel his own release growing closer.
“Iain!” she cried out as she climaxed a second time.
Tiny spasms surrounded his male flesh as she arched against him. His cock hardened, lengthened and thickened within her and his sac clenched until his seed pushed forth. He barely withdrew in time and even that was a near thing. He wanted to fill her with his seed even as he pushed beneath her and allowed its release under her buttocks.
He lay on her, sweat making their skin slick. The heather and honey scent of her hair surrounded him and he didn’t want to let her go.
Not now. Not ever.
He must have fallen asleep, satiated and replete. One minute he was in the pitch dark of a bedchamber and the next, he lay on a plaid spread out in a sundrenched field.
“For you, my love,” he said, holding out a bunch of just-picked wildflowers.
Sitting up, he looked down on her naked body, covered only by the length of her hair. He began to place the blossoms on her, several across her breasts, another few over the lush blonde curls at the junction of her thighs. Then he knelt over her and decorated her hair with the rest.
She laughed and pushed him back, climbing on him, spreading her legs over his hips and seating herself on his erect flesh. As she took him deep within her body, he arched his hips and thrust deeper. When she leaned forward, her hair fell in waves over him, the scent of the flowers mixing with those of honey and heather around him.
“All the days of our lives,” she whispered as he poured his seed into her. “All the days of our lives.”
Iain jolted awake, knowing he’d been dreaming. The feel of Ailis’ soft body next to his soothed him. But the dreams felt even more real now that they had joined in passion. The feel of his flesh in hers, the scent of her hair and the taste of her skin felt more like memories than phantom visions of a disturbed mind.
No matter these visions or dreams. No matter how much he wanted to keep the woman who had given him a respite from the storm surrounding him and given him of herself. None of that mattered for, on the morrow, he would leave and she would live the life she was destined to live.
She mumbled, clearly words of love, though he couldn’t make out the individual words. Though he would like to have seen her face when she’d reached satisfaction, he couldn’t chance it. This was the way it had to be. He’d arrived a stranger and had been given a special gift by this lady.
She nestled closer to him, turning on her side and drawing him behind her. It took little time for his body, long-deprived of this kind of intimacy, to respond to her soft curves and enticing shape. When she eased her bottom back against his now-erect prick and whispered his name, he couldn’t resist the warm invitation.
This time, their joining was slow and gentle, more sighs than moans, more caresses than thrusts. But the release they both found shattered him. And the soft words about her lost love and his lost life that they exchanged in the darkest hours of the night both surprised and soothed him.
The bitter, angry young woman he’d discovered just days ago seemed more at peace now. ‘Twas as if she had taken a step out of her personal darkness and was ready to move into living once more, even as he would move on and try to discover his past.
His resolve to leave before the dawn weakened until the last moment when the sun began to rise. Iain eased away from Ailis and found his garments on the chair where he’d placed them. It took little time to covered himself and place the mask into position over his face.
Dawn’s light was pushing its way through the opening between the shutters when he carefully covered Ailis and walked to the door. After slowly lifting the bar and opening the door a scant inch or two, he turned back to take one last look at her. One to last him the rest of his days.
The light from the torch on the wall illuminated her for a moment before he pulled the door closed. Tugging his hood closer to his face, Iain turned down the corridor and led the guard away from the bedchamber where the chieftain’s daughter yet slumbered.
He broke his fast in silence in the hall with the others who began their tasks and duties at sunrise. Once finished, he was surprised when he was given a sack of food and a skin of ale for his journey by one of the servants. The laird’s orders, the girl said. She told him to seek out the stable master before leaving Dun Ara, again at The MacKinnon’s order.
Another surprise awaited him there, for the chieftain gave him a horse to use on the rest of his journey. Iain laughed as he realized the reason behind these gestures. Finnan MacKinnon was rewarding him for his cooperation and his use in bringing the laird’s daughter to heel. Though he would like to stand on some principles and refuse, he knew only the wealthy or the foolish would reject such gifts.
By the time the sun broke through the morning’s fog and rose above the mountains to the south and east, Iain was on his way out of the gates of Dun Ara. He would never know what caught his eye, but as he approached the end of the cluster of cottages and buildings that made up the village, he saw a woman making her way along the road.
Dressed as every other goodwife here and carrying the usual basket in hand, Iain couldn’t figure out why he watched her. At least not until a long, blonde curl fell out from her kerchief over her shoulder. She handed off the basket and accepted the help of the blacksmith to climb upon a horse hidden behind his smithy. Iain wondered why Ailis MacKinnon was hiding her identity.
And why she was sneaking out of Dun Ara?
