“Oh my God. Oh my God.” The breathless invocation couldn’t be stopped any more than the tremors besetting her could. She’d imagined, she’d fantasized. None of it had come close to the reality of the euphoria Connor had brought upon her. Oh, she’d known there had to be something gratifying about this to make it worth the fuss, even so she’d never dreamed…
“Ye’re magnificent, my bonny lass,” Connor whispered in her ear and scooted her limp body to the middle of the bed. Coming over her, he pressed hot kisses to her belly, the bottom of her ribs. Each touch like a brand on her sensitive flesh. She jumped, flinched, although when his hand curved around her breast, she couldn’t help but sink back with a sigh.
There was more?
Bracing himself on his other hand, he held his weight off of her, bending his head to treat her nipple to the same bliss that other part of her had enjoyed. Her hands glided over his shoulders, the prickly wool still covering them, and she frowned.
“I want to touch you.”
Rocking back until he sat on his heels, Connor stared down at her. Eyes blazing, hair mussed. He’d never looked more handsome. After a brief hesitation, he stripped off his jacket. Practically popping the buttons of his shirt before he flung it to the side. Eager to help, Piper reached for the buttons of his trousers, however, he stayed her hands and guided them to his chest.
He was as smooth and solid as he’d been in her fantasies. As hot, too. She stroked his chest, then slid her eager hands down his sides to his hips. Across the dip and rise of the muscles rippling his abdomen. Up to his shoulders, where those muscles coiled and bunched, and down his arms with the prickle of fine hairs tickling at her palms. Drawing herself up, she tasted him, damp, and salty, her lips grazing his flat nipple much as his had hers. Another moan shook his chest and she followed it up to the base of his neck, sucking lightly.
Connor caught her hands and descended over her, pinning her arms above her head. His lips swallowed her protest, kissing her with fervent insistence that renewed that dizziness. As did the erotic glide of chest against chest, flesh against flesh. This time it was her moan that shook them both.
His arms shook. She wrapped hers around his shoulders, realizing that his entire body was quaking much as hers had before he’d driven her to the edge of oblivion.
Hadn’t he…?
Remembering what he’d said about having her legs wrapped around him, Piper did just that. The effort made room for him to settle deeper between her thighs. The turgid bulge of his trousers nestled tightly against her and an animalistic groan resonated through him. He buried his face in the crook of her neck and tried to pull back. She locked her legs at the ankle to keep him there. Bring him down to her. With a growl, he rocked his hips against her, spurring a rapacious thrill in her and she knew there was much more, indeed.
Something fine and good. Glory and light. There need never again be darkness.
She reached for the buttons on his trousers and he stalled her effort. “I’m nae done wi’ ye yet, lass.”
There was fierce desire in his eyes and obstinacy, too. Let him have his way. She’d have hers soon enough.
What followed revealed another level of sensuality. Of carnality. There was not an inch of her body neglected by his touch, his kiss. He worshipped her from head to toe. Rousing, then soothing. Fondling, then stroking. Stoking fires and banking them. Enchanting and frustrating. It wasn’t until she begged for mercy that his talented fingers returned to her molten core, taunting and thrusting until that moment of exaltation caught her in its grasp. The pinnacle of rapture awaited once more.
Chapter 18
For the first time in a long time, I feel as if all is right in the world. My future isn’t merely an expanse of days extended before me any longer. It is bright.
~ from the diary of Piper Brudenall, September 1895
Connor held Piper in his arms, her well-sated body draped over his chest. Would that he were as replete. The ache of unfulfilled lust gnawed at him. His rampant member throbbed insistently with the need to be buried deep within her willing body.
He’d not allow himself that satisfaction but could take some measure of gratification in the ecstatic sighs of pleasure and cries he’d drawn from her. It would have to be enough.
Slipping out of the bed, he left undeniable temptation sleeping soundly and walked out into the parlor. An oil lamp on the table next to the settee still burned low, casting its light upon the neglected tea tray. Another unslaked hunger reared its head, and he took one of the quartet of scones arranged next to the teapot.
Sweet and tart, just like his bonny lass.
He ate the rest of them before going to the kitchen in search of more. A nearly full plate of them on a wooden worktable was his reward, along with a leftover wedge of meat pie topped with a thick, flaky crust. Finding a fork, he dug into it. Though cold, it was delicious. Tender bits of steak and a hint of dark ale and onion. His lass did know how to cook.
With undue relish, he leaned his hips back against the table and devoured it straight from the dish with all the appetite he would have liked to have given to making love to Piper.
He wouldn’t take her. Couldn’t. She was an innocent. Perhaps not as innocent as before, though officially chaste and he vowed to keep it that way no matter how it pained him.
The remainder of her virtue would be her husband’s to take. The pain in his groin journeyed upward to clench at his heart. The thought of her belonging to another someday—nay, any day—brought a pang of jealousy with it.
Nearly choking on his final bite of pie, he set the pan aside and rifled through the kitchen until he found a half empty bottle of red wine. Ale would have been better, whisky best. He’d take what he could get to drown his woes.
How could he see her off to the hands of another when it was his hands eager to hold her lush breasts again? When he wanted nothing more than to worship and adore her? Over and over, for the rest of his days?
He shook his head and drank straight from the bottle, too flustered to hunt for a glass. The rest of his days? Bugger it, it was nothing more than thwarted lust that roused such thoughts. If he were to have her, quench his thirst for her, such an idea would seem as ridiculous in thought as it was in truth.
Even as the notion came to mind, he swept it away.
