She obeyed, resting back on the pillows and smiling nervously up at him. He kissed her once more, with a gentleness that made her long for more.
“Are you going to tie up my wrists again?” she enquired, which seemed like a clumsy and open way to discuss such an intimate thing. He lifted her hand, turning it over, and kissed the soft underside of her wrist.
“Nae this time. But I’m sure we can try again soon, eh? What do ye think?”
“I think I should like that.”
He nodded and pulled back so that he was kneeling over her. With a smooth, careless movement, he tugged off his shirt, revealing warm, rounded muscle beneath. Swallowing hard, Melody reached up, gingerly touching his warm skin.
She let her fingers drag, sliding over the ripple of his abdominals, all the way back up to the curve of his chest. She hesitated over the ridged wound over his heart. It was almost exactly the same as the cruel sketch she’d discovered in the pamphlet.
Leaning forward, Callum pushed up her skirts, letting them crumple around her waist. One hand slid up her leg, his fingers ghosting against the join of her legs.
She closed her eyes, letting the almost-familiar sensation build. Callum seemed in no rush to hurry it along. When he slipped one finger in between her slick folds, she drew in a sharp exhale. It did not hurt, far from it, but the sensation felt odd, and a little strange. She was just getting used to it, and just beginning to want a little more—if more could be had—when he withdrew his hand altogether.
Melody opened her eyes, lifting her head.
“What is it?” she asked, hearing a rasp in her own voice. “Did I do something wrong? Should I do something else?”
“Nothin’ wrong, ye are perfect,” he soothed, leaning forward and kissing her once more. It was a quick, almost disinterested kiss, as if he had his mind fixed on something else. Melody thought she sensed a fuzz of excitement about him now, and it was thoroughly contagious. “But now we are about to make a rather fun mistake together.”
He untied his belt and unbuttoned a strip underneath it, which let his kilt fall open altogether. Melody gulped, staring at what he carried between his legs.
“Oh. That’s large.”
Callum shrugged, grunting. “If ye wish to stop, lass…”
“I don’t,” she answered instantly, then blushed at her own eagerness. “I don’t wish to stop.”
He grinned, and in the gloom of the carriage, looking more wolfish than ever. Far from worrying, Melody, however, it only made her heart beat faster.
If he’s a wolf-man, then he’s mine, and mine alone.
Gently taking her wrists, Callum pressed them into the cushion beside her head. He kissed her, more roughly this time, and leaned down to kiss her neck. This time, she felt a faint scratch of teeth against her skin, just thetiniestpressure. It was not enough to bruise, or really to leave anything beyond a faint reddish mark, but it sent cartwheels of fire through her veins. She exhaled, closing her eyes.
His hand slipped between her legs again, the backs of his knuckles ghosting across the thigh in a quick, soft caress. He pushed into her, slowly and carefully. Like the pressure of his finger, the sensation took a moment to become comfortable, but once it did, Melody gradually became aware of the same pleasure as before, tentatively.
“To think that I ever let ye leave me,” Callum breathed. He began to move, carefully at first, then faster. The thrillingly obscene slap of flesh on flesh filled the small space. The carriage had at some point broken into a respectable pace, the rattling and rocking motion seeming to push them together. He releasedher wrists, quite without warning, and Melody wound her arms around his shoulders, tangling her fingers into his hair.
Her climax arrived in a breathless, heady rush. She cried out, pulling him against her. Callum growled, a low and rattling sound deep in his chest, and pushed her deeper into the cushions than ever. There was warmth, a sort ofrush, and before she knew it, he was pulling back, breathless.
Melody was sure she’d used up every fraction of her strength. She was obliged to let him go, her arms flopping back down to her side.
“Are ye well, love?” Callum breathed, leaning forward to smooth back the hair from her forehead. When had her hair come down? It was pinned demurely up at the beginning of the ball, and now Melody could feel it tickling at her temples and around her neck.
“Oh, yes,” she giggled giddily. It was like being drunk. Her body throbbed with a kind of pleasurable soreness that wasquiteunlike anything she had felt before. “Better thanwell, I’d say.”
“I cannae recall if I told ye,” he chuckled, bracing himself above her on his elbows. “But I love ye.”
“You did tell me, but I like to hear it again. Because I love you too, Callum.”
She let her hand trail over his chest once more. Her fingers grazed the wound there, and she went to snatch them away, afraid that she had gone too far.
But he put her hand over her own and held it there. She smiled and reached up to touch his cheek.
He smiled softly down at her. “Now, lass, it’s a long trip from London to Keep MacDean. How will we occupy ourselves?”
She beamed. “I have an idea…”
