She arched again, shifting to curl her fingers into fists and press herself against him. This was what all those looks he’d given her meant. This was what he’d wanted of her. And so far, she liked it. She liked it very much.
He slid down still further, bunching up her skirt and sliding his palms up between her legs. When he dipped a single finger up inside her, she thought she might faint. Her heart beat so hard he could surely hear it, and she felt hot beneath her skin.
“Sit up, lass,” he muttered, taking her hands to pull her upright—which was a good thing, because she didn’t think she could have managed it on her own. Her grasping arms and legs didn’t even feel like they belonged to her any longer, but they seemed to know what to do without her even consciously having a thought about it.
He knelt in front of her, leaning in to kiss her again, and reached around to undo the ribbon at her waist and the single button at the back of her neck. Then he took the hem of her dress and her shift in his hands and lifted them off over her head.
With him stretching up in front of her, the bulge in the front of his kilt was unmistakable. She’d wanted to know what lay beneath there. Very conscious of his rough fingers roving across her skin, Marjorie tentatively reached a hand out to brush across the front of the plaid. He jumped, slowing his own exploration to watch hers.
Emboldened by his quick intake of breath and the half smile on his very capable mouth, she scooted a whisper closer and ran a hand from his bare knee up his thigh and beneath the kilt. Two round, velvety-soft… orbs, she supposed, and a hard, jutting rod that felt both warm and full beneath her fingers. And very, very large. Looking up at him, she found his amused, hungry gaze squarely on her. Still looking at her, he unfastened the pin at the bottom of his tartan, then unbuckled the waist and drew it off, dropping it to the floor.
And there she sat, with her fingers wrapped around his manhood. Before she could decide whether she felt more wanton than embarrassed, he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down onto the bed again. This time she could taste the hunger of his kiss as he plundered her mouth, the play of the muscles across his abdomen and his back as he settled his knees between hers.
Putting his hands back on her thighs, he slowly spread her legs wider, until his manhood brushed against her innermost place. She gasped again at the sensation, at how vulnerable and yet… safe she felt in his arms, when she really had no reason in the world to trust him. And yet trust him she did.
Lifting his head a little, resettling his arms on either side of her shoulders, he looked down at her as he canted his hips forward. She worked to meet his gaze, refusing to shut her eyes even at the thick, filling sensation of him sliding into her. When she felt resistance she knew he did as well, but with a whisper of something in Scots Gaelic he continued to press slowly deeper.
At an abrupt, sharp pain she cried out, and he caught the sound against his mouth before she could stifle it herself. “I’m sorry, Marjorie,” he breathed, holding himself still inside her. “It’ll pass in a moment, and I have it on good authority it’ll nae happen again.”
So that was how a physician could tell if a female had lost her virginity. She’d always wondered. She’d never expected the experience of doing so to be so intimate, somehow. “I’m fine,” she muttered after a moment. “What happens next?”
“‘Next’?” he repeated. “We’ve barely begun,mo boireann leòmhann.”
“What does that mean?”
His smile deepened. Without answering he moved again, entering her fully. She couldn’t help crying out again, but not from pain. The sensation of him moving inside her, filling her and retreating again, over and over—the mewling, wanton sounds coming from deep inside her barely sounded human, much less like something a proper female should ever make.
He rocked into her again and again, the bed creaking in time with his thrusts. Graeme kissed her, then bent to take a breast in his mouth, and all she could do was dig her fingers into his back as she drew tighter and tighter inside. With another muffled cry she shattered into a thousand bright, floating pieces, everything fading into darkness but the two of them, locked together and moving in rhythm.
His pace increased, and with a delicious, primitive groan that all by itself nearly sent her over the edge again, he shuddered against her, inside her. With a last thrust of his hips he lowered his head against her neck, and she lifted her hands to tangle them through his damp hair. Heaven. This was how heaven felt.
God above. He damned well hadn’t intended for that to happen this morning. But then she’d stomped into his bedchamber looking so… fiery, as if for once he could see through all the propriety in which she wrapped herself like a blanket. Or a shield, more like.
Graeme lifted his head to gaze down at her. “Do ye still think that was a mistake?” he asked, belatedly reflecting that he shouldn’t ask a question if he didn’t want to hear the answer.
She looked back up at him, her hair a dark, curling halo around her head, and her eyes a clear blue even in the firelight. “Yes, I still think that was a mistake,” she answered, running her fingers along his shoulder. “But I wouldn’t mind repeating it.”
For the life of him, he couldn’t figure her out, and that fascinated him. Her answer required a kiss, her soft lips molding against his and making his heart skip a beat or two. He didn’t want to move, wanted to stay inside her until his cock was up for another go. Not just because he still wanted her, but because once they dressed again all the troubles around him, most of them concerning her, would come rushing back in barking at his heels.
At eight-and-twenty and with three younger brothers and what equaled a small army of folk depending on him, he generally avoided complicated females—or any female after more than the night’s pleasure he was prepared to offer her.
If Samuel Johnson’sDictionaryhad a sketch next to the word “complicated,” though, it would be of Lady Marjorie Forrester. She was English, highborn, well educated, civilized, and the sister of the duke on whom his clan had all but declared war. And that didn’t even take into account the fact that he’d kidnapped her—and done what he was beginning to realize was the stupidest thing he might have attempted; he’d attempted to bully her into marrying him. This… was much better, even with no reward he could hold in his hands.
Before he became too heavy for her, he reluctantly removed himself and turned onto his side next to her. “I’ve a query,” he said after a moment, as he pulled the remaining pins from her hair and set them aside. Goose bumps lifted on her arms as he drew his fingers through the lemon-scented mass.
“About what?”
“Ye said yer neighbors didnae so much as bid ye good morning. Did ye mean they willnae, now that ye’d been kidnapped and deflowered by a strapping Highlander?”
She grinned, but shook her head. “I moved into Leeds House over three months ago, right after my brother inherited the property. As unnoticed as I was before, within two days everyone in London seemed to know that before I became Lady Marjorie I was Miss Forrester, a paid lady’s companion. And they were all horrified, as if they worried they might catch some commoners’ disease or something from me.”
Of all the things he’d thought to hear, that hadn’t been one of them. He didn’t know much about Gabriel Forrester other than the fact that he’d been serving on the Peninsula before he inherited Lattimer, and that some of the local soldiers who’d returned said he’d acquired the nickname the Beast of Bussaco. Likewise he’d just assumed the Forrester siblings had wealth and station before the brother had inherited the title from his uncle, or great-uncle, or whoever old Lattimer had been to them. He’d bloody well never thought that Ree hadn’t been born Lady Marjorie. She carried herself like a damned queen, and that was certain.
“Well?” she prompted, still watching him. “Are you horrified now, as well?”
“What? Nae. I’m just surprised. When I called ye yer grandness or yer highness ye didnae bite back at me.”
She shrugged, the motion doing some very pleasant things to her tits. “You’re the first man ever to think me grand, even if you did mean it as an insult.”
