But she hardly had time to take him in before she felt the pressure of him at her entrance for the first time. She gasped, her back arching from the bed, her hands tightening on his shoulders, and he stilled himself there, though she could tell it took every bit of restraint within him to do so. His breath was ragged and his eyes were dark as he gazed at her, silently waiting for her word before he took her.
Though she could barely manage to speak, she kissed him again, a silent promise that everything he wanted to give her, she could take. With that, he moved towards her, and, for the first time, began to ease himself inside of her.
It did not feel much as she had imagined it would. No, it felt far better than that. The strength of him, the fullness, it was almost more than she could take, but in the most delicious, satisfying way, like a need she hadn’t even known she had, but now, she was sated at last.
His arms slipped around her, pulling her in close and tight, and she felt her breath stutter in her throat as their bodies came together fully, his hips flush against hers, taking her completely, filling her to the very brink. She gasped against his shoulder, inhaling the deliciously masculine scent of him, letting it wash through her and consume her, as she had longed for since the first time they’d met.
She soon found that her body moved against his with a practiced ease, almost as though some part of her, deep down, knew exactly what she craved from him, and knew how to get it. Her breath was starting to come harder and faster now, her heart beating hard in her chest as the pleasure began to rise between her legs.
But it was more than just between her legs, it through her whole body. She could feel it tingling to the very edge of her fingertips, to the top of her scalp, flooding every part of her as though this was everything she had been waiting for. Shecould feel the similar sensations as to when his mouth had been pressed against her sex, but even more intense now, as he slowly pushed into her, his strokes deep and hard, his breath throaty against her ear.
It was that sound which took her over the edge; the sound of how much he desired her, how completely impossible it seemed for him to hold it back, even for a moment. As much as she had struggled to read and understand him all this time, here, now, she knew that he wanted her, and the knowledge seemed only to add to her pleasure, until, at last, she reached her release.
She cried out, the sound so loud she was sure everyone in the Keep could hear them, but she didn’t care. Wasn’t it right for a Laird and his lady to come together like this, in the confines of her bedchambers? Her thighs squeezed around him, her body demanding more, more, more, as the pulsations of pleasure coursed through every inch of her system. She could barely breathe, the corners of her vision growing ragged as she processed the sheer intensity of this feeling, the passion of it.
“Oh,” she gasped against his ear, and, a few moments later, she felt him reach his own release inside of her. He moved into her one last time and then stilled himself there. She could feel him throbbing within her, the warmth of him inside of her a new sensation, but one that she knew she would be craving over and over and over again.
He didn’t move for a long moment, just holding himself there inside of her as his breath returned to normal. He planted a kiss against her shoulder, and she turned her head to kiss his lips once more, their mouths coming together with the hunger of people who had only just found one another.
But then, as he pulled back, she sensed something shift in his demeanor. A cold rush moved through her, as she looked at him, but found that he would not meet her gaze.
“Kiernan?” she whispered, and she reached for his cheek, but he turned his head before she could touch him, as though even her fingertips would have been too much for him. How could this be? How could they have shared something so intense, so intimate, and now, he seemed to balk at the idea of her caressing his face…?
“I should… go,” he muttered as he rolled off the bed, standing up and dressing himself quickly. She stared after him in utter disbelief. No—no! This couldn’t be happening.
“Kiernan, please,” she begged him as she reached for the covers, scrabbling to pull them up over her body. Though he had just seen every inch of her body, taken her in ways that nobody else ever had before, she suddenly felt as though she couldn’t stand to be exposed like this, as though he could see a part of her she did not want him to. He was turning his back on her, walking away from her, and her head spun with hurt and confusion as she tried to piece together what she had done.
Before she could so much as speak another word, though, he strode for the door. Pausing for a moment, he turned to look back at her, and his face, to her horror, was written with regret. A thousand words bubbled to her tongue, but none of them could escape before he stepped out of the door and left her there, in the dark, all alone, wondering what had just happened, and if it had all been some kind of terrible dream.
Though she knew even the deepest depths of her subconscious mind that she could never have invented something so perfect.
Kiernan made his way back towards his quarters, his mind reeling, a sickness twisting in his stomach. The whole time, all hecould think of was the look that she had given him before he had walked out of the door and left her behind.
How could he have done something so foolish?All this time, he had been able to keep his distance from her—well, maybe not as much as he should have, but at least he had not taken her purity from her completely. Everything that had happened between them, up until tonight, wouldn’t have been the kind of thing that might put another man off marrying her, if she kept it to herself. But now? Now, he had taken her. He had consummated their union. There was no going back now, no chance at annulment, no way for him to convince himself that this was all a game to get further into the Aitken Keep. She was his wife, and he her husband. They were partners, having come together in the most intimate way they could.
Nothing he could do would change that.
He had only left her there because he could not trust himself to stay around her any longer. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he remained in her presence, he would be drawn to do the same thing again. The way her body had felt against his, the softness of it, how she yielded beneath his touch. Even now, as he tried to close off that very line of thought, he wished he could go back to her and do it again. He wanted to lose himself to her body, to her kiss, to her touch, her softness and sweetness, her innocence, matched against his harshness.
But even those thoughts made him feel as though he was betraying the clan. He had told his men, assured them, that he knew what he was doing, and they had trusted him—at least, enough to allow him to continue, though he could scarcely imagine that many of them would have stood up against him. He had intended for this marriage to serve as a way to open the doors to the Aitken clan, a clan who had defied his father despite his best efforts, but now… now, it was as though everything he had worked for was crumbling around him.
What would his father have thought of him if he had known that he had been with a part of the Aitken family? Of course, Mary was no Aitken by blood, but Arran had spoken to her and protected her as though she were. And now, Kiernan had given her a closeness he knew he could not take back, a passion that would never be erased from his mind…
And he had little idea of where that left him.
He reached his quarters and stepped inside, the air suddenly feeling cold as he imagined her in her bed, alone. How hurt she had seemed when he had walked away from her. She was just a young woman, she’d never known the closeness that she had shared with him that night. Now, their first time would be irrevocably tied with the memory of him walking away from her when she had wanted him to stay. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he knew he could not undo it.
He lowered himself onto the edge of his bed, and put his head in his hands. He knew he could not undo what had been done, and he knew little of what it would cause next. But he was sure that the harm he had caused tonight would come back to haunt him.
That the look in her eyes wouldn’t leave his mind tonight, even in sleep.
14
Mary picked her way along the path, stepping in the piles of dead leaves just to hear the satisfying crunch they let out. She needed something to keep her focus after her mind had been left in such a state the evening before, when Kieran had left her in her bed, alone.
She had waited for him to come back to her for hours, listening for his footsteps along the corridor, for something, anything that would promise he had not just turned his back on her and walked away. But there was nothing. By the time she fell asleep, the morning light had begun to filter through the windows, and she was still so exhausted now she could scarcely bring herself to get out of bed at all.
But she knew that lying in that bed all day would have done nothing to improve her mood, and so, finally, she had forced herself to get to her feet and go to the gardens that Archie had shown her. Something about the cool air on her skin, the quiet around her, the slight rustling of leaves when a wind rolled in, it salved something in her aching soul.
