She knew that she needed him, that she needed to feel his body move inside hers. This man, her husband, she could feel that pressure starting to build within her and knew that the only way to relieve it would be to take him for the first time…
She reached for him, kissing him once more, her hands moving along his shoulders and his back. She could feel the flex of his muscles beneath his skin, but this time, they were not being used for war or for battle, no. They belonged entirely to her, and, in that moment, she intended to repay him in kind.
He tossed off his shirt and kicked off his trousers, a grin on his face as he kissed her once more, taking his manhood into his fist and guiding it towards her without another moment to spare.
The moonlight bathed the both of them now, creating a small pool where only the two of them seemed to exist, where nobody else could have reached them, even if they tried. Her blonde hair shining in the moonlight, spilled around her like a halo.
And, at last, he pressed himself into her, flexing his hips to drive himself to the hilt in one motion. She gasped, her nails digging into his back, and he stilled himself, brushing his mouth along her cheek.
“Ye alright, lass?” he asked her softly, his eyes gentle and curious.
She nodded, turning her face to meet his gaze.
“Aye.”
And that seemed to be all the invitation he needed to claim her, once and for all.
Their bodies moved together like the tide reaching the sea, the slow back and forth as they grew used to each other in this new way. Her hands in his hair, his resting on her hips, their foreheads pressed together close as they breathed in each other’s breath and let themselves get lost in it.
“Oh,” she gasped, her nails digging into his scalp.
He slowed, clearly in no rush to push her beyond what she could take, but she lifted her lips to his ear to murmur encouragement.
“More,” she breathed. “I need more, my Laird…”
The sensation of such fullness soon turned into something else, the pleasure blooming between them with each and every movement, like their bodies had been waiting for this connection since the moment they had met.
She could still recall the way his hands had felt on her when they had been dancing together and how, even then, there was a part of her that knew this was where the two of them were destined to go.
“I cannae get enough of ye, lass…”
She listened as his breathing grew more and more throaty, the sound of his pleasure building faster than he could control it. She kissed him again, coaxing her legs around him to draw him into her even deeper, her body demanding as much of him as she could take, as though she could gorge herself on him until she was sated.
“Tavish…”
And, as their tongues came together once more, she felt the sudden rush of pleasure throbbing through her, coursing out from the apex of her thighs to the tips of her fingers as she gasped for air against his mouth.
He drove himself into her a few more times, burying himself within her up to the hilt, as he would bury a sword in an attacker.
“Och, mo leannan!”
As he held himself still, she could feel his own pleasure getting the better of him, rising up with a sudden lurch as his chest stuttered, and then coming down as he filled her, marked her, made her his in all the ways that mattered.
Even as the pleasure began to ebb away once more, neither of them made a move to draw back from one another.
Neither of them wanted to.
To draw back would have been to admit that this was over. And neither of them was ready for that yet, not when it felt so perfect; a small slice of heaven poured onto their marital bed for the two of them to share.
He kissed her again slowly, his tongue lavishing hers with more of that glorious secret language the two of them seemed to have invented on that night with each other. And, though he wasstill marked with the blood of his enemies, she knew something had changed between them.
Something that, she hoped, would not slip away just as quickly as it had taken hold.
Chapter Thirteen
The next fewdays passed in a delicate kind of peace, much to Ailsa’s surprise.
She had expected, after what she and her new husband had shared, for something to change between them. In fact, she had been fearful that he might look upon her differently now that he had conquered her at last, had claimed her as his bride once and for all.
