“Clara,” he growled. “Be mine!”
She gripped his hips with her thighs. “Take me. I give you leave.”
She wanted him inside her, no more than he needed her. But he heard the denial in her words. He knew what she meant. She was not his wife, but his mistress, and that was not something he wanted for either of them.
“Clara,” he gasped, trembling as he held himself back. “I want a wife.”
She smiled at him, but the expression had steel behind it. And rejection. “I want you.” She pressed her mouth to his, but he wrenched himself back.
“You will not commit to me?”
“I am here now.”
“Now?” he said, anger burning up his spine. “Just for now?”
“Just for now,” she responded.
There was no compromise in her tone, and so he gave her none with his body. She was begging him to impale her. She’d wrapped her legs around him, she’d angled her body for his taking. She even pulled at his arms, urging her higher on her body.
He shook them off.
Then he pressed her knees down and open as he positioned himself not inside her, but along her folds. He would not enter a woman who would not claim him. And so he thrust upward, between her folds. He felt her slick along every ridge. His hands fell off her knees and into the streambed. That gave him better leverage to move against her.
She cried out at the feel of him, hard against her nub. He ground himself down to maximize what she felt.
It worked. She cried out as she gripped him tighter.
He ground down even as he thrust. Harder. Faster. The fire that pulsed through his whole body concentrated. It boiled down his spine as he thrust. He heard himself grunt as he punished them both with every thrust. She growled back as she tried to adjust his position.
“Take. Me!” she commanded.
“Take. Me!” he retorted, meaning something very different.
Neither relented as he drove himself against her.
They both lost as sensation overpowered.
Fire gripped his loins and burst through him.
He slammed hard against her as she released.
Wave after wave of ecstasy.
He rode her without filling her. He released into the heated flesh between them. And he cried out in frustration and joy. No other woman had consumed him so. And no other woman could make him so angry as he pleasured them both.
He collapsed to the side, grateful for the water that bubbled and gurgled steadily around them. It washed away his despair. He’d done everything in his power to claim this woman, and yet she remained blissfully herself.
Apart.
“Clara,” he sighed. “What have you done to me?” He was a Scotsman and a future laird, and yet right now he felt as raw as a young boy denied food in a harsh winter.
It was a while before she recovered her breath, but when she did, she returned his question with one of her own.
“Why can’t you be satisfied with what I offer?”
“It’s not enough,” he said.
“It is for me.”
