Ian winked, a satisfied grin on his full lips. “A man could never hear better words spoken.”
Ian slid up the length of her body, his arousal pressing against her still-quivering folds. “Now, to make ye mine, all over again.”
Their gazes locked, a powerful and intoxicating passion passing between them.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love ye with every breath and beat of my heart.” And then he was kissing her again, drowning her in desire and pleasure.
When he parted her folds and notched his arousal at her center. He murmured that it may hurt, but she lifted her hips, urging him to drive inside. They both moaned as he filled her, stretching her, the tiniest pinch of pain was there and then gone, erased by his kiss.
Ian shuddered over her, his forehead falling to hers, as he placed tiny kiss after kiss on her mouth, and then deeper as he slid out and slowly pushed back in.
“Wrap your legs around me.”
Rhiannon submitted, gasping at how wrapping her legs around his hips deepened his thrusts.
Their kiss turned frenzied, each demanding more with the slide of their tongues and nibbling lips. Making love to Ian was heaven on earth.
He withdrew and thrust deeper and deeper and deeper still. Rhiannon met each thrust with the rise of her hips.
“I am the luckiest man in Scotland.” Ian kissed her deeply in a kiss that felt as if he were claiming her soul.
Rhiannon clung to him, kissing him back as passionately. This man was hers and hers alone until the end of time. “I am the luckiest woman.”
Their bodies crashed together on the shores of pleasure, sweet, delicious release rolling them in wave upon wave as they clung to each other as if they were each the other’s life line.
When their shudders subsided, Ian rolled to his side, pulling her along his length. He tucked her in his embrace and kissed her lovingly on the temple. “I’m glad ye’re mine.”
“Nothing will come between us ever again.”
18
The last time Ian had left the Orkney shores and his castle, Balla Dorcha, he’d not expected to return with anyone, let alone a wife. And yet there, standing on the bow of his ship with him, the wind blowing her hair around her face, was Rhiannon, the new Lady of Orkney.
Mistress of Balla Dorcha.
He was still mesmerized every time he looked at her. There was a permanent lift to the corner of his mouth. They’d been wed a week now—of which they’d remained at Buanaiche, awaiting her brother’s ability to ride and, of course, allowing Rhiannon and Douglass to spend time together since they hadn’t seen each other in so long.
The days were filled with games and chatter, and the nights after feasting were spent in hours of endless pleasure. When it had come time to leave, Rhiannon looked sadly upon her cousin, who was ready to give birth in the next month. Noah had promised to send word when she went into labor, and Ian had promised to make certain Rhiannon was there in time to help.
Only a month had passed since he’d first come upon Rhiannon at the edge of the wood in England. And yet, in that short amount of time, so much had changed for him.
Ian saw life with new eyes. The world itself held a new meaning.
He stroked his hand over Goosie’s head and back where the cat perched on the ship’s rail, looking stoically out to sea and perhaps contemplating why her humans would have forced her to travel over water.
“I can’t wait to see your home,” Rhiannon said.
“It’s never really been a home to me. More like…a stronghold.” He cringed at how cold that sounded.
“Stronghold?” She raised a brow at him.
“Aye. I grew up with my brothers at Castle Buanaiche. It wasn’t until I came of age that I was sent to Balla Dorcha to take my seat and place as Earl of Orkney. I think that’s why I’m always drawn back to Noah’s holding—that is home.”
She looked at him, perplexed. “I don’t think I knew you were an earl. I guess that makes me a countess.” She started to laugh.
Ian chuckled right along with her. “Aye. I suppose I’ve never thought of myself as an earl.”
