Vengeance (The Montbryce Legacy Anniversary Edition Book 4)

by Anna Markland

  “You’re not going to tickle me again, are you?” she teased, her nipples tightening at the prospect.

  He grinned as he put her down on the bed. “I can assure you tickling isn’t what I have in mind.”

  She felt like a wanton, filled with an urge to tear off his garments. She couldn’t keep silent. “Take off your clothes.”

  She gasped, clasping a hand to her mouth, then giggled.

  Ronan smiled and slowly peeled off his doublet. “Your wish is my command, my lady.”

  Rhoni felt her face redden. “I didn’t mean to be so bold. My mouth ran away with itself.”

  He brushed the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “My hope is your beautiful mouth will become much more wanton as the night progresses.”

  A tingle of expectant pleasure rippled from her most intimate place down her thighs to her toes. Ronan braced his knees against the side of the bed and slowly took off his linen shirt. Her mouth fell open. She’d seen him from a distance stripped to the waist in the fields helping with the harvest, or shoeing horses in the smithy. She’d wanted to lick the sweat from his perfect body.

  He held out his hands. “Touch me, Rhoni.”

  He pulled her upright and put her hands on his chest. She pressed her fingertips lightly into the hard muscles, then smoothed her palms over the soft black hair that dusted his upper body. She trailed a finger down the thin line from his chest to his navel. “Silky,” she murmured.

  She ran her hands up his corded neck and onto his shoulders. He groaned and tore off her veil to lace his fingers in her hair, pulling apart the elaborate arrangement piled on top of her head. The touch of his fingers raking over her scalp sent shivers down her spine. She put her hands back on his chest and rolled her thumbs over his dark male nipples. Her own nipples tightened, straining against the fabric of her gown.

  He fixed his gaze on her breasts, cupping them in his big hands. “I’ve longed to put my hands on you, Rhoni.”

  He brushed his thumbs back and forth over her nipples. Wet heat flooded between her legs. He smiled, flaring his nostrils. He’d known her nipples had hardened before he touched them. Did he also sense the intimate moisture his caress had caused—and the ache?

  He bent to kiss her, drawing her body tightly to his own. His tongue darted in and out of her mouth in a rhythm her hips were soon echoing. They broke apart, both panting for breath. “I want to feel your skin against mine. Let me undress you.”

  A growl of encouragement emerged from her dry throat. “Hurry!”

  She felt his arousal buck against her belly and his eye darkened. He turned her and unlaced the back of her bodice, pushing it forward over her shoulders and down to her waist. His warm breath teased the fine hairs at her nape as he cupped her bare breasts. She moaned, thrusting her head back against his chest. Tendrils of pleasure wound their way from her nipples to her toes then into her loins. He rolled her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. A jolt of desire rocked her. She cried out his name, barely able to breathe.

  He nibbled her nape, intensifying the painful pleasure. She tried to turn to face him, to press her aching breasts against his body, but he resisted. “I fear if I look upon your beauty I’ll be lost.”

  She arched her back and reached up to entwine her arms around his neck. “I want you to see me.”

  He turned her slowly and stared at her breasts, raking his hands through his hair. “Críost, Rhoni, you are magnificent.”

  His words came from deep in his throat, feral. Like her mother, Rhoni was well endowed, but she’d never given much consideration to the effect of large breasts on a man. Suddenly, she was aware of her power as a woman. She cupped her breasts and lifted them in offering. “Kiss me—here.”

  During his marriage to Mary, Ronan had come to accept that his wife wasn’t a passionate woman and had learned to temper his lusty nature. He’d sensed passion in Rhoni, but when she offered her breasts in trusting surrender, the floodgates of repressed desires and needs burst open. He burned to rip the clothing from his wife and fall upon her like a wild thing.

  But he wanted his virgin bride’s first taste of ecstasy to be memorable for its beauty, not its pain. Selfishly, he too wanted the pleasure to last.

  He bent his head to suckle one pouting pink nipple, drawing its dusky areola fully into his mouth, swirling his tongue over the hard peak. Rhoni kept one hand under her breast, the other she lay on the back of his head, keening whimpering noises that he felt in his ghiniúna.

  He shifted to the other nipple, rolling the moistened pebble of the first between his finger and thumb.

  “Dieu! Ronan, I—” Her voice caught in her throat.

  “Hush, mo stór. Let me pleasure you.”

  She peeled open her thick eyelashes. “This is beyond pleasure,” she rasped.

  He grazed her nipple with his teeth. “We’ve only just begun, mo croí.”

  She gasped. “I’m ready to learn.”

  He put his hands at her waist, pushing the gown over her hips. “I’m anxious to teach you.”

  The silk whispered against her skin as it fell to the floor, pooling around her feet. She never took her eyes off his face as his gaze travelled the length of her nakedness. His heart was beating too fast. He feared that if she touched him she would be burned. She was so beautifully formed he almost fell to his knees in thanksgiving for this gift that was soon to be his alone.

  She put a hand on his shoulder as he helped her kick away the gown. Her heat penetrated his fever. He had to free his shaft from the confines of his leggings before he burst the seams. He quickly unfastened the laces and put her hands on his hips, covering them with his own. “Strip me, Rhoni,” he rasped.

  He pressed her hands over his hips and the leggings slid down his thighs. His hardened manhood sprang free. Rhoni knelt and helped him remove the garment, never taking her eyes off his arousal.

  Mary had dutifully suffered the discomfort of his size. Rhoni licked her lips and touched her fingertip to the opening at the tip of his aching shaft. “Speaking of magnificent,” she whispered, “are all men’s parts this big?”

  It was too much. With a grunt he hauled her to her feet, crushing her soft curves to his hard body. His shaft surged along the wet slit between her legs. He could wait no longer. He raised her up, braced his legs, and impaled her.

  She growled his name, locking her legs around his hips, her arms around his neck. He felt her maidenhead tear, but couldn’t stop. He bit her neck as she rode him, pumping his hips as her tight channel clenched on him and her thighs gripped him. She cried out and bit him back, a long sound keening from her throat as she neared her release.

  “Ronan, Ronan, Ronan, Ronan.”

  He pounded into her, lifting her up and down, feeling the heat build around his shaft as sweat broke out on their bodies. “Come for me, Rhoni. Come for me.”

  Suddenly she dug her fingernails into his shoulders, closed her eyes and held her breath. Her body went rigid. She quivered, inside and out, and the world shattered as she milked the seed from his body.

  He may have cried out something obscene as his euphoric release swamped him, but it would have been in Gaelic, so he wasn’t too worried.

  Her head lay on his shoulder.

  “You are my flawless jewel,” he whispered.

  She grunted something.

  He chuckled. “So much for worrying about the bed. We didn’t get that far.”

  She raised her head and looked at him curiously. Her lovely hair was disheveled, her lips swollen, eyes glazed. She’d never looked more beautiful. Lavender mingled with the musky scent of a woman well bedded. The sight of his teeth marks on her neck stirred new interest in his softening cock.

  “Bed?”

  “I was worried you would feel uncomfortable in Mary’s bed, or that I would.”

  She covered a yawn with the back of her hand. “I didn’t think of it.”

  “Let’s try it out then. My legs are about to give way.”

&nbs
p; “You said I was light as a feather.”

  He chuckled and collapsed onto the bed, still buried deep inside her. They lay belly to belly, breast to chest, his leg curled around hers. She traced a finger down his neck then licked him. Her face reddened. “Did I bite you?”

  He touched the bite on her neck. “Aye, but only after I bit you.”

  “You bit me? I didn’t feel it. I was too lost in feelings I’ve never experienced before.”

  He put his hand on her bottom and kissed her lovingly. “I’m proud to be the man to have taken you into a new world. I hope it wasn’t too painful? I felt your maidenhead tear.”

  She shrugged lazily. “I honestly don’t remember it. My mother often warned me that riding astride can break a hymen. When I felt no pain, I assumed she was right.”

  “No, mo stór, you gave me everything this night, as I shared all of myself.”

  She drew back, twirling a lock of his hair in her fingers. She touched his eye patch. “Non, mo croí, there’s something you’ve kept from me.”

  He frowned, a snake of dread uncoiling in his gut. He slid from her body and came to his feet beside the bed. “No, Rhoni. Never. I’ll never subject you to that horror. Even I cannot look upon it.”

  Hoping to distract her, he knelt on the bed and parted her legs. “My people will expect to see these bed sheets hoisted up the flagpole on the morrow.”

  She nodded with a smile, and he carefully cleansed the swollen lushness of his wife’s most intimate place with the linens, then reluctantly removed the proof of her lost virginity from his body. He sensed she wouldn’t be deterred and his heart ached that he wasn’t a whole man. “I’m your slave, Rhoni. I will serve you all my life, but don’t ask this of me.”

  She sat up, put her hand on his chest, pushed him back and stroked his legs, coaxing him to sit facing her. She curled up with her head in his lap. Her hair felt silky on his shaft.

  “I’ve entrusted my life to you, Ronan. You’ve seen parts of my body I haven’t looked upon. You don’t trust me in the same way. You believe your disfigurement will repel me.”

  Regret swept over him. “It revolts me. How can it not be the same for you?”

  She sat up. “Will we spend our lives together, then, with you in constant fear that I might see your blighted eye? You forget, I was on the beach at Prestatone when they hauled you ashore. It was I who rode in the cart with you, holding your hand. I longed then to kiss away your pain. Will you deny me now?”

  He put his head in his hands, digging his fingertips into his scalp. She was right. He was afraid the horror of his abacinated eye would repel her. But it was also true she’d seen it and had fallen in love with him anyway.

  She came to her knees and took his hands. “We’ll make a game of it. I’ll kiss every part of your body, beginning with your toes.”

  Despite his anguish, he laughed, pointing to his groin. “Predictably, my ever eager cock thinks your suggestion is a good idea.”

  She gathered her hair behind her ear and leaned over to lick his little toe, working her way to his big toe which she sucked into her mouth. He leaned back on his elbows, watching her, rejoicing in her innocent boldness, enjoying the sensations, but dreading the consequences of this game he couldn’t deny her.

  She licked his ankles, his heels, the soles of his feet, nipping here and there with her teeth. He had dreamed of her worshipping his body thus.

  She ran her fingertips lightly up the length of his shins, then kissed his knees, swirling her tongue around his kneecaps. She made him turn over and kissed the backs of his knees. He hadn’t known her touch there would send fire flowing through his veins.

  She danced her fingers up his thighs, then kneaded his buttocks. She planted a lusty kiss on each cheek. “You have dimples here.”

  Each scar on his back received a dozen kisses, then she gathered his hair from his nape and kissed him there. His shoulders tensed as gooseflesh invaded his skin.

  She nibbled his ear. “Turn over, my lord Ronan.”

  She opened his legs and knelt between them. His erection bucked. “Críost, Rhoni. You’ll drive me mad.”

  She took hold of his manhood and licked her lips, glancing up at him nervously.

  He reached up to stroke her hair. “You don’t have to.”

  “But I want to. My mother told me it’s one of the most pleasurable things a man and woman can do together.”

  He chuckled. “Your mother told you this?”

  She licked the swollen tip of his cock, sending shivers of desire into the base of his spine. “My parents love each other, and my mother discretely intimated things she believed a woman should be aware of before she wed.”

  Ronan’s heart soared. He’d married an innocent with a store of carnal knowledge. He thanked God for Mabelle de Montbryce as Rhoni put her mouth on him and sucked. He gathered her hair in his hand, unsure if intelligent words would emerge from his mouth, but he had to tell her. “I’ve dreamt of a woman taking me into her mouth, but this surpasses my expectations.”

  She glanced up at him, her brown eyes wide, but she continued to suck, her hand moving up and down on him in the same rhythm.

  She knows now she is the first.

  He concentrated on not coming into her mouth as he felt the warmth of her throat on the tip of his shaft.

  “You taste salty,” she rasped when she stopped to take a breath.

  He laughed. “I’m the son of a seal. My name is ironic, because I’m not a good swimmer. My father forbade it.”

  She hesitated a moment, frowning at him. “But, Lorcan—when you pursued him into the sea, you—”

  “Aye. I’m not sure what came over me.”

  How to explain the strange power that had taken hold, propelling him through the water as if he’d been born to it?

  Rhoni looked at him curiously, but then seemed satisfied with his explanation. She resumed her teasing, trailing her tongue up his belly and into his navel, pressing her breasts against his erection.

  He growled. “I won’t endure much longer, wife. Be done with your game.”

  She grinned then kissed each of his nipples. He pulled her up and kissed her, thrusting his tongue in and out of her mouth, tasting his own arousal. She groaned, then took over and did the same to him.

  His loins were on fire. She knelt above him, her breasts in his hands and her bottom in the air. He had to be finished with this game so he could plunge his shaft into the sheath he suspected would be warm and wet for him. He tore off the eye patch and flung it across the chamber.

  His heart stopped beating when she broke off the kiss, looked at him and smiled. She cradled his face in her hands. “You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever known.”

  She kissed the destruction of his eye gently, lovingly. He exhaled a shuddering breath as a tear trickled from his good eye. She licked away the tear, then kissed the dead eye again. “Every part of you belongs to me now, Ronan MacLachlainn.”

  For the first time since the horror of his blinding, there was no nagging pain behind his blighted eye. He lifted her and laid her on her back. “I’ve belonged to you since the moment we met. I was too caught up in my desire for vengeance to admit it.”

  He parted her legs and hooked them over his shoulders. “Now it’s my turn to make you beg.”

  He lifted her hips and put his mouth on her most intimate place. “Did your mother tell you about this too?”

  Rhoni’s mother had indeed told her that some men enjoyed tasting their women, but she hadn’t believed it.

  “I’m too wet there,” she protested, trying to lift his head. He sucked harder, licking her nether lips, then a place that sent waves of delight crashing through her.

  “I like wet,” he rasped. “The wetter the better.”

  He put a long finger inside her, still teasing with his tongue. She gasped, arching her back as he slid his finger in and out, in and out. “Dieu, Ronan. I love that.”

  “Two then,” he said as he slid a seco
nd finger inside.

  He held her fast as her back arched off the bed. Then he eased in another finger and she fell into an abyss of bliss. Someone was making strange mewling sounds. Ronan was suckling her breast, then his fingers slid out and his shaft plunged in. As he thrust again and again, the heat built inside. She touched his face, locking her gaze on his as he neared his release. “You’re the only man I’ve ever desired.”

  He withdrew. Had she angered him? He growled, grasped her thighs, and dragged her to the end of the bed. Her sheath throbbed with need for him. He stood, braced his legs and lifted her hips. “You’re more precious than my soul, Rhoni.”

  He thrust in and out, in and out, almost withdrawing completely each time. She felt the tip of his shaft touch her womb, then his hot seed flooded her pulsating flesh and she fell once more into euphoria, his guttural shout of release filling her heart.

  Panting hard, he lifted her, turned, and collapsed backwards onto the bed, holding her tightly to his chest, his legs entwined with hers. His heart thudded in her ear.

  Gradually, their breathing steadied. He softened and her body freed him. She glanced up. He’d fallen asleep, a smile on his face.

  She eased off him and curled into his side, drawing the linens over their nakedness. Drifting into a contented sleep, she thought she heard the distant barking of a seal.

  Epilogue

  The newly-weds slept long past dawn. Contentment washed over Ronan as he stretched awake in his own chamber for the first time in months. He turned onto his side and propped his head on his bent arm so he could look at his naked wife sleeping next to him. Her face was buried in the bolster, her hair spread like a golden banner. She lay on her belly, one leg bent. Gently, he put his hand on her derrière.

  Not long ago he’d stood at the gates of Hell, but his torment had brought him this incredible woman. He listened to her breathing. A pleasant swelling in his shaft urged him to roll her over and make love. If he moved his fingers a mere inch or two—but his heart wanted to watch her sleep.

  One thing remained to be dealt with though. Reluctantly, he took his hand off her bottom and reached for the dowry document on the salver beside the bed. He stroked the parchment along her arm until she woke.