by Lara Temple
Jo again considered leaving but did not move. She glanced over to where Nurse sat with practised patience by the wall, expecting to receive the usual blank stare or some sign of condemnation at her insistence on staying. To her surprise, Nurse’s wrinkled visage softened into a smile, her blue eyes bright and warm. It startled Jo so much she smiled back and then looked down, as embarrassed as if she had been caught staring at Benneit.
When the cup was empty, Benneit eased Jamie back down into the bed and covered him, and they sat as Jamie lay with his eyes closed, his breathing settling. Soon Jo felt the tell-tale twitches in Jamie’s legs against her thigh that spoke of sleep, but it was only when he breathed the single shuddering breath as he entered deep sleep that Benneit stood. Jo followed him and Nurse into the corridor.
‘I’ll sleep with the door open to Jamie and call you if he wakes,’ Nurse Moody said and returned to the room.
Jo glanced at Benneit and then down at her crumpled, water-stained skirts. Her beautiful dress was ruined.
‘You should change your cravat if you mean to return downstairs, Your Grace.’
He caught her hand as she passed, his gaze serious as it swept over her.
‘Thank you.’
‘Pray, do not be foolish.’
‘Is showing gratitude being foolish? Why did you not send for me, though? I only learned he was ill when I asked Ewan where you were. You should have told me Jamie was ill. I told Angus the same.’
‘I did not want to take you away from your guests, at least not until I knew what was wrong.’
‘It is not your place to decide that.’
That struck harder than any whip, in particular after the intimacy formed in Jamie’s room during the past hour. She tugged away and proceeded towards her rooms.
‘Wait, Jo. I did not mean it like that...’
‘Your guests are waiting, Your Grace.’
‘No, they are not, I said my goodbyes when Angus went to fetch the tea. Now it is well past midnight and they have all no doubt retired. This isn’t London.’
‘Goodnight, Your Grace.’
‘Wait. Jo, I am grateful, truly, but Jamie is mine to care for. For his own good he should not become too dependent upon you. If you care for him...’
She had opened the door to her room but at those words she rounded on him, choked with pain and rage far more potent now than it had been two hours ago as she watched him with Tessa McCrieff.
‘If I care? How dare you? You may go to hell, Benneit Lochmore!’
‘Hush. Stop yelling. I did not mean to upset you.’ He crowded her into her room, his hands raised.
‘I am not yelling! You didn’t mean this and you didn’t mean that and you didn’t mean anything, but you are just plain mean! I hate you!’
He gave an odd laugh which was worse than all his words and she sank even lower in her unaccustomed and childish tantrum and tried to shove him back into the corridor. He took a step back, but planted his foot, covering her hands with his and her shoving amounted to nothing and all her powerlessness rose to the surface like Jamie’s tarts and she began to cry.
‘Jo. Please don’t. Ah, Jo...’ He let go of her hands, but only to wrap his arms around her and though this, too, meant nothing, she sank against him and let her weariness and pain win.
‘I didn’t even think of you,’ she babbled. ‘I only wanted to go to Jamie as quickly as I could. I didn’t mean to come between you and you are cruel to think that.’ She wailed, then rendered herself even more ridiculous by adding, ‘And my beautiful dress is ruined and Beth will be disappointed in me as well.’
‘Jo. Please don’t cry, I am so sorry, lass. I was scared, and I’m a fool when I’m scared. Hush, darling, please...’ The words were warm against her temple, his lips brushing the sensitive skin there, and she shivered, breathed in, utterly confused.
The words, the warmth and strength of his arms around her made no sense. Or only made sense to that part of her that had dreamed this. Darling?
An endearment that meant nothing at all. He wanted her to calm down and stop making noise. That was all.
The same applied to his hands shifting lower, shaping the slope of her waist, tightening on the softness of her hips. Just comfort, Jo.
She had a harder time explaining away the shudder that pressed his body against hers, or his voice wrapping around her name as it had for that strange timeless moment during the dance.
‘Jo...’
She froze. Raised her hands and wiped her wet face with her fingers and searched for the lie in the urgency she read in the tension of his body against hers. His embrace was no longer comforting—it was demanding.
It must be a lie.
She forced herself to lean back, to look up into his face and see the pity and contrition his words had evoked, but instead she saw what she could not mistake.
Fire.
She had never imagined a man would look at her like that. Not even Alfred, who loved her, had ever looked at her with such concentrated fire, with a tension that slashed lines of shadows and darkness into his austere face.
His hands rose, cupped her face, his thumbs brushing across her cheeks, sliding on the remnants of her tears. His touch was gentle but his voice was rough, an underground scraping that rose up from her feet and shattered her as it went.
‘Tell me to leave now, Jo.’
‘Why?’ she asked, without thinking, and he sank against her, wrapping himself about her, a laugh coursing through him and adding to her destruction.
‘Why? No reason. No good reason. Tell me to stay. Please, Jo.’
‘Stay. I want you to stay.’
He groaned, his hands moved from her hips to her backside, raising her against him. She felt it then. He was hard and hot and the contact drove back everything but awareness. What was no more than a dream minutes ago was now the very centre of her existence.
‘Oh, God, Jo. I’ve been wanting to touch you for ever. I can’t bear it any longer...’
His words echoed her thoughts and she ignored the lie. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he wanted her now. Even if it was only because of fear and loneliness and frustration. Right now he wanted her.
‘Then touch me, Benneit.’
She waited for him to pull up her skirts, press her back on to the bed as Alfred did on those rare occasions he took her when they were not already in bed. He always felt guilty later and she usually felt...incomplete. She did not want to think of Alfred now, but she could not help it. Her body was alive and straining for something, but her mind was scurrying away. She wanted Benneit, but she knew in a few moments he would be sated and then he would leave and she would still be there, even more alone.
Then she realised Benneit had stopped and panic set in. She did not want this, but she did not want him to go away. Her hand fisted on his kilt and she leaned against him.
‘Benneit, don’t stop...’
‘Hush,’ he breathed against her ear, his lips a heated slide against it, sending ripples over her nerves like warm water. ‘Slowly. Let me touch you. I need to feel all of you.’
The words touched her, reached inside her, a strange dark promise and demand. He kissed the lobe of her ear, a light brush of skin on skin, but it made her shoulder rise involuntarily and he kissed that as well, moving slowly towards her neck, lingering on the silky skin below her ear, so gently it felt like the caress of a breeze. Then, just as gently, he touched his tongue to her earlobe, closed his teeth on it and suckled.
A dam of liquid heat burst inside her, her palms flattening on his chest, ready to push away, but instead they pulled him towards her, as she angled her head to capture every nip and sweep of his mouth as he unravelled her. But he didn’t match her urgency—his hands caressed her back, drawing her deeper into the slow, swaying rhythm of his mouth as he continued to explore. It was a sweeping
possession, like the furling and unfurling of the waves in the south bay, but underneath was all the raging fierceness of the sea that had nearly destroyed them and it was terrifying and exhilarating. He swept her into his rhythm, into the scorching sweep of his mouth and tongue on her body, breaking her into elements, finding places that had never meant anything to her before this moment, but now made her shudder and cling, whimpering for something she knew he held, but withheld.
‘I’ve found your rose, an Autumn Damask, right here.’ He breathed in, the air cool on the skin at the base of her neck. She shivered and he guided her arm around his neck so he could bring her closer, moulding her body against his with a shuddering sigh of satisfaction, as if this was what he wanted, just this meeting of bodies.
For a moment he held her there, only their breathing shifting their bodies against each other, but it was not a peaceful embrace. The silence and the stillness was merely a stage for the swirling heat that had caught them on the cliff path and in the dance—it was there, still raging, gathering force. When he spoke, his voice measured but harsh, she knew he felt the same.
‘I should leave, but I can’t. Not if it is left to me. You will have to say the words, Jo. Choose.’
She didn’t want that burden, she wanted him to shoulder it. But there was enough of her own conscience still alive to recognise he was trying to show her some respect. Because he could offer no more than this. She would have to choose.
‘I need you here tonight, Benneit. Please stay with me.’
The words unleashed the fierceness he had shackled so firmly, his hands pulling her hard against him. His mouth was no longer soft and coaxing—it slanted over hers, taking her fully, his tongue teasing and touching places that made her body clench halfway to release before a single layer of clothing was removed. She wanted him to hurry, to slow down, to combust and take her with him... She was cold and hot and everywhere at the mercy of his hands as they explored her body, tightening impatiently on her buttocks as he raised her against him to deepen the kiss, his tongue tracing hers, suckling and tasting, and everything poured through her to lash at the burning, dampening flesh between her legs, turning her skin to liquid warmth until she was shaking, about to crest the waves.
She felt everything, but hardly noticed as her dress and stays fell away, followed by the heavy folds of his kilt. She only realised she was half-naked when the backs of her legs met the coolness of the bed. He leaned her back until she lay there, with him standing between her legs. He pulled off his shirt, holding it in his hands as he looked down at her and her legs tried to close but only managed to press against his as he stood there. His thighs felt like rock against the inside of her knees. As hard and warm as the Devil’s Seat in the sun. He tucked his hand under her knees, raising them so that her feet were braced on the edge of the bed, then shocked her by brushing a light kiss on her thigh, even as his hand curled under it, his fingers caressing the soft skin, slowly moulding and kneading as he slid the edge of her chemise upwards, his mouth trailing in its wake, a whisper following a whisper.
The fire was behind him, gilding him with a garish halo and leaving his face in darkness, but between soft, feathering brushes of his mouth along her leg his eyes rose to meet hers with an obsidian glint like those of a panther.
‘You like to be touched...’ His breath glided down her thigh, settling on the damp, pulsing centre between them like a rippling wave. The chemise followed inch by agonising inch, but his hands and mouth stopped mid-thigh despite the heat gathering unbearably at the pit of her stomach and at the core of her arousal. It was a deep thudding burn and her teeth dragged at her lower lip as if that could somehow alleviate the rising discomfort. He smiled and leaned forward, brushing his lips very lightly over the rise of her hipbone, his words slipping and sliding over the quivering valley between her hip and navel, and downwards...
‘Yes. I will do that, too, but first I want to see you. All of you. Do you know how much I wanted to take you there, by the cliff? Strip off that last, damp petticoat that was wrapped to you like a second skin. Warm you with my body, inside and out. Taste you... Everywhere...’
His hands had worked the chemise about her waist, his fingers tracing quicksilver burns from her hips to the valleys beside them, the roughened pads of his fingers abrading the skin above her pale brown curls, cutting off her breath and driving her hips up as she tried to catch and capture his fleeting but devastating caresses. Her eyes drifted shut, trying to block out his animal beauty, protect herself from him.
‘Look at me.’ It was between a purr and a growl, but it was definitely a command. It was the stilling of his hands that made her obey. If surrender was the price she had to pay for him to continue, she would pay it. He leaned one fist on the bed beside her, sinking on to the knee that rode between her legs, so close to the apex of her thighs she could feel its heat at her core, the pleasurable abrasion of the silky hair on his thighs on the bare softness of hers. Her legs clamped hard on his knee and she tried to slide towards him, but then he finally bent to kiss her, his mouth as gentle as his hands at first, just skimming her tightly held lips, sending a starburst of sensation with each sweep. He smoothed the chemise over her breast, languorously skimming the fabric around the swell, torturing her with the drag and shift of the fabric against the aching, sensitive peak.
Her own hands came out of their dream state, rising to press against the heat of his chest. She moaned at the contact and she felt his harshly indrawn breath against her mouth. Before he could pull away, her teeth caught at his lower lip, caressing it with her tongue as if it was her own. He answered with a groan, his hand tightening on her breast, his thumb flicking its already hard crown, and her body rose to meet his, her fingers dragging down his chest, sliding up and back, feeling every line she had stared at with such hunger, watching him in the stable yard. Seeing everything without vision, just through the sensation of hard muscle, corded sinew under silky dark hair, sheathed bones and sudden soft dips of flesh that made him shiver under her touch. The kiss deepened, his tongue and lips no longer playing, but demanding. With each plunge and stroke the heat at her core expanded and contracted and she tried to pull him down to her, but he took her hands and anchored them to the bed, the firelight dancing and glittering on his heaving chest as he drew back.
‘Not yet, not until you are coming apart with it.’
‘I am...’ she gasped.
‘No. When we step off that cliff I want you with me. With me, Jo.’
She shook her head. Who else was there? There was no one in this world, nothing, but him.
‘Slowly now,’ he whispered and she laughed at that absurdity. Slow? He must be mad. She was already dying, there was no slow. But she, too, wanted to make this last into infinity and she kept her eyes open as he leaned over her again, easing off her chemise and drawing the pins from her hair with excruciating care. Her eyes teared as a pin snagged, the pain only adding to her quivering agony, and he pressed brief, light kisses to her eyelids, the crest of her cheek, the corner of her mouth in a trail that was almost innocent but for the gentle lick of his tongue at the corner of her mouth, coaxing her open, to dip along the seam of her lips and inwards.
‘This is how I will taste you there. Soon.’ His words were like silk drawn over her burning body. She did not know how she knew what he meant—it was outrageous, but the heat between her legs flared, her legs closing convulsively against his knee where it was still braced on the bed between them.
‘Yes,’ he murmured as his mouth and hands continued mapping her body, shifting lower and lower, ‘You can feel me there already, can’t you?’
‘Benneit!’
She was nearly crying with need by the time he pressed a light kiss to the valley beside her hipbone, nuzzling there as his fingers continued brushing and stroking the soft down of hair, sliding through it and down the cleft between her legs. It was a single scorching line, light but definit
e, and she felt her dampness under his fingers. She didn’t understand any of this. It was so different from how it had been with Alfred and yet so much more right. Some residual shame made her try to pull away, but he only took advantage of her movement to nudge her thigh with his shoulder, his tongue a caress, his breath a tangle of hot and cold on her shimmering skin. Shock held her still, but then his tongue gently brushed the sensitive nub at the apex and she squirmed to escape the coil of almost unbearable heat that simple caress unleashed.
‘Don’t run from me, Jo. I won’t do anything you aren’t ready for. I promise.’
He moved up again, his mouth nuzzling and caressing her breast and though he let her close her legs, his hand remained resting on the downy hair, his long fingers curved against her flesh so that she could feel their pulses meeting, pouring through her. When he nudged her legs apart again with his she was so awash with warmth she just exhaled on a long sigh as his fingers opened her, sending whiplashes of pleasure dancing between his teasing mouth on her breasts and the swirling, coaxing slide of his fingers at her core. When he shifted lower again, his mouth retracing its path, she didn’t have the will or the shame to resist. She was no longer herself, she was nothing but what he found in her—light, life, heat... This time when his mouth found the slickness of her arousal she didn’t think at all. She had never been so present and so utterly far from reason in her life. Her hands snagged at the sheet, his shoulders, his hair and finally covered her face to muffle the whimpers of pleasure she could not hold back as his mouth and tongue and breath tortured her beyond belief, turning her skin liquid and her blood to fire. Lash after lash of pleasure burst through her and it felt impossible to continue without something terrible happening, but when the world burst in a shower of sparks and a long surge of honey-sweet joy she gave in, welcoming oblivion.
* * *
Benneit raised himself carefully on to his elbow.
