by Nicole Locke
She pulled away. He couldn’t stop his smiling. Couldn’t hold back the joy he felt when he was with her.
‘Are you saying you want me all the time?’ she said almost crossly.
‘Aye.’ He wasn’t nearly finished with her ear or the spots underneath. This close he could smell and taste her. This close he knew she wanted him, because of the frantic fluttering of her heart.
‘Then why wouldn’t you simply say that?’
‘I did.’ If he thought about her moles, he wouldn’t make it through this night.
‘I’ll never ken your jests and flirting.’
‘You will, lass. You will because we fit. My games, your work. My irritating smiles and that crease between your brows. Unexpected, aye, but we fit. And I love you.’
‘Love me...?’
‘From my head to the soles of my feet.’ He’d never tire of surprising or teasing her. ‘Are you wondering if the soles of feet can feel love?’
She shook her head, the puzzlement easing in her eyes. ‘Nae, because I believe they can.’
‘Lioslath?’
‘I thought it was a wish, or hope, or trust. But it’s stronger. All-consuming. I think...’
She looked down, which hid her eyes from him. He let her. He’d let her do anything so he could hear the words. ‘I think the soles of my feet love you...as well as the top of my head.’
He was stunned as joy burst through him. Still...
‘And?’ he prompted.
‘There’s more?’ She looked at him again.
‘There’s everything else in between,’ he said, chuckling low.
‘Are you wanting more?’
More? Only their hands touched and his body tightened with want, need, lust, love. More? He wanted...everything. So she knew it, he kept the wicked glint in his eyes. ‘Are we, are you, wanting more?’
‘I think I am.’ Her eyes widened. ‘How did this happen?’
He laughed suddenly and tugged her towards him. ‘Joy?’ He looked at her puzzled, surprised eyes and wanted to drag her off the chair and crush her to him. ‘I know it happened for me when I first watched you at the gates.’
She tried to find some purchase on the chair. ‘That was...vexation.’
‘Nae, I watched you throwing buckets at me with the fiercest of yells. I couldn’t see you clearly, didn’t know the colour of your eyes or...about this.’ His eyes riveted on the mole above her lip and he brushed his thumb across it. ‘Your beauty was hidden to me, but not your spirit. I admired your spirit. So when I saw your beauty, I changed directions, I started following you and will continue following you. You’re my star in the night sky now.’
He trailed his fingers along the moles on the side of her neck. ‘I was a fool not treating you well. I lost my way when I hurt you and your light went out. But I want to find my way towards you again. I want you to find your way to me.’
‘Are you apologising?’
He sighed, and his hands stilled. ‘Aye, lass. I was saying how sorry I was.’
She pressed her fingertips to his lips. ‘Nae more apologising.’
‘I have a feeling I’ll keep apologising to you,’ he said, leaning in against her lips and pressing a kiss there.
‘I wouldn’t want you to. I want you to use your hands and your voice.’
He swept her up in his arms and sat with her on the bed. ‘Words, love. You doona know what you do with your words.’ He unlaced their shoes and threw them in a corner, unwrapping his belt and tossing it in the same direction. Then he trailed his hands behind her.
‘It’s your words, Bram, with your voice. Then you...’ As he unlaced her, he brushed his fingers along the open bits of her bodice. ‘Then you...do this thing with your fingers.’ The huskiness in her voice told him how his touch affected her.
‘This thing with my fingers,’ he prompted.
She tilted her body to give him more access, her eyes closed and her lips parted as an invitation to kiss her.
‘Lioslath?’ he questioned. ‘Are you finding parts of me pleasing now?’
‘You please me, Bram. I find all of you pleasing.’ She opened her eyes, the blue dark with desire. ‘Only, do that thing with your hands and voice.’
Laughter was contained only by desire. The laces at her back were loose and he tackled the ones at her sides.
‘Will you tell me?’ he said.
‘Tell you?’
‘You told me your head and your feet love me. It’s not the same thing.’
It was her turn to sigh. ‘I love you, Bram.’
‘So now that you love me, will you tell me where they are?’ he whispered, liking that she was distracted, and he meant to keep distracting her.
‘I thought you’d know... You haven’t done this before?’
Oh, that was it. That perplexed look. He wanted to take this slower, but his slipping control was lost and he pulled at the lacing, yanked at her gown until she sat before him in her chemise. The fire’s light illuminated her, but she was as bright as a star to him.
He reached over his head and yanked off his own tunic, and was heartened at the little sound she made.
‘It’s time, Lioslath,’ he said. ‘I’ve wanted you night and day, and I’ll want you night and day for the rest of our lives, and beyond that. Until all the nights and days burn out.’
‘It’ll be awfully dark then,’ she whispered, as her hands tentatively reached out. He grabbed them and placed them on his upper chest.
Did she know she teased him? He saw the light in her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. She never teased him. She never even laughed.
‘You’ll be my light,’ he said.
* * *
Lioslath knew Bram was flirting with her. Playing in that way of his. She didn’t understand it, but she accepted it, wanted it, because as much as there was darkness inside him she wanted his light as well.
When Bram pulled her closer, he held perfectly still. He was close enough to kiss her, but he didn’t. Instead, he seemed to be waiting for something, but she didn’t know what it would be. Couldn’t think of what it would be. Not when he held her like this and he was bared to her.
She’d seen Bram without his tunic when he worked, when the sheen of sweat highlighted his strength.
She’d touched him before, but not like this. Not when the texture and heat of his skin beckoned her to trace her own fingertips along his skin the way he did hers. So she did. Along the cords of his arms, the dips at the top of his shoulders. She flattened her palms to feel the plane of his chest, down along the ridges of his stomach.
She only noticed his breathing increasing when it matched hers. That breathlessness was now becoming familiar to her, though it continued to surprise her.
He kept his hands carefully at his sides while she explored him with her hands, but she saw his fingers flexing and fisting as if he restrained himself. When she glanced up, his expression was just as still as the rest of him, but his eyes were burning and swirling hotly at her.
‘You do know what you’re doing,’ she whispered, stopping her hands. He had to know because her nervousness eased by merely feeling the texture of his skin.
He clasped her hands between his own. ‘Not in this. Not with you. Is it too soon? What of your leg?’
She felt the texture of his skin and wanted more. ‘It pains me very little.’ She barely felt her leg, not when Bram held her like this. But her chemise suddenly chafed and pained. ‘If you take the chemise off, I think it will feel better.’
He flashed a grin. ‘Aye, but then I’m afraid it’ll all be over.’
‘Oh, I thought...there was more.’
He kissed her until she clung to the warmth of his skin heating her own.
‘There is more, but my imagination has been
very vividly imagining you with that chemise off and I want to give you the pleasure you need.’
‘I doona ken, Bram. You know I doona. Do you know what you’re doing or not?’
‘It’s your moles, lass. I take this chemise off and I’ll see them. You said you had more than these three. I mean to kiss and touch each one, to taste them with my tongue and heat them with my breath. I mean to explore them and see where they lead me, and I mean to do it all over again. But I fear it’ll be too fast once this chemise is gone. So it’s better if I doona see them yet.’
‘My moles are making you...wait.’
‘Aye.’ He traced his fingers along the folds and creases of her chemise. His eyes roamed everywhere till she wanted to pull it off herself. Because he was making her wait.
Bram lowered his head, skimmed his mouth and tongue along the shell of her ear again, as he whispered, ‘A bit more, just a bit.’
She wanted to sob with need as his fingers deftly caressed the chemise again. The soft fabric felt like silk and like the coarsest wool against her stomach, her breasts, her nipples.
When he locked his eyes with hers, she knew he was aware of the torture he was causing.
‘I doona want to wait,’ she whispered.
‘Your words, I’ve warned you.’
‘I’ll use them less, if you—’
‘Negotiating, Lioslath?’ His fingers, his hands a bit rougher, a bit firmer, clenched and released the fabric. She wanted them on her skin, on her body.
‘Aye.’
‘Oh,’ he said, his voice lower yet. ‘That’s worse. I didn’t think. But that’s worse.’
He didn’t release his eyes, but he released the torture as his hands touched under her chemise, lifting it until it fell to the ground. Then he cradled her in his arms and laid her on the bed.
The linen’s coolness provided a sweet contrast as he leaned over her and whispered, ‘Ah, aye, there are more.’ There was heat in his eyes and heat in his touch as he softly and deliberately circled the moles along her neck and down along the one on her chest, the one on her right breast.
His eyes and his fingertips circled along her left hip bone. ‘And one here, too? Open your legs for me, love.’
His hands were skimming, his tone conversational, casual, as if there wasn’t a restrained tension thrumming between them.
She widened her legs and felt his fingers startle. She heard his breath hitch and she widened her legs more. She didn’t know what gave her this boldness, but it was something in the ease of his request. He merely wanted to see her spots and she opened her legs so he could see.
The heat of his breath was exquisite torture and she heard him then, she heard him whispering. Like tiny prayers.
‘Are you...kissing them?’ she asked, trying to be offended, but failing. Not when she felt like this.
‘I’m revering them, but I have to know if there are more. Turn over.’
The casual tone now gone from his voice, he lifted himself off the bed. There was an urgency about him now. Completely bared, lying on her stomach would make her vulnerable to him. But she realised there was an urgency in her, too.
‘I think I needed to barter more for this,’ she said.
‘Have mercy.’ His eyes darted across her body, as his hands went to the ties on his hose. ‘I am so far in your debt and you want more?’ His eyes settled on hers and he dropped his braies.
He was...magnificent. His shoulders, the tapering to his waist. The locking of his thighs as he held himself still for her to see. His hands, his hands flexing beside him as if he was still caressing her.
She rolled onto her stomach and coveted what he no longer hid from her eyes. What her eyes and body so greedily needed.
When he sat on the bed, his body was out of her view, but she felt every single touch of his hands. Sure strokes now, no longer lingering or skimming, and she couldn’t feel vulnerable, not when he leaned down and kissed along her back. His breaths spreading hot, moist heat.
‘You’ll make a beggar of me, lass. You have three along your back.’ He kissed, he touched, along with his words. ‘Here and here...and here.’ The rough calluses of his hands, the heated softness of his lips.
He pulled up and she almost turned over, but he stopped her with his hand on her thigh. ‘You have one here, too.’ His voice was unbearably husky, low, full of wickedness.
Then he touched her...there. Just where she ached the most. A slow, soft slide of a finger against her wetness. And again.
‘You’re so wet for me, lass, and if I press my body against yours like this, I’ll feel your moles pressed to me.’ He slid up her body, bracing his weight above her.
‘Bram, are we to, like this?’ Her voice was almost a keen and she didn’t care.
‘That’s it,’ he whispered. ‘You’ve done it.’
She felt him shudder above her as he pulled away, cradled her in his arms and turned her around. His hands cupped her face before he kissed her possessively.
‘Done what?’ she asked, when he moved his lips away.
‘Your words have broken me and I cannot wait. Cannot take my time, cannot linger and taste along your skin. I both knew and feared it’d be like this.’
Yet he continued to kiss, his hands wandering, cupping her breasts now. His thumbs flickering against her nipples until there was nothing but heat and want and him. He whispered his encouraging words as he adjusted himself between her legs, as he circled the mole along her inner thigh and she felt his fingertips tremble.
‘Are you ready, Lioslath, are you ready for me?’ His eyes shone with love and need and want of her.
‘Please,’ she said, widening her legs, pulling on his shoulders. She revelled in the trembling under his sweat-slicked skin as he complied. As she felt his hand beneath lifting her, as he grasped himself and edged closer yet. She gasped, expecting the pain, but he adjusted his movement until he rubbed against her. Just there.
Her gaze flew to his, amusement curving his lips even now, and heavy-lidded eyes belied his restraint as he moved his hips again. Amusement. As if he knew.
‘Oh,’ she gasped. Her fingers bit into his shoulders.
He stroked against her again.
‘Bram,’ she whispered, she pleaded, and he did it again.
‘Aye, lass, that’s it. I can feel you. I need you to—’ He whispered with his breaths, his body, with his voice.
When his fingers caressed her around his strokes, she broke. Waves of clenching need as he entered in one full thrust and her pleasure intensified. Her gasps turned to deeper sounds as Bram clasped her closer to him, as he took her hands in his and locked their fingers together. He was there, he was there, and she never wanted him to let go.
* * *
Lioslath woke to the faint light streaming into their bedroom. It was early yet, but she knew the keep was already stirring despite the softly falling rain. Another day for them, but infinitely more to her.
She was happy. Happy. She knew what it was, though she hadn’t expected it. Even though she never could have guessed the tragedies of their pasts would result in her being here. In the dead of night before sleep claimed them, she asked how it happened. How she began with throwing buckets of dung at him to being enfolded in the warmth of his arms. She didn’t understand him, or his words, or the way he continued to confuse her, but she understood what he told her of love and how she felt inside.
Like now, as she woke to this morning with happiness warming inside her.
When Bram stirred next to her, when she felt the press of his lips against her bare back, she felt her happiness burst like a spring brook breaking free of ice. She couldn’t contain it and a small sound escaped her lips.
‘You’re awake?’ At his words, Bram’s kisses changed direction, although still touching the same places
along her back. He was repeating a pattern she didn’t understand. And then... And then she did.
‘Are you,’ she asked, finally comprehending, barely containing some bubbling force within her, ‘are you playing a game with my moles?’
She felt his lips curve, felt his kisses become more tender, more intent. ‘Aye, I mean to keep you, Lioslath, fill you with pleasure, with play. But I need to find the way that pleases you most.’
He was playing games. Even now. Her Bram was finding ways to play in bed. She couldn’t help it.
She laughed.
He immediately stopped his kisses and adjusted himself until he faced her. His eyes were the same mesmerising grey she was always lost in, but more so now because they were wide and filled with joy. ‘You have to marry me now,’ he said.
‘We’re already married.’ She felt her own eyes must reflect the wonderment in his. ‘And I already gave myself to you.’
He smiled and the curve of his lips only added to the joy inside her. ‘I thought I gave myself to you,’ he said in that voice of his.
Wondering if she’d ever get used to his teasing, she blushed.
‘You have to be my wife now, Lioslath, because you laughed,’ he added, taking pity on her shyness. ‘And it was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, lass. Not even angels could sound better. In truth, I fervently hope it is the last sound I hear on this green earth.’
No, she’d never get used to his teasing. Why would he want to hear laughter while he died? If she was with him, why would she be laughing? ‘My laughter’s the last thing you want to hear?’ she asked, unable to keep the confusion from her voice.
He sighed exaggeratedly. ‘’Tis romantic sentiment, lass. Teasing, flirting, coaxing. Love. I see I’ll need the rest of my life to teach you these.’
Love. That was something she could understand. She brushed her fingers against his cheek. She loved his constant smiles. She loved him. ‘You’ll teach me love for the rest of my life?’
‘Aye, love for the rest of our married lives.’ He gave her a true, wide smile as a joyful determination glinted in his very grey eyes. ‘You can depend on it.’
