He paused, as though waiting for my answer, but I was blind and mute, it seemed. I was too strung-out, waiting for his whip.
“What say you, wife? Do you want me to do with you what I please?” He struck again, lower across my skin.
“Aye,” I cried out, stunned by the blaze of sensation. The glowing burn in the core of my body was feverishly intense, stroked by his fingers and stoked by the sharp sparks of his indulgent punishment. I was moaning—profanities, no less. “Oh, Holy God,” I was saying. “Oh, please.”
“I chose you, Stella. You’re mine. Mine. Do you understand me?”
The delicious contact of the lash struck again.
“Aye.”
And again. The soft pain leached instantly to ecstatic, greedy sweetfire. My body felt alight with the promise of a rapture so extreme I could only lift my hips higher, pushing against his hand, pleading and squirming with need.
“Please, husband,” I begged him, and again.
“You like your punishment? Or do you beg me to stop?” Again, sharper. The sting funneled instantly to the glow, feeding it, expounding it.
“Nay,” I moaned. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
I waited for the sting of pleasure-pain, but he would not give it to me. “Who is it you will think of now?” he said. “Who will haunt your dreams, wife, and invade your fantasies? Who?”
“You, husband. Only you.”
The lash found its mark fiercely.
Oh, God. There it was. I was on the precipice. The punishment had become the reward.
“You think that boy could satisfy you? Think again. You need a man who can fulfill your voracious womanly appetites. Like this,” he growled, smacking the whip against the swollen, aching, delicate place where the entirety of my being was centered.
The flare of pain and pleasure consumed me. I lost hold of myself completely, riding the euphoria in an utter haze of bliss, so immersed in the clenching spasms deep within my body that I was aware of nothing else for quite some time. My body bucked gently, my moans undulated along with the waves, my hands gripped fistfuls of the fur blankets. And my husband’s hands teased the pleasure further, relentless and so thorough I wanted to hold them, and him, against me, and in me, forevermore.
It occurred to me, with wonder, that this was only the beginning. We hadn’t even fully consummated this marriage. I felt a mild sense of alarm and of awe, somewhere outside the periphery of my clouded, entranced mind. How could it get even more intense?
And now his hands were rearranging my supple, supine limbs, turning me and laying me back against the pillows. I wondered for a moment if I had indeed lost consciousness. Why was it so dark? Then I remembered that I was blindfolded.
“I’m going to tie your wrists now,” he said.
He took one of my wrists and lifted it to the bedpost, securing it with what felt like a thick silk tie. My reflexes were slowed in the aftermath of my release. I pulled against the restraint. “Nay,” I protested weakly. But my husband seemed not to have heard. My body was pinned under his and he was securing my other wrist just as tightly.
It was just as Lottie had warned! I was bound and trapped. As lust-infused and satiated as my body was, I fought against him. Aye, it would take several days for me to recover already from what he had done to me. I couldn’t take any more. Yet I wanted more, as I’d never wanted anything in my life. The intensity of my release had left me dazed and muddled with conflicting urges. I felt replete yet perturbed and restless. My body echoed with starry decadence, the memory of it etched into every part of me. I knew if he touched me again the pleasure would only compound itself. Already I recognized the quiver, the building warmth. I wanted to touch him, fervently, to take out my passions and frustrations on him. Strangely, I wanted to bite him, to taste his skin and rub myself against him. Now.
My head lolled from side to side. I felt delirious with the aftereffects of my release and the need for more of his erotic expertise. “Kade—”
“Hush.” The command was unconditional, without even the slightest hint of leniency. And now my ankles were being tied, one, then the other. My feeble struggles were entirely ineffective. Kade waited, not touching me. I tried to calm myself, listening. Where was he? What was he doing now? I couldn’t bear to think of how I looked to him, laid out for his pleasure and his domination.
I felt his mouth softly kiss me there where I still pulsed with his forcefulness. He licked into me, reminding me, coaxing me. The sweet ache closed in, gathering, divine. But then he pulled away. “That was more for my own gratification than for yours,” he said. “I’ve developed something of an addiction for my wife. But first things first.”
I froze as the lightest, softest touch grazed the sole of my foot, tickling me, silencing me. The touch traced languidly, barely a touch at all. All concentration drew to that soft, gliding line as it slid over my ankle, up my calf.
“What is it?” I managed to ask. My voice sounded low and fevered.
“A feather.”
It traveled farther, a fluid, sensual path along my thigh, my hip, circling my navel, to my breast, eliciting sensation, teasing.
Such a light, delicate sensation, focusing upon and circling yet never touching the most intimate points of my body. As the line traced across my skin, its touch seemed to burn me, to brand me with a fiery, penetrating neediness.
Long, torturous moments of anticipation and desperation.
My body was on fire. I thought I might go up in flames, merely from the inspiration of this soft, enticing brush against my sensitive skin. But then the touch was removed. Quickly, without pause, the touch was replaced with a much more solid one. Still soft in texture but unyielding, no longer brushing but tapping.
“What’s this?” My voice was sultry, frantic.
“A small whip with a triangular leather tip.”
I heard myself cry out as the leather slapped against my nipple, causing a sharp bolt of sensation that shot straight to my center, scalding me with spiky pleasure.
“You thought your punishment was finished?” he said. “Not even close, wife. I’m exceptionally thorough, you should know. I want to ensure that you remember this lesson. So that you’re not tempted toward further indiscretions.”
I couldn’t help myself. Even though I knew it would cost me. “It was hardly an indiscretion! I didn’t move, or speak. ’Twas a greeting—of his, not mine—nothing more.”
“A greeting,” he scoffed, pausing for a moment to circle my nipple with his whip. His mouth found the teased, sensitive peak, closing over it, suckling with surprising warmth considering the topic of conversation. I had a feeling that he was, once again, allowing himself a reprieve that had little to do with either my pleasure or my punishment. After a voracious minute, he disengaged, leaving me maddeningly enflamed. “Nevertheless, I insist that you remain faithful to me from this day forward. And so I must make this as memorable for you as possible. I have reason to believe it won’t be memorable for the wrong reasons, however, but for the right ones. You can beg me to stop anytime you wish, of course.”
I thought of begging him to stop, now, once and for all. I would. Soon. But the soft leather was brushing enticingly against my skin, weaving to my other breast, where the light tap was repeated, heightening the fever, jolting my senses, so I could feel the effects to my fingertips and toes. Again. And again. With each stroke, a rising ache swelled deep within my body, feeding the burn, melting it and stoking it with pleasurable fire.
Then the touch of the soft leather left me. I listened and waited. My breasts rose and fell with my anticipation. My heart thumped heavily in my chest.
“Tell me to stop and I will,” he said, his voice raw not with ferocity but with heavy tenderness. “Tell me what you want.”
“More,” I whispered.
I heard his light chuckle. I wished I could see him.
After a moment, the whip touched my thigh, tracing upward, circling in ever smaller circles, until it rubb
ed against my swollen petals, petting me and parting the intimate curls to expose me, tapping lightly. The core of my body began to pulse along to his deliberate, measured pace.
I wished my hands were free, so I could grab him and hold him. I was ravenous to taste him, to take any part of his body into any part of mine. “Husband,” I whispered hoarsely. “Come close to me. I need to tell you something.”
He paused, as though considering whether to indulge my request. But then I heard movement. He leaned to me and I could feel the heavy placement of his hands on either side of me, and the brush of his hair on my face. He kissed my lips lightly yet with raw, openmouthed hunger; it was a kiss such as I had never experienced: wet, full of his dominance, laden with the promise of more to come. His kisses trailed across my cheek, to my ear. “What?” he whispered.
“Take me now,” I said. “As your wife. Irrevocably. I don’t want to wait another eight days and fourteen hours.”
“Thirteen,” he corrected. He bit my earlobe sharply, kissing my neck, moving lower, availing himself to my body freely. “You know I can’t do that.”
“I don’t care about your vow. I want you to break it.”
“Nay, lass, I can’t. I don’t break vows. And we haven’t fully established whether or not you trust me unequivocally.”
I knew it was irrational even as I said it, but I didn’t care. I was irate with my own deluge of feeling. There were too many emotions, too much sensation, too much need. “Your vows are foolish! I didn’t ask for you daft vows! I need you. Please. Please. I want to feel you, husband. Let me touch you and hold you. Let me feel something of you. All of you. Anything. Anything. Please.”
“You want to feel me, wife?” he murmured, consumed by his own desperation, I could hear it in his voice. And then I felt him. Exactly where I wanted him. Not his hands or his mouth. The heavy, solid bulk of his manhood, pressing against me. The massive, satiny touch parted me but did not enter me. He held himself against me but did not give me the movement or the possession I begged for.
“Not yet, wife. You know you’re being punished. You know you have to wait.”
“Is that what this is? Part of my punishment? You punish me by withholding yourself from me?”
“Perhaps,” he teased, but then his voice took on a more serious tone when he said, “I just want to prove myself to you. That I’m true to my word. That you never, ever have to fear me or doubt me.”
At that precise moment, not only my body craved him with a desperation I had never known, but my heart seemed to swell with my desire to keep him and hold him close, forevermore, to love him and believe him. Aye, I would allow him to keep his word to me, as he had allowed me my hesitations.
But my body had other ideas.
When I began to writhe against him, he removed his touch altogether. I almost wept from the sudden deprivation. But he was rubbing himself against my stomach, between my breasts. I was astounded by the joy this contact fed me. I wanted him to use my body in any way, in every way. I could feel his own need and his aggression in the gliding, thrusting assault. Timeless and sublime. He was everywhere. His low groan was followed by the warm beat of his seed raining across my tender petals, my cool stomach, my swollen breasts.
The light touch was immediately replaced by a more forceful one. The whip flicked at me in rhythmic bites, piquing my flesh into an agony of ecstasy. Without warning, it slapped against the bundle of nerves at the very heart of me. The sensation was so overwhelming I thought I might explode. It was too much. If he did it again, I feared I might lose myself, step over some sort of edge that I couldn’t control or understand. But I had to have it, I didn’t care. My release simmered hotly, so very close, daunting with its promised magnitude.
“Again. Now. Please,” I pleaded, out of my mind.
“Patience, lass,” came his devil-edged reply.
The swell began even before the whip touched me. I knew it was coming and my body responded, blooming and rising, so that when the strike hit me in that most sensitive, ready place, it fed an overwhelming torrent of pleasure. Another tap and I was lost, swept away by a physical rush that washed through my core with violent, voluptuous bursts. I was crying, writhing, begging. I was blind and bound, my only sensation this rich, rolling pleasure.
After a long, dreamlike swell, the waves eased and calmed. I didn’t know if the blindfold was removed; I couldn’t have opened my eyes.
I heard a soft murmur at the edge of my consciousness. “My wife is a goddess.”
* * *
AFTER THE THIRD—perhaps fourth—climax, I entered a state of physical transcendent enlightenment in which my body existed in its own realm, thoroughly base and primal. My mind went dark and quiet, able only to comprehend the acute, drawn-out rapture. Throughout the night, I was taken beyond any and every limit I had never known existed. After hours of exquisite torture and unimagined bliss, I was vaguely aware that my ankles and wrists were being unbound. A cool cloth washed me. I was covered by the warm weight of the furs. And I awoke with my arms and legs wrapped possessively around my savage warrior husband.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KADE WOKE ME, the light trace of his fingers drawing a line along the arch of my eyebrow, down my cheek, across my lips. His expression was softer than I had ever seen it. We lay like that for several minutes, in silence, savoring this nearness and this new, strengthening bond.
There was an inexplicable, thoughtful glow in his eyes. Not sorrow, not awe. Something rare and vast. “You hold my heart with both hands, lass. I have completely fallen. I am forever at your mercy.”
His words, so touching and unexpected, fed me a strange warmth. “I will take infinite care with your heart, husband,” I whispered to him, sensing that the changes in me, in him, were more profound than I could ever have imagined. I repeated the assurance he had given me, and proven to be true. “You have nothing to fear with me.”
Kade continued to draw his soft line, as though committing each nuanced curve of my face to memory. There was a deep fondness in his expression, a gentle amazement. Gone was the heartless savage I had once taken him for, replaced, here in our private haven, by a lover who was becoming so deeply comforting to me I wondered how I ever could have feared him so.
“I must rise now to organize the hunting parties,” he said. “I’ll stay close to home today to attend to matters here. I might see you in the day.”
“I’d like that very much. You don’t need to hunt?”
“The hunting parties are able to dispatch without my guidance. There is a growing number of men whose loyalty I trust. I was assured of this yesterday. We ran into a small brigade of Campbell’s troops.”
This news sent a bolt of foreboding through my heart. “Where?”
“About ten miles from here. In the exact direction that leads to Campbell’s keep, if one were to follow the line due northwest. We have reason to believe they were expecting a message from a Morrison soldier. They asked us if we had word, before they realized that I was among the party.” The very fact that Kade was sharing this information signaled a change. I thought he might be warning me. To be aware. To be on guard. “We’re better prepared than we were only two weeks ago. Many of the soldiers’ training is coming along well, Jamie among them. Most of the key weapons have been newly sharpened. And I will remain within close proximity to my wife, who I have sworn to protect above all others.”
Of course I was glad to learn that he would be close by if I needed him. If he needed me.
“And so I must take my leave of you, for now,” he said, rising from the bed, preparing himself for his day.
Before he left me, he kissed me only once, as though mindful of our effect on each other, and making a point to avoid temptation. “Good day, milady,” he said.
A short time later, several of the housemaids arrived at my door. I spent most of the day with them, organizing the rooms that Kade’s brother and sisters would sleep in during their visit, along with their entourage of mi
litary and other personnel. I was glad that we could greet them with a more welcoming keep than they might have found only weeks ago.
And I couldn’t get my husband out of my mind.
I couldn’t wait to see him again. I couldn’t wait to lie next to him, to feel his hands on my body. In my anticipation, I felt like a different person altogether. I was still glowing with the effects of Kade’s erotic torment. My limbs felt loose, relaxed yet strong. My body was fizzing with satisfaction the likes of which I had never experienced. And my mind was sharper than I could ever recall. I felt, in the broader sense of the term, powerful, as though I had swallowed a seed of invincibility. I felt peaceful. Whole. Womanly. Alive. My husband had beaten my weaknesses out of me, apparently. He had soothed me, riled me and awakened me all at once.
And I was pleased with the newfound harmony of the manor in general. We still had mountains of work to do, but the small changes were evident. The hall and the kitchens were noticeably cleaner and more efficient. The staff were more energized as they spoke and worked. Once the new ground rules had been established—and rewards aplenty gifted to those who followed through—real change was detectable, not only in the slowly improving look of the place but in the entire atmosphere of the keep. The changes, it was widely acknowledged, were positive. We were enjoying the tastier, more abundant food. Random clan members commended me on my efforts, and those of my husband, and had begun to offer to assist in any way they could. The manor itself was looking somewhat more polished and proud and was getting close to being ready, Kade said, to host his eldest brother and two sisters, who would visit in two weeks’ time.
Knox Mackenzie’s visit, I knew, could not come soon enough for Kade. My husband was becoming increasingly anxious about the uprising not only outside our walls, but inside them, as well. About half the men of the army were loyal to Kade, he estimated, or perhaps more. It was the other contingent he was worried about. The timing for an internal uprising couldn’t be worse, if the threat of Campbell’s return—wherever it might be—was to be believed. I knew my husband took Campbell and his army seriously. I remembered my husband’s words about Campbell’s vicious nature. The large crescent-shaped scar on Kade’s shoulder was proof that there was at least one warrior roaming the Highlands who posed a very physical threat. That the man in question had been spotted repeatedly in these very parts was distressing indeed. And with only half an army’s allegiance, Kade was eager to have his brother—and his brother’s troops—on hand and at the ready.
Juliette Miller - [Clan MacKenzie 02] Page 22
