by Jackie Ivie
It took four of them to haul Aidan to this tent since he’d gone to his knees both times he’d tried to stand. Four. They each grabbed a limb and hefted while his brother Arran held the torchlight high and gave her continual troubled looks she’d refused to meet or return. They hadn’t acted like hauling Aidan was easy, with cursing and low grunting and an occasional huff of slipped breath as the four of them worked in tandem.
It took only one man to make sure she accompanied them. She thought it might have been Stefan, since she didn’t recognize him. He didn’t speak to offer his name or anything else. He didn’t have to. The grip he’d used to make her drop the stone, and the further manhandling she’d endured to get her down to her underdress with no sign of a weapon left to her, had been clear. He hadn’t needed to point after the others.
They filled the tent with the volume of them before dumping Aidan onto his back on the cot, bowing it to the ground with his weight. Juliana wasn’t ordered into the tent until they’d taken everything from the enclosure except the pallet on the ground and two blankets crafted of their own sett. One they’d pulled in a haphazard fashion atop Aidan, not even covering his lower legs or feet. The other was meant for her. She didn’t ask and no one explained. They’d filed out then, giving grunts and signals as they went that probably meant her recapture and doom if she tried to escape again, as well as specifying who the perpetrator would be. Then her escort, if it was Stefan, gestured her into the tent with a jerk of his head and added to the severity of the order by his crossed arm stance and lowered jaw. She wasn’t given the chance to mistake it, since Arran was right at his shoulder holding the torch, projecting another confused and worried look toward her that he didn’t need to explain. She could guess. With his hero worship, he’d probably been classifying her as a deranged fool for trying to escape Aidan MacKetryck . . . and doubly a fool for being an unprotected woman doing so.
Then she’d heard the sounds of leather or something akin to it sliding through material. All about her. With the torchlight behind them, Juliana had watched them weave the door shut with strips of rawhide, going in and out of prearranged holes that looked like large unsymmetrical sewing. She could guess that it was happening at the corners as well. Smart. It would be difficult to escape this mesh of tent without a blade . . . and that was what they wanted. She wasn’t going anywhere until Aidan was recovered and went back to specifying his wants about it. Always his. Never anyone else’s. They probably blamed her for his illness, too.
Or whatever he suffered.
She could have told them then they didn’t need to bother. They could have left the door wide and a horse at her disposal, and even given her a trunk filled with foodstuffs. Something had happened to her. Something so large and vast and inescapable, that all the chains in the world wouldn’t alter it.
Juliana had looked then for the first time over at the bulk that was Aidan MacKetryck, his image dimming as they’d moved away, taking the torchlight with them. Her heart had pulsed sharply and distinctly in her breast, reminding her. Again.
She wasn’t going anywhere. She couldn’t.
The way they’d prepared the enclosure kept it quiet and private, and yet so totally abuzz with the sensation of Aidan MacKetryck stretched out on his cot . . . naked . . . that no matter what position she tried atop her pallet, she couldn’t alter it. Or change it. Or ignore it.
I love him.
It was so totally wrong. And yet the more Juliana tried to block it, the more the certainty grew. She thrilled to it, vibrating all over with it while shivers coursed throughout her, and then got covered by more of the same. It was akin to the warning before a storm of weeping combined with the happiness from seeing a new batch of kittens being attended by their mother. And yet more severe at the same time. Unbelievably. Intimately.
And now Juliana was on her knees at his cot, lifted to a position above him, and filling her eyes and every other sense with what she’d never allow if he were awake and conscious to it. If she had to fall into this horrid emotional state over a man, at least this one was deserving of it. She’d never met a more powerful male. The lords and men of court her father had entertained wouldn’t show well against him. Even her betrothed, the lauded knight, Sir Percy Dane, was a shadow beside Aidan Niall MacKetryck.
Of course, MacKetryck knew it. All of it. Every waking moment, the man projected self-confidence and arrogance and awareness of just who he was and what that meant. That was galling, but as Juliana perched next to him on her knees, she realized she wouldn’t have him behave any other way.
She reached with a hand and slipped a stray bit of hair from where it was clinging to the eyebrow he was able to lift and move with such subconscious ability and appeal. Juliana thanked the dimness for covering the tremble of her fingers from herself. She held the lock of hair between two fingers and her thumb and rubbed slightly, separating the strands and feeling the silkiness. He’d never know. None of them would.
Nothing altered about the body before her. Aidan continued breathing deeply and rhythmically as he had all night, sleeping heavily. A condition that had annoyed and frustrated her as she’d sought it, and now was a balm and catalyst to what she was doing.
She opened her fingers, releasing the hair strands to sift onto the cot beside his face, and smiled slightly in appreciation of boundless, awe-inspiring male beauty . . . right in front of her . . . available . . . without one soul knowing. A tremor ran through her at the thought, flowing clear to her bare toes before it found a centering site, at the tips of every finger.
Juliana tucked her lower lip beneath her teeth and sucked on it as she moved both hands to the edge of the blanket covering him. He hadn’t moved from where they’d placed him. They should have taken care to pull the plaid piece fully over him and tuck it, rather than leave it mostly dangling off the other side. If they’d done that, the flap covering him wouldn’t be so easily lifted and peeled back, folding onto itself atop his wealth of muscle, revealing his chest and shadowing his belly. Juliana didn’t dare reveal more. Not yet. The chill of morning air might alter his sleep . . . as well as make other things happen, such as worsening the tingling in her fingers.
Aidan had a wealth of chest, tanned to a golden color from running about without clothing. The skin was also mostly free of hair. Juliana smiled slightly and glanced again to his chin and cheeks. The hair growth on his cheeks told her the truth. He didn’t grow a full beard because he couldn’t, and for the first time, he didn’t look like a full-grown, proud, boastful, mature male. He looked young . . . new . . . fresh . . . and more like Arran than ever. For some reason, that endeared Aidan Niall to her even more.
Juliana’s smile grew at the idea of a youthful Aidan. He might have even stuttered.
She moved her fingers to his mouth, hovering atop his lip flesh with a tremor that was easily seen, even in the predawn dimness. Breath touched her fingers in a modulated span, matching the rise and fall of the chest in front of her. It was daring and breathlessly so. Juliana lowered her hand slightly, touching just minutely on his lower lip with one digit before heaving with the resultant spark that scored all the way through her.
There wasn’t anything dim about that flash of light. Juliana was gasping small breaths as a result of it, blinking rapidly, and wondering how such a small tent could contain and hold something so vast. Her fingers had gone past trembling. They were shaking, and it was getting worse from the effort of holding them so close and yet still keeping from touching him.
This love emotion was a powerful thing. No wonder she’d avoided it.
Juliana waited long moments of time . . . locked in place. Sending ceaseless quick breaths into existence and just hovering. Watching. Waiting. Nothing about Aidan appeared to have changed. If anything, he looked to have settled even farther into his cot, although the binding ropes stretched above his head hadn’t moved. Nor could she sense any difference in the closeness of his cot to the ground in front of her knees. Nothing had altered. His features
were calm and beautiful in repose, and his breath was still the same slow rhythm, making the chest rise and fall in front of her with the same tempo. Strong. Constant.
Juliana gulped around the odd ball at the base of her throat and skimmed both hands above the revealed skin of his chest and upper belly, not touching. She didn’t dare yet! Just . . . skimming. And feeling a sensation so close to touching, it was as if his skin rose to reach everywhere she hovered. Juliana’s eyelids got heavy, closing to a slit of view, and her breathing deepened, sending her belly to the edge of his cot with the depth of each one. Sensation wove about the edge of her consciousness, heightening awareness, making such heat fill her, her skin moistened with the release of it, and imbuing her with such glow, the dimness of the tent was incapable of stifling it
“Ah . . . lass . . .”
The whisper alerted her. As did the roll of him toward her, connecting her palms against skin with a crashing effect of lightning to ground. Hard hands followed, gripping her about the waist and hauling her easily from her knees and onto the span of flesh she’d revealed. And even more of it, since it appeared the blanket hadn’t waited to fall off the other side of him.
“This had best be a dream.”
He whispered the warning against her lips, before taking them, and sending any answer into the confines of breathless sucking, licking, and toying. Pleasuring. Adoring. Juliana matched him with every stroke, learning the caverns of his mouth as he was hers and elevating the length of his groans with her own.
She felt hands about her buttocks, the backs of her upper thighs . . . her knees, and then the slide of material as her underdress moved, bunching in front of his assault. And then a touch hit her core, striking raw and brilliant lightning all through her and sending her into an arch with the instant shock and thrill.
Hands brought her right back, taking her cry of pleasure into his mouth with the force of his kiss, while the hot, heavy, hard power of his groin slid against where he’d left her vulnerable, open and taut, and still quivering with reaction and want. And need. And craving.
And urgency.
The cot collapsed sideways with his roll, sending her to her back on the pallet beside it, with her legs spread to accommodate the bulk that was atop her, his mouth capturing any denials she might make, his tongue licking away any doubts she might harbor, and his lips sucking at her essence, turning everything into trembling, sobbing, needy female.
“Ah . . . lass . . .”
The second word trembled against her mouth, matching the quake of his back where her hands had spread and explored, enjoying and thrilling and calling on the exquisite sensation that her fingertips had suffered earlier, only it encompassed her entire arms, her torso . . . her core.
“Lass . . . lass . . . lass . . .”
The whisper slid into her mouth, slithered over her back, and filled her loins, as he matched it to the motions he was making against her. And then he was lifting from her, and she lost the contact with his chest and belly from her as he went to a bowed position. Then he slid his hands from her waist to her hips, where he gripped her and moved her into a position that elevated her loins . . . so he could rub, slide, and moisten the entire length of his shaft over and over against her, while driving her mad the entire time.
“Aidan . . . please? Aidan . . .”
Juliana moved her hands over him, running them along every ridge of his back . . . his buttocks . . . everywhere. Up to where his wild mane of hair tickled and itched with each movement, back down the curve of his spine. Her body sinuously moving beneath him . . . aching . . . yearning . . . begging.
Aidan slammed his mouth onto hers, sucking with magical ability, while his hands went hard and strong and inescapable, and then he was shoving and pushing and making her endure such agony, her back arched on the pallet with the onslaught. Again. Farther. Deeper. Using small strokes of movement against the quivering, moist, raw flesh being forced to accept him. Aidan pushed at her, entering slightly . . . moving away. Entering again. Farther. Pushing into her in a continuum of motion, pulling her hips upward each time, opening and spreading her, and forcing her to swell and enlarge and take him. And using his mouth to capture the sounds she was making.
And still he pushed. Lifted her more. Pushed. Tightened his shoulder muscles and arms to elevate farther for a better angle. Pushing . . . farther. Going deeper. Making her accept the burn as it approached scorch level. The action sent shivers all over her that started where the agony he wouldn’t cease was, went up her spine, and climbed over her head, where it hit her open, shocked eyes, making them water uselessly and completely.
A sob escaped her, separating their lips. He raised his head away, filling her eyes with the taut cords of his neck, the red color infusing his skin, the grimace lining all of his face . . . Yet still he continued maneuvering into her, adding burn atop burn, tearing and hurting and enlarging and forcing until he finally stopped, ceasing time and space and everything except solid, unforgiving sore and hurt and anguish. He’d even ceased breathing, although the pounding of his heart was full and heavy and massive, matching hers. If he waited for her body to accept this, it was wasted. Where they were joined was a solid wall of burning throb, and it just sat at a near unbearable level, until it became one solid experience of pain and tears and blood.
Juliana blinked the tears into existence, and more filled their place. No one had told her of the pain. The fire. The suffering. The continuity of it. And then a sob escaped her as she realized the obvious. He wasn’t finished.
Aidan dipped his head slightly and met her eyes for a fraction of time that stopped and restarted her heart with a force akin to a blow. Juliana’s eyes went wide with the flash of ecstasy that suffused her from just that one look, releasing the blur of tears. The power of it hit the lump in her throat with such fury, she gulped. Blinked at the experience. Gulped again. Then, he narrowed his lashes and tipped his head lower, blowing exhaled breath all over her and sending goose bumps from the contact . . . altering the experience just slightly . . . and it was all to hide what he planned.
Juliana’s back arched in further shock and fear as his fingers tightened even more, as did the sinews of his shoulders where they were pressing against her with breath-stealing weight. Then she realized why as he pulled himself slowly out of her, pushing her away at the same time, and mitigating the pain from excruciating to nearly bearable. Giving her a moment or two to relax and just begin to comprehend the relief before rolling and holding her hips farther upward, making it easier for him to move right back against her and into her. Again. With painful depth and size. With unbelievable scope. Heaviness. Heat. Range. Fully. Until his groin met hers . . . encasing him. Completely.
Juliana gasped in a breath, and then lost the exhalation in his mouth as he moved his head toward her again. She didn’t know it was to kiss her until he did it, lapping at her tissues and swirling his tongue, and sliding his lips against hers time and again, making shooting stars fill the tent. And it was all to disguise and make her accept the next time he moved to pull away from her, sliding slowly from her sheath, amid the same sigh of relief that was immediately followed by the return of pressure and bulk.
Again and again, and countless times more.
He lifted his lips from her, moving across a cheek to her throat and murmuring the same thing over and over as he went. “Lass . . . lass . . .”
“’Tis . . . pain, Aidan.” Juliana whimpered the words.
“It’ll ease.”
He’d reached her ear and the words were soft. They were the only thing about this that was. Everything else on him was hard and strong and taut and rigid. And not changing. The opposite was happening. His body seemed to get even harder. Everywhere. Every breath was getting sucked in and pushed back out with a vicious motion that just kept intensifying. His heartbeat wasn’t far behind as it pumped louder and stronger, putting a thump into every place she touched. Heat infused everything, dispersing any chill and putting a moist film ato
p every portion of him she touched, making every slide of her fingers skim along skin that warmed markedly, until the finger pads of each hand burned with it.
Where they were joined was changing as well, going to a moving sensation of remembered ache amid flashes of beckoning pleasures that flashed through without warning or rhythm or constancy, halting her breathing with the spasm her body involuntarily made. And that sparked a resultant grip he’d immediately put on all of him, before resuming filling and emptying her body with a pace that had the indefatigability of a wave-tossed sea and the constancy of a summer rain.
“Lass?”
“Aye?”
He’d lifted his head away and waited. Juliana thought she was prepared for the eye connection. She was wrong. It was as obvious as the nonmelodic lurch she gave against him, mashing their loins together with a mightier movement than he’d put into place. And that resulted in a sucked-in breath from him that came out with a curse that sounded more like a prayer.
“Christ.”
“Aidan . . . I don’t—”
“Wrap your legs about me, love. Now.”
He didn’t wait for her to comply before releasing her hips from the grip he’d had on them, in order to shove his hands palms-down into the meshed top of her pallet, squashing the feathers flat, and then sending everything on his body into full-out muscular perfection as he lifted his upper body away from her, and just stayed there, with arms that had the consistency of tree trunks and loins that continued rocking in place.
“Now . . . lass. Now!”
The urgency in his whisper matched the increasing spread of flush happening all through him, the breaths he was pulling in, holding, and then heaving out, as well as the increased motions he was pulling and pushing into her. Juliana tried. Her back fought her and her legs weren’t far behind, while the continual movement at where he’d joined into her was warning her of barely forgotten pain and fire. For a moment, she didn’t know if she could do it.
