by Ranae Rose
Isla blinked up at him, for he had stopped kissing her. If his grip on her wrist had been any tighter, it would have hurt.
“Dinnae touch me any more,” he breathed. “I cannae take it.”
He released her hand, and Isla obliged his strained request, placing it innocently—or innocently enough, anyway—on his thigh. Her fingertips were still damp, and her core clenched and throbbed as she remembered the little bit of moisture spilling from the slit that divided the rounded end of his erection. What would it feel like when he spilt himself—all of himself—inside her? Would she feel the hot rush, despite how wet her core already was? Her fingertips tingled beneath the little bit of seed he’d already released. She thought she would.
He dipped his fingers between her legs again, resuming the massage that had caused moisture to trickle from her body, further dampening the already rained-upon earth. “What I’ll soon be doin’ to ye may hurt a wee bit,” he said, “and I dinnae want ye to think pain is all there is to it.” His lips brushed her neck and his breath tickled her ear. “Be still, Isla.”
Her breath caught in her throat, and she relaxed as best she could, lying back against the ground with her hair spilling over the earth. Alexander met her eyes, and she closed them. She didn’t have the energy to hold his burning gaze, not when his touch was making her head spin. God, she’d never imagined anything could feel like this! She understood now why he’d begun to spill himself—such pleasure demanded a physical reaction. The slippery folds between her legs tingled and burnt with delight, and her womb tightened sporadically. The fleshy tunnel that led to it clenched tight, as if to grasp something that wasn’t there yet—though she desperately wanted it to be. She’d take his cock now, if he’d only give it to her, and wouldn’t worry about how it might hurt. Not having it in her ached badly. She didn’t just want it now—she needed it. She tightened her grip on his thigh, driving her nails into his flesh, desperate to convey her urgency. He didn’t flinch, but rather rubbed her more quickly, gliding his fingertips over her slick skin and massaging the hard nub that begged for attention. She was sure she would burst.
She gasped suddenly, gripping Alexander’s thigh with a force that might have made a weaker man wince. Her entire body seemed to tense and tense again, riding the waves of sensation that swept through her core and into the rest of her. There was only pleasure—there was only his touch, making her writhe against the cold earth and cry out wordlessly. There was only Alexander. And when the pleasure ebbed, he was still there. She stared up at him with wide eyes, nearly breathless.
“Alexander…” she gasped, her voice barely a whisper.
He slowly withdrew his touch from between her legs, tracing a line down the inside of her left thigh with his fingertips. She responded automatically, opening her legs to his touch. He lowered himself between them, moving one of her legs aside gently, careful not to bump her broken foot. When he had settled between her thighs, he seized his kilt and raised it, momentarily revealing a flash of dark hair and a long piece of stiff flesh, gone reddish with desire. He embraced her, resting his hard cock against her dampened skin, ready to part the tingling folds and slide inside her. She placed her hands on his shoulders, gripping them tightly. This was it. This was what everyone had accused her of. And she couldn’t wait for it to happen.
Chapter Four
“Isla,” Alexander said.
“Aye?” It came out as more of a gasp than a word.
“Are ye sure? Are ye sure ye dinnae mind bein’ the lass that was bedded by a Gordon? Are ye sure…that ye want to be my wife?” His cock pulsed against the soft flesh of her inner thigh as he spoke, a hair’s breadth away from penetration.
“I havnae ever wanted anythin’ more,” she said, and it was true. The suggestion that she could still turn him away after receiving such a gift as his touch, after losing herself completely beneath it, seemed absurd to her. The climax he’d driven her to had been wonderful, but not completely satisfying. If anything, she only wanted him more now. If he could do that with his just hands, what would he be capable of when loosed upon her body, joined with it? And there was the fact that she wanted him—the essence of his person, his soul, she supposed—quite as much as she wanted his body. She knew now he was just as gorgeous on the inside as the outside, Gordon or no.
He entered her in one slow stroke, reaching deep inside as she gripped his shoulders. She pressed her mouth to his neck and bit down to stifle a cry as her core stretched to accommodate his considerable presence. God, it did hurt! She’d known when she’d seen his cock tenting his kilt, when she’d felt its length in her hand, that it couldn’t possibly fit inside her painlessly. How it ached! With pain…and with pleasure. And, as he pulled back, with longing for him to slide in deeply again, to fill her. It didn’t make any sense. But then, the fact that she was lying beneath a Gordon on the forest floor wouldn’t have made any sense to her a few hours ago. But she was glad she was. God, she was glad.
“Oh, Isla…” Alexander moaned, driving himself deep into her again.
She gasped beneath him. The pain was beginning to lessen with every stroke, but a deep one like that…well, it filled her with a different kind of ache. The place inside her he’d touched with the tip of his cock throbbed as he pulled away, almost hurting as she longed to feel him force his way there again. She shuddered when he granted her unspoken wish and gripped his shoulders more tightly, inadvertently squeezing water from the fabric beneath her hands.
He bowed his head and pressed his mouth against hers, roughly parting her lips with his tongue and delving deep inside. She kissed him back and he bore down on her, moving faster, with less care and more urgency. Her tongue slipped against his as he withdrew and plunged in again, mimicking the motions that were rocking her hips below.
She was clawing his shoulders in earnest now. She arched beneath him and the kiss was broken. Her saliva gleamed on his lips, causing them to glisten in the daylight as he tossed back his head, dark strands of his hair flying. He was moving so hard inside her that it hurt again, but in a way that made her want more.
One of her fingernails tore a slight run in the fabric of his shirt, the sodden material seeming to disappear beneath her grip as she felt she was dissolving beneath him—reduced from a living, thinking being to an entity of pure sensation and fierce craving.
He cried out and she joined him as he pushed her to climax. Her core contracted wildly around his cock, seizing it and urging him to stay, not to withdraw from her body, ever. She didn’t fight her body’s response. Instead, she yielded to it, arching herself beneath him and breathing raggedly as intense spasms made her exclaim wordlessly between gasps.
His seed rushed into her channel, hot and wet, just as she’d imagined it. Her body milked it from him, gripping him tighter and tighter with each wave of pleasure that washed over her. Having him inside her was so much better than grasping at nothing as she came. She gasped, dug her nails too hard into his shoulders and cried his name.
When they both were finally still, the only sounds were their heavy breathing and the distant cry of a lark. Alexander remained inside Isla, propped on his elbows, his pulse beating in her core, urging her own heartbeat to fall in time. It did, and perpetuated the feeling they had become one being. He withdrew slowly, pausing to kiss her softly on the lips. The head of his cock brushed her folds, setting off a last, smaller wave of toe-curling sensation. She sighed as he left her completely and the cold air hit her bare skin again.
He wordlessly retrieved her shift and dress, bringing them to where she sat on the ground, her hair surely wild and her left leg cautiously extended. She raised her arms at his urging and he pulled her shift down over her head, slowly feeling his way over her curves as he clothed her. He did the same with her dress, pulling it down over her body and smoothing its skirts against her thighs. Isla found the sensation of his fingers fluttering against her sides and thighs just as exciting as she had before they’d made love. She’d thought doing so
would make her stop craving his touch, but it hadn’t. Though she was sexually satisfied—how could she not be, when her core felt weakened in the wake of such intense relief, and hot with his seed?—she still wanted to feel his skin against hers, to hear the beating of his heart. To be close to him.
After draping her cloak around her and tying it beneath her chin, he paused to refasten his sporran, then lifted her from the ground, cradling her and turning back in the direction they had come from, where the horses waited less than a mile away.
“Wait,” she said.
He paused, his expression soft as his eyes met hers.
“I’d like to visit the spring again, for just a wee bit before we leave.” Her throat was slightly sore from so much gasping, and her voice quiet, but she knew he’d listen.
He lowered her at the pool’s edge, and she stared into the clear water, seeing the speckled rocks that rested at the bottom, smoothed by many years of submersion. She bowed her head. This time, she prayed a silent prayer of thanks.
“So, is it true?” he asked when she turned to face him again.
She followed his gaze to where it rested on the water. “Aye, it’s true. A prayer sent from the bank of the Spring of Saint Himelin cannae but come true.”
He rested a hand on her shoulder, pausing thoughtfully before saying, “Aye.”
“So, you agree?” she asked.
He nodded.
“What was it ye prayed for, then?”
He bent so that his lips brushed her ear when he spoke, sending a shiver racing down her spine. “I prayed that I might feel your lips against mine again, without forcing them there.” He kissed her lightly, and her head span a little as she tasted his lips and remembered witnessing his silent pleading by the spring’s edge. That…this was what he’d prayed for?
“Come home with me now,” he said, scooping her up from the ground, “and I’ll see ye dried and your foot tended to.”
She let her head rest against his chest as he carried her, and listened to the sound of his heart beating against her cheek. She pressed a hand against her own breast and found that her heart pulsed in time with his. Perhaps their joining had done that—perhaps their hearts would always beat together now, as one. The thought brought a slight smile to her lips as he took long strides through the forest, carrying her towards its edge and the road that would lead them to Benstrath.
The horses were waiting where they’d left them, and were still damp although the rain had finally stopped. Isla gazed up at the brooding sky. It looked as if it might rain again, but even a moment of dryness was something to be grateful for.
Alexander lifted her onto the sorrel’s back, depositing her just behind the saddle. She waited there as he untied Briar, then the sorrel, holding the end of Briar’s reins as he climbed onto his mount’s back, settling in front of Isla. Then she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his back as he heeled their mount, urging it forward towards the road.
* * * *
Benstrath loomed into view after over an hour of slogging down muddy roads and riding through damp heather. Isla was both glad and incredibly anxious at the sight of the sprawling estate. She was a Forbes! And yet, here she was, riding up to Benstrath’s main house with her arms around a Gordon man and her skirts damp not only with rain but with his seed. How would the rest of the Gordons react? She worried, but didn’t regret her decision. Her prayer had been answered at the Spring of Saint Himelin—she was free from her father’s abuse, and she was loved.
“Worrit, are ye?” Alexander asked, apparently sensing her tension.
She nodded against his back, her cheek grazing his shoulder blade. “How could ye tell?”
“If ye were any stronger, you’d already have cut me clean in half with your clingin’.”
Heat crept into her cheeks as she loosened her hold around his waist. Well, loosened it a little, anyway. “Aye, I’m worrit.”
“I willnae allow anyone to abuse ye. Ye havnae forgotten what we spoke about on the road, have ye?”
Isla shook her head. “Of course I havnae forgotten.” Her stomach seemed suddenly full of butterflies as she remembered, and she clung tightly to Alexander once again, seeking the security of his solid warmth. It worked—the subtle shifting of his lean muscles comforted her, calming her anxious stomach.
He reined the sorrel to a halt on the main house’s grounds. Candlelight glowed in the windows, defying the gloomy sky with their yellow warmth. Surrounding the estate house and stretching into the distance were the smaller homes of Benstrath’s crofters. Many of their windows glowed, too. It would have been a cosy sight, had she not been a Forbes.
A boy of thirteen or so, gangly, yellow-haired and looking a bit too small for his tartan, emerged from around the corner of the house. The smile that broke across his face when he saw Alexander quickly turned to a look of curiosity as he spotted Isla. He gaped openly as he approached them at a rangy, loping gate.
“John!” Alexander cried as he swung down from the sorrel. “Take these horses to the stable for me, lad.”
The boy stared as Alexander lifted Isla from the saddle and cradled her against his chest.
“Hurry!” Alexander said. “I’ve an injured lass and no time to waste standin’ here while ye gawk.”
The boy snatched both the horses’ reins and hurried to pull them away, casting frequent glances over his shoulder as he tugged them towards the stable. Isla was left in Alexander’s arms, facing the house, with its imposing grey stone front and contrastingly cheery windows. For the first time, she was glad she was lame—she doubted she would have been able to stand even if her foot hadn’t been broken. Her stomach lurched alarmingly as Alexander started forward, bringing them closer with every step to the confrontation she feared. By the time they reached the door, her heart was pounding so frantically against her ribs that she feared they would break. A light sheen of sweat dampened her forehead despite the cold. Alexander pushed the door and it swung inward, spilling light inside.
The murmur of conversation buzzed in Isla’s ear as Alexander carried her over the threshold, and she caught sight of several people in a sitting room to the left of the foyer. A hush fell over the small group as the sound of Alexander’s footsteps rang in the parlour, and four heads turned towards them—two women, both older than Isla, as well as a young man and a girl. Two small children played on the floor, too absorbed in their games to spare a glance for any new arrivals. Alexander started deliberately towards the sitting room, and the eyes of its occupants seemed to grow wider with his every step, shining with apparent curiosity and a hint of wariness. By the time they’d entered the room, a matronly woman wearing a stained apron had emerged from what looked to be a kitchen to stare as well.
Alexander cast a quick glance in her direction. “Verra well, then,” he said. “Five witnesses.”
A sixth figure emerged into the hall, tall and fair.
Oh, God.
It was Alpin. Isla would have recognised the face from her nightmares anywhere, and the sight of it froze her blood. Beneath sleek, white-blond locks, icy blue eyes stared directly at her, like his brother’s in colour, but different in every other way imaginable. He was also dressed like Alexander, in a dark hunting tartan and a pale shirt, but their similarities ended there. Alpin was tall, but more slender than Alexander. There was a serpent-like grace about his lithe figure, and his good looks were spoilt by a distinct expression of cruelty that Isla had never seen him without.
Alexander didn’t spare his brother a glance, but it was clear he knew he was there. He held Isla a little more tightly and his jaw tightened. “Six, then,” he said, his voice still firm.
Isla swallowed, hoping the motion would make it easier to speak when her turn came. Alexander took her hand in his own and squeezed. Their small audience was as silent as stone, perhaps expecting Alexander to introduce his guest.
He didn’t. Instead, he spoke in a sure, ringing voice. “I declare Isla Forbes my wi
fe.”
The faces of their audience went comically blank, assuming expressions of incomprehension and even shock.
“Forbes?” a cold voice sneered, the word carrying down the hall and echoing through the sitting room. “Your wife?”
Isla dared a glance at Alpin, and what she saw both chilled her to the bone and caused her heart to leap in alarm. He’d removed his gaze from her and focused it on his brother instead. His hand was hovering over the dirk that hung at his hip.
“You heard me,” Alexander said, a hint of anger lending his voice an edge.
Alpin was seething visibly with indignant rage. His lip curled as he stared down the long, sharp bridge of his nose at his brother. “Ye’ve always been an embarrassment, Alexander, but this is too far. Benstrath deserves better in an heir, in a lady.” His eyes flashed dangerously at Isla and he bit off the last word with as much disdain as he could muster.
Alexander’s cool, blue gaze travelled to where Alpin was caressing the hilt of his dirk, looking very much as if he’d like to unsheathe it.
Alexander’s voice was admirably even, but tinged with a hard edge that made Isla want to shrink against his chest. “This isnae any of your concern, little brother.”
Alexander had infused the title with as much scorn as Alpin had shown a moment ago, and this was clearly not lost on his younger brother. Alpin’s icy eyes flashed as the faint sound of his grinding teeth undercut the silence. “This is madness. You—”
“You can either witness our handfasting in silence, or leave bloodied,” Alexander said. His tone was cool, but his body burnt hot against Isla, his arms around her as tense and hard as rocks.
