The Highlander's Taken Bride (Scottish Highlander Romance)

by Kaley McCormick

  She nodded, afraid of what could happen if she fled this place. Any number of men would be after her hide -- George, Robert, and Thomas.

  She tried to tidy up the place while he was gone. But he did not seem to own many possessions so it was not a difficult chore. She looked in the pantry to see what the options were for lunch and dinner. Not much really. She wished her cook was here, for help and someone to talk to. She desperately wanted to ask someone about last night, but who would believe her.

  It turned out that Thomas was gone all day. Mary dozed in the chair a couple of times and wandered around the grass out front. It felt like a brand-new rug against her bare toes and she wiggled them around in the softness.

  She had a simple dinner ready when he returned -- bread and cheese with some ham she heated on the stove.

  “See? You are learning already? Such a good wife you must be.”

  “At home I have a cook.”

  “Well not all of us can live quite like that, ma’am.” His sarcasm was cutting.

  “And do not forget, after dinner, it will be bath time.”

  Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.

  “I expect that you can finish the job this time, now that I have demonstrated for you.” His dark eyes glinted and glimmered at her, and he did not even try to hide the fact he was staring directly at her breasts.

  After she cleared the table and washed the dishes, she made the requisite trips to and from the well out back to fill the tub again. He stood naked in the corner, watching as her dress became soaked through again and staring when she bent over to pour the water in.

  Her face was flushed, but she did not know if it was from the exertion or the lecherous ogling from this man in the corner. She had seen more of his physical body in twenty-four hours than she had seen of her husband’s in twelve years. She did have to admit, however, that it was a much nicer body to have to look at, should she be in the situation of having to look.

  He climbed into the bathtub, all the while staring at her face and studying her expressions. She started with his back again and then his chest. He felt so much different that George’s pudgy rolls; Thomas was firm and toned and well-muscled. She felt the same warm water in her veins again, thousands of tiny bubbles popping and prickling places inside her she did not know she had.

  She paused when she finished his legs.

  “Come now, we said it was your turn tonight. Be thorough.” He lounged back with his legs drawn and spread, exposing himself fully.

  She took a deep breath and wrapped the washcloth over his soft member. She thought it reminded her of a grass snake, ready to strike. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  “Just make sure you wash it well,” his voice was hoarse.

  She rubbed the soapy cloth over it, her petite hand fitting easily around it at this point. But with just a few motions, it twitched and swelled in her hand. A few more motions and it swelled further. It was mesmerizing and she could not help but continue. The tiny bubbles inside her had turned into larger bubbles that tickled even more.

  After several minutes of washing, her hand no longer fit around it. She marveled at how hard it was but how soft it felt at the same time. She glanced up at Thomas’s face. His lips were parted and his eyes were fixed firmly on her breasts. The stroking motion of her hand was making them shimmy under her dress and she had never had someone so intent on them before. George barely took the time to undress her if she was not already undressed.

  His tongue slid across his lower lip and a large ripple of bubbles tingled at an unknown place between her legs. His hips started thrusting into her hand, sloshing water over the front of her dress. Now it clung to her form completely, and he could not stop his large hand from kneading one of them.

  “Thomas…” her voice waivered, the bubbles inside of her body causing her confusion and discomfort now.

  “Mary,” he grunted as she felt the member in her hand twitch and swell and contract. The water was again spotted with the same thick white fluid and she felt her fingers start to close around him again as he shrunk.

  His head lolled back and she leaned on the tub breathlessly.

  “Tomorrow night we shall try something new altogether.”

  She closed her eyes and rested her head on her hands, not realizing how close that put her face to his body. He fought the urge to pull her into the tub with him and start all over again.

  The next day looked a lot like the previous, with Thomas gone and Mary trying to make herself busy around the little house. She knew she was still a captive but it was starting to feel more pleasant than fearing George’s return to the manor house back home although she did miss her friend the cook.

  That evening she fixed the same supper since he had a limited pantry. She considered serving him an apple but thought it might be too far to walk, and could be considered an attempt to escape. And she found that she was not dreading bath time quite as much as the night before. It did not escape Thomas’ notice that she moved a little quicker that night, and he smirked to himself, pondering several options for this evening’s bath time.

  “I think you might be able to bathe me more thoroughly if you joined me in the tub,” he mused aloud.

  “Wait. What? I am to get in the tub with you?” Just as Mary had started to breathe easier in the house and around Thomas, he threw a new curveball at her.

  “Yes, I think that might just do the trick.” He was enjoying watching her squirm at all of the attention he was requiring of her. And he most certainly wanted to see more of what was under that dress.

  He stripped and entered first, this time sitting towards the middle, and then gestured to her. She slowly unbuttoned the front of her dress. He knew it was from fear and shyness, but she was moving so achingly slow, it seemed as though she was teasing him on purpose. The women at the house in town did this too, but their actions were much more intentional.

  The first few buttons revealed her firm breasts. The next few showed a tight stomach. Then the last row displayed a pair of smooth legs and the patch of auburn curls in between. He could not stop himself from groaning at her firm yet curvy figure. She approached the tub as though it might actually bite her.

  “Woman, I do not want to wait all night for my bath.” The gravel in his voice belied his arousal and made him sounds angrier than he intended.

  She slowly crept into the tub behind him and sunk beneath the water. He handed her the soap and washcloth and she began the process, trying to forget the fact that she was exposed and naked in front of a stranger. Occasionally her thigh or arm or breast would brush against him and he exhaled deeply.

  She paused when she finished his back.

  “Well, you are either going to have to reach around or come around front.”

  He did not present any appealing offers. She attempted to just reach around, but her arms did not sufficiently fit around his broad shoulders or chest. She reluctantly climbed out and reentered the tub from the front of him.

  He grinned at her and sat cross-legged to make space. When she leaned forward to rub the cloth on his chest, her breasts fell forward and floated in the water. His hands could not resist the magnetic pull and he reached up to brush them lightly with the backs of his fingers.

  “Thomas, please…” she tried to squirm away, but the tub was too small and his arms were too long.

  “Oh just wait…” he threatened with that devil glint in his eye. “Your bath is next.”

  When she finished his legs, this time he took the soap and cloth from her. “Your turn I think.”

  “Oh, no, please, no” she protested but could not get up fast enough. With one arm he pulled her body closer to him, pinning her in place with his legs.

  He soaped the cloth thoroughly, never breaking eye contact with her. Her green eyes looked so scared but he thought he saw something else spark behind the fear. She tried to repress the ripples and bubbles in her body but they just kept spreading. She could not tell why her body seemed warm from the in
side, especially from between her legs.

  He rubbed the cloth over her shoulders and arms, letting the soapy water drip down her back. When he re-soaped the cloth to start on her legs, she had to break her eyes away from his intense study. He was surprisingly gentle as he massaged slow circles up her legs. As he inched higher, the ripples and bubbles felt like they would burst out of her. His hand came to rest between her legs and she gasped.

  “Thomas? What are you—?”

  “Have to be thorough, remember?” She could see that his member was at full strength below the water and she had to stop herself from touching it.

  He worked the cloth down between her legs and she gasped again. “No, Thomas, what—I—?”

  He kept washing her, in slow circles. But as gently as he was touching her, the bubbles seemed to be reaching a boiling point. Her face and chest felt flush and there seemed to be one large bubble building inside her body. She was so focused on the warm sensations inside that she did not realize he had dropped the washcloth and was touching her directly.

  The same slow circles now seemed to cause an ache in her belly, as though she was taking ill or feeling faint. One of his fingers slipped inside of her folds and grazed a new spot that she did not know existed.

  “Oh! Thomas! I... You… What was that?”

  Her honest surprise threw him off a little. How could a married woman of this age never have been touched?

  He grazed the same spot again and she moaned. “Ohhh, what is that there? Thomas, what have you done to me? Have you given me whiskey? I feel… so… strange…”

  He focused his attention on that little nub hidden in her folds, tiny little circles while she gasped wide-eyed.

  The bubbles were at a full boil inside her body and she could not catch her breath. Thomas grinned to himself when her legs parted further, her body inviting him in when her brain was so foggy it could not tell her to deny such contact or such feelings. He pressed harder and circled faster on her spot, feeling her grow slippery even in the water.

  The bubbles inside her body seemed to be building up against her skin, against his tormenting finger. She was not certain she liked the feeling but she needed more. She could not pull away even though it felt like she was falling.

  A couple more circles of Thomas’ finger and she gripped the sides of the tub with her fingers. She felt as though she was teetering on the edge of a canyon but did not understand why she wanted to fall in. The swelling and tingling inside of her was nearly unbearable but she could not find the words or the willpower to tell him to stop.

  His voice was gravelly, “Go with it, feel it, let it happen…”

  His other hand twisted and pinched her stiff peaked nipples and she gasped, the teetering was right there, one more push and she was going to…

  A few more hard fast circles of his finger and she fell. Dark swirls behind her eyes, starlight exploding, her fingers and her toes tingled. She gasped and pushed her hips towards the unrelenting fingers.

  Thomas groaned deep in his throat, and without letting up on her clit, he managed to lift her enough to slide himself underneath. And while she slid down that mountain of sensations, he slid himself up inside her.

  “Thomas!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck.

  She made no motions to extract herself, instead her hips bucked against him and he dug his fingers into the swell of her ass, pulling her down hard on top of his cock. She wrapped her legs around his waist and uttered a muffled cry against his neck.

  The water sloshed onto the floor as their bodies crashed into one another. The waves rolled through her body over and over as Thomas tried to hang on to his self-control for as long as possible. Her hot wet inner velvet clenched at him, pulling him in and pushing him out.

  “Mary! I’m going to!” he groaned in her ear.

  “Do it,” she hissed. “Inside me.”

  He thrust hard into her once more and she felt him release inside her very body. She clamped her legs around him and held herself down against him; she did not want the runaway mountain ride to end.

  He fell backwards, panting and red-faced. “Mary, I… sweet Lord, I never… Holy mother…”

  “Thomas, what was that? I have never felt anything like that before in my life.”

  “Never? Your husband has never pleased you? Has never satisfied you?”

  “I did not know I needed to be pleased or satisfied. I have never felt anything like that before. Ever.” She struggled to catch her breath.

  “I never knew that it could be… enjoyable.”

  “Oh Mary, I think tomorrow shall be another lesson to be remembered.”

  The next day Thomas left again and Mary spent most of the day pondering what had happened last night. She never knew her body was capable of such things, such feelings, such explosions. She wondered if he would be willing to bed her without the bath time pretense just this one night.

  When he arrived home that night, she was quiet during dinner. He did not seem as demanding as he had been the previous days. After she cleaned up the dinner dishes, he motioned to the bedroom.

  “Another bath, perhaps?”

  “Thomas?” her voice was quiet.

  “Yes?”

  “Could we just forgo the bath tonight?”

  “Skip it? Skip it altogether or just skip the bath part?”

  Mary felt her cheeks redden, “Just skip the bath part.”

  “Ah, I see.” He tried not to grin but the smile tugged upwards at the corners of his mouth. “I do not seem so despicable any longer?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “What was that? Louder please.” He relished the fact that her desire for him was overcoming her shyness. That thought made his cock twitch already.

  “No, you are not so much.”

  He took her by the hand, “Then come here. We shall do this properly.”

  He quickly but gently unbuttoned the dress and let it fall. His hands roamed her body freely, his rough fingers simultaneously scratching her and making her tingle. He removed his own clothing, piling it up on the floor next to hers.

  He lay her down on the bed and crawled up next to her. “What would you have us do?” he whispered, pushing the very limits of what Mary was willing to speak out loud.

  “You could touch me again?” her desire for those feelings was overcoming her sense of decency.

  “Like this?” he asked as his hands trailed up the crease between her closed thighs.

  “Hmm mmm. Like that.”

  He bent his head, no longer able to resist her breasts. His tongue circled her nipple slowly as she moaned. As he licked and sucked, it stiffened in his mouth same as his member stiffened against the side of her hip. As she squirmed, she rubbed up against it, causing him to groan against her skin.

  He left a trail of wet kisses down her belly until he was kneeling on the floor in front of her, pressing her thighs open.

  “Thomas? What are you doing on the floor?”

  “Another lesson to remember.”

  She felt the same wet kisses on her thighs, moving upwards until she was quite nervous at his proximity to her ache. The ache was stronger than the night before, this time she knew what it was capable of. But what on earth was he doing on the floor?

  He kissed her tightly closed folds and she gasped loudly as his tongue slid inside to find the center of the ache. He easily found the swollen nub that together they had discovered the previous night, and curled his tongue around it. Her thighs fell further apart as he sent ripples through her body, bubbles upon bubbles until she could hardly catch her breath.

  “Thomas… What are you doing to me? I never…”

  Her stomach trembled. It was as though each ripple and bubble and tingle multiplied inside of her. It was so much and so intense, she cried out just from the newness of all of it. He flicked and licked and sucked at the tiny center until all of the bubbles exploded at once and she dug her hands into his hair, pulling his face against herself.

/>   As the quivering slowed, he stood and eased her back up onto the bed and climbed on top of her.

  “Mary, are you sure?” he ground himself against her slippery wetness.

  “Oh Thomas, please, come here,” she was not even sure what she wanted any more but she knew it had to do with feeling him pressed up against her.

  He slipped easily inside, groaning deeply as she whimpered. Last night she had not noticed but tonight she felt how much he was, how he filled her body.

  “Oh. You are so big!” her innocent declaration spurred his hips faster. This was no simple stroke of his ego, this was true amazement on her part.

  She writhed underneath him as he felt her tight heat surround him. He was not going to be able to exude much self-control at all. He pounded harder and faster, every thrust sending both of them towards the cliff. Her wonder and new-found enthusiasm drove him straight up to the edge.

  “Thomas!” Mary cried out.

  “Yes, I’m going to…”

  They grunted and groaned together as her velvet walls drew out every bit of his hot seed.

  “Oh Thomas, I had no idea… I never knew… it could be like that…”

  Thomas kissed her lips roughly, his tongue again diving inside of her. She tasted a tart sweetness on his lips and knew it was her own flavor.

  “I have something to tell you,” he whispered against her neck.

  “I think at this moment, you could tell me anything.”

  “George does not want you back. He said we can do with you as we please because he is not giving up his land for a useless barren woman.”

  Mary felt a hot tear slide down her cheek.

  “Mary, can I keep you?”

  “Thomas, I have nowhere else to go.”

  The pair fell asleep with their naked limbs still tangled together.

  Mary adjusted easily her new life. She found that housekeeping was not so hard when life was simpler, and she actually enjoyed cooking. Occasionally she would make plans to meet her friend the cook in the apple grove for a snack, and Thomas had no concerns about letting her go. The cook always commented on how radiant she looked and how insufferable George had become in her absence. It was no surprise given her glow that she was soon with child. The poor young girl even whispered about George visiting that house in town.