by Erin O'Quinn
The food was piled in large trenchers on every table scattered around the great room. Raven’s garden vegetables dominated the feast, but I also saw heaping platters of trout and a large cauldron of game stew.
At one point I saw Torin sitting alone with a cup of barley beer. Looking around the room, I spotted the special friend I had wanted him to meet. A few minutes later, I stood by his bench. “Ah, Torin,” I said.
“Caylith.” He smiled, and he lifted his cup of beer. “To the beautiful bride.” He stood and kissed me square on the lips, the loud buss of a man to his sister.
“O brother,” I said. “I have told a friend of mine about you, and she has asked to meet you.”
“Is that right?” he asked, his lips twitching ever so slightly.
I stepped aside to reveal the woman behind me. It was Swallow Feather, one of the many nieces of Jay Feather and my helpmate on the pilgrim’s currach that first carried me to Éire.
Swallow was, in a word, exquisite. Her hair was a deep, rich strawberry blonde, and her curly eyelashes, lowered shyly, did not quite hide the gold-flecked brown of her eyes. Swallow had the kind of body that most women wanted, and envied in other women—full-breasted with a tiny waist and long lovely legs. I still felt ugly next to her, even after all this time, and yet I had long ago forgotten my envy.
Her mouth curved like a rosebud, and she smiled at him somewhat bashfully.
“Torin,” she said. “My name is Swallow.”
“And ye deprive me of the ability,” he almost stammered.
She looked at him, puzzled.
“To swallow,” he managed to say.
She looked around uncertainly, wondering where to sit, for there was no other bench nearby.
“Please sit here next to me for a long moment, Swallow. I would look at ye while ye tell me anything, anything at all.”
And thus was the bachelor Torin smitten. I smiled and sought my husband.
Now, just back from the wedding celebration, I watched my Liam as he walked around our teach lighting candles. Leaving the fire pit, I went to the clothes cabinet and unhooked the top of my cloak. He walked up behind me and removed it slowly from my shoulders, bending to kiss the nape of my neck. My back still to him, I turned my head a little so that I could watch him. I saw him fold it neatly and put it on a bench next to the cabinet. I took off the violet gown, bringing it down over my breasts and hips. Still behind me, he took it gently before it could fall to the floor.
I lifted the soft, white léine over my head. Again, he took it, not making me turn around. I stood in my new undertunic, the one Magpie had fashioned to make up for the ugly hair shirt she had given me earlier. The bodice was all of floating lace, and it fit the contours of my breasts as though part of my skin. The rest of it was silk, and it clung to me in places I was not used to.
Forgetting all my warrior ways, I did not know how to control the tremor in my knees or the incessant hammering of my heart. And so I stood, waiting, my head partly turned so that I could watch Liam. I could see him through my lowered lashes. He removed his leggings and loosened his belt, then shrugged off his own léine in one motion and let it fall around his feet. And for the first time in weeks, I saw his graceful naked body.
Now I really was having trouble breathing. Liam came up behind me, and I felt the unrelenting firmness of his groin hard against my buttocks. He reached around and cupped my breasts, his fingers toying with my nipples, his mouth moving on my shoulders and back, until I began to shake with suppressed desire.
I turned in his arms and held him out at arm’s length, my eyes feasting on his handsome, boyish face and his stunning body.
“A chuisle mo chroí. You…beautiful.” His eyes had never been so dark, so full of passion.
“Tá tú álainn agus,” I said, and he kissed me.
It was a kiss to bring blushes to a marble statue. It started on my mouth very slow, very hot, and our bodies rocked back and forth as his tongue thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew. Soon he was kneeling, nuzzling and sucking the hollow of my throat, then my shoulders, then the secret place where my swelling breasts lay waiting.
He knew it was important to me that my breasts be exposed little by little, as though being coaxed from hiding, and he ran his tongue along the top of the soft lace that held them in my tunic. I felt unbelievably ready tonight, my nipples swollen and very hard. He brought out one breast, then the other, drawing my tunic down bit by bit, so that at last they stood fully exposed. Tonight they could not wait, and I thrust them one at a time into his hot mouth.
“Oh!” The pleasure was almost too exquisite. I knew I would not last long if he kept sucking my nipples.
“Wait, Liam. Go slow,” I said, not wanting the aching of pleasure to stop.
He stood, gathering me into his arms, and he walked to our new bed. Instead of laying me down, he stood me up. Standing in front of me, he pulled off my silken shift almost impatiently and tossed it onto the floor. We had never been in this unique bed before, and its two-foot height seemed almost too tall until, standing before me, he easily kissed me from the waist down, starting at my navel, all the while I was standing straight up. I could not hold back a moan, and I seized his long hair as his tongue continued to find the soft, hidden places between my legs.
As he kissed and sucked me, Liam talked into my skin, as though there were no language barrier at all. “Want you, my koosh-la. My wife…love ye. Come here, I want ye.”
His hands on my hips, he slowly turned me around, and with his tongue he traced the long line from my buttocks to the back of my legs. On his way back up again, I cried out when he began to nibble, then bite, and he had to hold me hard, bending me over while I moved and thrashed against him.
I needed to slow it down, and I pulled myself away from his questing mouth and knelt on the bed, pulling him with me. “Wait,” I told him, breathless, and then I lay down facing him. I reached my hands around to his buttocks, and as soon as I began to stroke them, I could feel my passion starting to peak.
He put his hands on my hips and drew me upward, close to his groin. He rubbed his downy beard on my cheeks and spoke into my mouth. “Now, Caitlín? Anois?”
“Now, Liam. Now.”
“I love ye,” he said, and then the waiting ended.
My legs were wrapped around his hips, and he lowered his groin until it was between my legs. I was arching up against him, and he had to seize my own hips to hold me still. “Oh!…Need you,” I said, and his mouth stopped my words until I was moaning into his biting, moving mouth. The moment of penetration was a pain of such ecstatic depth that I began to cry.
“A Cháit,” he cried out, and he went deeper still. His hands were on my buttocks, pulling me and pushing me against his own thrusting thighs. I felt an ache and a joy as the muscles inside began to clench his groin over and over, and I could not stop crying.
“Anois, anois, anois,” he groaned loudly with every thrust. And then he lay still, his breath ragged and fast. After a while, he looked down at my tear-streaked face and stroked my cheeks. “A Chuisle, a chuisle, conas tá tú?”
“I am wounded, O warrior,” I said.
He stroked the inside of my thighs, and his hand came away wet with bright blood. “I…sorry, Caitlín,” he said, his face stricken.
I traced his mouth and smiled. “I think it is normal…our first time. Bring my pouch, Liam.”
I lay back while my husband gently spread my legs and cleaned away the blood, then applied the healing potion. My hurt had held such sharp, tremulous pleasure that I still wondered what had happened. I thought it would probably never feel that same way again, and I lay back remembering my long moments of surging release.
Liam had straddled me, and he was concentrating very seriously on his task. “I…love too hard,” he said.
“No, no, Liam. Lie here with me. Give it time to stop throbbing,” I told him, and he perhaps understood a bit of what I said. I lay with my back to him and he lay close to m
e, his arms around me. I had never loved him more than at that moment when I felt no frantic need, no urgency at all.
After perhaps half an hour I thought he had fallen asleep, for I heard only his deep, even breathing.
“I love you, my husband,” I murmured.
“A Chaitlín Uí Neill,” he said. “Is tú mo ghrá.”
I felt a stirring on my buttocks, and I rolled over toward him. I saw that his eyes were dark with the intensity of sudden passion. “You hurt?” he asked.
“Yes. Love hurt.” I seized his soft beard and brought his mouth to mine. This time it was I who ran my tongue along his wide mouth, asking for entry. His lips parted slowly, letting me explore. I started very tentatively and gently, sucking and licking. Soon I had seized his hot tongue and was not gentle at all.
“Póg dom, póg dom,” he murmured and moaned into my mouth. I could not believe that all my desire had returned, more measured now but even more insistent, more demanding. Liam’s excited response made me suddenly straddle him. I wanted him to cry out in need, the way I had.
I bent, all my long hair clouding his chest, and I sucked one stiff nipple, then the other. I tasted his muscular chest, then his flat stomach. Seizing my shoulders, he brought me up until my breasts were hanging, rounded fruits, ready for his hungry mouth. “Aahh.” I could not help groaning as his mouth enveloped one breast, then slid off wetly, his teeth still on my nipple. And then his mouth captured the other breast, the other nipple. He sucked one at a time, again and again, until I was frantic once more with wanting him.
Still kneeling on top of him, I lowered my head again and my mouth seized the great curved weapon that had stabbed me. I unloosened my storm of passion, rocking and sucking until I heard his frantic cry, “Anois! Oh, now!”
I put it between my legs, and this time I did not hurt inside as I moved up and down, using the strength of my legs to control the depth of his thrust. “Yes, now, now, Liam.” I grasped at him and held on very hard while he moved under me like an unbroken stallion, until our pleasure had ebbed.
When I looked a while later, I saw that Liam’s hips and buttocks were red and deeply scratched. As I sat astride him applying the healing potion, he looked up at me, half drowsing, his mouth twisted in his characteristic ironic smile. “Storm Maker. Is tú mo stoirme.”
“And you are mine, Liam. Let it rage. Let it come.”
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I chose the pen name Erin O’Quinn to reflect my deep interest in the language, culture and history of ancient Ireland. That love started as early as my own childhood, listening to my father’s old recording by John McCormack, the Irish tenor who inspired the heartfelt songs Liam sings to Caylith.
My BA in English and MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California help explain why I try to reflect the lilting speech and the folk traditions of Éire. The novel you have read is the first of a trilogy set in The Dawn of Ireland. They will soon be followed by others set in the same universe.
I live in a small town in central Texas with my husband Bil (USAF Ret.), and a set of house cats and porch cats. I would enjoy hearing from you, my readers.
Write to my email at [email protected] and visit my blog http:erinsromance.wordpress.com/.
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