‘Oh, Alasdhair.’ She could not speak for the emotion clogging her throat. It was the most perfect, wonderful moment of her life, and she could not find any words for it. And then she did, and what is more they sprang unbidden to her lips.
‘Oh, Alasdhair, I love you so much.’
His smile wrapped itself around her heart. ‘Ailsa. Oh God, Ailsa, if you knew how much—’
‘But I do, I do, I do.’ She threw herself into his arms. There was no need for words now, for they spoke with their lips and their hands and their bodies. Feverish kisses, burning kisses, kisses so different from all their other kisses. Passion ignited like a fork of lightning across the sky, its crackling, sparkling edges reaching into their blood so that they really did feel as if they were on fire. They tore feverishly at buttons and fastenings to touch skin, soft skin, heated skin, stretched-too-tight skin, their lips never once parting, fastened so close they could not tell who was kissing whom.
Alasdhair threw his waistcoat on to the floor. The shirt he had begged from the innkeeper quickly joined it. Ailsa sighed her pleasure as the long-pent-up craving to touch him was finally fulfilled: her hands spreading across the ridge of scars on his back, fanning out over the taut muscles of his shoulders, down, round to the crisp spread of hair on his chest, the dip of his ribcage, the flat washboard of his stomach.
Last night she had floated on a cloud of delight towards ecstasy. This morning she was like to ignite with desire, so brightly, fiercely did she burn with need, so desperately did she crave their joining that she would have clawed her way inside his skin if she could.
Her passion was feral. She would not have believed such elemental feeling was possible, never mind that she be capable of it. She wanted to prostrate herself and be taken, to be claimed, to be owned, and to be joined, united. His. She wanted to lick and bite and nip and kiss. She moaned at the constraints of her sark, the only clothing she wore, wanting only to be completely naked, flesh and skin and bone, for him to ravish and mark as his own.
Alasdhair, too, seemed caught in a maelstrom of white-hot desire. He cast off his boots and hose without lifting his lips from hers. He tugged at the lacing that tied her sark, cursing when it became a knot, resorting to brute strength to tear it open enough to free her breasts. He cupped them in his hands, tugging her nipples, making her moan, and when he stopped, it made her moan again. He dipped his head to kiss first one, then the other, rolling his tongue over and round, making her gasp with pleasure.
He pushed her back on the bed and spread her legs. He ran his hands up her thighs, kneading the tender flesh at the top. Her hair was a wild tangle round her face. Flushed cheeks. Frayed, ravaged mouth. Violet eyes heavy-lidded with passion. Breasts heavy and flushed, too, white and pink. Creamy white thighs and pink sex. His manhood pulsed. Blood surged. A tightening in his belly, at the base, made him want to enter her now. Instead he plunged with his tongue. His mouth enveloped her, the soft and wet of her between her legs. Her thighs tightened around him. The essence of her, vanilla and spice and heat and female, went straight to his head. He licked, unerringly finding the swollen bud, waiting for his touch, ready to pulse and burst. He licked and she moaned, and he licked again.
Ailsa’s back arched as the throbbing pulse inside her erupted at his touch without warning. No flickering and floating, none of the slow languor of last night, just a sheet of flame, so hot it was cold, and a deep, elemental clenching inside her. She moaned his name. She clutched at his hair, and pleaded with him, though she didn’t know what for.
Alasdhair loosened the belt on his plaid and dropped his last piece of clothing to the floor. He knelt between her legs, naked, his shaft curving upwards. He wanted her to touch him. He could see her looking, her eyes widening, felt a surge of purely male satisfaction in knowing that he pleased her. He wanted her to touch him, but not now, there would be time enough later. Right now he needed to be inside her. He had waited too long. He could not wait any longer.
Tender now, though the waiting cost him dear, he kissed her, parting her legs further. ‘Ailsa,’ he whispered, tilting her to him, feeling the tip of his shaft touch the hot wet of her sex, his breath thrust out of him as if he were winded. ‘Ailsa,’ he whispered again, then slowly, slowly, began the journey to completion.
She clutched at his shoulders. She watched his face as he entered her, wide-eyed with the wonder of it, the rightness of it, the quivering delight of it. Slowly, he pushed into her, slowly and carefully, she could feel the tension of it in his arms, see it in his eyes, could feel herself opening for him, then a tightness and a pain, brief and ragged, then gone.
‘I’m sorry.’ Alasdhair forced himself to wait, though it was like clinging on to the edge of the world. He kissed her, his tongue plunging and sliding, and he felt her relaxing, opening, and he crossed the threshold into a different reality. It was a place too hot, too dark, too tight and wet and all-encompassing to allow him to do anything but plunge and thrust deeper into it, then to slide out and plunge again.
The pain was like an echo. With each thrust of the silken sword that was Alasdhair inside her, she felt a frisson of shivering, followed by a ragged ripple. Her eyes drifted shut, the more to feel. Behind her lids, in her head, deep inside her, everything ran red. The red of blood and of pleasure. She was like a rock pool, jagged edges catching at the inrush of water, deep centre sucking greedily. Empty. Filled. Empty.
Filled. With every inrush filled deeper. With every outrush the ragged pain receding. Clinging. Jolting under the shock of each thrust. Afraid again, but bolder. Something in the distance that she must reach. Something to make the pain worthwhile. She was afraid she was breaking. He was too big. Too much. But still she wanted more.
The clinging hotness of her was unbearable. The unfolding wetness of her, the mind-blowing perfection of her, too much. He wanted to feel her tight around his engorged shaft so that they could both feel the blood pulsing between them. He thrust hard, felt her jolting response. He wanted to come. He wanted her to come with him. ‘Now,’ he said through clenched teeth, thrusting high, and was rewarded with the indescribable, agonisingly sweet lurch of her muscles that made his own gut-wrenching climax unstoppable.
Ailsa whispered in his ear, just his name, but no one had said his name like that before, and he thrust again urgently, hard and high, kissing her hard on the mouth. His tongue thrust, his shaft thrust, she shuddered, he cried out and came, exploding inside her, and she welcomed him, clutching and crying. They were one, and the world felt as if it were in the right place, the only possible place, for the first time ever.
‘Ailsa,’ he said, with the tenderness of new ownership, stroking the heavy fall of hair from her heated brow. ‘Ailsa Munro. I love you.’
Ailsa clung to him. Tears of release and surrender sparkled on her lashes, and she made no attempt to stop them falling. This is what she was intended for. This man, this joining, something so far beyond pleasure she could not name it. ‘I love you, too,’ she whispered, planting a sated kiss to his lips.
Chapter Nine
‘Much as I would love to stay here all day, I fear we must make a move,’ Alasdhair whispered sometime later.
His breath tickled her ear. She could feel the heavy weight of his erection pressing against her thigh. Heat trickled like warm honey through her blood in response. Ailsa sighed with contentment. ‘Must we?’ she asked, lifting her head from the crook of his shoulder to meet his gaze.
Peat-smoked eyes. A warm smile, but an anxious look that was somehow reassuring. ‘We must.’ His smile had a softness to it that she recognised as tenderness. ‘You don’t regret this, do you, Ailsa?’
‘What do you think?’
‘I think there is only one thing that can make me even happier than I am right now.’
‘What is that?’
‘Marry me. Marry me, Ailsa, and I swear there will not be a happier man in this world. Say yes.’
Ailsa’s tears dropped unheeded from her lashes on to he
r cheeks. ‘Yes.’
‘Say it again.’
She threw her arms around his neck. ‘Yes. Yes, yes, yes.’
Alasdhair kissed her lingeringly. Still kissing her, already hard, he rolled back on to the bed and pulled Ailsa on top of him. She could feel the solid length of his shaft pressing against her and felt the answering thrum of her own arousal kicking in, low in her belly. Alasdhair lifted her by the waist, and lowered her on to his engorged shaft. ‘Mr Ross, I am shocked. If I did not know you better, I would think you insatiable.’
‘Miss Munro,’ he said, his breath fast and shallow, his face flushed with desire, as he settled her carefully and his fingers stroked into her slick heat, ‘I think you will find that when it comes to you I am.’
By the time they dressed, the morning was well advanced. The mist had cleared, making way for a glorious spring day; the pale blue sky was dotted with puffy clouds like new-washed sheep skipping skittishly over the buttermilk sun.
‘I’ve decided it would be best for you to come with me to Inveraray,’ Alasdhair said. ‘Though it doesn’t seem anything like as important as it was before, I do need to see my mother, close that chapter of my life before we write a whole new book of our own.’
‘I’m so glad to hear you say that. If you didn’t go, you’d regret it.’
‘Afterwards, we need to go back to Errin Mhor.’
Ailsa’s smile faded. ‘Must we?’
‘You know we must. We can’t just sail off to Virginia without facing your mother.’
‘Why not, Alasdhair? She’s made her views plain enough—why give her the chance to air them again?’
‘It wouldn’t be right and proper.’
‘Right and proper! Was it right that she lied to us both six years ago? Was it proper that she encouraged Donald McNair to abduct me when she knew I did not want to marry him?’
‘Don’t you want to be married in Errin Mhor castle?’
She gazed up at him, her lips trembling. ‘Of course I want to, but not if it means more battles with my mother. Please, Alasdhair, I don’t want to talk about this right now. I don’t even want to think about it.’
Alasdhair’s mouth firmed. ‘Errin Mhor is your home and it is still my homeland, too. I have only just ended my banishment, I won’t have your mother’s presence preventing us from going there if we choose.’
‘Virginia will be our home.’
‘Our home, but never our homeland. Trust me on this, Ailsa, I know.’
‘Alasdhair, I really don’t want to talk about this now.’
‘Very well, but I know I’m right. You’ll regret it, Ailsa. I don’t want you having regrets when you’re too far away to do anything about them.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I want you to think very carefully about that. We’ll talk about it later.’
They crossed Loch Awe on the little ferry with their mounts swimming behind them and rode south along the well-established drover’s track towards Inveraray, lingering for the sake of lingering together, sharing moments of laughter and do you remember interspersed with silences in which they simply gazed at each other, then kissed and murmured their I love you’s over and over.
In the late afternoon, they came across a boatman who offered to take them, for a small fee, to a famous local beauty spot on a little islet on the loch. ‘What do you think?’ Alasdhair asked. Ailsa nodded her eager approval. Laughing, he tossed the boatman a few coins. ‘There’s no need to take us. We can manage fine ourselves. We’ll bring your boat back safe, don’t worry.’
Ailsa was sitting in the prow, her hair glinting in the sunshine. Looking at her, Alasdhair felt an ache in his heart, so painful was this love he felt for her, he could not believe it had taken him so long to recognise it.
Though he was loathe to spoil the mood, he forced himself to raise the subject of her mother again. ‘You know I want you to be happy, Ailsa, more than anything?’
Alerted by the serious note in his voice, she sat up. ‘What is it?’
‘Whether we like it or not, our parents are the lifeblood we are formed from. No matter what she has done, Lady Munro is still your mother. No matter how much you deny it, I know that what she thinks matters to you. If you want to, we’ll find a way of mending your fences with her.’
‘I can’t imagine how.’
‘It doesn’t matter how. If you want to, we’ll find a way. Your happiness means everything to me.’
‘I couldn’t be happier, Alasdhair.’ Balancing carefully so as not to rock the boat, she joined him on the plank that served for a seat across the middle and snuggled into his side. ‘Don’t let us talk about it now.’
Alasdhair kissed her brow. ‘You can’t keep putting it off. Virginia is a long way away, you might not see her again for some years—would you really be happy leaving here without even saying goodbye? Come, Ailsa, you’re forgetting that I’ve been there myself. I know how these things can eat away at you.’
She was concentrating on nuzzling the delightful bit of Alasdhair’s chest exposed at the opening of his shirt. He tasted salty. His throat was tanned.
‘Ailsa.’ His fingers forced her chin upwards. ‘Stop avoiding the issue. You’re worried she’ll manage to taint what we have together, but you’re wrong. What we have together is perfect. We are unshakeable, there is nothing she can do to harm us. I love you. You love me. Your mother cannot change that, can she?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘So what harm can it do to try to make your peace? Why have the fact that you didn’t at least try hanging over you? We are headed for a new life, a fresh start—is it not worth making the effort to wipe the slate clean before we go?’
‘What a long road you’ve travelled in such a short distance, Alasdhair Ross.’
‘It’s because I have done so that I know I’m right.’
Ailsa sighed. ‘I know you’re right too, but that doesn’t mean I have to look forward to it.’
‘Look forward to what will follow, then. Our wedding.’
‘Our wedding.’ Ailsa smiled hazily.
‘So that’s settled. We’ll return to Errin Mhor and see Lady Munro after I’ve tracked down my own mother. We can then discuss preparations for our wedding with Calumn. Do you think he’ll be surprised?’
‘He’ll be astonished! Somehow I don’t think Maddie will be, though.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You wouldn’t understand. Call it female intuition.’
‘I may have to leave you for a week or so before the wedding. I have important matters to attend to in Glasgow that are vital to my business. I can’t neglect them any longer. There is a merchant there named Cunninghame whom I am eager to negotiate a partnership with.’
‘Cunninghame? That is Jessica’s name. My brother Rory’s wife. Her family are merchants. They disowned her when she married Rory, so I have not met any of them, but I think her father’s name is George. Do you think it can be the same family?’
‘It sounds very much like it. George Cunninghame is one of Glasgow’s biggest tobacco merchants, they have warehouses all along Chesapeake—that’s the main bay where Virginia and Maryland have their ports.’
‘I didn’t realise. Jessica rarely talks of them. You’re going into business with her father?’
‘Perhaps. If the terms are right. He’s also one of the few merchants who doesn’t employ slaves to work the farms attached to his warehouses in America.’
‘I’m looking forward to learning all about it.’ Alasdhair laughed. ‘I’m glad to hear it, but you may not find it as exciting as you imagine.’
‘I mean it. I don’t want to be one of those wives who know nothing of their husband’s business.’
‘And I don’t want to be one of those husbands who spends all his time on business and has no time for his wife. In fact, I suspect I’m going to be one of those husbands who is so besotted with his wife that he has no time for business at all.’
He kissed her then. His
lips were salty. He kissed her slowly, lingeringly, savouring the sweetness of her mouth, relishing the way she melded into him, how her lips moulded themselves into the perfect shape for his and her tongue tangled with his, tantalisingly teasing. And relishing the way that passion ignited them at the same time, so that they clutched each other, as if afraid it would hurl them into another universe.
The boat rocked as they moved on the narrow seat, trying to get closer, their bodies eager for skin on skin, for heat on heat, matching touch for touch, kiss for kiss, need for need, as if they had always been like this, achingly familiar, because only this person and this body and these hands and this mouth would do.
Ailsa sighed with pleasure as Alasdhair stroked her breasts through her clothes, the ache of her nipples as they strained at her clothing adding a little frisson of frustrated pleasure. She tugged his shirt out of his belt to run her hands up his sides, over his ribs, into the dip of his belly, relishing the clenching of the muscles, the little moan he made, the way she could feel his breathing fast and shallow, feel his heart pounding in his chest, her own excitement heightened by the knowledge that she had caused this.
The boat rocked more violently. Ailsa giggled. ‘We’ll sink, if we’re not careful. The boatman would take a very dim view of that. I don’t think we can …’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find we can,’ Alasdhair said, slipping his hand under her petticoats, making her gasp as he stroked her sex, at the same time as he thrust his tongue into her mouth in a deep kiss that made her head spin.
‘Please don’t stop,’ she said frantically when he lifted his mouth from hers, and his finger stilled its rhythmic caress.
‘I don’t intend to,’ he muttered, his voice hoarse, his chest heaving. He dropped to his knees on to the bottom of the boat and pulled her with him, tilting her forward on to the narrow wooden seat before easing into her from behind with one slow, long, delicious thrust. They rocked back and forth in perfect, intoxicating harmony, at one with the movement of the boat. The pulsing sensation built within her, each pulse making her tighter, making him harder, swelling, until finally he heard that sweet little cry of hers and he thrust once, hard and high inside her and he spent himself, saying her name over and over and over as the little boat rocked and bobbed on the silent waters of the loch; the only sound audible was the gentle slap of the waves on the hull and the far-off cry of an osprey as it soared and circled overhead.
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