by Caro LaFever
Lorne groaned, his hands fisting near her hips. Somewhere, with the last brain cell alive in his head, he latched onto one word.
Slow.
The woman moaned back at him, her hands twisting in his hair. No one, other than the man who cut it every month, had touched his hair in years.
It astonished him.
The touch. Just her touch on his hair made him feel like fire ran through the strands, combusting his mind, simmering along his spine. His hips bucked on hers.
“No, no,” she murmured into his open mouth. “Not yet.”
She was right. He needed to slow down.
Slow.
He yanked away, closed his eyes and breathed.
“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded irritated.
Keeping his eyes shut, he let out the breath and sucked in another.
“Are we stopping?”
There’d never been a moment in his life when he’d liked to be teased. Not when he’d been a kid, awkward and plodding. Not when he’d been in college, not understanding the unspoken rules. And certainly not after he’d made his money. A man worth billions didn’t need to endure teasing. Other than Doc, who couldn’t be stopped, he didn’t allow teasing.
A poke of one of her long fingers into his ribs made him grunt. “Are we?”
That was tease in her voice. A jaunty, sexy taunt that made every male atom inside rise to take on the challenge. He couldn’t figure out if he liked this tease any more than the others, but he knew the answer to her question. “No.”
Her laugh came once more, this one was the light, happy laugh she’d done on the rock.
Opening his eyes, he took in the beauty of her flushed skin, the dark lashes on her white cheek, the elegance of her long neck.
Her mouth. Her amazing, fascinating mouth.
He couldn’t deal with that mouth and stay sane. Stay slow.
Dipping, he latched onto her arching neck instead and sucked her in.
The laughing stopped. She went still.
His purpose came back to him.
Give to her.
Slow.
His lips traveled along the length of her until he came to the line of her collarbone. He’d never thought of collarbones as being particularly attractive, yet Ceri’s was. He felt her breath hitch and his smile slid along the bone until he hit the edge of her distracting cotton robe. The scent of fresh linen filled his nose, reminding him of clean, crisp spring days in London. He nosed under the cotton and planted a kiss on her rounded shoulder.
“Mmm.”
The sound of her warm urging went through him like a straight shot of Ross whiskey. For a moment, he thought about rearing up to take her mouth again, but his brain worked now, barely, and he had some wits about him.
Give to her.
His hand lifted, slowly, as he sank to his knees in front of her. His cock roared its disapproval, still, the cool air on his lower body was a good thing.
His focus went clear.
She hummed.
He was doing this right.
Slipping the robe’s belt apart, he kept his gaze firmly attached to what his hands were doing. Until…
Until…
The robe dropped apart, leaving the length of her bare to his stare.
Lorne had seen his share of porn. No boy hanging with his group of nerdy, horny college mates would have escaped the avalanche of magazines with the centerfolds and the twenty-minute videos starring impressive breasts and wet pussies.
He’d never seen anything like Ceri.
That amazing collarbone was a prelude to the music of the rest of her body. Her breasts rose, a lush expanse of white female, tipped with rosebuds. Her waist curved in and then out into hips made for his hands. Her belly looked soft and yet slender, like a pillow made for his head.
His gaze dropped to the juncture of her thighs and everything he’d ever learned or known or remembered went white.
White as her plump thighs.
He took in a breath, trying to find his brain and instead, all he got was more of her.
The scent of her sex. The heat of her want.
Her dark curls fluttered as he gasped the breath out.
“Lorne.”
She did that to his name again. The thing that tickled down his arms and legs, down his spine and his cock.
Lornnnne.
“What should I do?” he said to her sex. “Where do I start?”
Her laugh came once more. But it wasn’t the laugh she’d made on the rock or the sexy laugh she’d done in his bedroom. This laugh held something he couldn’t define, other than to say it made him feel like he stood ten feet tall. That he was capable of taking on these womanly valleys and mountains lying before him.
He glanced up to meet her gaze.
And just like the laugh, her eyes weren’t goldenrod or red dirt. Her eyes weren’t even a color he could define.
Other than they told him one thing.
He had her.
Ceri had thought this would be easy.
She knew sex. Lorne Ross clearly didn’t.
She would have the power. He would be the supplicant.
She would get her fix of good sex she’d been wanting for the last five years, hell for her entire life. Her enemy would give her this pleasure.
Then, he’d be driven far from her. Far from her castle and her estate and far from her need and desire. She’d go back to living for her herbs and her brother. Safe in her glass garden house and her little cottage.
His slate-blue gaze locked with hers and a rumble of doubt at her conclusions ran through her. “Never mind my questions. I’ve got this. I’ve been studying.”
His words made no sense and yet, a bubble of amusement exploded inside making her chuckle. “What?”
“Studying.” He shifted his gaze back to her curls.
Her chuckle went to laughter. When she was naked in front of a man and vulnerable in a way she’d never been, she laughed. That was astonishing. Horribly, deliciously astonishing. And also troubling. Her doubts about this man and how easily he could be discarded rose in her chest, making her heart beat a frantic staccato.
He looked at her again, his gaze narrowing. “Don’t laugh at me.”
“I’m not laughing at you.” This was so true, she nearly gasped the words. Her heart banged harder in her chest. “I guess I might be laughing at myself.”
His head cocked at her admission and the blue of his eyes softened. “Don’t be scared.”
Her truth. One of several she kept well hidden from everyone and the world. How had Lorne Ross come so close to her to find this inside? To carve this piece of her out and hand it to her like a gift rather than what it really was—a bomb. “Perhaps we shouldn’t—”
“Och. No.” His expression turned fierce. “Not when we’ve come to this point.”
She shifted, suddenly feeling the hard wood under her. “I don’t know—”
“Listen.” He leaned closer, his one word whispering on her abdomen. “As I told ye, I’ve studied.”
“Studied what?” She finally said when he’d gone quiet for several seconds, focusing on the skin of her stomach.
“Porn.” His gaze drifted to her curls. “I aim to show ye, I can give ye pleasure.”
Another bubble of amusement escaped her. “Porn?”
“Aye.” A glance of blue came her way before he focused on her body once more. “And women. What they want and need.”
“You’ve been with other women?” The thought shocked her, because she’d been almost certain he hadn’t been with anyone else. His frantic, first kiss and unintended ejaculation had told her so. For some reason, his virginity had made him even more desirable.
Clean and new and untouched by ugly human reality. That’s what he’d represented to her.
His auburn lashes closed. “No.”
The confession cost him, she could tell in the tight line of his shoulders. A tender part of her heart she hadn’t known existed, went soft. �
��Lorne—”
Those eyes of his flashed open, a brilliant blue of determination. “But I aim to show ye, it doesn’t matter.”
He went right to the core of her, making her groan. He burrowed into her curls and his tongue and lips curled around her clit as if he’d been waiting for this moment all his life. He wasn’t sloppy or tentative like a man who didn’t have experience.
He gave to her. He gave everything.
Ceri went limp on the table, her body sagging on the wooden slats, her head thrown back, her eyes closing.
The pleasure. The delirious flash of pure pleasure.
He sucked on her as if she were a passionfruit. The lapping sounds of his lovemaking made her head buzz with need. The soft brush of his beard across her inner thighs created threads of tingling lust throughout her body.
It had never been like this for her. Never.
Every one of the times she’d played her part for Gareth went dim. The times she’d pumped him with her hand to get him hard. The times she’d ridden him so he could see her tits bounce. The times she’d lain under him, wondering what she’d do in the garden in the morning. Her husband had never knelt before her and gave. He’d only taken. Not once, during any of those encounters with her husband, had she experienced an orgasm.
Not once.
Lorne’s rawboned fingers slipped from her knees to the juncture of her thighs, smoothing over her hot skin like a cool breeze.
She shuddered.
Then he went under, scooping her butt into his strong hands. All the while, he kept licking and sucking, making her wet with his mouth and her want.
Her legs hung down, her toes touching the hard stone.
“Ceri,” he whispered into her curls. “Put your legs on my shoulders.”
She couldn’t take it in. How he’d taken her into his control, how he’d taken her body into his mastery. How she’d lost any sense of power. In its place was only pleasure.
“Ceri.” His dangerously gentle voice wafted on the skin of her thighs. “Your legs.”
Her legs were his to command. Lifting them, she slid onto his wool-clad shoulders, embracing his head with her naked flesh.
He returned to his sucking.
Time fell away into the mists of desire and need. She opened her eyes, taking in the beauty of this man. His fire hair, the red-gold curls lying on her white skin. His straight brows furrowed in concentration, his dark auburn lashes sweeping down on his freckled skin. Her enemy on his knees, a supplicant in front of her.
Yet, she was at his mercy.
She’d always been quiet when having sex. Gareth hadn’t wanted her distracting him and she hadn’t had much to inspire her to scream or moan. So she’d been quiet.
This time was different. In every way.
He nosed farther in, his hands positioning her so he could flick his tongue at her entry.
The moan rose from her throat before she could stop it.
“Ah,” he murmured into her wet lips. “Ye like that.”
“Lorne,” she groaned his name.
His shoulders trembled, and for a moment, she remembered his vulnerability, his inexperience. But then he went back at her, licking up the length of her lips to her clit.
She made noise. Quite a lot of it. Later, she noted vaguely, she would be embarrassed. Right now, though, in the fire of his attention, the only thing she could do was moan and groan out her need.
Her enemy settled into a rhythm, rolling his lips and tongue back and forth over her most sensitive area. Her nails dug into the rough wood edge of the table as she arched into his mouth.
The orgasm flashed through her like a firestorm.
All her muscles went tight. All the blood in her body went hot. All the breath in her lungs froze.
Then her cry of fulfillment echoed from the glass walls of her garden house.
Ceri drifted into consciousness to find him still kneeling in front of her. His eyes were open now as he laid a string of kisses along her inner thigh. He met her blurred gaze and grinned.
The grin was wide and joyful. His grin made her want to smile back.
She frowned at him, instead. Straightening, she whipped her robe shut and dropped her legs from his shoulders. Embarrassment, the emotion she’d known was in her future, came at her like a lightning bolt. Her entire body flushed.
His grin fell, his mouth going slack in surprise. “Ye liked it.”
Sidling along the edge of the table, she jumped to her feet and turned to face him. “I want you to leave.”
He didn’t move from his kneeling position. A puzzled frown crossed his face. “Ye liked it,” he repeated.
“Leave.” She waved at him, not willing to leave herself until she was sure he was gone from this place, her place.
Finally, he stood. For the first time, she really took note of what he wore. Again, he was the Lorne Ross that fit. His light wool jumper was dark green, making his hair glow like a blaze of glory in contrast. He wore sturdy boots. His jeans rode low on his hips and were brand new.
He was still fully erect.
Glancing away, she focused on her plants. “I want you to go to the castle.”
“Ye want me.”
A bubble of amusement popped into her irritation. The man was so doggedly on point. And also correct. She did want him. She wanted to see him naked and see him groan with pleasure, too. She wanted to take him and use him until she was satisfied.
But tonight, he’d given too much.
He’d given her a bliss no man had ever given her. He’d given her an orgasm when only she had been able to do this for herself. He’d given her his lips and tongue and attention. He’d given her too much. Fear raced around in her head like a mad hare running for his life.
She was scared of him. Scared of his money and his power, and more than anything, scared of what he could give her. “Go,” she croaked.
“Ceri.” He didn’t move, yet she felt as if he reached his rawboned hand out to her and caught her chin.
Jerking around, she glared at him.
His slate-blue eyes weren’t blank. They were alive with curiosity. As if she were one of his codes he was determined to understand. “What’s wrong?” he said, a tender lilt in the words.
Everything.
For a moment, she wished she’d met this man when she’d been eighteen and as fresh and new as he was. But she held a scarred heart in her chest, a heart that wasn’t on offer, a heart that no longer trusted.
“Please.” She hated to beg, yet she had no choice. It would be worse to burst into tears in front of her enemy and give him more weapons. “Go.”
Confusion swam into those eyes of his, replacing the curiosity. He shrugged before leaning down to grab the tie for his hair. “All right.” He fisted the red curls into a bun and wrapped it tight. “I’ll go.”
She put her arms around her waist and kept her glare on her face. Swinging around, he headed for the door. She tried not to notice how his butt and thighs filled out his jeans or how broad his back was. Her eyes slammed shut, but the image of him remained.
The glass door creaked open.
“Ceri.”
She wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m going.” The words came in his gentle, dangerous voice. “For now.”
Chapter 16
“I think you should go to Edinburgh.”
Lorne stared at the morning sun as it crested the top of Ben Ross. The light filtered into the garden, like fingers of gold sliding through green life. It reminded him of the coding he’d done overnight since he’d been unable to sleep. The rich gold and green matched the colors he’d used on the hero’s breastplate.
“Did you hear me?”
His gaze lingered on the flowerbeds before swinging to look at the glass house. The panes twinkled in the sunlight, flashing white stars into his eyes.
“Lorne.” Doc’s voice echoed from the mobile phone, irritated. “Are you there?”
She hadn’t come out at her usual time. I
t was almost seven a.m. and yet she still hadn’t come out of the cottage. Worry curled into his gut. Along with astonishment. He hadn’t worried about anyone in years. Not since his mum died and he’d left his da because he had to.
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t say something.”
“Why Edinburgh?” he finally said.
“Because I need to get you to leave there before you do something wrong.”
“She hasn’t come out yet.” The worry had sprung into him at two minutes after six. The woman was predictable in her habits and he’d been tracking her for days. She always got to work on her garden at six a.m.
“What? What do you mean?”
“She always comes out into the garden at six a.m.”
An amused chuckle rumbled from the phone. “Maybe she decided to sleep in. It does happen on occasion.”
“I think I should go to the cottage and check on her.”
“No, you should not.”
“Why not?” He’d called Hugh as soon as he’d returned to the castle last night. He hadn’t understood what had happened. Why she’d suddenly gone cold when he’d been doing so well?
“As I said last night, you need to give her some time.”
He frowned at his land. That had made no sense to him hours ago and made no sense now. He’d been making progress with Ceri and he wanted to continue. He’d barely begun to take all of her in. There was the flush of her skin he needed to detail. The taste of her nipples to investigate. The feel of her waist going to her lush hips that needed his hand to trace into his memory.
That didn’t even cover her mouth and her kisses.
That didn’t even cover the moment he’d come inside her. For the first time. Then over and over again.
“You scared her last night,” his friend continued. “I’m sure of it.”
Scared her? Just like he’d hurt her before?
This whole area of what went on between a man and a woman was fraught with far more pitfalls than he’d imagined.
When he’d studied porn, the photos and the videos, he’d paid careful attention to everything. Where on a woman’s body a man should touch. What a woman’s body did when it became excited. He’d also listened intently to his buddies when they talked about sex with their girlfriends. He’d catalogued the variety of ways a man could kiss and what kinds of touches women liked. He’d spent quite a bit of time making sure he’d committed this information to memory so he’d be ready.
