by Julia London
“I just pray ye think twice before taking me to yer bed, mo ghraidh, for I will have yer virtue,” he growled.
“I believe ye will take me to yer bed,” she whispered, bending her head so that he might have better access to her neck.
Payton groaned. He let go his grip of her and pushed the small cap sleeves of her gown from her shoulders. His hands were at her back then, expertly working the row of tiny buttons there. “There will be a wee bit of pain, aye?” he whispered.
“I know.”
“And I will always be a part of ye—have ye considered it?”
“Diah, Payton, do ye always speak as much as this?”
He paused in his work on her gown to grin down at her. “Heaven help us both,” he said and grabbed her up and kissed her with all the emotion she was feeling.
He unfastened her gown with the deftness of a man who’d known many such gowns, and she felt it slip away from her body. His hands were everywhere then, flitting over her arms, caressing her breasts, her hips, her legs, and back. His touch made her lightheaded; she felt ethereal. And she wanted more.
Mared threw all caution aside and grabbed her chemise in hand and lifted it over her head, letting it fall from the tip of her fingers, exposing her breasts. Payton drew a deep breath and reverently cupped them both, feeling the weight of them. He dipped his head to take one nipple in his mouth, flicking his tongue against it, nibbling it with his teeth.
A gasp of pleasure escaped her, and Mared seized his shoulders to keep from falling as he moved his attention to the other breast. She’d never felt such exquisite sensations in her life; desire pooled quickly in her groin.
Desire was so heavy in her that her knees felt wobbly, so Mared lifted her head, peeled his hand from her waist, and stepped back. Payton’s hooded gaze, made dark by his own desire, provoked Mared, and she giggled wantonly. She felt impossibly free and capable of seduction, of enticing a man as strong and handsome as Payton to her. She’d not understood the power a woman might wield over a man until that very moment, and she would bask in it.
He seemed intent on allowing her that. He suddenly grabbed her and pushed her against a bedpost, trapping Mared against it so that he might ravage her breast with his mouth again. But this time, his hands slipped down her waist, over the flare of her hip, and around, between her legs. The sensation of his mouth on her breast and his hand between her legs was breathtaking; Mared arched into him, pressing against him, urging his hands to feel all of her.
She was floating, buoyed by his strength and his determination to have her, the wildly pleasurable sensations overtaking all conscious thought. With his mouth and his hands, he slid down her body, to his haunches, his mouth leaving a hot, wet trail on her belly. Her drawers followed his mouth, sliding down her legs until she was completely bare.
With his hands, he pushed her thighs apart, then kissed them. Mared moaned and held onto his head for support. But then Payton moved slightly, and his mouth was on her sex.
She gasped at the raw sensation. “What are ye doing?” she cried. “Ye’re no’ to do that!”
“The hell I’m no’,” he said with a low laugh and slipped his tongue between the folds of her sex.
Her protests died on her lips with a gasp for air, and Mared’s head fell back against the post. He held her firmly with his hands and casually tended her, his tongue dipping in and out languidly at first, carefully tasting her, exploring each crevice, moving up to the core of her desire, then down again, to where her body throbbed for him.
Mared groaned, lost on a sea of pure physical sensation. The lap of his tongue took on new urgency. The stroke of his tongue was coming harder, his mouth covering her.
She couldn’t help the way she moved against him; she had no conscious thought. She gripped the post above her head—it was as if her body wanted to escape him and press into him all at once, and she writhed shamelessly against his mouth. Payton was undaunted; he gripped her legs, holding her firmly as he stroked and licked, suckled and nibbled her into a frenzy of delicious torment, until Mared was gasping for breath. When the world around her erupted into brilliant light, she felt as if she were falling and soaring all at once, aloft on a cloud of pure pleasure, sailing away from everything and everyone except Payton.
Payton. She loved him. She knew it in that moment, knew it completely and unequivocally—it was love that had been burning in her heart these long months, love that exploded within her now.
As the aftermath of that eruption whispered through her, he drew up to his full height and lifted her; she heard a groan of wood as Payton lowered them onto the bed. His hand skimmed her breast and her belly; his fingers skated up her legs to the spring of curls at their apex.
Free of all her clothing, gloriously naked and fantastically sated, Mared smiled as he pressed his lips against the hollow of her throat and pulled the pins from her hair, setting her tresses free. She reached for him as he moved lower, pushing her hands into his hair as he laved her nipples.
She reveled in the feel of him against her body, the power and reverence in his hands, the tender pressure of his mouth. All the many times she had imagined what lovemaking would be like, she could not have imagined such pleasure.
“Ye’re beautiful, Mared,” he said. “Bòidheach.”
Hearing the ragged edge of his voice made her feel beautiful. And she felt not a glimmer of self-consciousness when he lifted up from her; she felt gloriously wicked and desirable.
She came up on her elbows, her legs stretched out in front of her, to watch him disrobe, to watch the linen slide over corded muscles. His health had definitely returned, and gloriously so—his was a magnificently robust body, utterly virile, from the breadth of his muscled shoulders to the taper of his lean waist, and as he unbound the plaid at his waist, to his muscular thighs and hips.
And of course there was the most masculine part of him, standing erect in a thatch of darkly golden hair, long and thick and sleek.
Standing naked before her, Payton openly admired her as she admired him. She coyly put her hand to her breast and smiled up at him. “It would seem ye have recovered yer good health, milord.”
Payton laughed low, and with a wolfish smile, he came over her, settling lightly atop her as he stroked her hair. “Do ye know, then, that I love ye?”
“I’ve suspected it, aye,” she said, smiling.
“Aye, I love ye,” he said earnestly. “I’ve loved ye since we were bairns, and I’ve never stopped loving ye.”
Those words enchanted her, made her glow. When he playfully bit her neck, she laughed. When he kissed her throat, she sighed. And when he whispered “Bòidheach” again, her eyes fluttered shut, and she felt the burgeoning of her heart, felt it beating in time to his.
Payton slipped his hand around her waist and moved her fully onto the bed. “I’ve longed to hold ye, Mared, to love ye,” he said, as he moved between her legs and spread them wider, so that the tip of his hard cock was touching her, moving lightly against her. “Ye’ve made me a happy man this night…but we can end it now if ye choose.”
With a throaty giggle, she abruptly rose up, grabbed his jaw with one hand, and kissed him with as much passion as he’d just shown her. Instinctively, she lifted her knees. “Donna stop.”
“Mi Diah.” His voice was raging with emotion, and he held himself above her, his arms taut with his restraint. Slowly, respectfully, he moved so that he was pressed against her, and Mared gasped with gleeful exhilaration.
“There will be pain,” he said, wincing.
She stroked his face, his brow. “Do it, then.”
He sighed, lowered his head, and eased the tip of him inside her, stretching her, moving his hips in small circles to help her body open to him. And then he pressed a little farther, and Mared gasped again, this time at the discomfort.
“Hold me,” he said roughly. “Hold me tight and put yer mouth against my shoulder,” he said, easing himself down to his elbows. “And know that I love ye, a
ye?”
Mared wrapped her arms tightly around him, closed her eyes, and put her face to his shoulder. Payton held her tightly to him, but she had the impression that his efforts to restrain himself, to move slowly with her, were taking every bit of his strength. He stroked her hair, whispered in her ear that he loved her once more, and thrust powerfully into her.
Her cry of pain was muffled by his shoulder, and he stroked her hair, her shoulder, her face. “Easy,” he murmured, “rest easy, leannan,” kissing her eyes and her lips. “The pain will be gone soon, m’annsachd, beloved.”
The pain did begin to ease as her body adjusted to him, and she thought it a miracle that a man and woman could fit like a hand and glove, and when he began to move so seductively inside her, tantalizing her with the breadth and the depths to which he smoothly stroked, Mared was amazed at how bottomlessly intimate this single act was.
Now she understood.
Now she knew what he’d meant when he said he’d always be a part of her. At that magical moment, she could not imagine ever being apart from him at all.
His strokes lengthened, and her body seemed to know inherently how to respond, for she was starting to move with him, her hips lifting to meet his thrusts, her knees squeezing around him. Payton groaned; his breath was coming in gasps, his strokes had deepened within her, and he suddenly came up on his elbows, his eyes wildly roaming her face, stroking her brow and her cheeks, kissing her passionately as he drove into her, over and over again until he closed his eyes and found his release with a powerful thrust and a strangled cry.
His release was hot and potent; she felt him fill her completely, felt the fluid slide deeply inside her as he murmured her name. With one last shudder, he collapsed beside her, gathered her tenderly in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Mared,” he whispered into her hair. “Tha gaol agam ort.”
She loved him, too.
Twenty-four
T hey lay in the bed as the candles melted away, holding the world and their past at bay for a time, engaged in a gentle exploration of one another, both physically and mentally. It was a slice of peace and contentment neither had ever known, a feeling of being one with another person that, in the light of day, they both might have sworn was impossible.
While Mared giggled, Payton helped her dress before dawn and, with a kiss, sent her hurrying back to her room at the other end of the castle before anyone was about.
He dressed, too, and packed his things. They were leaving for Eilean Ros that very morning, and he bade Alan and Charlie to hurry things along, for he wanted to be home, where he believed that his dreams would finally come true.
On that bright, sunlit morning at Castle Leven, Payton truly believed that Eilean Ros would finally be filled with laughter and love and wee bairns underfoot. What had happened between him and Mared last night had the might of a sea change, and while he had not had an opportunity to fully absorb it, he believed in its power.
He even thought the sun was an omen. The early autumn was usually quite rainy, but the weather had held for his cousin’s wedding and had dawned clear and bright for their journey home. He believed that the sun was an indication that God was smiling on him. Personally.
He said his farewells to his family, caught Mared’s eye and winked as she dutifully boarded the smaller coach, and told the coachman to make haste, for he wanted to be home as soon as possible. He and Mared had agreed that they would ride separately in their departure from Castle Leven, for it would not do to have any of the servants or relatives believe something had occurred between them during the journey. As they set out, Payton anticipated paying a call to her family to tell them the happy news, then perhaps rounding up the staff for a bit of a chat before making a public and formal announcement.
When their little caravan stopped for the night, Payton tried to linger at the coach to speak to Mared, but his good and loyal staff would not hear of his helping, and he felt compelled to go inside the inn and make the arrangements, lest they begin to suspect something was amiss.
And even later, when he had a dram of ale in the common room, he could not seem to catch Mared without the ever present Una. He resigned himself to the idea that he would have to wait until they reached Eilean Ros the next evening before he might touch her again.
So therefore, when the second coach threw an axle pin the next morning, Payton was not as agitated as he otherwise might have been, for he saw a golden opportunity when Mr. Haig, the coachman, announced that he could not mend the axle without a new pin.
“Then take Charlie and Alan with ye into the next village,” Payton responded easily, withdrawing his purse and a few shillings. “I’ll remain with the women.”
“Aye, milord.”
He even helped Mr. Haig and the two footmen saddle the mounts and eagerly sent them on their way. That left Una. As he turned around to the two women, he saw Mared’s sly smile as she pulled her arisaidh tightly around her and Una’s look of boredom as she glanced at the trees about them.
“I rather wonder how long they’ll be,” Mared said.
“Two hours at least, perhaps more,” Payton responded.
Mared stole a glimpse of Una from the corner of her eye. “Then if ye will give me leave, milord, I’ll have a bit of shut-eye.”
“Take my coach,” he said, quickly catching on to her idea. “Ye may both rest within.”
Una’s eyes widened. “In yer coach, milord? Oh no, we’ll do just as well to wait under a tree.”
“I insist, Una,” he said, opening the door for her. “I wouldna feel right about ye sleeping out in the open where any number of wild and hungry animals roam.”
That was all that was required—Una’s eyes widened for a moment, and she hastily stepped forward, toward the door that he held open. As Mared climbed up behind her, she flashed him a tiny smile of approval.
His wait was a short one, as it turned out. A quarter of an hour later, as he sat beneath the boughs of a pine tree, the door of his coach opened, and Mared very slowly and carefully climbed out, and quietly shut the door behind her. She gathered the tail of her arisaidh and ran to where he was sitting, collapsing to her knees before him with a laugh.
“Is she sleeping?” he whispered.
“Like a bairn!”
Payton grinned and leapt to his feet, caught Mared by the hand, and pulled her easily into the forest.
“Where are we going?” she asked him.
“Somewhere I might kiss ye properly,” he said low, “for I have missed ye terribly.” Mared laughed; he gathered her inside his cloak. They walked along until they reached a stream tumbling down the side of the hill. Payton stopped there, grabbed her up in his arms, and kissed her with abandon, with all the pent-up longing he had held in check for the thirty-six hours that had passed since she had left his room.
Mared pressed against him, kissing him with as much zeal as he was showing her. He twirled her about, backed her up until she was against a tree, and then gentled his kiss, taking his time to taste her mouth and feel her lips against his.
When he lifted his head, Mared smiled seductively and traced his bottom lip with the tip of her finger. “Do ye love me, then?”
“I do. I always have,” he answered sincerely.
She made a sound of delight deep in her throat, caught his head between her hands, and kissed him passionately. It was enough to unravel Payton completely. Since their extraordinary night together, he’d thought of nothing but her. He’d felt no hunger, no thirst, nothing but the need to be with her. He grabbed her skirt with both hands, groping for the hem as she kissed him.
“What do ye think to be doing, lad?” she whispered when his hands found the tops of her stockings and the bare skin of her thighs.
Payton grinned and nipped at her lower lip. “I want to be with ye, lass.”
Her eyes darted to the trees behind them. “But there is Una—”
“Sleeping,” he reminded her as his hand found the warm, soft patch between her legs. Ma
red’s green eyes shifted to him, and she smiled provocatively as his fingers slipped deeper.
“Ye’re a wicked laird, to seduce yer housekeeper,” she whispered huskily.
“Ye’re a wicked housekeeper, then, to seduce me so completely with a mere smile.”
Mared’s smile deepened, but her eyes slid shut and she leaned her head against the tree. One long, shapely leg rode up his leg, to his waist. “Una might wake,” she muttered.
“Then ye must be very quiet,” he responded, kissing the column of her neck.
“And the others? What if they return?” she whispered as she dipped her hand in between them and stroked him over the fabric of his trousers.
“Then we best be quick,” he mumbled against the smooth flesh of her breast. His hand moved over her leg, caressing it, holding it in place, while with his other hand, he unbuttoned his trousers and bared himself. He began to stroke her, stoking a fire inside of her that would rage as it did inside of him, stroking and tweaking until her head began to loll against the tree.
“Ye make me feel so weak when ye do that,” she mumbled.
“Weak?” He chuckled. “Ye make me feel on fire.” He slipped inside her then, sliding into her depths, and let out a long breath of relief as he slid deep to the hilt.
She sighed with pleasure and pressed against him. “Make me feel fire, lad,” she muttered.
Payton did not need any encouragement, for he was feeling the burn of his own desire rather acutely. He began to move inside her, watching her eyes as he did, watching the frown of concentration as he stroked her to climax, and watching her seductive smile as he reached his climax just after her.
Her leg slowly slid down his body, and she tenderly kissed his mouth.
They remained against that tree, Payton’s cloak wrapped around them, in one another’s arms, kissing one another indolently, relishing the sensation of being so close again, whispering intimate endearments to one another.
But a distant sound brought Payton back to his senses, and he kissed Mared fully once more, then helped her shake her skirts out. Taking her hand, he led her back. They laughed together, conspirators in love, and walked languidly through the forest, pausing now and again to examine a flower or a tree, or a peculiarly shaped pine cone, laughing quietly at their private jests.
