by Jessi Gage
Skepticism tightened the corners of his eyes. “I ken ye arena jesting, but I canna believe ye are truly pleased with my form. How can ye be?”
She finished cleaning him, smiling at the way he thickened and lengthened in her hands. She tossed the cloth on the floor and climbed over him, nipping his ear. “Would you like me to prove it?”
His hands rubbed up her back, making her moan with the tingling sensation of his rough fingers over her skin. “How can ye prove such a thing? How can ye show me what’s in your mind when ye look on me?”
She reached around to guide one of his hands from her back to her bottom and pressed the tips of his fingers to the moist heat between her legs.
“Christ, ye’re slick as river-weed growing on the rocks in the creek.” To her delight, he didn’t pull his fingers away, but skated them over her in tentative exploration.
“A woman gets wet when she is full of desire. It’s the body’s natural preparation for intercourse.” She kissed him slow and deep while his fingers made her tremble with need. “It means I want you,” she breathed between kisses.
“How do ye want me, lass? Tell me what to do.”
She rolled off him, lying back on the bed.
He turned onto his side, taking the liberty of rubbing a hand up her stomach to cup one breast.
“You can start by kissing me. Here.” She circled a finger around her nipple.
Obeying instantly, he pressed a close-mouthed kiss to her as if he were bestowing a reverent peck on her cheek.
“No. Kiss me like you kiss my mouth. Devour me. Play with me.”
His eyes went dark with desire. Holding her gaze, he closed his mouth over her nipple and swirled his tongue. Heat darted from her breast directly to her womb, making her gasp with shock. They said pregnancy made a woman’s nipples more sensitive. Whether it was that or the fact she’d been beside herself with need for Darcy, his mouth on her there felt better than anything she’d ever experienced. When he pulled at her with gentle sucking, she dug her heels into the bed and her back bowed. A strangled moan tore from her throat. Good grief, she was close to coming just from a little nipple action.
Focus, Mel. You can’t come yet. Make it last.
At her response, Darcy groaned, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He required no more instruction than her sounds of pleasure, proceeding to tease and torture each of her nipples until she was writhing beneath him and crazed with pleasure.
She had to tug on his hair to get him to stop. “Please. I need you to touch me. Now.” She throbbed for more than just his hands, but she retained the presence of mind to take things slow. She had always been a master at delayed gratification, and making love with Darcy was a reward she wanted to build up to, not just for her own sake. She wanted to initiate him to sex in a way he’d never forget. She wanted to savor him and teach him how to be a thoughtful, talented lover, to watch the wonder in his face as she guided him in exploring her with his eyes and his hands.
When she’d brought him to climax with her hands, the look on his face had been rapturous. That moment had been Christmas morning, birthday, and summer vacation all rolled into one for him. She couldn’t wait to see his reaction when she gifted him with the knowledge that they could, in fact, come together in the way he’d never thought possible.
But that would come later. Tonight was for lithe fingers and stroking hands.
“How shall I touch ye?”
Gliding a finger over the smooth head of his fully engorged shaft, she said, “You are very sensitive here, yes?”
“Aye, lass,” he growled. “Your touch feels divine there.”
“I have a place between my legs that is just as sensitive, but it’s very small. Would you like to see it?”
His breath caught. He nodded, eyes wide. Just as she’d suspected, her Highlander had had no idea a woman could be stimulated externally. She’d thought Highland men suffered from a chronic lack of romance, but now she knew it was merely an epidemic of ignorance.
No surprise. She hadn’t discovered her clitoris until her sophomore year in college, and then she’d only found it after her roommate had joked about double-clicking her own mouse and Melanie had asked her what she’d meant. She’d learned more about sex in a fifteen-minute conversation with Hillary than she had from her mother and her high school’s pathetic excuse for a sex-ed program combined. And when she’d explored her own body in her bunk that night, she’d been astounded that a potent little pleasure button had been hiding right under her nose all those years. It had been the Rosetta Stone of personal discoveries.
And now, she could share that discovery with her husband.
She spread her legs. Just the feel of the air cooling her moist, plump tissues made her gasp with pleasure. Threading her fingers into her curls, she gave a little tug to reveal her swollen clitoris.
She directed Darcy to scoot down the bed so he could inspect her closely, and showed him with her fingers where she was most sensitive. Her own touch felt incredible, but when he took over without being asked, her head fell back on the pillow and she cried out.
“Yes. Right there. Oh God, don’t stop.”
She closed her eyes and reached behind her head to grip the pillow. Her hips shifted up and down, mimicking the motion of mating. She ached to be filled, but knew it would be sweeter if she let this climax come and then showed him how to give her another later.
“Can you keep doing that and kiss me at the same time?”
He responded by moving up her body and capturing her mouth with hot, open-mouthed kisses. His fingers didn’t waver.
“Harder,” she moaned into his mouth as something beautiful built deep inside her. “Faster.”
Darcy took direction well. A handful of seconds later, a ragged cry erupted from her throat as she came hard. He swallowed her scream, moaning himself as she shuddered beside him.
Panting, she pushed his hand away from her over sensitized nub. “So good. That was so good.”
“Christ, lass,” he said, his face solemn. “I never kent a woman could feel like that. Ye are a miracle to me.”
He kissed her, and she melted into him. When he pulled back to gaze lovingly at her, she grasped his straining erection and said, “It looks like you’re ready for round two.”
* * * *
Malina slept solidly beside him, gloriously naked and cool as a lily in his arms. He couldn’t sleep, so enchanted was he with her. A few days ago he’d not even kent her, and now she was the most essential part of his soul. She’d accepted him where others had ridiculed. She’d shown him worlds of delight he’d believed could never exist for him.
Tonight, her hands had brought him more pleasure than he’d ever managed to bring himself in those weaker moments, and her mouth–good Christ, her mouth was a portal to heaven. And he liked pleasing her with his hands and his mouth just as much as he liked receiving from her. There was once that they came together with their bodies reversed, their lips and tongues exploring and sucking each other, their hands gripping each other’s hips and buttocks; he grew hard again just remembering it.
She was his wife. His lover. His everything.
And when she left him, he would become a shell of a man.
But he had vowed to help her. He wouldn’t fail her, even if it meant his demise. He’d help her discover the magicks she needed to navigate time, and then he’d give himself to the Murray. He’d don Wilhelm’s bloody tartan and forget he’d ever had a home and a family who loved him in Ackergill.
There was no home without Malina.
His heart aching, he stroked a hand over her silky hair and watched her sleep. She was beauty itself. She was goodness. She was purity and carnal decadence all wrapped together. He counted himself blessed to have been given charge over such a creature, for however short a time.
Restless, he slid from the bed and poured some wine. He paced their darkened bedchamber and drank and realized he needed to get her home as soon as he possibly could because if he
dallied, he’d risk becoming weak and breaking his vow. His hands trembled with the urge to shake her awake and tell her that he would never permit her to leave him. His loins throbbed with need for her, and not just for the nearly unbearable pleasure, but for the closeness he felt with her when they opened their bodies to each other’s kisses and caresses.
Before he could change his mind, he threw on his plaid and took a candle to Wilhelm’s study, where they’d negotiated their contract. The room was unlocked, so he went in, helped himself to paper and a quill, and pulled up a chair to a table by the window. As he worked, the faint light of sunrise seeped into the room to color the paper lavender.
“I canna believe that with a wife as fair as yours you’d rather be composing letters first thing in the morning than lying in bed beside her.”
Wilhelm stood in the doorway, smirking. The laird strode in, fully dressed in his armor shirt and burgundy plaid, the metalwork on his belt polished to perfection, every hair on his head strictly in its place.
“I could say the same for you,” he said with a good-natured smirk.
Wilhelm chuckled. “Ah, lad, leisurely mornings of tupping are for younger men without such responsibilities as I have. I am laird of Dornoch. What’s your excuse?”
“I must go to Inverness,” He paused in his writing to give Wilhelm his full attention. “But I canna take Malina. With Steafan’s men about, ’tis too dangerous for her, and I can ride faster alone. Will ye watch over her while I make my errand? When I return, I shall be your man for as long as ye need me and in whatever capacity ye decree.”
“I thought ye wished to return to Ackergill. I thought ye’d be sending me a quarter share of your mill’s take.”
“I do wish to return. But I dinna think I ever shall. Things have changed, and it all hinges on Inverness.”
Wilhelm raised an interested eyebrow, so he elaborated. “If I fail to find a way to return Malina to her time, I will have to keep searching. I canna do that from Ackergill and keep it secret from Steafan. But nor can I return if I have success in Inverness. Ackergill wouldna be the same for me. No’ without her.” He shook his head, shocked at his own forthrightness with a man he’d only recently met.
Clearing his throat, he turned the conversation to business. “Either way, I shall nay be going back to Ackergill. I shall be your man as ye wanted. There will be no need for our contract. Instead of having a quarter of my worth, ye shall have all of me. I shall swear my fealty and wear the Murray plaid.”
Without Malina and without purpose, he feared he’d waste away. But if he indentured himself to Wilhelm, he would at least feel obligated to carry on.
He quickly finished and signed the letter he’d written to Malina. He handed it to Wilhelm. “Will ye see that my wife gets this when she rises? I intend to leave immediately.”
Wilhelm took the letter and appraised him with shrewd eyes. “Ye think ye can find her box maker?”
“I hope so.”
Wilhelm grunted. “Well, come on, then, lad. Let’s get some breakfast in ye before ye leave.”
* * * *
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Melanie’s shriek echoed off the windows of the sunny breakfast room.
Wilhelm held out a folded piece of paper like a shield against her panic. “He left ye this. Dinna fear, lass. ’Tis only an errand. He doesna plan to be gone more than a half-week at most.”
“Half a week? I want to talk to him now!” She snatched the paper from Wilhelm and opened it, scowling at Darcy’s slanting signature. The last time she’d seen it was when he’d signed their marriage contract in Steafan’s office.
Her eyes raced over her husband’s words, her vision blurring as she read that he’d gone to Inverness without her to look for your Mr. MacLeod. He still wanted to send her home. Even after all they’d shared last night. And he hadn’t even had the decency to say goodbye.
She thought they’d forged an incredible bond last night. She’d fallen so deeply in love with him that she’d firmly decided she wouldn’t try to get home to Charleston. While Darcy diligently brought her to peak after peak of pleasure, her heart had rejoiced and wept at the same time–rejoiced for the treasure she’d found in Darcy and wept for the loss of all she loved back home. She’d grieved for her parents even as she’d clung to her husband and kissed him and made love to him every way short of intercourse.
For better or for worse, she was going to stay with him and be his wife and–gulp–have her baby in 1517.
She’d planned to tell him tonight and to reveal that he could, in fact, make love to a woman, that he wasn’t some freak of nature that needed to be ashamed of his large body. But he’d taken off before she’d had the chance. He’d snuck out while she slept, intending to send her away forever.
Her heart broke. She turned her back on Wilhelm, not wanting a witness to her tears.
“Fetch the Lady Constance,” he said quietly to a maid. “There, there, lass,” he said with an awkward pat of her shoulder. “He is a man of his word. Ye’ll be kenning that, I’m sure. He doesna see he has a choice but to help ye find your own time again, not when he vowed he would do such.”
“I know,” she said past a tight throat. “He’s a stubborn idiot.” Turning to meet Wilhelm’s sympathetic eyes, she sniffed. “I don’t suppose you’d let me go after him.”
He smiled, but showed his teeth in warning. “Nay, lass. Ye’ll no’ be leaving. I have charge over you, and I intend to keep ye safe while your husband is away.”
She huffed, embracing her outrage rather than think about how alone she suddenly felt. “Well, what am I going to do with myself while he’s gone? Sit around and file my nails and be barefoot and pregnant?”
“Oh, no,” Constance said, breezing into the breakfast room.
Wilhelm wasted no time extricating himself from the critical, emotional-female situation, ducking out of the room.
Constance helped herself to the breakfast buffet. “I need help in my garden. And we need to find you a decent wardrobe. And there’s a ton you need to learn if you’re going to be hanging around in this century.”
“But I won’t be,” she protested, fighting the urge to start crying again–damn her hormones. “Not if Darcy has his way.” When did the idea of getting home to Charleston and the twenty-first century become a bad thing?
Constance threw a conspiratorial smile over her shoulder as she poured some tea and prepared a plate of bread, raisins, and cheese. “When a man acts rashly, say for example, galloping off at the crack of dawn on some cockamamie errand without so much as a goodbye, it doesn’t necessarily mean he knows what he’s doing. In fact,” she added, falling into an overstuffed chair and popping a raisin in her mouth, “it often means he’s running from something.”
“Yeah, from me,” she huffed. She felt too upset to eat, but her little one had other plans. She couldn’t stop herself from grabbing half a loaf of bread from the sideboard and tearing off a hefty bite. It was so good. Starchy and grainy and utterly healthy-tasting. She helped herself to the brie, spreading a generous glob over the bread before devouring more.
While she ate with Constance, she couldn’t help thinking about last night. Poor Darcy had never been with a woman before, and suddenly she was pawing him, throwing herself at him, demanding his compliance as she had her wicked way with him.
He’d shown absolutely no sign of distress–if he had, she would have backed off. But passion could mask deeper feelings. Maybe deep down, he’d been battling regrets, and when morning came and the passion had worn off, those regrets had shone as starkly as the sun.
He’d told her he never intended to remain married for long. He hadn’t intended to become intimate with her. Maybe now that he’d let her seduce him, he was more determined than ever to get her back to her time, before she could sink her claws into him any deeper. To Darcy, she must seem like a needy succubus of a woman, desperate for male attention–a wanton, he’d called her. Remembering the bite in the word as he’d
spat it at her in the barn, she winced. He probably thought she was trying to seduce him into taking care of her and her baby, that she was using him.
No wonder he was in a hurry to ditch her. Her eyes burned with fresh tears.
Constance rolled her eyes as she set down her plate. “Honestly, dear, if you can’t tell that man is completely head over heels for you, you need your eyes checked. He’s not running from you. More likely, he’s afraid of what you make him feel. As a general rule, men don’t like to be out of control. That’s especially true for our rugged Highlanders. They are men of action.” Constance sipped her tea. “Hunt it, terrify it, dominate it, kill it. And if it can’t be hunted, terrified, dominated, or killed, than it’s best to leave it alone.”
“Wilhelm didn’t leave you alone,” she said, more than a little jealous of the woman for being happily married while her husband was miles away searching for a way to get rid of her.
“No, he most certainly didn’t. But he did try to terrify me. And when that didn’t work, he tried his hand at dominating me.” The defiant gleam in her eye spoke to the effectiveness of those attempts. “It wasn’t until the poor man realized he could dominate me through tenderness and that when a woman loves a man, she is innately terrified of losing him, that he finally began to trust what we had.”
“You’re saying Darcy’s just trying to make sense of what he feels for me, and he’s doing it by immersing himself in action. But what if he actually finds a way to return me to my time?”
“He might find your box maker. He might even learn the secret to returning you to your time. The question is, what will he do with the information?” Constance leaned forward, turning the full power of her shrewd gaze on her. “Perhaps a better question is, if he arrives at a decision you don’t like, will you roll over and accept it, or will you fight for what you really want?”
Chapter 16
Darcy glared at the stenciled sign for MacLeod’s Fine Furniture. He’d half hoped to nay find any hint of Malina’s box maker. She would have been distraught, but he would have comforted her with kisses and the touches that brought her so much pleasure. He’d hold her through her grieving and stroke her hair and tell her how sorry he was. But inside, he’d be joyful at the prospect of keeping her with him as they searched for another way to return her to her home.
