by Donna Grant
And that could never be. A night, yes. One night of pleasure and passion was all he could allow there to be.
For several seconds Ian simply stared at him. Then, finally, he shifted to allow Camdyn to pass. Only when Camdyn drew near did Ian reach out and grasp his upper arm to stop him.
“You’re a good man, Camdyn. Doona hurt her.”
Camdyn pulled his arm out of Ian’s grip, went through the door, and strode down the corridor to Saffron’s chamber door. He braced his hands on the stones on either side of the door and tried to calm himself.
He banged on the oak door twice and resumed his stance. The door opened and his gaze feasted on Saffron with her damp hair and a gold robe wrapped around her lithe body.
Camdyn knew he should say something, but his need was too great. He grasped her as he hauled her against him for a hard, ravishing kiss as he stepped into her chamber.
He kicked the door closed with his foot and tossed her back onto the bed. Camdyn quickly laid his body atop hers and kissed her again. He kissed her with all the desire, all the yearning, he had.
If he couldn’t put into words what he wanted to say, he would show her with his mouth, hands, and body.
As soon as he had touched her, his already heated body had gone up in flames. They licked at him, urging him for more of her, to have more of her.
Her hands skated up his arms and around his neck as she opened her mouth to him. Her moan, soft and seductive, filled his ears as their tongues slid against each other.
Camdyn was soon sinking in all that was Saffron. Falling. Tumbling.
And he didn’t want to stop it.
He groaned when she lifted her hips to rub against his cock. A wave of passion burned through his veins so great he had his knee between her legs before he knew what he was doing.
Camdyn drew upon his legendary control and stopped himself from taking her right then. He wanted her, there was no doubt, but he wanted to savor Saffron. To put every inch of her into his memory.
He rose up on his hands and looked down at her. Her lips were wet and swollen from his kisses, and her tawny eyes were heavy lidded and filled with passion.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she whispered before she pulled his head back down for a kiss.
Camdyn slipped a hand inside her thick robe. With just a twist of his wrist, her loosely tied belt came undone and he spread her robe wide.
He sucked in a breath when he found her naked beneath. Camdyn broke the kiss to gaze at the body he’d been craving to see. His hand caressed between her full breasts, past her small waist, and over her flat belly, and then to her gently flared hips.
Camdyn paused for a heartbeat to let his fingers skim over the light brown curls that hid her sex from him. His hand continued down her thigh until he reached her knee where he tugged her leg up so he could touch down her leg to her foot.
She was more beautiful than he ever imagined. Her skin was still pale from being kept out of the sun, but it was luminous now as it glowed with health.
Camdyn met her gaze and knew in that instant he’d been a fool to fight against what was between them. He’d lost long ago and just hadn’t realized it.
But if he was going to have her, he was going to take his time and relish every moment.
He cupped her breast and gently massaged it. Saffron’s eyes closed and her lips parted. But when he thumbed her nipples he heard the moan he’d been listening for.
Camdyn was merciless as he began to tease her nipples. He closed his lips around one and let his tongue glide over the tip while his hand rolled her other nipple between his fingers.
Her fingernails bit into his back as she arched off the bed. Camdyn didn’t relent as he shifted to her other breast and suckled the turgid peak deep into his mouth.
He couldn’t stop a groan of his own as her hips rocked against his. He burned hotter with each moan, each rub of her hips.
Camdyn rolled them until he was on his back and she rested on his chest. She sat up, and with a simple shift of her shoulders, the robe puddled around her hips.
He’d never seen anything so bewitching in all his long years. If he’d hungered for her before, he was ravenous now. There was nothing, not even Deirdre, who would stop him from claiming Saffron’s body that night.
She reached for the hem of his tee, but Camdyn was quicker. He flung the robe to the floor and cupped her breasts. She sucked in a breath as he pinched her already sensitive nipples, mixing pleasure with pain.
Her hips rocked forward as her head dropped back. Camdyn couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her passion was a thing of beauty, as if she had been waiting to come alive for someone.
Before he could think too much on that, he moved a hand down to her curls and pressed.
She moaned his name as her breath became ragged.
Camdyn licked his fingers before he pushed them through her curls and found her clitoris. And began to softly circle it. Tantalizing them both.
She stilled, her thighs squeezing his sides as a cry locked in her throat.
Camdyn shifted his hand between them and felt her arousal on his fingers. Whatever control he’d had snapped in that moment.
He flipped Saffron onto her back and wedged himself so he lay between her legs. He had a finger inside her before she had landed on her back.
The feel of her slick walls nearly made him spill right then. Her wet heat and soft moans drove him to want to hear her scream her release. He wouldn’t be satisfied until then.
Camdyn began to stroke his finger in and out of her. Over and over he plunged his finger into her heat before adding a second finger.
She clutched at his arms, her hips rising to meet his thrusts. He knew she was close. He could see her body tightening and ready to break loose.
And just as her breathing changed, he withdrew his hand.
Saffron’s eyes flew open. She’d been so close to climaxing, so very close. She opened her lips to ask Camdyn why he’d stopped when he rose and knelt on the floor.
He grabbed her ankles and pulled her to the edge of the mattress. Her gaze met his just before his mouth touched her sex and his tongue licked her.
Her thoughts scattered as his tongue laved at her swollen clit. His arms were wedged so they held her thighs open while his large hands spread her labia.
Saffron had never been so exposed. And she’d never felt anything so good before.
Her hands fisted the coverlet as her eyes rolled back in her head. No one had ever kissed her like Camdyn did. No one had ever looked at her the way Camdyn did.
And certainly no one touched her the way he did.
Her body was ablaze with need that tightened in her belly with each lick of his tongue. Bringing her closer and closer to release.
A cry tore from her throat when he slid a finger inside her as his tongue continued to lick her. She rocked against him. His fingers filling her, his tongue teasing her.
The climax, when it hit, came suddenly. It took her away on a tide of blissful glory that had her falling into an abyss of pleasure.
Camdyn continued his assault, prolonging her orgasm until a second wave took her.
With her body still shuddering from so much pleasure at once, Saffron realized Camdyn had risen. She opened her eyes to see him staring at her.
His black hair hung loosely to his shoulders, the ends curling slightly around his face. His chocolate eyes were filled with a need that made her breath catch.
He ripped off his T-shirt, giving her another glimpse of his chiseled abs and thick shoulders. But she really paid attention when he pulled off his jeans.
Saffron had seen Michelangelo’s David while in Florence, and others might think David was a perfect specimen, but none of them had seen Camdyn.
His muscular chest made a vee to his waist and narrow hips. Legs, long and muscular, stood braced apart, letting her look her fill.
But it was his heavy, thick arousal jutting upward that caught her attention.
Saffron sat
up and wrapped her hand around his length, marveling at the smoothness and hotness of his rod. She glanced up to see his eyes closed and his jaw clenched as she ran her hand up and down his length.
Knowing that he was feeling the same kind of desire still rushing through her veins was a heady experience. She wanted more of that control.
She leaned her head down and wrapped her lips around his cock. His hands instantly framed her head as he said her name with a mixture of desire and agony.
Before she could do more, she found herself on her back and Camdyn leaning over her. He held one of her legs in his big hand as he positioned his arousal at her sex.
Slowly, leisurely, he rubbed the head of his shaft along her sex.
Her sensitized flesh cried out for more as she moaned in pleasure. And then he pushed inside her with slow, measured thrusts.
He held her hips as she tried to buck against him. She could feel herself stretching to take all of him in. But it had been so long since she’d had sex, and her body hadn’t adjusted.
And then suddenly it did.
She groaned as he slid fully into her, stretching her, filling her until she didn’t know where she ended and he began.
He leaned over her and kissed her fiercely, passionately. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he deepened the kiss. And then he began to thrust.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
Saffron’s breath locked in her lungs as he moved with short, soft strokes and long, hard thrusts. He pounded into her, setting up a relentless tempo.
She held on to him, her body no longer her own. It was his to do with as he pleased. And she responded to his every touch, every breath as if she’d been waiting her entire life for him.
Her eyes opened to find Camdyn looking down at her, his dark chocolate eyes capturing hers and refusing to let go. Saffron had never looked into a man’s eyes before while making love.
It had seemed too intimate, too personal.
But with Camdyn everything was different. She wasn’t able to guard herself as she normally did, and somehow she didn’t want to. She wanted to be herself, the person she kept from everyone.
She wound her arms around his neck when he bent and kissed her. The kiss held as much longing and craving as she had seen in his eyes.
He plunged deep within her and held still as he deepened the kiss. It swept away her breath. The walls around her heart began to crack with each sweep of his tongue against hers, with each stroke of his arousal within her.
“Saffron,” he whispered, and kissed down her neck as he began to pump his hips once more.
She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist. It moved the angle of her hips and he sank even deeper into her. A gasp tore from her as his rhythm grew faster.
With her arms locked tight, she held on as he claimed her body stroke after stroke. He plunged faster, harder. Deeper.
Her body tightened. The passion rose higher, winding quicker, tighter. Saffron felt the rapid, smooth movements of his hips as his body slid against hers. Into hers.
She closed her eyes, giving her body up to the climax building within her. Her breath locked as she was engulfed by the flames of desire.
A scream tore from her throat when the orgasm hit.
Camdyn leaned up and watched Saffron peak for the third time. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted on her scream, and her back arched.
But it was the feel of her walls tightening around his aching cock that had him fighting back his own release. It had been too long, and he’d wanted her too desperately to hold back the climax.
With the shudders of her last orgasm still racking her body, Camdyn desperately pumped his hips. The combination of her slick heat and need were too much.
He threw back his head and gripped her hips tightly as he gave in to his release. Its power staggered him, amazed him. Astounded him.
Never, not once in his centuries of living, had he ever experienced anything so … poignant.
It was enough for warning bells to go off in his mind, but instead of leaving, he fell next to Saffron. She turned her face to him, locks of hair sticking to her cheek.
He saw the question in her eyes and waited for her to ask why he had come to her. But he prayed she wouldn’t voice it because he couldn’t answer. At least not in the way she wanted to hear.
“I don’t think I can move,” she said with a tired smile.
Camdyn noticed the goose bumps on her skin and rose to pull back the covers before he moved her so that her head was on the pillow. He covered her, but just as he was about to turn away, he found he didn’t want to. He slid into the bed next to her, and the smile she gave him had him grinning as well.
“You should do that more,” Saffron said as she ran a finger lightly over his lips.
He grabbed her hand and turned it so that he kissed the backs of her fingers. “Do what more? Make love to you until you can no’ move?”
“Oh, that definitely,” she said with a breathless laugh. “But I was really talking about your smile. It looks quite charming, you know.”
“I’ve no’ had much to smile about.”
“You will once Deirdre is gone.”
Camdyn sighed and rolled onto his back to look at the ceiling. “I’ve waited centuries for her death. I willna believe it’s real until I see it with my own eyes.”
“Will you tell me what she did to you?”
He looked down at their hands still joined between them. “My story is no’ so different from the other Warriors here.”
“Maybe not, but I’d like to hear it. What is it that you don’t want me to know?”
“Everything. You’re better off no’ knowing me at all.”
“It’s a little late for that.” She turned so that she was on her side facing him.
Camdyn sighed and ran his thumb over the back of her hand. He really should release her, but even that small gesture he couldn’t seem to make himself do.
“Unlike the others, Deirdre didna have family to use against me. I was an orphan. My mother died giving birth to one of my brothers who didn’t last the night, and my father a year later in battle. I was only a small lad at the time with nowhere to go. I was raised by the clan.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugged. “I was passed around from family to family.”
“What of your brothers and sisters?”
“My sisters were put to work in the castle, and my brothers were taken by different families.”
“That’s so sad. Were you happy?”
“I didna know any other way. As soon as I was old enough, I had to earn my keep in the clan since I had no family. I hunted for food as well as watched over the sheep. The next step for me was defending my clan and learning to use a sword.”
“I gather you were good.”
He turned his head to her when he heard the smile in her voice. He raised a brow, one side of his lips rising in a smile. “I was verra competitive.”
“Was? You aren’t anymore?”
“Maybe a wee bit. Immortality tends to change a man’s views.”
“Did you go to Deirdre as Logan did, then?”
Camdyn shook his head. “Nay. I was in the middle of a battle between my clan and another. I’d been injured. A sword to the stomach.”
He paused when her finger traced the faint scar on the left side of his stomach slowly, her touch light.
“I knew it was a mortal wound, but I continued to fight. I killed the man who had wounded me. I doona know how long I fought before I’d lost too much blood to continue. By that time we were winning. I tried to make it back to my horse. But it was too late.”
“You didn’t die, did you?”
“It was close. I was out of my mind with the pain as well as delirious. I thought the beautiful woman with white hair and eyes was just something I made up in my mind. And the wyrran that dragged me into the woods and away from my kinsmen I thought were just children.”
“So you didn’t
know what was going on?”
“Nay. I could hear her speaking, but I couldna understand what she was saying. And then the real pain began as she unbound my god.”
Camdyn paused, because even nearly seven hundred years later, he still could feel the way his bones had popped out of joint and broken as his god stretched. He could still feel the way his muscles had shredded before they’d knitted back together.
“It healed your wound, didn’t it?”
He nodded. “Aye, but it left the scar because I was still mortal when I received the wound.”
“I see. What happened next?”
“I think I lost my mind for a time.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that. It was a secret he’d kept from everyone.
Her soft hand lay over his heart. “And only a Highlander as strong as you could have found your way back.”
“Only because I was left alone. She had others who she was trying to turn to her side, and since I was on that road already, she focused on them. But that solitude gave me the time I needed.”
“Today was the first time I’ve actually seen Deirdre,” Saffron admitted. “I’ve only seen her in my visions, but it’s so much worse seeing her in person. Her evil. I can still feel it on me.”
Camdyn found himself pulling Saffron into his arms. He didn’t think about his reason for doing so, only allowed himself to feel the rightness of it as her head rested on his chest and her body molded against his side.
“The evil of Cairn Toul is just as bad,” Camdyn said. “It seeps from the rocks and surrounds you until you are suffocating with it. Combine that with your god, who is raging inside you for control, and it’s no wonder so many Warriors succumbed to her.”
“It must have been a lot for you to deal with in addition to seeing your wound healed.”
“I never saw the wound heal, but looking down and seeing the flesh mended, as well as hearing and feeling the god inside me when I knew it was wrong, was too much for me. I tried to go back to my clan, but Deirdre stopped me and brought me to Cairn Toul. She threw me in her dungeons where other Warriors battled themselves for control. So few won.”
“Who is your god?”
Camdyn released a long breath. “Sculel, god of the underworld.”
