Bride of Dunloch (Highland Loyalties)

by Veronica Bale

  Improper. Sinful. Dirty.

  “Wait—stop,” she pleaded, suddenly struck by a wave of panic. She put her hand to Robbie’s, pushing it away, and turned her face from his.

  Robbie lifted himself off of her a fraction and looked into her bewildered face. His breath was hot and rapid with his evident desire, and his expression was tortured with lust.

  “Jane, I am sorry. I didna mean to—”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s—”

  “Ye didna want this.”

  “I—I didn’t say that,” she hedged nervously.

  He held her gaze, searching her face as if to read her thoughts. “Do ye want this?”

  “I don’t know—I ... do you?”

  “Jane,” he breathed, exasperated. “Ye canna have any ken how badly I’ve wanted this almost since the first moment I met ye. Truly, lass, ye’ve bewitched every conscious thought I have, and ye’ve possessed my dreams every night. How could ye no’—a creature as beautiful as ye? Though I ken well enough ye dinna believe it. Jane, I want this terribly. But if ye dinna ...”

  Robbie trailed off, waiting for her answer. The echo of Ruth’s words warred with the voice in her head: Improper. Sinful ... Take your pleasures where you can.

  Her life was mapped out before her—years of submitting to Lord Reginald’s urges, duty to bear his children, decades of standing at his side, playing the silent role of the Lady of Dunloch. And little pleasure.

  Take your pleasures where you can.

  “I want this,” she said, her voice breathy and her lips trembling.

  Robbie needed no further invitation. The moment she uttered the words, his lips were on hers again, sensual and demanding. His kiss lulled her under a spell, so much so that she only found her voice when his hand began roving down to the laces of her shift again.

  “Robbie, wait—please,” she urged. When he raised himself up again and gazed at her quizzically, she didn’t seem to know what it was she was going to say.

  Though he did—the set of her frightened features communicated more than her words could.

  “I willna be like him,” he promised. “I swear, I willna. I couldna do that to ye.”

  Jane nodded, and he lowered his head to hers once more. This time, though, he kissed her slowly so he would not further frighten her. His lips trailed lightly over hers, and brushed across her jaw from ear to ear. Gently, he slid down her throat, skimming her clavicle with the lightness of a butterfly’s wing. Then with a more deliberate firmness, he pressed his mouth into the crook of her neck, allowing his warm, moist breath to wash over her sensitive flesh.

  His constant changes of position and pressure sent shivers up her spine and quickened her pulse. The delicious warmth that had started to blossom in the pit of her stomach intensified and crept downwards, stirring a longing for him. When his hand trailed down her shift this time, she did not stop him, and when his hand moved to her back to slide the fabric over her shoulders, she raised herself to assist him. Once the gown was off her shoulders, he pulled it lower, exposing her breasts.

  The recollection of Lord Reginald’s assault on her naked breasts surfaced unpleasantly at the back of her mind, and she winced involuntarily at the expectation of another humiliating round of groping and nipping with teeth. Instead, Robbie cupped her in his palm, and traced his thumb lightly over her nipple.

  “Whoever said ye were plain must have been gae blind,” he whispered.

  Jane lay in a trancelike state as he lowered his mouth to her breast. Instead of devouring her young flesh as Lord Reginald had done, Robbie was slow and artful, tracing around the circumference of her breast and across her sternum. He covered every inch of her, from shoulders to ribs, with his lips until she was trembling with desire. Only then did he pull her dress down lower to expose her flat, smooth belly.

  “Plain,” he scoffed again in a voice barely above a whisper.

  She wanted so much to feel the warmth of his skin pressed against hers, wanted to claim Robbie’s flesh with her hands as he was doing to her, but she was unsure of how to proceed. Having never before experienced such intense pleasure from the closeness of a man, she was self-conscious, sorely lacking confidence in her ability to return those pleasures. Nervously, she twined her fingers at the hem of his shirt and debated whether she should pull it up, worried that it might be too forward.

  Robbie noted her hesitation. Slowly, he clasped her hand so that the fabric was trapped between them. Then he lifted, guiding her hand to raise his shirt up and over his head. He let go of her hand then, and let her toss his shirt to the dirt floor under her own power.

  “Touch me, Jane,” he whispered. It was both an urgent demand, and a desperate plea.

  When Jane raised her fingertips to his well-muscled chest and traced lightly as he had done, Robbie closed his eyes and shuddered with desire. That simple reaction bolstered her confidence and heightened her own want of him. Growing bolder, she urged him back and raised herself so that it was she that leaned over him. Following his example, she brushed her lips and her fingers over his torso, from stomach to collarbone, from neck to jaw.

  Each sigh, each tortured whisper made Jane heady with the awareness of her own power over him. He brought his hands to her shoulders and twined his fingers into her loose locks. Enveloped in his firm grasp, she drove his yearning higher and higher with the roving caress of her hands, her lips, her tongue.

  “Good God, lass. Ye’ll drive me mad wi’ wanting ye,” he declared finally.

  He clutched her restless hands in his, and twisted again so that he was once more on top of her. So overwhelmed by his desire for her, he moved a little too enthusiastically, and cried out in pain as his hasty twisting disturbed his wound.

  “Are you alright?” she gasped. Her hands flew to the salve to check for fresh damage.

  Robbie nodded, gritting his teeth as the pain subsided. “Aye, I’m alright. It’ll take more than a wee bit of pain to stop me. Ye’ve no idea how ye’ve tortured me this past sennight—yer hands on me, checking my wound, bandaging me.”

  “Really?” she whispered, both surprised and flattered by his revelation.

  “Did ye really no’ ken? I thought for sure I’d given myself away, what wi’ my kilt rising wi’ my thoughts and all.”

  Jane giggled, but his comment brought her attention to that part of him which she’d not yet explored. Suddenly she was nervous again.

  Robbie understood why that was. Carefully, as if to honour the trust she’d placed in him, he unhinged the buckle of his kilt. The pleated fabric of his MacGillivray tartan fell from his hip; his eyes did not leave hers the whole time.

  Hesitantly, she glanced down to where his torso, which hovered over her, sloped downwards. The narrow waist, the smooth hip, and the muscular thigh which she’d seen only once before were now illuminated by the firelight. And indeed, as he had indicated, his manhood extended from between his thighs, straining under the influence of his desire for her.

  But instead of recoiling from him as she did every time she was faced with Lord Reginald in a state of lust, the evidence of Robbie’s need of her set the blossoming in her loins surging with anticipation. She wanted him—she wanted to be filled by him, to take him inside herself and willingly give him the pleasure which Lord Reginald took of her without her consent.

  Leisurely, he lowered her shift the rest of the way off her hip, and Jane raised her knees slightly so that the fabric would slide away from her. She lay, her back pressed into the cloth of the blanket, and gazed up at Robbie. A delightful mixture of desire, anticipation and fear wrestled deep within her, sending her heart into a wild gallop.

  Cautiously, so as not to aggravate his wound further, Robbie shifted himself onto her. His rigid erection pressed at the junction between her thighs. She parted her knees invitingly, offering to him the soft flesh protected there that would accommodate him.

  “Oh Jane,” he sighed as he slid himself inside her with ease.

  She had not
understood what Lord Reginald meant when he’d asked if she were “wet” for him. But she understood it now—her desire for Robbie had caused the tender, inner flesh of her womanhood to grow moist and slick. When he entered her, it was with little difficulty; indeed to her surprise, she found the sensation rather enjoyable. He moved slowly within her, the soft, moist walls of her cavern allowing his turgid erection to glide uninhibited.

  At first she laid still, unsure of what to do, and simply allowed herself to enjoy the weight of him on top of her, the feel of his warm body pressed to her. The voice in her head railed against the sin to which she was succumbing, but she ignored it. Instead, she focused on the complexity of the sensations and pleasures that overwhelmed her inexperienced body until the voice was silenced. She thrilled as he moaned and sighed, and shivered with delight at the gust of his breath on her neck as he pressed his wet mouth to her shoulder.

  But very soon, simply lying still for him was not enough. She wanted more—though what that might be she was uncertain. She raised her hands to him and gripped his back—gently at first, and then with more force as he responded to her, driving into her with more urgency. She pressed her own face to his shoulder, breathing in the musk of his skin, and her knees drew up slightly to hug his thrusting hips.

  It was a thoroughly pleasing experience—by no means the tortured ecstasy which Amelia described, but wonderful nonetheless. A stirring of emotions pooled in her breast and in her belly—triumph at defying her father and her husband, joy at wanting Robbie so much, and at being wanted by him. And something ... something protective towards him, this man who needed her so desperately. It was as if in this one act she could shield him from the world, cloak him for just a few moments from the horrors and sorrow he’d suffered.

  For that brief moment in time, he was hers. He belonged to her and she to him. Whatever else happened, whatever else was to come, things were as they should be at this very moment in time.

  Clutching his trembling body to her, she encouraged him by rocking and bucking her own hips underneath him. His moans grew bolder, more uncontrolled, signalling that he was drawing close to his fulfillment.

  When he reached his climax, it was rather sweet. No crude or grotesque utterances did he offer, no abhorrent grunts or open mouth like a dead fish. He merely clasped her to him, burying his face in her hair, and exhaled deeply. She welcomed him as he released himself into her, and when his climax had faded, she held him to her, listening to his beating heart as it slowed and his panting as it stilled.

  Chapter 11

  She did not remember falling asleep in his arms, nor did she notice when Robbie nodded off himself. When she awoke the next morning, still snuggled safely in his warm embrace, Jane felt for the first time in her life a sense of completeness.

  “What are ye grinning so secretively to yerself for?” Robbie whispered into her ear.

  “How long have you been awake?” she answered, slightly startled.

  “Long enough to catch ye grinning to yerself like a cat wi’ a canary.”

  “I did not look that way,” she admonished playfully, nudging at him with her bare shoulder.

  He chuckled and tightened his arms around her. “So will ye tell me what ye were thinking on?”

  “Just ... just last night,” she evaded.

  “Oh?” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “Did I no’ meet yer expectations? Perhaps yer Lord Fancy Britches is a bigger man than I?”

  But for the jesting tone of his voice, she might have worried that she’d offended him.

  “It’s nothing like that,” she assured him nonetheless, nuzzling his neck.

  Robbie sighed and lifted his chin in response. “Dinna distract me lass,” he teased. “I’ll be having an answer from ye.”

  Jane sighed, and dropped her chin, pressing her lips to his chest. Then she propped herself up on her elbow so that she could look into his eyes.

  “It’s only ... and mind I find it wholly improper to be discussing this with you—”

  “It’s a bit late for that, dinna ye think?” he interjected.

  “Perhaps,” she answered, a guilty grin settling on her lips. “You see, with Lord Reginald, I think of it as suffering through my duty to him as his wife. Not only do I find it not the least bit pleasurable, I find the whole experience somewhat ... repulsive.”

  “And wi’ me?”

  “With you, it was ... truly wonderful. Sweet, tender; my heart was full—I’ve never experienced that before.”

  “But ...” he persisted, sensing there was more she was not saying.

  “But ... I was led to believe that somehow it would be more.” When he regarded her patiently, she continued. “My sister, Amelia, she’s ... well, she’s experienced in this sort of thing. She’s always talked about an overwhelming, incomprehensible sensation that leaves her weak in the knees. And judging by your response to—you know—what we did, and by Lord Reginald’s for that matter ...”

  When Jane fell silent, embarrassed, Robbie closed his eyes, suppressing a grin.

  “Ye’ve wounded my pride, lass. Ye mean to say that I’ve left ye unsatisfied.”

  “No, no. I did not mean that,” she argued, shaking her head emphatically.

  He opened his eyes again, and gazed tenderly at her. “But ye were unsatisfied, lass. And by the looks of things, I’d say ye’d never had satisfaction of that kind ever, so ye didna ken what to expect, what ye were entitled to. It were my own fault. I didna consider yer pleasure—I was too desperate for my own.”

  “That’s alright,” she offered lamely, unsure if that was the right response to his self-deprecation. “It did not seem that way to me ... at any rate.”

  “As I said, ye didna ken what it is ye had a right to,” he insisted. Then, with an impish grin, he added, “I can put that to right, though.”

  He raised himself up on his elbow, moving slowly for the sake of his wound, and urged her to lie back.

  “What do you mean?” she said nervously.

  His responding grin only turned more wicked before he ducked his head to kiss down the length of her neck. With his hands, his lips, his tongue, Robbie explored every inch of Jane’s naked body. He moved over her slowly, drifting ever downward, past her breasts, over her flat, trembling belly, skimming her hips and travelling over the outside of her thighs to her knees. Then he moved to the inside of her thighs, and slowly began drifting back up.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped, pressing her legs together and shoving his head away with her hands.

  “No, no,” he said playfully, clasping her wrists. “I must give to ye what pleasure ye’d given to me last night.”

  “But ... but I—”

  “I promise I willna be like him,” he reassured her.

  A wave of humiliation swept over her as she parted her knees obediently. But when Robbie’s soft, wet mouth reached the crevice between her legs, her humiliation subsided, replaced by a sensation more intense than she’d imagined was possible. She gasped and arched her back at the exquisite pleasure his handling brought to her. Where Lord Reginald’s onslaught had been more functional in order to prepare her to accommodate him, Robbie’s was calculated and measured. One moment he would flick his tongue against the soft nub at the crest of her opening and cause her to convulse with the intensity of the sensation, the next he would apply pressure to the flesh surrounding it, driving a deeper pleasure, one that spread upwards through her belly.

  Her breathing turned laboured and her heels dug futilely at the dirt floor beneath her. Her hands gripped the blanket at her sides, restless, and when Robbie noticed, he directed her hands to his head. Jane twined her fingers through his hair, holding onto him as if her life were hanging in the balance as the unbearable sensation he was causing her began to build and lead somewhere.

  “Som-something is h-happening,” she gasped, her panting on the verge of frenzy.

  Her words only spurred Robbie on. His tongue moved faster, applying more and more pressur
e and swirling around and around her tender flesh which, by now, ached with need.

  When she thought she could stand no more, the building sensation reached its peak. Jane cried out at the unexpected burst of pleasure, arching her back fiercely and clenching her eyes shut. The sensation surged and then ebbed, leaving her convulsing and trembling.

  His work done, Robbie returned to her side and gazed longingly at her. In her stupefied state, she was marginally aware that his efforts had caused him to become aroused again. As an invitation for him to have her, she pulled his face to hers and kissed him with an inner fervour so intense she’d never known its like before.

  Accepting her invitation, he rolled onto her with a groan. He entered her with a desperation and need that was rougher than before, and Jane found, to her surprise, that she liked him rough at this moment. In fact, she’d like it a whole lot better if he were even rougher with her. To encourage him, she kicked her legs up and wrapped them around his waist, clinging to him with all the strength she had.

  As if his efforts with his tongue had been the preparation she needed, the building sensation in her loins began to increase again. This time, she knew what to do to nurture it. She moved with him, heightening her own pleasure at the same time that she drove his.

  At the moment that her second climax came, Robbie let out an uninhibited groan.

  “Good God, lass, ye’ll be the death of me,” he cried, and then with a powerful thrust and a moan of pleasure, he released himself into her.

  Satisfied and panting, he rolled off of her, lying at her side with his face pressed into her hair and his arm draped across her bosom.

  “I didn’t understand before,” she said when her breathing had slowed and her heart had stopped hammering in her chest.

  “What’s that now?” Robbie said, unmoving.

  “Well—it made no sense to me before, why Amelia was so prepared to give up her maiden purity and risk her chances of making a match. I couldn’t imagine what could be worth that ... I understand now.”