A Laird for All Time

by Angeline Fortin

  When they were done, Connor tucked Emmy’s hand into the crook of his arm as they walked slowly back to the waterfront. “Yer fingers are getting cold.”

  “I left the gloves on the boat. I’ll be fine when we get there.” However, the sound was choppy on the return trip and the temperature had dropped dramatically. Shivering, Emmy accepted Connor’s urging to remain below near the stove and out of the winds without argument. By the time they docked in Craignure, Emmy would have wagered the temperature was near freezing and the clouds were definitely threatening rain.

  Chapter 25

  The rain began in earnest during the sickening drive back to Duart. The carriage swayed and jolted even more with the buffeting winds and rain pounding against the side. She was weak with motion sickness and drenched when they made it through the courtyard and into the castle. Leaning tiredly against the wall in the hall, she stripped off the wet coat and gloves wishing she could drop the wet, heavy skirts and petticoats right there are as well.

  “I will call Margo to draw a hot bath for ye,” Connor offered not likely the pale color of her cheeks. “I don’t want ye to take a chill.”

  “A bath sounds wonderful, but I can do it myself. Don’t bother Margo,” she begged. “I gave her the day off to spend with her mom; apparently she hasn’t been feeling well.”

  “At least allow me to help ye to your room.” He took her arm solicitously, but Emmy would have none of that.

  “I am not an invalid, Connor.” She shook him off and straightened determinedly. “I can certainly haul my cookies up one set of stairs,” she muttered as she set off up the sweeping staircase.

  “Cookies?” Connor repeated as she took the stairs. What were a person’s cookies? Surely he would never understand her slang.

  Once in her bathroom, Emmy started the water and stripped off her soaked clothing. Immediately she started feeling better just shedding the icy clothing. Stepping close to the tub, she toweled her arms and legs over the heat of the tub, warming herself at the same time.

  Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, she filled up the sink as well thinking to hand-wash her bra and underwear before she soaked in the tub. Her white silk blouse had gone to the laundress the previous day only to come back an interesting shade of yellowed ivory. Obtaining a more gentle soap from Margo, Emmy had taken it upon herself to preserve her only real bra and underwear. A day in pantelettes the previous day had shown her that bulky feeling wasn’t for her! She washed them at night in the little sink leaving the undergarments to hang dry overnight though she couldn’t expect them to last long under such abuse.

  Poking through her tote bag while the water ran, Emmy pulled out her iPhone and earphones out and pushed the little buds into her ears while scrolling for a playlist of relaxing music. She missed the music of her time. Usually she had those white cords coming out of her ears all day long. Music just made her happy. Humming along, she propped the player on the side of the sink as she prepared the sink with warm soapy water to hand wash her delicates in. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s ballad “Let’s Make Love” was playing. Emmy undeniably felt the message in that song. Wiggling out of her camisole, she started to sing along.

  Connor entered her room to check on her despite her declaration that she could take care of herself but paused outside the bathing room hearing her voice and thought she was talking to someone. No, she was singing softly to herself again as she had the previous day. Easing a look around the corner, he was captivated by the sight of her. Her back was to him as she pulled her short silk shift up her back exposing the long line of her back. Over her head it went and into the sink. She fiddled with something for a moment, her long hair unbound to her waist and swinging from side to side as she tossed her head first one way then the other. She turned slightly giving him a glimpse of her tantalizing silhouette. Her full breasts encased in a white lace contraption he was unfamiliar with but stirred by. She wore that tiniest bit of lace that barely covered the luscious curve of her buttocks again. The sight of it aroused him easily. Her legs were long and muscular. Her stomach flat. Her long hair swinging across her back and shoulders was like a caress he could actually feel. He had not seen it down before but it was captivated by its shiny length.

  As she reached up behind her to unclasp the lacy covering from her breasts, the well-toned muscles in her stomach and back flexed. She was a healthy lass to be sure and there was no denying the beauty and appeal of her body.

  She dropped that garment into the sink before her hands next slid into the top of her lower piece of clothing. Emmy pushed it down slowly exposing a colorful scrolling of loops and spirals on her skin starting just at the top of her buttocks and twisting up her spine. A tattoo? Where would she have gotten a tattoo? Why would she have done that? It was hypnotically entrancing though, he thought. It made him want to kiss it or follow its trail with his tongue. Perhaps that was the point. He scowled as the wondering and jealousy roared to life within him again. Had other men thought that very same thing when seeing it?

  The words ‘make love’ drew his attention to her song as she kicked off the lower garment and scooped it up to toss it in the sink as well. “’Do you know what you do to me?’” She crooned softly almost under her breath. “’Everything inside of me is wanting you, needing you. I’m so in love with you.’” She sang this last with such heartfelt feeling that it caused a gripping ache in his chest. “’Look in my eyes, let’s get lost tonight…in each other. Let’s make love, all night long until all our strength is gone. Hold on tight, just let go. I want to feel you in my soul. Until the sun comes up…let’s make love.’”

  Connor needed no further invitation beyond her softly sung appeal, the words and the way she voiced them incited undeniable lust in him. Approaching behind her, he slid his hand around her ribcage and cupped her breasts from behind. Buying his face in her hair, his lips feasted on the side of her neck. She squealed in shock and surprise leaping away from his. “Connor! What are you doing in here?”

  Emmy nearly tripped on the cord of her ear buds as they were jerked out of her ears. The phone landed with a thud on the floor in her haste to back away as she scooped up a towel and held it against her breasts. The final tones of the country song dissolved with a tinny farewell as the cord for the ear buds was pulled out of the phone.

  “I wanted to make sure ye were feeling better. I knocked but ye didn’t answer,” he lied blithely approaching her in what could only be defined as a predatory manner.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “That was obvious.” Connor followed her as she skirted the edge of the room. “Yer song was quite…moving.” He cornered her before she reached the door. “The words most provocative. Was that yer intention? Och lass, give over, won’t ye? I want ye so verra, verra much.” His big hand cupped her shoulder as he bent his head to softly nuzzle her lips before sliding around the curve of her back to cup her buttocks. “I must have ye.”

  With a moan, Emmy flung her arms around his shoulders and pressed her body fully against him. This was just no time to be prudish. She wanted him badly herself and his tender plea utterly did her in. “Oh, Connor! Okay, okay…you win,” she sighed against his lips before capturing them in a hot kiss.

  He groaned in triumph and defeat. Wrapping his arms around her waist he raised her up against him, devouring her mouth over and over. He pressed her up against the wall and Emmy’s legs came up of their own accord to wrap around his waist. Her surrender brought a shaky breath from Connor. “Och, lass, ye make me tremble like a schoolboy,” he confessed surprising himself because it was profoundly true. His arms were trembling, his breath shallow and uneven, very much like a lad with his first woman. He felt so blessed yet so eager.

  Emmy marveled in his size and strength as he held her against the wall. She felt petite and desirable. She had never felt so before. Already her breath was coming rapidly, her belly tightening with promise and he hadn’t even touched her yet. His lips left hers to fasten on her neck, s
ucking and biting lightly. She cried out as the passion overwhelmed her. “Oh, Connor! Now! Now!” She fumbled with buttons on his shirt urging him to hurry.

  Connor broke away slightly to look down into her face. Her eyes were unfocused, her cheeks flushed. Never had he imaged that she felt this as deeply as he. “Och, my love! Ye precious lass!”

  Still carrying her, he walked in the next room and dropped her down on the bed. Pulling his shirt over his head in a fluid motion and losing his trousers in equally short order. He lowered himself over her even as his arms shook from the force of his want and lust. “I dinna know how long I can wait, lass. I feel as if I have wanted ye forever.”

  “Then don’t wait.” She wrapped her arms around him and pulled his weight down on her.

  Still he managed to find the strength to refrain from falling on her like a callous lad, Connor’s lips instead found her breast and suckled deeply on a nipple drawing a cry and moan from her. She wound her long legs around his waist and urged him closer with her muscled thighs while her hands roamed his chest and shoulders before skimming lower to massage his buttocks. Determined to prolong the moment, he drew back to make space for his fingers to travel down her belly and down farther still.

  She gasped as his touch first the inside her thigh before turned upward, she was hot and damp already as his fingers circled the sensitive nub there before dipping inside. With a moan, she thrust her hips up to meet his hand as he stroked her again and again. Her thighs shook and she clutched his shoulders. “Connor,” she moaned.

  He caught her lips again in a probing kiss as he reared back and drove into her in a single thrust. A deep throaty cry escaped her lips before she deepened their kiss and urged him onward. Praying for control, Conner withdrew and plunged deeply again and again. Her hands ran down his back again as her legs climbed higher around his waist. She hung on tightly as he found a rhythm that pleased them both. Her inner muscles clenched around his length nearly driving him mad. She hummed over or over between kisses, “Ohmigod, ohmigod!” He shifted hooking his arm under one thigh to change the angle of his thrusts and her breathing changed.

  The tension was building in Emmy’s center as she reveled in the power of Connor’s lovemaking. He was so large and muscular. She loved the feel of his heavy arms around her, his weight bearing down on her. The hairs of his chests rubbed against her nipples arousing tingles in the sensitive peaks. She had never imagined sex could be so thrilling! Normally, it was almost a chore following foreplay, but she had wanted nothing more than the feel of him inside her. Then he shifted drawing her leg up higher and pulling his chest up to change the angle of his thrusts and with that a new feeling struck Emmy’s core.

  She drew in a short, shocked breath as a new ache built deep inside her. Not painful by any means, but almost like a pleasurable cramp that reached out with its fingers across her abdomen and radiated down her inner thighs. She grew tighter and tighter until a feeling of near panic overtook her. “Connor?” she panted opening her eyes in confusion uncertain what was happening and feeling a need to deny it. “No, no,” she moaned.

  Connor looked down at the confusion in her eyes and lowered his head to kiss her once more. “Just let it happen, my love, let it come,” he urged.

  Then it did, the ache built almost painfully and broke in waves of ecstasy that flooded hotly through her. Her muscles contracted rhythmically around his erection as he plunged once again to her core and cried out his own release. He gathered her against him and drove in one last time before holding her close. The spasms continued for a while decreasing in intensity until Emmy relaxed against him and savored his weight above her.

  She closed her eyes in wonder. She thought she had had an orgasm before, usually during foreplay when in the company of a considerate lover but she had never felt one during intercourse before. Oh, she had enjoyed the act before and had found it pleasurable, but nothing in her experience could compare with this…this shared moment of release and bliss. Emmy turned her head and kissed the side of his neck. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Connor chuckled and rolled on to his back pulling her with him until she was nestled against his side. “No, my lady, thank ye.”

  Emmy slapped his sweaty chest playfully and tugged on the chest hairs there. He had a magnificent chest, she thought. Thick and muscular with deep, sinewy lines and definition. In fact his whole body was like that. Large and…she giggled as she included another aspect of his anatomy in the description. She raised her head to look down before returning to the pillow of his chest. Yup, definitely large and…everything. His hand cupped the back of her head and stroked her hair in a comforting fashion.

  After a long, languid silence, the wind and rain slapped against the windows reminding Emmy where she was. Raising her head, she looked up to see him watching her. His dark eyes were warm but wary despite the coziness of their embrace.

  “What?” she queried although she had an idea what he was thinking. He didn’t take long to prove her correct.

  Chapter 26

  “Ye were not a virgin.” It was not an accusation as much as an observation.

  “I think we already discussed that,” she said softly as not to provoke him.

  “Did you have to sell yerself to survive?”

  The question was voiced with such anguish that Emmy could not be angry with him. “I already told you that I have never done it for money. I hope you will believe that.”

  He conceded with a nod. “So ye took lovers then?”

  “I have had lovers, yes.” He tensed but she kept her eyes locked with his. “So have you, I’d wager. Do not be a hypocrite, Connor. We are both adults here.”

  The question tortured him. He didn’t want to know, but he had to. “But how many?”

  Emmy rolled away from him with a groan. Impossible man! Why would he ruin the moment like that? Rising to her feet, she fetched a robe Margo kept out for her and slipped her arms in while turning back to the man on her bed.

  Connor was captivated by the sight of her relaxed nudity as she stood and moved to the end of the bed. She was so comfortable with herself. That confidence had its own appeal, as did her long legs and ample breasts…

  Emmy leaned down over him and ran a hand up his chest, whispering seductively. “Come on, Connor. You’re ruining the moment. Isn’t there something else you’d rather be doing?”

  The temptation was strong, Connor admitted to himself as he stared down the gaping gown. He groaned and reached up to cup the dangling globes before him. With a smile, Emmy spread the gown and straddled his lap before leaning in to kiss him. “Isn’t this better than fighting?”

  “I don’t want to fight with ye, my love.” He drew back and met her eyes seriously. “But I need an answer to my question. How many?”

  “God, Connor!” she huffed. “Does it really matter? You’re not a virgin, neither I am. Why does the number matter?”

  He cupped her cheeks and forced her to meet his eyes. “It tortures me, this image of ye with another man. I hate that another has had ye when I want you to be only mine.”

  Emmy stared down at him at this fierce confession. “Only yours, huh?” She caressed his cheek back and forth. The man really did know how to make a woman feel special. His eyes were hot and possessive; his hands had moved to grip her hips tightly against him. In spite of his denial, she could feel him hard beneath her. It wasn’t such a huge thing to answer him, she decided. At least is she did, they might be able to get beyond it, move past it.

  “Fine. Four,” she answered truthfully.

  “Four lovers!” he repeated with a frown.

  Emmy rolled her eyes. “I will ask again, how many have you had? It’s not an incredibly large number given my age. I am twenty-eight after all. Many women I know have slept with many more than that.”

  “Was the first someone I would know? Someone here?”

  Emmy gave a short laugh. “Definitely no. The first was Andy Johnson my senior year of high school in the basem
ent of his house during halftime of the NFC play-offs. It was brief, uncomfortable and thoroughly forgettable. I don’t know that we ever even went out again after that. It was incredibly disappointing.”

  “Did ye not love these men then?”

  “At the time, I would have said I did.” Emmy crawled off him and gathered the dressing gown around herself knowing the moment was clearly over for now. There had been a guy the first two years of medical school on and off that she would have labeled as a ‘friend with benefits’, but she wasn’t about to explain that concept to him. He would never understand it even if he had had more casual sex than she ever dreamed of. She went to the fireplace and took the poker, jabbing at the coals there to stir them to life in the cold room. She wondered if this would be the end if it for them if he could not accept her lack of innocence.

  Connor took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face. Four men. Four faceless men that had had this woman who had been his wife at the time. Had she ever considered that while she was taking her lovers? Had she gone to the first without a second thought for him? Knowing that she was giving what should have been his and his alone? Rage and jealousy filled him for the man who had taken her innocence without thought for her pleasure. Still she was right. He’d had many more lovers than she and as recently as several months before while on business in London. Was he the hypocrite she accused him of being in holding her affairs against her?

  “Four.” He said it aloud. Testing it.

  “Willingly, yes,” she responded and then winced, clapping a hand over her mouth. Well, she hadn’t meant that to come out.