Scottish Brides

by Christina Dodd

  Rose blinked, suddenly wide awake. Her heart jerked to life, then raced. In a mental scramble, she replayed their last exchanges, the tenor of his reply . . . “Ah—” She had to clear her throat. “I meant in separate beds.”

  “I know.” Duncan glanced down at her. “I meant in mine.”

  Rose looked into his eyes and read his intent clearly; he wasn’t going to let her go this time. She felt the steel in the arm about her, the strength in the body prowling beside her. She dragged in a quick breath and forced her feet to stop. “Duncan, I don’t know—”

  “I know—so why don’t you do what you’ve always done?” He stopped and swung to face her; his gaze trapping hers, he drew her closer. “Just follow my lead—and let me teach you.”

  His head swooped and his lips found hers—no gentle kiss this time, but a searing, passion-laden incitement to madness. A soul-stirring challenge; as his lips moved on to trace fire down her throat, Rose realized what he was doing. “Good God!” she gasped. “You’re seducing me!”

  He chuckled, the sound wickedly evocative. “Am I succeeding?”

  Yes—oh, yes! Rose bit her tongue and held back the admission, but she couldn’t hold back a soft moan as his lips trailed lower, into the deep valley between her breasts, then over the exposed upper curves, while one thumb artfully brushed, tantalizingly to and fro, over one silk-clad nipple.

  “Rose.” He breathed her name against her flushed skin. “Come spend Midsummer’s Eve with me—come taste the magic. I’ll take you on a ride more wild than the last. There’s another landscape you’ve never seen, peaks you’ve never climbed—come let me show you. Come ride with me.”

  How could she resist him? Rose discovered she couldn’t, discovered that there did indeed exist a compulsion strong enough to sweep aside all caution, all sanity, strong enough to insist that this was not only right, but meant to be. The next thing she discovered was that, somehow, they’d crossed the threshold of Duncan’s room and now stood beside his four-poster bed. “This is madness,” she murmured. Obedient to his tugging, she lowered her arms so he could draw the sleeves of her gown down. Revealing her naked breasts.

  “Oh!” she blushed vividly and crossed her arms protectively. “I was in such a rush, I forgot my chemise.”

  “Don’t apologize on my account.” Curling his fingers about her wrists, Duncan drew her arms down. She would have resisted, but he gave her no choice; drawing her arms out and down, then lacing his fingers with hers, he stared, apparently mesmerized, at what he’d revealed.

  Rose cleared her throat. “They are rather large, I know.”

  Duncan choked on a groan, then his eyes lifted to hers. “Sweet Rose—you’re beautiful.” He raised his hands and gently, tenderly, cupped the firm mounds; thumbs slowly circling the sensitive peaks, he backed her until her legs hit the bed. Rose was glad to feel it behind her; if her legs gave way, as they were threatening to do, at least she wouldn’t hit the floor.

  Eyes dark, Duncan concentrated on her breasts, fondling, gently kneading. “You’re beautiful, generous. And mine.” With that, he bent his head and took one tight peak into his mouth.

  Rose gasped; she swayed—-she would have crumpled in a heap if he hadn’t caught her and lifted her against him. She clung to him, fingers sliding from his shoulders to twine frantically in his hair as he pressed wet kisses over her soft flesh. His mouth was so hot, she felt sure he was burning her, then his tongue rasped her nipple, and she nearly died.

  She might even have screamed—she wasn’t sure she could hear anything over the pounding of her own heartbeat, over the roar of savage desire. He feasted on her as if he were famished; she panted, squirmed and writhed in his arms.

  The hand at her back shifted, pressing her more firmly against him, then sliding possessively down, slipping beneath the folds of her gown gathered at her waist, over naked skin, to her bottom, to trace, to tantalize, then to fondle far too knowingly. She arched in his arms, pressing her hips even more firmly to his; she felt the heated ridge, the blatant evidence of his arousal, hard against her lower belly.

  There was fire in her veins; he had set it there. He caught one aching nipple and suckled fiercely—and she went up in flames.

  And then he was laying her across the big bed, on sheets cool to her fevered flesh. He drew her gown down, over her hips, down her long legs, flipping off her slippers as he went. She lost all the breath she still possessed when, sitting beside her, he surveyed her—totally naked but for her stockings, gartered above her knees. His perusal started at her toes, traveled slowly upward, lingered for a moment on her garters, then rose higher. She should have been overcome with maidenly modesty; instead, freed by the fire in his eyes, she felt wanton, wild, abandoned—blissfully excited. She burned as he studied her thighs, her hips, the soft, bronzy thatch at the base of her quivering belly. Then his gaze, heated and hot, swept upward, over her breasts, swollen and marked by his attentions, to her lips, parted and swollen, too.

  The smile that curved his lips, the dark glint that lit his eyes, left her quivering.

  “One more item.”

  His voice was deep, gravelly with desire. Expecting him to reach for her garters, she blinked in surprise when he leaned over—and reached for her hair. He speared his fingers into the coiled tresses, then spread them, scattering pins left and right. He brushed them away, then fell to unravelling the plaited braids. She studied his face, the hard edge that desire had set to the already-angular planes. The tension that invested his whole frame, that held her fast in its grip, naked and quivering, wanting and waiting, held an excitement she’d never known, that she wanted to experience more than she wanted to breathe.

  Finally freeing her hair, he tossed it about her head and shoulders, arranging it to frame her face. Gripped by an urgency she didn’t understand, she slid one hand down to her garters.

  “No.” Duncan caught her hand, then, capturing her gaze, raised it to his lips. “Leave them.” The puzzled question in her eyes nearly made him groan. ‘Trust me.” Letting go of her hand, he sat up and started to undo the buttons on his shirt.

  She moved so quickly, he had no time to react. He heard the swish as she swung her legs about, then she was pressed against him, breasts to his back, reaching around him to help with his shirt. Her lips nuzzled his ear. “Why do you want me to keep my stockings on?”

  Duncan closed his eyes and bit back a groan. “It’s a secret.”

  “A secret?”

  He might as well have invited her to tease him; her fingers found their way beneath his shirt and trailed, as tantalizingly as he’d imagined, over his chest, then down, over his ridged stomach. Then down . . .

  Fighting free of his cuffs, he abruptly stood and shrugged off the shirt. Rounding on Rose, he caught her hands and bore her back onto the bed. “I think,” he said, trapping her beneath him, “it’s time to start your tuition.”

  “Oh?” She squirmed beneath him, her breasts caressing his chest, her thighs caressing his aching erection.

  Duncan gritted his teeth and used his full weight to subdue her. “If I have my way,” he ground out, “it’ll be an extended first lesson.”

  He could but try.

  He kissed her long and hard, until he felt her soften beneath him. Then he shifted his attentions to her breasts, until she was hot and aching, arching sweetly in his arms. Relinquishing her breasts, he slid lower, trailing open-mouthed kisses over her waist, pausing at her navel to probe evocatively with his tongue, until she sobbed and sank her fingers into his shoulders.

  Then he shifted lower.

  He thought she was going to scream when he traced the top of each garter with his tongue. She gasped and tensed when he parted her thighs and dotted kisses up their sensitive inner faces. And when he parted her, and kissed the soft petals as she bloomed for him, she called out his name on a sob of pure desire.

  He gave her what she wanted, experience and much more. With each caress more intimate than the last, he opened
doors she hadn’t imagined existed, showed her delights she was only just able to comprehend. He tasted, licked, probed and suckled; she threshed her head wildly, fingers clamped to his skull, her body in full flower, open and aching—and all his.

  Dragging in a deep breath, her perfume sinking deep, wreathing through his mind, he shifted back and sat on the edge of the bed, replacing his lips and tongue with the fingers of one hand. With the other, he unbuttoned his trousers.

  Freed of his weight, yet still captive to his fingers, which probed her heat with a slow, steady rhythm, Rose breathed rapidly, deeply, then cracked open her lids. Duncan saw her eyes glint from beneath her long lashes. Saw her watching what he was about. Then she licked her lips.

  “Why the stockings?”

  He couldn’t even begin to explain—that he’d fantasized about her legs, about having them wrapped about him, leaving her wide open, his to fill. “You’ll see in a minute.”

  He stripped off his trousers, kicked them off and turned to her; her eyes flew wide. She started to sit; he knelt between her thighs, caught her hands and bore her down again. And covered her—covered her lips—before she could say whatever she’d been about to; he was sure he didn’t need to hear it.

  The kiss turned into a struggle for supremacy; they both lost when desire came out of nowhere and captured them both. Rose squirmed beneath him—not to get away, but to press herself closer. Duncan drew back and gasped, “Wrap your legs about my hips.”

  She did, instantly—and he returned to ravage her mouth, wanting to be filling her there when he entered her below. She welcomed him in, sweet and hot in both places. He flexed his hips and sank into her, filling her, stretching her. Her breath caught; she arched beneath him. Duncan drew back and thrust deep, through the slight resistance. She tensed, shocked, then, two heartbeats later, melted around him. They both lay still, savoring the moment, the glorious intimacy, the sensation of their hearts beating in time.

  Rose moved first, compelled by some impulse she didn’t know or understand, Duncan responded immediately, giving her what she hadn’t known she wanted, riding easily within her. The sensations that swirled through her were startling, riveting, totally addictive—she wanted to feel them again and again. Duncan obliged, and she suddenly realized what he’d meant by a new landscape—one filled with warm waves of pleasure, lapping peaks of exquisite delight. They rode into it, at a steady gallop, escalating into urgency as the waves rose higher and the peaks pierced the sun.

  Only it wasn’t the sun; it was pure oblivion. He rode her right into it, into a malestrom of sensations, emotions, and on into a vale of unutterable bliss.

  Braced above her, Duncan watched her face as she fractured about him, watched the tension ease and melt away, even as she melted beneath him. Her womb throbbed and contracted; instinctively, she tensed about him.

  He gasped, closed his eyes and, filling her one last time, joined her in sweet oblivion.

  Rose woke early, before the sun was up. She knew that from the deep peace that pervaded the house; not even a tweeny was stirring. Eyes closed, she settled more comfort-ably, dreamily wondering why her pillow was so hard. A hair tickled her nose; cracking open her lids, she brushed at it—and woke up with a start.

  Eyes wide, she surveyed her pillow—Duncan’s bare chest. Her mind, scrambling to attention, slowly filled in the rest—the long body lying intimately wrapped about hers, both naked beneath the covers. She couldn’t even remember getting beneath the covers.

  She could, however, remember the oblivion that had over-taken her—and what had led up to it.

  Cheeks burning, she struggled to think—of where she now was, where she now stood—lay—with him. And discovered that, with his heart thudding in her ear and his hair-dusted limbs trapping hers, she couldn’t formulate a single coherent thought.

  Escape was imperative.

  Very gently, she eased away from his chest, then, slowly and smoothly, lifted the hand that lay over her waist, and rolled away. Onto his other arm. He breathed in deeply; she froze, but when nothing happened, she edged her legs—still clad in her silk stockings, for heaven’s sake!—to the side of the bed, then lifted her shoulders from his arm and started to slide to safety—

  His hands clamped about her waist before she reached it.

  “Duncan! Let me go.”

  She sat up fully and tried to wriggle free; he chuckled—an intensely wicked sound—slid his hands down to close over her hips and drew her inexorably back into the bed.

  Rose wasn’t having it. She yielded to his pull, then flipped onto her stomach, expecting to break his hold and slide away. He read her mind and swung over her as she flipped, straddling her legs, trapping her between his rock-hard thighs.

  “Ah-huh—you can’t run away before your second lesson.”

  Rose lifted her face from the pillows. “What second lesson?”

  She felt him lean forward; his chest grazed her back, his lips grazed her nape, as he slid one hand beneath her stomach—then the other between her thighs. She gasped; he whispered softly, “Your second lesson in being mine.”

  Her body heated instantly; her breathing seized. “Dunc—ooooh!” His name dissolved into a long-drawn sigh—of delight, of anticipation. His fingers artfully delved; then he drew her back, onto her knees.

  She went willingly, eagerly, caught in his spell. He caressed the firm globes of her bottom, and she shivered. He grasped her hips, nudged her knees apart and slid into her—slowly, thoroughly, mind-numbingly deep.

  And taught her how to feel all over again, taught her about delight, rapture and earthly bliss. The constant slide of his body into hers, the rhythmic rocking as he filled her—fully, repeatedly—filled her mind, overwhelmed her senses, imprinted him deeply on her soul.

  The ride was slow and long; she was sobbing before it ended. Sobbing his name, sobbing with joy, mindless in ecstasy. And, this time, when he drove her over the last peak, he followed immediately. Before oblivion swamped her, she felt his warmth flood her and heard his helpless groan, as he collapsed upon her.

  Duncan woke, a good two hours later, unsurprised to find himself alone in his bed. By any normal standards, the woman who’d shared his bed throughout the night and into the early morning shouldn’t have been able to crawl, much less walk, out, but Rose had somehow made good her escape.

  He wished he’d been awake to see it.

  Lips curving in a wolfish, thoroughly satisfied smile, he stretched, then crossed his arms behind his head and wondered what she was doing now.

  Two minutes later, he was out of bed and dressing. If the years had taught him anything, it was never to underestimate Rose.

  All was quiet downstairs, the household in the grip of the usual aftermath of a major ball. Duncan doubted his mother or any of the other ladies were yet about, which focused his mind even more acutely on finding Rose.

  Striding down the long corridor leading from the front hall, he heard voices. Halting, he listened and identified Rose—and Penecuik.

  Duncan dragged in a deep breath and held it; through the half-open door of the breakfast parlor, he glimpsed Rose and her suitor on the terrace. Rose had her back to the room, gesturing as she spoke. Penecuik was frowning, concentrating on her words.

  Duncan reminded himself that they had a right to privacy, that Rose wasn’t yet formally his. That he should give her the opportunity to deal with Penecuik on her own. None of his arguments stood a chance of persuading him; quietly, silently, he passed on to the morning room next door, opened the door and slipped inside.

  “You’re not listening, Jeremy.” Rose looked her erstwhile suitor in the eye and tried, once more, to convince him of his position. “I am not going to marry you. I have decided I do not wish to, and that is all there is to it.”

  Jeremy eyed her stubbornly, even mulishly. Then started, once again, to enumerate all the reasons why she couldn’t possibly think that.

  Rose struggled not to roll her eyes to the skies, struggle
d to listen civilly. He’d waylaid her before she’d even had a chance to break her fast, to restore her failing strength—drained very effectively by Duncan—and now Jeremy was being unbelievably difficult, obtuse and refractory. He wouldn’t accept his dismissal.

  Which mattered not a jot, because he was going to have to. She’d finally discovered that something she’d been looking for all her adult life—that force stronger that her will that would sweep her into some man’s arms—and she wasn’t about to turn her back on it. Not that she understood it yet, given it had been Duncan’s arms into which it had swept her.

  She hadn’t, thanks first to Duncan and now Jeremy, yet had a chance to consider that aspect, or very much else. It was Midsummer, and she’d promised Jeremy her answer. Now she’d given it him, the least he could do was accept it with good grace.

  Suppressing an urge to tell him so—plainly—she waited until he reached the end of his predictable list, then drew a deep breath and earnestly said, “Jeremy, this is not a matter of who you are, or what you own, or what benefits might accrue to your wife. This decision is about me, and what I am.” She fixed him with a direct gaze and willed him to understand. “I’m not yours.”

  She was Duncan’s.

  Jeremy sighed, as if arguing with a child. “Rose, I really don’t think you’re weighing this decision as you should. Your feelings for me, personally, shouldn’t sit so heavily in the scale.” He smiled at her. “You and I get along well enough; that’s all that’s required. But the rest—the duchy, the estate—”

  “My fortune.”

  He nodded. “That, too. All these are the principal reasons behind my proposal, and I think you need to consider things from the same perspective.”

  Jaw set against a scream, Rose folded her arms and glared at him.

  And heard a deep sigh from the morning room to her left. Both she and Jeremy stared as Duncan strolled languidly through the open French doors. He nodded to Jeremy. “Excuse me, Penecuik, but I have an urgent matter to discuss with my countess-to-be.”