“No!” he exclaimed. “Once it got started, I couldnae pretend any longer. It had to be ye, and it was as strong or stronger for being ye. I dinnae feel that way any longer, and I would want ye just as much if ye didnae look like her. I’m just saying that’s how it started. I’m no’ sorry for spending the night with ye. That’s what ye must remember. I’ll never be sorry for that. I’m only sorry it started that way. It was a great mistake, and I’d take it back if I could. Ye deserve better than that. I cannae even claim I didnae ken ye well enough, for I kenned I was doing it at the time. I kenned it all too well.”
She stood silent and still so long he lost all hope that she would ever let it go.
He turned back to the bowsprit and closed his eyes. At least he’d said it out loud. Now she would leave for certain.
A whisper of a murmur floated into his ragged brain. At first, he wasn’t sure he’d really heard it, or if the hiss of the surf around the boat had hypnotized him into hearing something that wasn’t there.
“I still want you just as much too.”
His eyes drifted back to her ghostly face in the moonlight. “Ye do?”
“I mean, it would be stupid to do something like that again, right?” she blurted out. “We both agree on that, and we both agree we shouldn’t get any more involved with each other than we already are, right? I’m just saying I feel the same way you do. It was a great night. I know we’ll never do anything like that again, but it was amazing. I’ll never forget it. I just didn’t want to admit it meant as much as it did. How could we get involved with the space of time between us anyway?”
“Aye,” he sighed. “It was a great night—the greatest of me life.”
She peeked at him under her raven hair. “It was?”
“Aye. It was greater even than…” He couldn’t admit that, not even to himself. He couldn’t betray the memory of her.
She whirled aside. “Anyway, it’s never gonna happen again, so we don’t have to worry about it.”
“Aye. That’s for the best.”
They stood leaning on the ship’s rail, side by side, silently brooding as they gazed across the moon-washed tide. The horizon jumped and sagged in the distance as the ship plunged up and down in the surf.
They both agreed going their own way would be for the best, so why did he still feel awful? “Tell me something,” he ventured.
“Sure. Anything.”
“How did ye do it?” he asked. “How did ye send yerself back?”
“Malcolm taught me the spell. After he taught me the words, he said I had to use some power inside myself to activate it. Why do you ask?”
“I thought so.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Why did you think so?”
“Ye must have some magical power,” he replied. “Malcolm has it, and ye must have it too.”
“What do you mean?” She turned her gaze to his dark eyes and giggled. “I don’t have any magical power.”
“It’s true. Ye could learn to use it the way that wizard does. Ye could develop yer power.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Are you freaking serious?”
He turned around to face her. “Why no’? If ye have the skills, ye should learn to use them. Ye must make use of any weapon ye can lay yer hands on. The good thing about magic is no one can take it away from ye. Once ye have it, it’s yers for life. Ye dinnae need a blade or a club or a gun to fight with. Ye should take advantage of it while ye can. It’s a valuable tool. Ye’re very lucky to have it. No’ everyone does.”
She looked away with a shake of her head. “You’re out of your gourd, you know that? I don’t have any power.”
“Ye must have,” he countered. “Malcolm wouldnae have sent ye back without it. I mean, he would have sent ye back himself instead of telling ye to do it yerself. Do ye see? Ye must have used yer power to cast the spell in the first place.”
“You’re crazy,” she fired back. “He made it sound like anybody could do it.”
“Anybody with some power could do it,” he corrected.
“Well, I don’t have that kind of power. It’s ridiculous.”
Her tone told him to drop it, so he did. At least she was here, next to him. They’d put their differences behind them once and for all. If she decided to go back now, he could live with it. How he would get through the next three hundred years, he didn’t know, but he would make it. She wanted him. She wanted him the way he wanted her. Someone in this world could give him that old sense of craving life, of embracing all the goodness and pleasure of being alive, even if he had to wait three hundred more years to see her again.
Just standing next to her in silence soothed the scorching agony of his past grief. She was there. She would always be there, even when she was far away in space and time. He could rest in the knowledge that something greater was possible.
Her voice floated over the lapping waves one more time. “I have a question for you.”
“Aye?”
“Did Ben recognize me?” she asked. “You said I looked like someone you lost. Did he think I looked like her too? Is that why he reacted the way he did?”
He sighed and hung his head. “Quite likely. Come to think of it, he probably thinks that’s why I chose ye.”
“But you didn’t choose me!” she exclaimed.
He shrugged, bending farther to lay his head on his arm. “I’ll explain it to him one of these days, along with everything else. He kens about Ree, so perhaps he’ll understand in the end. It doesnae matter. It’s as it is.”
The weight of exhaustion hit him full force out of nowhere. He’d never felt so tired in his life. He could barely stand under the dragging burden. In a flash, Ellen materialized at his side the way she always did. “You should go below. You’re tired.”
“Aye.” He forced himself up. “Ye should be asleep too. We’ve a long journey ahead of us, so we’ll both have a chance to catch up on our rest. Come on, lass. I’ll walk ye to yer cabin.”
Louis held out his arm and she took it before they headed across the deck toward the captain’s cabin.
Louis closed his eyes and trailed his fingers along the bulkhead to find his way. Already the urge to fall asleep overpowered his senses. He pushed his eyelids open and straightened his back, pushing sleep away. He led Ellen past crewmembers busying themselves with tasks, while shielding her from the sea spray. He held her steady the whole way as the vessel’s pitch and toss threatened to throw them from side to side. He tensed his weary muscles against fatigue, not wanting to appear limp. He drew up his lips in a faint smile, holding his chin up as he escorted Ellen to her cabin.
On reaching it, Ellen turned up to face him, a pleasant grin on her face. Her eyes twinkled in appreciation for a brief moment before she whispered low so no one else would hear, “Here I am. Are you gonna be okay tonight?”
“Aye, lass,” he whispered back. “I’ll be just grand as soon as I lie down and close me eyes. Ye go on now.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.” Her grip on his arm loosened but didn’t fall away.
Louis’s senses prickled with awareness, alerting his tired body. She held her breath, and he could feel her barely concealed tension. She wanted him. She’d said so, and he wanted her. An undertow hauled them together even as every signpost blared for them to stay apart. That would be the smart thing to do. Right? She’d said it. He’d said it. Everybody knew it.
Why should he resist it if he could experience another night like the last one? If they both wanted it, where could the harm lie? They’d both agreed it would come to nothing. Another fling in the clouds of Heaven wouldn’t change that. It would give them a taste of that divine pleasure—nothing more.
Did she sense it too? Yes, there was her hand reaching out for his at the same moment. Her fingers entwined in his and pulled him inside the cabin, and the magnetic draw eased them together. They didn’t come together in a wild flurry of kissing and tearing like before, but fell into each other, letting the dee
p, dark, silent peace of the ocean envelop them.
At the next swell, he let gravity knock them back, his weight pressing her against the wall. She softened under him, and her delicate arms wound around his neck as her lips reached his. He swept his tongue inside her delicious mouth and flicked her luscious tongue in majestic circles.
She ran her fingertips down his neck and chest and then tugged his shirt out of his belt. He swooned in ecstasy when she slipped her warm hand against his skin. She stroked his sides, up to his chest, getting her whole arm under his clothes. He interrupted their kiss in a broken gasp. She found his neck, sending bolts of excitement through his body with her soft skin and hungry lips caressing him. She dropped love bites down to his collarbone.
He cradled the back of her head while she burrowed into his chest. God, he wanted her like never before! How could he think about letting her go? Who in his right mind would want to go three hundred years without this?
He couldn’t think well enough to get his hands to respond. He wanted to be all over her, but her wicked fingers distracted him from his purpose. She weaseled both arms inside his shirt, and when he backed off to give her more room, she dove her whole head inside.
He groaned in blessed relief at her hungry mouth devouring down his ribs to his stomach. What was she doing to him? His shaft stuck straight out at her under his kilt, he wanted her so bad.
Lower and lower she went. Would she never stop? Did she really intend to do that? She dragged her tongue across the most sensitive territory where his stomach met his hips. He shuddered all over and would have cried out at the intensity of it all, but she pulled away at the last second.
She rose before him, drunk on her own boiling desire. Her black hair tumbled all around her face. There was just enough light for him to see her features shimmering in craven lust. Merciful Heaven, what could he do with this woman?
In a flash, she attacked his mouth in ravenous kisses and then grabbed two fistfuls of his kilt, dropping to her knees, and ducked underneath. She tickled up the back of his legs until he could hardly stand. Her fingertips followed the crease of his ass around to the front. His mouth hung open in a wordless groan of aching pleasure. She knew exactly where to touch him to excite his bottomless desire. Her fingertips barely touched his skin on their inevitable track around to his balls. She closed them in her warm embrace, and his knees sagged. Mind-numbing bliss and warmth flooded through his veins to every part of him. He had to have her. He had to have her touching him and filling him with this rapturous healing joy.
All at once, her hands ripped away, and she vanished into the dark. He stared into the darkness of the cabin before his sex-addled being could comprehend she wanted him to follow her to the bed. His body screamed to go after her. She was there, waiting for him. He took a step and bumped into a chair, corrected, and his senses kicked in. He found his way across the cabin and her waiting arms.
Chapter 17
Ellen knew he would come for her. She drove him to the point of no return, and now he would come. He wouldn’t hold back or change his mind. She did her work too well for that.
She listened for his movements in the dark. Her every sinew strained in anticipation. She wanted him more than ever and had communicated that to him through her mouth and hands. She electrified him to the breaking point, and now they would smash against each other in a tidal wave of gratification.
He stopped in the center of the room. His presence barely broke the darkness of the room, but she read every inch of him as if she saw him in daylight. His hair hung loose around his chiseled face. His shoulders rose and fell under his shirt when he breathed. His eyes flashed in the glimmer of moonlight on the wake outside. His whole body radiated its unstoppable power at her. It spoke to her deepest longing, milking the steamy juices between her legs. She had felt his hardness under his kilt, and she wanted it. Her flesh hungered for him. She wanted to inhale him into her, hold him in that cosmic embrace and never let him go until they both collapsed screaming and quivering on the bed.
She couldn’t wait for him to come and find her, so tiptoed across the floor, but she wasn’t counting on his sharp senses detecting her first. Before she knew what had happened, he seized her in his massive hands and drew her tight against his chest. His mouth crushed her lips as his hands circled her slender waist and slid down her back to her ass. His deep, hungry kiss muffled the surprised cry that broke out of her. His hot tongue probed her mouth and filled her soul with sweet wetness spreading all over her as they merged together in that mystical world of bottomless velvet bliss.
Louis heaved her up to grind her soft petals against his hardness, then set her down and stepped back, leaving her breathless. After pulling his shirt over his head, instead of resuming their heated embrace, he dropped to his knees and burrowed under her skirts.
Searing heat and intoxicating fire engulfed her, pouring into her deepest being through that mysterious nexus between her legs until she didn’t know what to do with herself. She slumped against his face, but he held her upright in his commanding grip.
One layer of her flesh after another opened every time his tongue stroked her enflamed slit. Her knees refused to support her, and her head swam. Boiling honey gushed into his mouth, and his fingers explored her forgotten recesses, stirring her to fresh heights of delirium.
She gasped out loud and her hands flew to his head, disappointed by the fabric between them. She pressed him tight against her core and bucked against his chin. A devastating climax crashed over her and a piercing shriek of orgasmic bliss escaped her lungs. She couldn’t stop the tide sweeping her out to sea. One peak after another torched through her as he flicked his tongue over her delicate mound and probed her center with his fingers. Warm creamy goodness flowed out of her, into his mouth, and he guzzled every drop in craven ecstasy.
From a distance, she became aware of his fingers clawing at her. Without breaking the seal of his mouth devouring her, he had one hand out from under her skirts and was fumbling with her dress.
Ellen exploded in frantic activity, ripping her dress off and tearing at her corset laces. Somehow, she got her clothes off while his tongue never wavered from promising more sweet torment. Once she stood above him in her stockings, he rocketed up and swept her off her feet, then carried her still sighing and whimpering to the bed. He laid her down and then tugged his belt free and let his kilt, sporran, and saber fall to the floor. Slipping in next to her, he folded her in his arms. Pressed tightly against him as they lay on their sides, face to face, she burrowed against his neck to hide from the mind-blowing intensity of all her feelings at that moment. This night fulfilled all the hopes she’d never dared pray for. She could forget about tomorrow and everything outside this cabin.
He didn’t swoop in for the attack, though, and neither did she. For what seemed like an eternity, they lay still together and listened. The water’s endless whisper against the hull harmonized with their breathing.
Ellen could stay like this forever. She didn’t need anything else, and her recent climax sent her into a hazy dream where she dwelt in heavenly completion. He couldn’t possibly feel the same way, though. His erection still throbbed against her leg, and his breath rasped each time he inhaled. He didn’t try to hurry her along, though. He only held her there. He cupped her neck to press her face into his neck. He nuzzled his cheek against her hair.
How long would he stay like this before he wanted more? Ellen didn’t want to find out. She wanted more—a lot more. She arched back until he let her move, then raised her mouth to his lips and tasted again the life-changing sustenance of his being. She wrapped her leg over his hip, pulling him tighter against her. His hard shaft fell against her other thigh, and she wormed her body into position so it nestled into the petals of her secret garden. His head fell on her shoulder, and a guttural growling moan broke out of his throat.
Ellen kissed his temple and massaged his neck and shoulders. Aching affection for him took over. She wanted to give him all
the happiness and contentment he gave her, but her movements only seemed to cause him pain. Louis’s mighty heart cried for something she couldn’t give him, no matter how much she wanted to.
She arched her hips and caressed her engorged tissues down his length, spreading the syrup he brought forth from her along its distended veins, until she excited herself to the point of explosion.
She needed him inside her. One or even several climaxes could never be enough without her body holding him in its tight fist. She had to feel his pulsations rippling in time with hers. She needed his essence married with hers in that volcanic fissure where all the nightmares of the past and the anxieties about the future vanished.
His arms tensed around her, and his breath caught in his throat. She angled her hips to wedge him into her entrance but couldn’t get into position while lying on her side. His hands closed around her so fast it took her breath away. His fingers circled her thigh, and his other arm wrapped around her ribs. Before she could react, he pulled her in, and his whole monstrous package slid home.
She buckled over like she’d been shot, moaning at his ridged shaft touching every pleasure spot along her channel. She’d started this, and now he would finish it. He pumped in and out once and stayed there, locking his gaze with hers inches away.
He had her. He filled her and completed her and owned her, and he didn’t even have to do anything.
She couldn’t stop the never-ending pulses shooting through her. Her muscles clenched around his length again and again until she rocketed into the stratosphere on a blistering eruption of energy. She couldn’t scream. She could only stare at him and moan through the mind-bending change transforming her into something beyond recognition.
Did he even notice it? Maybe he’d seen it all along. Maybe this was what he saw every time he looked at her.
Her body convulsed all over, but the greatest cataclysm happened deep inside her where no one ever ventured, not even her. It spread its silvery waves to every corner of her being and released the chains holding her back.
Spellbound by the Angui (Cipher's Kiss Book 2): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 12
