The Highlander's Touch

by Karen Marie Moning

  “Remove your gown, Lisa.”

  Her breath clawed its way from her lungs.

  “I said remove your gown.”

  “What about you?”

  “This is not about me. This is about you. Let me love you, lass. I promise you will not regret it.”

  Lisa drew a shallow breath. He saw her heart as it really was, full of complicated and less-than-noble emotions, yet he wanted her. And in removing her gown she was dropping her barriers and extending her arms to welcome him. Welcoming what they could be together.

  Her fingers felt stiff and clumsy as they moved over her clothing, but grew more nimble the more honest she was with herself.

  “I want you. I am here for you. I adore you.”

  I adore you … His words lingered. And she acknowledged that she wanted it to be just like this. To disrobe for this man, to offer him her body, to find the approval and desire she knew he felt for her. To reach out and taste what he offered, to turn her willing body over to him to be taught, initiated, savored.

  To live.

  Her gown rustled to the floor.

  “Stop!” He sat motionless, gazing at her as she stood, pale in the candlelight, in her lavender bra and panties. He made a sound low in his throat. Lisa had never heard a man make such a sound before, but she realized that she wanted to hear him make that sound many times, looking at her in just the same way.

  “Proceed,” he said finally, “verra slowly, lass. Kill me with it. You know I want you; use it. It is one of your many powers.”

  Lisa blinked, thrilled to realize that she had such power as a woman. His plaid was lifting, his chest was falling and rising rapidly, and his eyes were dark with desire. He was inviting her to wield her feminine strength, and she wanted to. In her fantasies she’d dreamed of just this: being with a man whose attraction to her was something she was so certain of that she could tease him, revel in her femininity, provoke and invite the consequences.

  Slowly she began to strip away her lingerie, sliding the straps of her bra off her shoulders, tugging playfully, provocatively at the bow between her breasts. When his eyes flared, she slipped off her soft slippers and tossed one at him. The motion made her breasts sway gently. When the slipper hit him lightly in the chest, he swallowed hard and tensed to rise from the bed.

  “No. I find I like this. You encouraged me. Let me discover who I am.”

  Circenn sank back to the bed, but looked ready to launch himself at her at any moment. A scrap of lace fluttered to the floor, then another, and Lisa stood before him holding her breath. She saw herself reflected in the polished mirror behind him and moved a bit to the right. Perfect, she thought: She could now see him fully clothed, his wide shoulders and muscled back, the bed, and herself standing nude before him. It was fiercely arousing, erotic, her desire strangely heightened by the fact that he was still completely dressed.

  “Turn around.”

  “What?” she gasped, nearly losing her composure.

  His laugh was a low purr. “You are perfection, lass. But turn around and show me all of your lovely body. I’ve been dreaming about you for weeks.”

  Lisa swallowed, uncertain that she could do it. She wouldn’t be able to see him. What if he thought her behind was fat? Men never think a behind is fat, Ruby had told her once. They’re so happy just to be seeing it.

  “Come, lass. Show me if your back arches as I think it does—a cool sweep of ivory, with your hair tumbling down it. Show me that beautiful bottom. Show me those long lovely legs. Show me every inch of what I am going to kiss and taste.”

  His words were more than adequately persuasive; what woman could refuse such a promise? Lisa drew a deep breath and turned. After a few moments of excruciating silence, she glanced nervously over her shoulder, seeking their reflection in the mirror. He had dropped to his knees by the bed and was crouched behind her, looking up and down, and up and down again.

  Black eyes lifted to meet her gaze. The expression on his face was wild, possessive, and made her feel she was the most beautiful woman ever to stroll through his fourteenth-century world. He lunged to his feet and hauled her back against him, hard. The rough fabric of his plaid was arousing against her sensitive skin and she melted against his body. With a firm tug, he pulled her bare bottom against his hips, and she lost herself in the sensation of the fabric and the hard length of maleness that lay just beneath it. She pushed back, feeling the ridge of him pressing in the cleft of her behind. It jerked against her and she gasped with anticipation.

  His hands slid up her waist, over her ribs, and he held her breasts reverently at first, then with rough excitement. Her nipples were already hard and aching from the cool air in the room, and when his fingers brushed them she nearly screamed. Her hips bucked back, and a flash of pleasure darted from her nipples to where she would take him into her body. He pinched them, and she felt her world spinning, narrowing down to nothing but her and him, and a desire to do everything with him that was possible between a man and a woman.

  “That’s it. Push back against me. Show me how you want me.” He rocked against her, imitating the thrust and draw of lovemaking, and she felt the wetness between her thighs. Her movements became strained as wordlessly she begged for his body.

  He wrapped an arm around her waist, bit the nape of her neck, catching the tendon between his teeth. It felt so … dominating. His other hand sought her lips, and he slipped his finger between them. She stroked it with her tongue, closing her lips over it and sucking it into her mouth.

  Gently, he inched her toward the chest at the foot of the bed.

  “Sit.”

  She sat breathlessly, so aroused that even the chest felt good to her aching bottom. Hard, that was what she wanted, something hard, and solid, and … him.

  He stood before her, legs splayed, eyes dark. He brushed her nipples with his palms, his calluses deliciously abrasive against her sensitive peaks. She watched them tighten, fascinated by her body’s responses to him. With his knee he nudged her legs apart slightly, seemingly transfixed by the small dark mole on the inside of her left thigh. He wet his lips, and she knew he would kiss her there many times.

  Holding her gaze, he undressed for her, with excruciating leisure, never taking his eyes off her. No modern-day stripper could have competed with the performance he gave her. It had a funny effect on her emotions, that even though she was naked, even though he could have taken her quickly, he was making it as he’d promised: all about her. He was progressing slowly, feeding her every fantasy. He was still trying to woo her, despite the fact that he’d clearly already won her.

  When he stood nude before her she closed her eyes, overwhelmed by him. She took a deep breath and opened them again, only to discover him bobbing before her. It’s beautiful, she thought. She’d never realized that a man could be so beautiful. The hard bulges in his abdomen tapered into lean muscles that rippled down to his thighs, creating a vee of taut ridges that commanded attention to the raw masculinity that hung heavily between his legs. The mere sight of him made her stomach feel tight and empty. It was thick and long and raising itself eagerly. Olive-pink, smooth, velvety-looking, hooded, with a strong vein running the length of it. It would be warm—no, it would feel hot and silky beneath her hand.

  Leaning closer for a better look, she was startled when it bobbed again and brushed her cheek. Laughing, she looked up at him, and lost her breath.

  He stared down at her transfixed, his expression so possessive that she gasped. She would never be the same after this night. Be bold, she told herself. Be brave and wanton and everything you always fantasized about being. Take from life, Lisa.

  She wrapped her hand around him, and, as she’d suspected, her fingers couldn’t close. A shiver shot through her, imagining her body yielding to take so much of him. He bucked within her grip. A smile curved her lips. She could do that to him, make him jerk hungrily in response to her touch. She squeezed, sliding her hand up and down.

  This part of him was s
uch a contradiction: so hard, yet the skin so very soft and sensitive, so strong, yet so weak before a woman, so easily wielded by a man as a weapon, yet so easily used as a weapon against him. Lisa licked her lips, wondering how he tasted. Salty? Sweet? Where was her whipped cream? She dropped her head and brushed her lips over the tip of him. Just once, a tight suction with her lips, the quick flick of a tongue, just enough to taste him and assuage her curiosity.

  A bit salty, and a scent of spicy man, she thought, pondering the flavor on her tongue, her hand momentarily still. His spicy scent that numbed her brain was more prevalent here, near the center of his manhood. It did alarming things to her—both relaxed and stimulated her. She glanced up, wondering why he’d gone motionless, and was stunned by the startled, savage look on his face.

  He drew her up into his arms, swept her back onto the bed, and stretched himself on top of her. “Lass, I am going to love you until you cannot walk from my bed,” he whispered, before kissing her.

  She responded eagerly, fiercely, molding her mouth to his.

  “Slowly first.” He drew back slightly. With excruciating gentleness he brushed his lips against her, once, twice, a dozen times. She parted her lips against his gentle friction, signifying her desire for more. He laughed softly and ran the tip of his tongue in a playful circle over her lips. He teased until she was moving frantically, trying to catch his tongue with hers.

  “Place your hands above your head, lass, and if you have a problem keeping them there I will be happy to use fabric to secure them,” he murmured.

  “What? Do you want to tie me up?” she exclaimed, mildly shocked. She felt his lips curve in a smile against hers; he was amused by her reaction.

  “I would not be adverse to the idea.” His laughter was husky, darkly erotic. “But for now, I merely wish you to restrain your hands from my body. You need give nothing, do nothing; I assure you, I’ll be taking my pleasure in the giving.”

  Lie back and let me pleasure you, he was saying. Have I died and gone to heaven? she wondered. And he prefers to do this? Her fantasy lovers had always been dominant and demanding illusions who exhausted themselves in bed, giving their woman pleasure. Obediently, she raised her hands above her head. The movement lifted her breasts, and he caught one roughly with his mouth.

  Then she was burning, her nipples were on fire. He nipped and tongued, licked and tugged until her breasts felt swollen and hot. He raised them together and dragged his tongue down the soft crevice, then he separated them and kissed each nipple. He nipped her stomach and kissed her hips—the very sensitive part where her leg met her upper body, only inches from the soft hair between her thighs. The skin was thinner there, more delicate. He pressed hot kisses to the tiny mole inside her thigh, dragged his velvety tongue over it, and she arched against him, instinctively guiding him closer to her center.

  His tongue flicked out to taste her and her hands flew down to cradle his head between her legs as she arched against him. He tasted her with long, smooth strokes against the sensitive nub, alternately fast, then languid, then fast again. “Oh, God!” She embraced the pleasure. She soared, spiraled, shuddered, and when she fell he was there to catch her, with promise in his eyes.

  He slipped a finger inside her and she contracted helplessly around it. She realized that there was an entirely different sensation she’d not yet experienced. She’d heard that orgasms could be very different when a man was inside a woman, as opposed to an orgasm from external sensation. She could feel just the hint, the promise of the fullness it would offer.

  “Tight. Too tight, lass. You need to be more relaxed, and I know of only one way to accomplish that.” His lips burned against her skin as he kissed her mole, tongued it, then stroked his velvety kisses down to her ankles, her toes, and back up with delicious slowness. And when he returned, he lowered his head and ensured that she was completely relaxed by sending her over the edge again.

  Two fingers.

  The fullness!

  Three. “Relax, lass. I doona wish to hurt you overmuch. I am—”

  “I know,” she panted. “You are. I saw you.” She was awed and a little afraid.

  His hands were magic, her body eased open, only to contract swiftly when he removed his fingers. The ache, oh, the unbearable ache.

  “Please,” she groaned.

  He raised himself above her and positioned himself between her legs. But he didn’t enter—nay, he took her lips with his and kissed her: light and teasing, kissed her deeply, kissed her so hard that his teeth bumped against hers, which she’d always thought might seem clumsy but it wasn’t, it made her nearly wild beneath him. She arched her lower body, pressing against that hot male part of him, and he pressed back against her, hard.

  “In me,” she cried.

  He laughed against her lips. “Impatient lass.”

  “Yes I am. In me.”

  “Aye aye, mistress,” he whispered.

  He gave it to her slowly. The first inch was a most unusual sensation and she doubted she could take him. The second inch promised pain. The third and fourth were painful, but the seventh and eighth promised heaven. Lisa closed her eyes and devoted her full attention to the hard man inside her. She had never felt such a pressure, such a completing sensation in her life. She could have stayed like that forever.

  And then he rocked slowly within her. “Squeeze me,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “With your muscles.” When she stared at him blankly, he tickled her suddenly, causing her to laugh. The muscles inside her contracted and she understood.

  “Squeeze like that, you mean?”

  He went completely still inside her. “Squeeze.”

  It was the most incredible sensation. She could use her woman’s muscles to contract on him and release, and every time she contracted around him it sent her perilously close to the edge. He lay motionless atop her, letting her feel him, grow used to him, develop an insatiable hunger for the pleasure of him buried within her.

  “Does it arouse you?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes,” she murmured.

  He withdrew slowly, savoring every sweet contraction of her muscles, then filled her to the mouth of her womb.

  The night was young, and over the course of it he made a wee bit of progress down his endless list of things he wanted to do with her. Her insatiable curiosity extended into the bedchamber, as he had hoped it would. She was a most willing conspirator throughout the long night of passion-slicked bodies and yielding hearts.

  When he rose, bracing his hands wide on the bed to either side of her, threw back his head and lost a part of himself deep within her, he nearly doubled over in agony. His muscles wrenched tightly in his abdomen, his heart pounded alarmingly, and his head felt it might split. In all his life, he had never permitted himself to spill inside a woman, refusing to have children. First because he’d not been ready, then because of what Adam had done to him.

  But he’d laid his fears aside, and this time he let go. And at the precise moment he filled her, he felt a bond flare into life between the two of them, as if a channel had been cut between their souls, allowing a bit of her to seep into him, and a bit of him into her. It burned through his body, tunneling to the part of his mind that held magic. It was like a blinding white heat that roared inside him and exploded in a flash of heightened awareness.

  It was the most incredible sensation he had ever experienced.

  Suddenly he could feel her pleasure, could even sense that she felt grateful to him for helping her forget her pain and making her first time such an incredible experience.

  Hmm, he thought, liking this new bond. He had exceeded her expectations for lovemaking. His gaze flew to hers and he saw that it had been the same for her. But she didn’t know, because this was her first and only time of physical intimacy, that such an awareness of each other was not a normal result of lovemaking. Her eyes were huge and filled with wonder.

  He didn’t understand what had transpired in the creation of
their strange bond, and he wondered what lasting effects it might have on her. He wondered if perhaps the immortality potion had changed him, so that if he spilled seed into a woman’s body they became linked. There was much he did not understand about himself.

  And then he wondered no more, but cradled her in his arms and felt at peace for the first time in centuries.

  * * *

  Afterward, Lisa lay with her cheek pressed to Circenn’s chest, one of his strong arms curled around her waist, wondering at the God who had seen fit to take so much from her, yet give her this incredible man. She’d never known that lovemaking would make her so much more aware of his feelings. It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside her: A dazzling white heat filled her, and suddenly she was able to sense his emotions; even now he was worrying for her, wondering if he’d pleased her. It was a strange awareness, a pressure that he was near, surrounding her; she’d never before felt so linked to anyone, not even her mother, who’d carried her inside her body.

  She vowed to plunge headlong into all the pleasure she could find with Circenn, because one never knew how long anything might last. He could be crushed under a rock while building an addition on his castle; he could be injured in many ways; he might be wounded in battle—oh! It was June, she realized, and the mighty battle at Bannockburn was just weeks away.

  He couldn’t go; that was all there was to it. She could not let him go to war. The way her luck ran, she would get a few blissful weeks with him, then he would be killed in battle and there she’d be in the fourteenth century all by herself. Her fingers clenched around his hand.

  “I will not die, lass,” he whispered against her hair.

  “Can you read minds too, in addition to cursing things?” she asked, startled.

  “Nay. But you were feeling it rather loudly. I know what you fear. You fear being abandoned. When your hand tensed on mine I surmised where your fears had gone. That I might die too young, as your father did.” He acted as if their new bond was nothing out of the ordinary. It was easier for her to accept because, being untried, she didn’t know it wasn’t the customary result of tupping.