“Are you torturing me?”
“My pace, lass. You’re the one who said no and wasted days. We might have done this yesterday when you stuffed me into those torturous trews. And later that afternoon. And later that night, and this morning, and—”
When she tried to reply, he kissed her so hard she forgot what she was going to say. He rocked himself against her, mimicking sex, gliding back and forth in the slick vee of her thighs. Millions of tiny nerve endings screamed for more. Well, if he won’t, I will. She knew better than most people that forces of nature should not be resisted or subdued. She twisted against him, rubbing herself wantonly, pushing herself to the peak.
As her soft panting became more frantic, Drustan broke the kiss and looked at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brilliant and wild, her lips kiss-bruised and parted.
“That’s it, lass, take your pleasure.” He was riveted by her unabashed hunger for him; she was making him hotter and harder with every insistent thrust of her hips. If he wasn’t careful, he’d spill without ever entering her. He doubted a woman had ever desired him so intensely.
She whimpered as she came, she purred, she rubbed against him like a love-starved kitten.
“Yes,” he breathed, flooded with purely male, possessive triumph. When her shudders subsided and she relaxed against him, he lowered her to the ground on his plaid, then sat back on his knees and gazed at her for a long moment. Long enough that she began to squirm, and it wrought havoc upon his fleeting control. She arched her back, raising her breasts toward him, her nipples dark berries, begging to be suckled.
“Touch me,” she whispered.
“Och, lass, I’ll touch you,” he promised. He nudged her legs wider, then drank in the sight of her, lying in wait for him, her full breasts swollen from his kisses, her thighs open and slick with her desire.
He ran his hand up the inside of her thighs, across her woman’s wetness, then down the other leg. Once, twice, and a half dozen times lingering between her thighs, flicking her sensitive nub, until she was arching her hips up from the plaid.
“I’m going to toop you as you’ve naught been tooped before, lass.”
Gwen was quite certain of that, having never been tooped before. “Promises, promises, MacKeltar,” she provoked. “A woman could die of old age before you got around to it.”
His eyes flew wide in surprise, then he laughed, a husky laugh full of dark eroticism.
Finally, she purred, when, shoulder muscles bunching sleekly, he covered her body with his.
“Have you no sense at all, that you would provoke me? I’m twice your size, you know,” he murmured against her ear.
“So show me something I don’t already know.” She gasped, when he nipped her earlobe.
“Like this?” he asked, shifting himself between her thighs. “Or like this?” He rubbed the head of his cock back and forth and back again in her slick folds.
Gwen melted as he spoke to her then in a language she’d never heard but knew was tribute from the husky admiration in his voice. The strange accents made her wild as he purred compliments against her heated skin. She half-wondered if he was ensorcelling her, because the more he spoke in his foreign accents, the hotter she got. Or perhaps it was the smoky deep voice and the way his hands moved over every inch of her body as if memorizing the subtleties of each plane and hollow. He devoted lavish attention to her breasts, squeezing them, plumping and fondling them until she was nearly delirious with need, hovering at the brink of another orgasm.
He braced himself on his forearms and suckled each nipple, moving his head back and forth, chafing her with his shadow beard, and just when she thought one couldn’t take the erotic teasing anymore, he would turn his attention to the other. He kissed her breasts, the sides of her breasts, the soft warm place beneath them, pushed them together and kissed the plump cleavage, dragging his tongue roughly between them, then returned to her hard nipples and took them alternately with his teeth. Nipping and suckling and drawing her into his mouth. She nearly screamed from the exquisite pleasure of it.
He trailed kisses over her ribs, down her abdomen, then glided his tongue across her belly, playfully flickering into her belly button. Then, suddenly, he dragged his tongue across her swollen bud and she cried out.
“There’s my lass,” he purred, burying his face between her thighs.
The man has a magic tongue, she thought, writhing beneath him. He cupped his hands beneath her bottom, raised her to his mouth, and Gwen filled the night with tiny whimpers as he kissed and licked her, then plunged his tongue deep inside her. As his hot tongue stroked her in places that had never been touched before, she came in spasms, and he lapped her as she shuddered over and over again. Then, just when she thought it was over, he gently nipped her, wringing a tinier series of spasms from her trembling body.
Resonance—I am crystal and I am shattering, she thought feverishly.
As she arched her hips against him, crying out, Drustan growled and pressed himself against the ground. He wanted this to last as long as it could. Wanted to pleasure her like no other man ever had. Gritting his teeth, he pressed himself against the plaid, remaining perfectly still, trying to convince his cock that it needed to wait just a bit longer, because at least he could give her this.
At least he could have this. This perfect moment with her, if naught else. She whimpered softly as the spasms stopped, and he gently lapped her again, playfully warning her that she would have many more peaks of pleasure before he was through with her.
She was so beautiful and open to him. She was the most sensuous woman he’d ever met in his life, every inch of her body sensitive to his caresses, and although he’d bedded scores of bawdy women in his life, none had nudged him past the edge of reason, until now. His stomach was shaky from the intensity of his desire, and his cock was so hard it was painful. His breathing sounded harsh to his own ears, the beat of his heart was the thunder of a hundred horses, the blood boiled in his veins and reality narrowed down to: Just. One. Thing.
Her.
He could wait no longer.
He rained kisses up the gentle swell of her stomach, over her breasts, and dragged the edge of his teeth back and forth across her nipples. Positioning himself between her legs, he did not take her immediately but kissed her thoroughly, a kiss of demand and dominion, of raw possession.
“Tell me,” he demanded. She didn’t play shy or coy, a thing he liked. She let him read her hunger in her face, in her expressive stormy eyes, hiding nothing. But would she speak of her desire? Would she be audacious and whisper words to him that would tell him how to fulfill her wildest needs?
“Tell me,” he insisted.
His wee Gwendolyn said a thing to him then that he’d never heard a woman say before, neither high-born nor whore, and the baseness of her words slammed into him as if he’d swallowed a double dose of a Rom lust potion.
He’d never had a woman say that to him. They used gentler words, but what Gwen had asked of him was exactly what he wanted to do. Their attraction to each other was primitive and went far beyond reason.
If she could voice such raw desires, what more might she confront bravely? Who and what he was? Might she possess such courage?
She lay beneath him, shivering with desire, her lips glistening in the moonlight, wet from his kisses, and he realized he was falling for her harder than a mighty oak cleaved in two by a lightning bolt would crash to the forest floor.
He plunged inside her.
And stopped.
Not by choice—oh, nay, not by his choice—but because there was something in his way.
“Oh, just push,” she cried. “I know it’s going to hurt at first. Just do it! Get it over with.”
He was stunned. Fragments of thoughts collided in his head: She is untouched by any man; how could this woman have survived a maiden so long? Are the men in her century utter fools? Then, Ah, she chose no other, but she chose me!
What a gift!
A more n
oble man might have backed off, a more noble man who knew that even a minute possibility existed that he might disappear that night would surely have refused, but there was something about Gwen Cassidy that drove him far past nobility. He wanted her, by fair means or foul. And if the worst happened tonight, the loving between them might make her more able to face what she may have to confront. Mayhap help her complete all the things he might need her do, and mayhap—he could entertain the outlandish dream—she could be persuaded to find a happy future in his past. For like it or not, the only future she was going to have after tonight was in his past.
He would make it up to her, he vowed. Her happiness would be his first priority. He would give her anything she wanted, heap her with mountains of gifts, attention, and devotion, as befitted a queen. He would wait on her hand and foot. And mayhap loving could work out the uncertainties in his plan that no amount of careful and cautious orchestration could accomplish.
“I may be little,” she coaxed softly when he hesitated, “but I’m tougher than you think.” And she repeated her previous request that had sent all the blood in his body rushing to his groin.
Inflamed, he plunged through the barrier, claiming her.
“Yes,” she screamed, and he drank her cry into his mouth, kissing her savagely, pushing deep within her. She matched his urgent rhythm, and although he knew it had caused her pain, her desire quickly surpassed the tearing of her maidenhead.
He gave himself to her with intensity he’d not given a woman before, burying himself so deep inside her he thought he must be touching the lip of her womb, then gliding out, slowly, only to thrust again. His entire world, his every breath and heartbeat, was focused on the woman in his arms.
Slipping her legs over his shoulders, he angled himself to drive back into her. He took the move achingly slowly, knowing how wee she was and that he would stretch her to her limits, but he needed to be so deep inside her that he no longer knew where he began and she ended. He slid into her, inch by inch, his body straining from such sweet torture.
“Drustan,” she cried, tossing her head from side to side, tangling her silky hair. He suckled her nipples as he withdrew and returned, and when he felt her contract around him, he clamped his teeth lightly on a nipple and tugged. He drove himself into her hard and fast and deep, over and over until he was nearly mindless with savage need.
“Och, lassie,” he said roughly, caught up in her spasms, “I canna ride out this storm again.” And as he thrust inside her so hard it nearly hurt him, his husky voice mingled with her sweet cries. They peaked in perfect rhythm, each shuddering contraction of her body drawing forth his seed.
He purred to her as he came, in an ancient tongue he knew she wouldn’t understand. He said foolish things, heartfelt things, deep and weighty things he could never acknowledge otherwise. He called her his goddess of the moon and praised her courageous spirit and fire. He asked her for babies. Christ, he talked like a fool.
Gwen shuddered against him, listening to his strange accents, and somehow she knew that every word he uttered was praise. When he finally stilled against her, she stroked his back and shoulders, marveling, buoyant, elated and sated beyond compare.
“You are beautiful, lass,” he whispered, brushing his lips back and forth over hers tenderly.
She squealed when he thumped inside her, a final flexing from their love play.
“Did I hurt you, sweet Gwen?” he asked, with such concern in his eyes that it touched her heart.
“A bit,” she confessed. “But no more than I expected after seeing that…sock you have there.”
He smiled, his eyes dancing. “I told you it was God-given. You would hear none of it.” He sucked her lower lip. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, lass. I fear I was without sense for a time there.”
“No more than I. I think I said something really bad,” she worried, nibbling her lip.
“It aroused me immensely,” he growled. “Never have I had a woman say such a thing to me, and it made me hard as stone.”
“You are always hard, MacKeltar,” she teased. “Don’t think I don’t see that permanent bulge in your clothing.”
“I know,” he said smugly. “Your glance drifts there often.” He sobered suddenly. “But now I know why you were naysaying me. Gwen, why did you not tell me you had known no man before me?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I was afraid you would say no,” she finally admitted. “I wasn’t sure you would make love to a virgin.”
Make love, she’d said. She’d saved herself from all others but chosen to give herself to him. You care for me, he thought, hoping she would say the words. He was disappointed when she didn’t, but in her touch—her hands tracing gentle circles on his chest—he felt a tenderness that meant much to him.
And she’d given him her maidenhead.
He felt himself hardening again, moved by the depth of her gift. Although he hadn’t given her proof that he was telling the truth, she’d given of herself freely to him, that which she’d given to no other man. She had feelings for him, he was sure of it, as sure as he was that Gwen Cassidy didn’t give of herself lightly.
She’d honored him in so many ways.
There was no question in his mind: She was the one for him. The woman he’d wanted all his life—and so what if he’d had to come five hundred years into the future to find her? He would give her the words and begin the Druid binding, and mayhap in a few hours, if all was well, she might freely give the words back to him.
And if all doesn’t go well?
He shrugged mentally. If all didn’t go well, and he didn’t survive tonight, the sixteenth-century version of him would find her druggingly irresistible, even before she said the spell to merge their memories. He could see no harm in that, doubted it would come to pass anyway.
She’d given him a precious gift; this was all he had to offer her in return. The gift of his eternal love.
He placed the palm of his right hand on her chest over her heart, the palm of his left above his, and looked deep into her eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low and firm: “If aught must be lost, ’twill be my honor for yours. If one must be forsaken, ’twill be my soul for yours. Should death come anon, ’twill be my life for yours.” He drew a deep breath and finished it, completing the spell that would haunt him for life. “I am Given.” He shuddered as he felt the irrevocable bond take root within him—a bond that could never be severed. He was now connected to her by gossamer strands of awareness. Were he to walk into a room of people, he would be drawn to her side. Were he to enter a village, he would know if she was in it. Emotion welled up within him, and he struggled to hold it back, astonished by the intensity. Feelings crashed over him, feelings he’d never imagined.
She was so beautiful—made a thousand times more so by his having opened himself completely to her.
Her eyes were wide. “What did you mean by that?” she asked, with a shaky little laugh. He’d spoken in that strange voice again, the one that held the resonance of a dozen voices, the soft rumble of spring thunder. It had sounded terribly romantic—a little serious and scary too. His words had been almost like a living thing, brushing her with warm fingers. She had a nagging sensation that there was something she should say back to him but had no idea what or why.
He smiled enigmatically.
“Oh, I get it. It’s another one of those things—”
“That will become clear in time,” he finished for her. “Aye. It’s rather like, I will protect you should the need ever arise.” It’s more like, you are mine forever, should you agree and give me the words back. And now I am yours forever, whether you agree or not. It was a risky thing he’d just done, of a certain, because if she never agreed, Drustan MacKeltar would ache endlessly for her. His heart trapped by the binding spell, he would sense her eternally, would love her eternally. But should she one day choose to freely give the words back, the bond would intensify a thousandfold. He could live for such a hope.
Her eyes wid
ened further when she felt him stiffen inside her. “Again?”
“Are you too tender?” he asked gently.
She arched a brow. “I told you, I’m tougher than you think,” she said, running the tip of her pink tongue over her lower lip.
He groaned and caught it between his lips. “Then, aye, lass, and again and again,” he said, as he began to glide back and forth inside her. “We MacKeltars were bred for stamina.”
And since he knew she was the disbelieving type, a woman disinclined to accept anything but firm proof, he proceeded to give her hard evidence of his claim, telling her with his body all the words he so longed to say.
SEPTEMBER 21
Three Minutes to Midnight
10
Gwen stretched languorously, her hands skimming the muscles of Drustan’s back. She felt sleepily sated and sexy and tender and, oh…so much more complex than she had before. She felt brand new somehow.
Gwen Cassidy had finally been well and truly plucked.
An indefinable sense of peace and rightness nestled in her belly, her heart was full, her mind at ease.
But breathing beneath his weight was a challenge even the new and improved Gwen wasn’t up to, so with a gentle nudge she eased him off her. He rolled onto his back and she slipped astride him, straddling him the same way she had the day she’d found him but with one highly erotic and delightful difference: They were both nude. There was so much she wanted to do with him. She wanted to make love on top of him, beside him, with him behind her….
“Drustan,” she murmured, studying his face, so beautiful in the silvery light of the moon. His eyes opened, hot-metal silver, lazily seductive. “Thank you,” she said softly. He’d made her first time a beautiful, passionate, intense experience, and if for some unfathomable reason she never got to make love with him again, she knew he would be the standard by which she judged men for the rest of her life.
She was falling head over heels in love. And it felt incredible.
He caught her face in his hands and pulled her down for a hungry kiss. “Never thank me, lass. Only ask me for more. That’s the finest praise a man can hear from a woman. That and this”—he slipped a hand between her legs—“woman’s dew that tells a man how much she desires him.”