Her hair was up in its long night braid, but he tugged the ribbon at the end loose and began stroking his fingers through the mass to free it. Her sunshine hair, he’d called it. Somehow from him that sounded far more sincere and poetical than “spun gold” or “flaxen locks,” as she’d heard from other men who thought they might be able to tolerate her in exchange for her parents’ money.
“Ye’re certain ye wouldnae prefer one of those fancy lads with the high collars?” he asked, brushing his fingers from her wrist and up to her shoulder. “Someone who knows which spoon is for soup and which one’s for gruel?”
She chuckled, pushing against him with one elbow so she could reach the trio of buttons closing his gray waistcoat. “They may be the same spoon.”
He caught her mouth again. “I want ye, adae. If ye mean to send me away, for God’s sake do it now.”
“I’m not sending you away. I want you, skellum. I’m just … not quite … I don’t want to do something wrong.” Especially with someone who obviously knew what he was doing.
Niall put a hand beneath her knees and the other behind her shoulders, and stood. “I’ve nae been with an English lass before,” he commented, carrying her with ridiculous ease over to the bed, “so I’m a bit scared. I reckon if ye dunnae pull off any of my important bits, we’ll manage.”
“You are not scared,” she countered, scooting backward on the bed to make room for him after he set her down.
Light-green eyes caught hers. “I may be yer first man, lass, but I mean for ye to be the last woman I ever have. I want to wake beside ye every morning and fall asleep with ye in my arms every night. That doesnae scare me. Nae pleasing ye does.”
“I’m already fairly pleased,” she said as he sat on the bed and took off his boots, carefully setting one and then the other on the floor. Sitting up behind him, she slid her fingers beneath the lapels of his coat to tug it off his arms.
“We’ve nae gotten to the best bits yet,” he returned, grinning as he twisted to kiss her again.
Going onto all fours, he grasped her ankles and pulled her toward him, setting her on her back. Once he’d shed his waistcoat and cravat he knelt with her legs between his and reached down to open the trio of buttons beneath her chin. She’d never thought of a plain white night rail as exotic, but as he opened each button he ran his forefinger along her exposed skin with such delicacy it made her shiver.
When he had them all open he bent down and kissed the base of her throat, moving down along her breastbone with his caresses. Inside her every nerve jangled, every inch of her aware of him. The front of his kilt tented in a rather grand fashion. It fascinated her, made her feel powerful that she could affect this man as much as he affected her. If she’d needed evidence that she aroused him, she certainly had it.
Lifting his gaze to meet hers again, he drew the sleeveless shoulders of her night rail down her arms. When he looked down at her exposed breasts, she had to stifle the abrupt urge to cover them. Modesty, purity, propriety—all the things she supposedly lacked and had been trying so hard to master, she clearly possessed because she now needed and wanted to cast them aside.
“Ye’re glorious, lass,” Niall whispered, his voice rough at the edges.
As his fingers lightly circled her breasts, brushing her nipples in a way that made her gasp, he seemed almost worshipful, as though he was memorizing her lines and curves. Intoxicating. But she wasn’t the only one who should be nearly naked. “Take off your shirt, Niall.”
His mouth lifting at the corners, he untucked his plain linen shirt from his kilt and pulled it off over his head. Amelia-Rose’s breath stilled. He looked like some of the statues in the museum, taut and muscular and lean-waisted. Unlike the marble Greek gods and heroes, though, his skin showed the marks of a life lived. The sword graze down one forearm, what looked like an old, well-healed gash across his left ribs, and a small circular scar in the meat of his left upper arm. She imagined every one of those scars had a story to go along with it, and she wanted to hear all of them.
“Touch me, lass,” he urged. “I’ll nae break. I want to feel yer hands on me.”
Oh, goodness. Except that goodness didn’t seem to have anything to do with it, because she felt very, very naughty. His skin beneath her fingers was warm and smooth, covering iron beneath. A muscle jumped at her touch, and she pulled him down over her for more kissing.
His kisses traveled their leisurely way down her again, until he took one of her breasts in his very capable mouth. Gasping, then putting a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, Amelia-Rose arched her back, a shiver of delight thudding through her.
When he continued nibbling and sucking, her eyes rolled back in her head. This—she could never have done this with some man she’d married for his title. But she trusted Niall MacTaggert, trusted him with her body and her reputation and her heart.
Moving sideways, he continued teasing at her as he pulled her night rail down past her waist, her hips, her knees, and then over her feet. Then his hands trailed down her body, curious, caressing, and unhurried. Breathless, warm, and yearning, she parted her legs as he slid a palm down her stomach, over her mound, and up along the inside of her thigh. As his fingers opened her there, she bucked again, nearly sending a knee into his ear.
“I’m sorry,” she panted.
“Do ye like this?” he responded.
She wasn’t certain she could even get the words out. “Yes,” she rasped, her hips wriggling beneath his ministrations. “Very much.”
“Then dunnae apologize. I’m mad for ye, lass. Cannae ye see how I want ye?”
She lowered her gaze to the jutting front of his kilt. “I want to see you.”
Niall lifted his hands over his head, wrapping his fingers around the canopy beams at the top of the bed. “It’s but a tartan, Amelia-Rose. Take it off me.”
She sat up a little, figuring out the belt and clasp and the small wolf’s-head kilt pin that kept the material from flying open in a breeze. He wasn’t a flawed statue, she decided, as she finally got everything unfastened and pulled it from around his hips. He was a strong, wild Highlands warrior, descended from men who’d beaten back the greatest army in the world on numerous occasions. And he was magnificent.
Glancing up at his face to find him watching her, she reached out to grasp his manhood. In response he made a low sound deep in his chest that sent heat and damp between her thighs again.
Gathering up her courage, she stroked the length of him. With another half-articulate moan he settled his knees between hers and lowered himself along her body for a deep, openmouthed kiss. Skin to skin, warmth to warmth, with an unmistakable hardness pressed against her thigh. Good heavens, she wanted him. Even without knowing exactly what to do, she wanted to be part of him.
He moved again, dragging his discarded shirt beneath her hips. Then, parting her knees further, he slipped a hand between them to fit his cock between her folds. Blood, she realized, even as her brain refused to think. She was, for another few seconds, a virgin. There would be blood. And he was sacrificing his shirt to keep it off her sheets. To protect her.
“Now,” she breathed.
“Ye ken—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “Some of my friends have talked. I won’t scream.”
Raising up on his hands, he lowered his head to kiss her again. “Hold on, my lass.”
Her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst from her chest, Amelia-Rose slid her arms over his shoulders. He pushed forward, the sensation of him sliding deeper and deeper inside her utterly indescribable. Pressure grew, then a sharp, biting pain, and then he buried himself in her fully.
For a long moment he didn’t move, and she dug the pads of her fingers into his shoulders while pain faded and other tighter, deeper sensations made her want to press herself against him, wrap her legs around his thighs, keep him there with her.
“Better?” he grunted.
She nodded.