Chapter 22
Rob sat up and gathered her into his arms. “Elspeth, leannán, I gave ye pleasure because it pleased me to do it. And with no lasting harm to ye. But this is something that, once done, canna be undone. D’ye ken that?”
She palmed his cheek and looked through his deep blue eyes to his troubled soul. She loved this man. She was sure of it. Why would she not offer him the comfort of her body?
“Aye, Rob,” she said. “I ken what I’m doing.”
“Ye only think ye do.”
His voice was drawn and tight. She sensed him struggling with himself. A thrill of power swept over her. Who could have thought she’d bring her captor to such a state of indecision?
“Ye canna say ye dinna want me.” She brushed a hand against his groin.
“No, I canna say that.”
His eyes went dark and luminous as he looked at her. She peered once more into the well of his soul and was satisfied. He would not see her shamed. She could trust him with anything. Even herself.
“As much as ye want me, Rob, I want ye back.”
“Oh, lass—” He interrupted himself to kiss her.
Elspeth realized he’d been holding back in his previous kisses. The longing in this kiss stole her breath. The deep sadness she’d sensed in him the very first time he kissed her returned and threatened to overwhelm her. That time she’d Seen a fleeting image of Fiona MacLaren.
Did Rob think on his lovely redheaded wife while his lips played with hers?
She tried to open herself to her Gift, to move out of its way, as Hepzibah had suggested, so she might discover whether Fiona MacLaren still hovered in his heart. But her senses were so overflowing with Rob, there was no room for her Gift to fill. He crowded out everything else.
She longed to do the same for him, to so fill up his soul there’d be no room for sadness.
But how? She matched him kiss for kiss, and he seemed to enjoy it when she stroked him, but she had no idea how to really please a man.
At her first sight of “Robin,” she’d been minded of her father’s stallion. Now she wondered if men were like stallions in other ways. One night, Elspeth had sneaked into the stable and hid in the haymow to spy as her father and the groom oversaw the stallion covering a mare in heat.
Elspeth had watched in awe as the horse’s huge thing stopped dangling. It grew and stiffened as he sniffed wild-eyed at the mare. Then the stallion climbed atop her, and the mare whinnied her pleasure while he pumped his great thing in and out of her and bit her neck till the blood ran, glistening ribbons down her withers.
She’d rather not be bitten till blood ran, but she could certainly arrange herself for Rob without him having to tell her what to do. She pulled away from his kiss and shifted onto her hands and knees, hoping her thigh wouldn’t tremor too much.
“What are ye doing, lass?”
She peered over her shoulder at him. “I’m getting ready for ye. I’ve seen horses, ye ken.”
***
He almost laughed at her na?veté, but the thought of lifting her skirt and being able to ram himself into her glistening slit from behind robbed him of the power of speech. Oh, to be able to grasp her hips and pound away at her, his balls slapping her thighs.
But that was not how a man takes a virgin. Not one he cared for.
He moved down beside her and lay on his side. “I’ll no’ say ye’re no’ a fetching sight from that angle, but people are no’ horses.”
She settled onto her stomach, resting her chin on her hands. “Then what am I to do? I feel your sadness, Rob, and I want to ease it.” She bit her bottom lip. “Are ye thinking of her?”
He didn’t ask whom she meant. “I’ll no’ lie to ye. When I kissed ye just then, Fiona formed in my mind for a heartbeat. She was my wife, and she comes to me unbidden sometimes, but I shoved her away for the now. There’s no’ enough room in my bed for two women.”
Her smile squeezed his heart.
He tucked her hair behind her ear and fingered her soft lobe.
“Then what would ye have me do, Rob?” she asked, rolling to face him. “I want to please ye.”
“Just let me take ye, lass, and we’ll both be pleased, I promise.” He ran a fingertip along the top of her bodice, then he plunged his hand in to cup her breast.
Her eyes closed in bliss. “Aye, take me, then. Steal my lips, my breasts, all that I am.” Her eyes opened again. “Steal me away, Rob MacLaren.”
***
Desire was a difficult dance master. The steps for removing unwanted articles of clothing were sometimes bunglesome. Laces snarled in knots. Buttons popped off. Impatience to plant a kiss on needy skin tripped them up more than once, but the reward of seeing each other in glorious nakedness was well worth the slow dance of disrobing.
“Do as I do,” Rob had told her. And he began stroking her all over. Elspeth reciprocated, reveling in the shiver of muscle, the hitch of his breath when she touched a spot that gave him pleasure.
They took turns kissing each other, planting their lips on every crease of skin, every indentation and bump. He lingered over her anklebones and toes. She swirled her tongue around his navel.
Finally Elspeth sank back into the feather tick and spread her legs. Rob moved up her body, kissing and teasing, caressing and torturing. He worshipped her breasts, nuzzling and suckling, while she sketched a benediction on his spine with her fingertips.
Then he took her mouth. And as his tongue slid into her, his cock entered her as well.
He didn’t thrust or jab. He just filled her. Slowly. Inexorably. Assuaging the aching emptiness.
Her maidenhead shredded in a flash of pain that was gone almost instantly.
The wonder of holding him inside her was too fine, too glorious for words. They fit together with such rightness, a tear tickled across Elspeth’s cheek.
And then he began to move.
Elspeth matched his pace, and the dance began in earnest. They found a rhythm, a flow of bodies and hearts and spirits, all intermingled and jumbled together. Did she moan or he? Whose shuddering breath was that? Whose heart was pounding like a drum? It was difficult to tell as they raced toward a distant pinnacle.
She felt her insides clench around him. Once. Twice. Then she retreated from the drop.
“Come, lass,” he said hoarsely as he plunged into her. “Come with me.”
She launched her soul skyward, and her body followed. He stilled while her inner walls spasmed around him, and then his seed pumped into her. She held him while his body shuddered with the last hot pulses.
The world stopped spinning. Elspeth decided she wouldn’t care if she ever moved again.
He was still inside her, the precious connection still intact, but she began to be able to tell her limbs from his. He kissed her neck.
“Are ye pleased, lass?”
She smoothed his hair behind his ear. “Better than pleased. I’m alive now. I didna even realize I wasna before.”
They lay in contented silence even after he slid out of her. He shifted to lie beside her so he wouldn’t burden her with his weight. She stroked his spine. He drew little circles around her nipples. Then he licked one and blew on it to watch it pucker afresh.
“Are ye no’ tired of playing with me yet?” she asked with amusement.
“No,” Rob said. “And neither is wee ‘Robin.’”
When he rocked against her hip, she felt that he was stone hard again.
“I warned ye he was single-minded.”
“And persistent,” she said with a laugh. “What’s he thinking about now, I wonder?”
“I think he’s wondering if horses might no’ have a good idea, after all. What do ye think?”
Elspeth kissed him hard and deeply. “I think we ought to find out.”
***
Mrs. Christie rapped loudly on the door, but there was no answer except a rhythmic creaking. She almost pounded again, but she remembered the MacLaren’s surly orders from the last time she tried to deliver his supper.
“Verra well, my lord,” she muttered as she carried the tray back to the kitchen. “Another hour of rutting may make ye a happy man, but it willna improve this stew nary a bit.”