Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(38)

Then her mouth was against that shoulder, gleaming golden in the light of the fire. Warm on her lips, smooth against her tongue, with a strength that flexed under the grip of her hand. She felt a chill on her back and realized he’d pushed her shift off her shoulders. She wriggled her arms out of the sleeves and let it fall, whisper-soft, to her feet.

She’d never been naked in front of anyone but her sisters. Now, upon her toes with the firelight on her skin, Lachlan leaned back so he could run his gaze from her scalp to her feet. His look felt like the brush of a thousand fingers.

His member rose stiff between them. A pulsing thrill coursed through her, settling heavy in her loins.

“Send me away,” he said, his voice husky. “For your own sake.”

She answered him by scraping her mouth down his jaw, over his neck and collarbone, to where the neckline of his tunic sagged. Seeking beneath the weave, she found the nub of his nipple and did to him what he’d once done to her.

He flattened his hand against her back until, with a groan, he lowered his face into her hair, breathing hot against her ear. He dragged his hands down her spine—long scraping pinpoints where his fingernails rode—until he grasped her bottom with both hands.

As he hefted her bottom up, she felt her cleft open wetly. Oh, how she ached to feel him there.

The world tipped as he hauled her up and stretched her across the bed. She saw the canopy above her and then Lachlan’s face as it descended.

He took her hand and hauled it over her head, holding it there. Then he took her other wrist and hauled it up, too, grasping both tightly with one hand. The movement made her arch off the bed, her breasts—her nipples tightened and tingling—pointing toward the canopy. Lachlan lowered his head.

His hot, sucking mouth shot tremors through her body. He tugged and licked and teased her with the edge of his teeth, gently squeezing the whole of her breast in his hand so he could suck more than just the nipple into his mouth. She was vaguely aware that she was thrashing, jerking her arms against his restraint, lifting her legs on either side of him. She loved the pressure of his body against the mound between her legs, but wanted to feel more, wanted to feel him.

He slipped his hand between them and slid his fingers along her cleft. She gasped and went still. His lips and fingers did not. He rolled his tongue over her nipple, then exposed it to the cold air, even as his fingers slid down, deeper, spreading the wetness between her legs. He switched breasts as he pressed the butt of his hand against her mound and probed deeper.

With her head thrown back, one thought skittered across her mind—that this wasn’t how she’d expected it to feel. Yes, yes, she’d known that there would be pleasure. She couldn’t avoid the minds of all the lovers upon Inishmaan. How she’d envied their intimacies, the wholehearted joining, and the simple, trusting pleasure that made lovers temporarily blind to all else but the sensations coursing between them. But she hadn’t really understood this, the sweet physicality of the act, the intensity of it, the rising ache and the unfettered urge that took her over as surely as a wave sucking her under the sea.

She wasn’t even trying to read his thoughts anymore, but she sensed the merging of minds nonetheless. They were in a bright place speaking a language without words.

All of a sudden, he released her wrists. Her fingertips tingled from the tightness of his grip. She lowered her hands, intending to pull him up for a kiss, but already he was trailing down her body. His soft hair brushed her breasts, her ribs, her belly button, where he paused for a moment to roll his tongue in the hollow. She reached for him, for he was going in the wrong direction. She didn’t want him to slide off her—she wanted him covering her body. She wanted to bring his loins between hers and open herself for his thrust.

She grasped his head but he slipped out from under her grip. He slid down between her legs even as she struggled to rise up on her elbows. He thrust a shoulder beneath one leg, forcing her thigh high, and then did the same for the other. She glanced down as he spread her legs wide, vibrating with excitement at the sight of him hovering above her cleft. He glanced up at her, his expression unreadable, his hair haloed by the golden light of the fire, and then he pressed his lips there.

Later she would remember that first moment and her heart would skitter-pound and the muscles of the inside of her thighs would clench and she’d lose the ability to speak, breathe, think in a moment of bright blindness that would make her stumble to a stop in whatever she was doing. All she sensed was his hair soft against the inside of her thighs and the rough brush of his tongue opening her wide. A pressure built in her body as he plunged his hot, muscled tongue around and between and deep inside her.

Her mind went blank. She arched against his hands before the light in her mind blinded her. Her body convulsed around the pressure of his kiss. She heard herself give a husky shout before she arched up, again, and again, and again, moaning.

Lassitude spread over her. She pressed her cheek against the blanket as every touch of his mouth sent aftershocks shuddering through her body. Cold air bathed her as he pulled away. The mattress sagged as he settled his hands on either side of her, and he drew his body higher on the bed. She felt a hard, throbbing pressure against her belly. He laid his face beside hers, rocking against her abdomen, pushing his forehead into the covers until he stiffened and held his breath. She heard a low groan as something hot and wet bathed her belly. His body went lax while he buried his face in her hair.