Never Love a Highlander (McCabe Trilogy #3)(67)

She laughed. “Tonight is about your pleasure, husband. I am yours to do with as you like.”

“Then free me of my trews right here so I can rest deep inside you. I’m thinking of making it a rule that when you sit on my lap, you must rest atop my cock.”

She pulled impatiently at his trews, for his words licked like fire over her body and she was as eager as he was to have him inside her.

She arched up as soon as he sprang free. He gripped her hips and guided her into place and then sank deep. They both made inarticulate sounds of pleasure. When she would have moved, he anchored her tight against him so that no space separated them.

“Right there, lass. Don’t move. Now feed me the rest of my meal.”

Each time she moved to pick up a piece of bread or cheese from the plate, she clenched tighter around him and he swelled even larger until she was impossibly stretched.

“You clutch me like a velvet fist,” he breathed.

He ran his hands up her arms and gripped her just below the shoulders. She dropped the last piece of bread when he fused his mouth to hers as if he hadn’t just eaten his fill and was starving. For her.

The flats of his palms glided down her arms and then over her hips, where they came to rest. His fingers dug into her bu**ocks and he lifted her as he arched upward.

“ ’Tis too good,” he gritted out. “I can’t make it last.”

He thrust hard and she was filled by his warmth. He held her tightly to his groin as he pulsed inside her sheath. Then his hands left her hips and he pulled her against his chest, his hands stroking up and down her spine.

For several long moments he continued his gentle caresses as he softened inside her. Impossibly, he wrapped one arm around her and put his other hand to the floor to push himself upward.

He slipped from her body as he stood, but he continued to hold her as he turned toward the bed, the tub and the food forgotten.

He laid her down and crawled into bed beside her, pulling her against his body. They sprawled there on the mattress, limbs tangled, arms thrown possessively over each other. He kissed her forehead and sighed in contentment. She savored the sound of a well-pleasured man and smiled her satisfaction.

“I am unsure what warranted such affection from my wife, but do tell me so that I may do it again in the future,” he said lightly.

She squeezed him and kissed the hollow of his neck. Then she toyed idly with his hair, suddenly possessed to want to know more of her husband.

“What is it you write in your scrolls?”

He drew away, seemingly surprised by the question. He looked faintly … embarrassed, and she wondered if she hadn’t been better served to not spoil the intimate moment between them.

“My thoughts,” he finally said. “It helps me make better sense of them when I write them down.”

“So it’s like an accounting of your day?”

“In a manner of speaking. I find I express myself better with written words. I haven’t an eloquent tongue and I don’t like to speak overmuch.”

“Nay. Surely you jest,” she teased.

He smacked her playfully on the arse. “ ’Tis something I’ve done since I learned to read and write when I was a young lad. My father was a learned man and he taught his sons. He thought it an important skill. He oft said that intelligence served a warrior better than a sword.”

“He sounded like a wise man.”

“He was,” Caelen said quietly. “He was a great laird, beloved by his clan.”

Rionna looked into her husband’s eyes and knew that demons from his past gnawed at him this night. She sorely regretted making him think of his father, for ’twas impossible to separate his death and Elsepeth’s betrayal. But at the same time, she wanted to know more and perhaps ease her husband’s burden.

“Tell me of Elsepeth,” she urged.

Caelen stiffened and his expression darkened. “ ’Tis nothing to speak of.”

“I would disagree. She’s made you hard. She’s taken something that should be rightfully mine.”

Caelen looked at her in confusion. “What is it you speak of?”

She touched his cheek. “Your heart. You cannot ever give it fully to me because she still occupies it.”

“Nay,” he swiftly denied.

“Aye,” she argued. “You hardened the part of your heart that you offered to her. When she betrayed you, you locked that part away, never to open it again. She’s trapped there. She has what is rightfully mine and I want it, husband. I’m no longer content to wait.”

He looked incredulously at her. “You make unreasonable demands, wife.”

Rionna huffed impatiently. “ ’Tis unreasonable to want the whole of my husband’s heart? Would you accept that part of my heart belonged to another man and you could never touch it?”

He scowled at that. “You’re making too much of it, Rionna. Elsepeth is part of my past. You are my future. The two have nothing to do with each other.”

“Then tell me of her,” Rionna challenged. “If she poses no threat, then ’tis nothing to speak of her.”

Caelen sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. Rionna remained still, waiting as he grappled with his irritation.

“I was a fool.”