Part 15 (1/2)
Emma eyed him, growing increasingly suspicious. ”My mother never said a word about disrobing. I think I would have remembered that.”
It was Jamie's turn to sigh. ”Just what did she tell you?”
”She said I was to lie back and close my eyes and the earl”-Emma could not quite suppress her shudder-”my husband husband would simply fold the hem of my nightdress up a few inches-after the lamps were extinguished, of course-and perform his husbandly duty.” would simply fold the hem of my nightdress up a few inches-after the lamps were extinguished, of course-and perform his husbandly duty.”
”While the idea has its charms, it simply won't do.” The callused pads of Jamie's fingertips played lightly over her sensitive nape. He lowered his voice to a husky growl, his breath moist and hot in her ear. ”Because I'm going to go mad, la.s.s, if I can't see you naked.”
This time Emma's shudder was one of desire. ”Perhaps you could coax me into taking my gown off. If you put forth your best effort.”
His throaty chuckle warned her that was just the challenge for which he had been waiting. Lifting the weight of her hair with one hand, he ever so gently laid his seeking lips against the wildly beating pulse at the side of her throat. Emma gasped. Judging by the scorching sweetness of his lips against her flesh, it must be his intention to melt melt the gown from her body. the gown from her body.
Her head fell back of its own volition, giving his mouth full dominion over the graceful column of her throat. After a few breathless moments of that delicious torment, she was forced to dig her fingernails into his sleeve just to remain upright. ”For a brutish Highlander, you've a rather persuasive touch, sir.”
”Those fancy English gents are the ones who start all those nasty rumors about us and our sheep. They just don't want their la.s.ses to know what they're missing.”
As his tongue swirled around the delicate sh.e.l.l of her ear, making her toes curl with pleasure, she bit back a moan. ”Maybe they don't want their sheep to know what they're they're missing.” missing.”
Jamie's laugh was a deep-throated rumble that warmed her from the inside out. While his mouth was having its way with her ear, his hands were gently easing her gown down to bare one creamy shoulder. Emma was ever so grateful to Muira for gifting her with such a simple gown, not one adorned with slippery pearl b.u.t.tons or rows of sharp, steely hooks. Or painful stays to contain flesh already aching for Jamie's touch.
All it took was a deliberate tug and one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was freed from the confines of the bodice. Jamie gazed down at her in the moonlight, his expression so dark with hunger it made both her pulse and her stomach flutter. She could feel her nipples begin to swell and throb in antic.i.p.ation of the pleasure she sensed was coming.
That pleasure arrived with a jolt of pure sensation when Jamie leaned down and touched the very tip of his tongue to her. As he laved that pebbled peak with maddening tenderness, then drew it into his mouth, suckling deep and hard, Emma could no longer bite back a moan of raw delight.
She moaned again when he dipped his hand into the other side of her bodice and claimed that breast for his own as well, molding it to his palm and gently squeezing.
How was it possible a man could be possessed of so many hands? One of them had taken advantage of her breathless distraction to work its way beneath her skirt. Even now it was sliding between her knees and up, up, up until it brushed the silky curls between her thighs.
As Jamie closed his hand over her as if she no longer belonged to herself, but to him, Emma shook her head, nearly mute with shock. ”But my mother never-”
Jamie withdrew his other hand from her bodice to lay it over her mouth, his eyes sparkling with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Would it be possible for you not to mention your mother again, sweeting? During lovemaking most men find that something of a... distraction.”
As he removed his hand, Emma laughed. ”You'd have found her instructions for discouraging a woman's husband from seeking her company in the bedchamber even more... distracting.”
Jamie surprised her by leaning down and kissing the very tip of her nose before lowering his mouth to hers once again. His lips slanted over hers, encouraging her to open wider for him, to welcome him deeper as his tongue began to take her mouth in a rhythm that was both carnal and irresistible. Before long they were breathing as one, her every sigh becoming one with his own.
Only then did his seeking fingers breach those curls between her thighs, finding a silk that was even hotter and slicker beneath them. He trapped her helpless whimper between his lips, his deft fingertips coaxing the tender petals of her body open like some exotic flower ripe with the sweetest and thickest of nectars.
Emma had never known such pleasure was possible. She was torn between clenching her thighs tightly together to ease the growing ache between them and letting them fall apart so Jamie could do it. But his touch only deepened the ache and before long her breath was coming in fierce little pants.
Ignoring the fact that she was already grinding herself against his palm in a frenzy of need, he stroked and petted and fondled her slick, swollen flesh as if there was nothing else in the world he would rather do and he had all night to do it. Just when she thought his exquisite torture couldn't possibly get any more diabolical, he began to brush the pad of his thumb over the hooded little nub at the crux of her curls in maddening circles. Even as he did so, his longest finger slid lower, dipping gently once, twice, a third time before delving deep inside of her.
His name broke from her lips on a sob as Emma's body erupted in one long, glorious, blinding shudder of rapture.
The second she could see and breathe and move again, she dropped to a sitting position and tugged off her boots.
”What are you doing?” he asked, clearly alarmed.
”Rewarding your efforts,” she replied, peeling off her stockings.
”Oh, I was just getting started,” he warned as she returned to her knees and drew her gown over her head.
Tossing it aside, she boldly faced him, knowing she must look like the most shameless of hoydens kneeling before him with her hair tumbling every which way and her cheeks and b.r.e.a.s.t.s still flushed from the pleasure he had given her. But any fear that Jamie might find her lacking was dispelled by the mingled l.u.s.t and adoration in his eyes as he gazed upon her naked body for the first time.
”You're so fine,” he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, his eyes slowly devouring every inch of her. ”You don't deserve this. You deserve a grand bed carved o' the finest mahogany. And mountains o' feather pillows. And candlelight. And silk sheets. And-”
It was her turn to lay her fingers across his lips. ”I may deserve every one of those things. But all I want is you.”
He reached for her then, crus.h.i.+ng her naked softness against him as if he could somehow make them one with the sheer pa.s.sion of his embrace. He was hard where she was soft, unyielding and angled where she was gently curved. Emma twined her fingers through his hair and buried her face against his throat, surprised to feel the sting of tears in her eyes. He smelled like woodsmoke and spring rain and the wind blowing through the pines on a cold winter's night. He smelled like a freedom she had never known before this night.
”So what must I do to coax you into taking off your clothes?” she murmured, dusting the broad column of his throat with her kisses.
He gently set her away from him, a rakish grin curving his lips. ”You, my lady, have only to ask.”
Before Emma had time to catch her breath, he had divested himself of s.h.i.+rt, stockings and boots. She might have perished from mortification as he reached for the leather laces of his breeches if she hadn't noticed that his hands were less than steady.
As he peeled off his breeches and rose back to his knees, Emma's curiosity quickly overcame her maidenly shyness. His was a beautiful body-sleek and taut and masculine, even more thickly muscled than she had imagined.
Unable to resist the temptation, she reached out and trailed a hand over his chest, marveling at the havoc her touch was wreaking on him. Despite the chill in the air he was sweating, his brawny body coated with a glistening sheen of perspiration. Encouraged by the glazed look in his eye, the uneven hitch in his breath, her hand wandered lower-skating over the incredibly well-defined muscles of his abdomen-then lower still, closing gently over the part of him that was jutting forward as if begging for her touch.
He threw back his head with a guttural groan.
Emma's surge of desire was matched by a surge of delight. He no longer held all the power. She had power over him now, the power to bend him to her will, both literally and figuratively; to mold him with her palm and watch him lengthen and swell even further, although she would have sworn that wasn't even possible. As she drew her hand along his rigid shaft, a single drop of seed-like the most rare and precious of pearls-welled up from its velvety crown to dampen her fingertips.
”You once told me it hurt,” she reminded him solemnly, her gaze flicking to his face.
”Aye, la.s.s,” he replied, panting out the words between clenched teeth. ”'Tis the sweetest pain I've ever known.”
They both knew there was only one way to alleviate his suffering. As he eased her down on the blanket and covered her, s.h.i.+elding her from the moonlight, she realized she had brought him to this place because his was the only shadow she was seeking, the only darkness to which she was willing to surrender herself.
She clung to him, trembling with both antic.i.p.ation and terror. She was going to do it. She was going to let him inside of her-where no man had ever been before.
He rubbed the heavy ridge of his arousal between her legs, laving himself in the rich cream his caresses had coaxed from her body. As she felt those delicious little tremors begin to dance over her flesh once more, she feared he was seeking to prolong her torment. But when she felt his thickness probing the entrance to her body, she understood it wasn't his intention to leave her wanting at all but to give her everything she was aching for. And more.
So very much more.
She dug her fingernails into his back as her untried body fought to accept him. She tensed and bit her lip to keep from crying out when she felt a painful tearing sensation. But he did not relent until his throbbing length was sheathed deep within her.
”I'm sorry, angel,” he whispered, touching his lips to her sweat-dampened brow. ”Hesitating would have only prolonged the pain.”
”Mine or yours?” she quipped, letting him know she was going to survive.
His big body shuddered with something that might have been laughter in a less urgent moment. ”Both.”
As he began to move within her, sipping tenderly from her lips all the while, the pain faded to a dull throb that only sharpened her awareness of the incredible intimacy of what they were doing. She was truly his captive now. There was no escaping him. He surrounded her. He enfolded her. He made her every breath she drew his own, her every wish one only he could fulfill. It was almost as if there was no part of her he was not touching-including her soul.
When he abruptly stopped, she wanted to weep with disappointment.