Chapter 16
Her skin was as soft as silk, and just as cold after her ill-advised swim.
It was the honorable thing to do, in Hunter’s mind, to warm her up as well as apologize profusely for the bruises he’d caused. Although the irony wasn’t lost on him that he’d caused the bruises when he’d had to stop himself from doing this exact thing: indulging his desire for her.
He kissed the faint marks and imagined them disappearing, telling himself he would only kiss those fading bruises.
“Ye’re shakin’, lass,” he murmured, glancing up to meet her wide eyes.
Her teeth grazed her lower lip, silently signaling anticipation.
“It’s cold,” she said huskily.
“Aye… let’s see what we can do about that.”
He held onto the stone sides of the pool and pulled himself up to steal a kiss from her lips.
Her mouth met his with a hunger that almost set him back on dry land, so he could lay her down and ease the torment that raged inside him, but he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. As long as her origins remained unknown and he lacked answers, he couldn’t take such a risk, no matter how much he longed to.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t carve out a sliver of satisfaction for himself by witnessing hers.
Arms burning, he kissed her harder, his waist tucked between her parted thighs, his arousal obvious just beneath the surface of the water.
That was one benefit of the cold pool; the inferno wouldn’t be allowed to burn too hot, to the point where he might put himself and his family in danger. Her, too.
Slowly, he kissed away from her mouth, his lips savoring the chill of her skin and how it warmed beneath his searing caresses. Her body continued to tremble. Trembled more, in truth, as if to confirm that it no longer had anything to do with the cold.
He wished fervently that he hadn’t given her his shirt as his lips moved lower, kissing her neck, her throat, the slope of her collarbone, and down that taunting triangle beneath her collar.
He pulled it aside with his teeth, the moisture on her skin keeping the fabric where he moved it, until her pert, rosy nipple appeared, hardened in anticipation of his mouth.
A low growl rumbled in the back of his throat as he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked.
“Oh God!” she gasped, her back arching and her hips bucking slightly.
And when she swore, he smirked, for he didn’t want his endeavors to be taken politely. He wanted the instinct, the wildness, the coarse language that told him he was playing all the right strings of the instrument of her pleasure.
Anyone could play a fiddle, but not everyone could create true music.
He sucked harder, his desire pounding in his veins as she cried out, a stirring whimper of pleasure and pain.
“Yes, Hunter! Yes!” she gasped, and though he knew he should probably insist on formalities, he allowed her the exception. He didn’t want to be Laird Lochlann right now, just Hunter.
Taking his time, ignoring the strain in his arms for it was a sweet pain to him too, he trailed his lips across to her other breast and drew her nipple into his mouth through the thin, wet fabric.
A softer suck, teasing. She responded with a moan that seemed to shiver through her, heightening his need until he wasn’t sure if he would be able to resist claiming her.
He kissed down the faint line of her abdomen, her stomach flat, becoming tauter as she settled back on her elbows like an invitation to continue. She was enjoying herself and certainly didn’t seem to be cold anymore.
As he kissed lower still, he lifted her legs over his shoulders and sank back down, taking a moment to kiss the soft inside of her thighs, building the anticipation until she was moaning before he’d even tasted her.
“Stop teasing,” she whispered, her breasts rising and falling with ragged breaths. “Please, Hunter…”
He smiled against her inner thigh as his hand slid under the damp edge of her shirt, his fingertips tingling as he mapped the swell of her hips, the smooth skin of her stomach, and up to her breast, urging her to lie back.
He had no intention of rushing, regardless of how she begged. He certainly wouldn’t stop teasing her just because she asked.
Turning his head, he savored the sweet, supple flesh of her other thigh, kissing slowly toward her heat. It radiated like a beacon, pulling against his stubbornness, urging him closer.
“Please, Hunter…” she begged, her hand covering his, as if to feel herself through his touch.
“One more time,” he replied, lightly pinching her nipple.
“Please…” Her back arched off the slick stone, her hips tilting to offer herself, perhaps knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist that sweet temptation.
Very well.
The first stroke of his tongue sent Nancy into a tailspin, her whole body already screaming for him, yearning for his touch, his kiss, more than she had ever yearned for anything.
She wasn’t sure she had yearned until he’d leaned over her in the ‘interrogation room’ and made her feel things she’d assumed were long-buried, forgotten beneath her career, her friendship, her pursuit of justice and journalism, her general dislike of the men who hit on her and existed in her sphere.
“Oh, fuck!” she cried out, completely unbothered that she was out in the open where anyone might hear her. Or see her, in fact.
Then again, anyone looking down from the gardens would’ve just seen her lying there on the edge of the pool in an oversized shirt. Maybe they’d assume she had a cramp in her leg or something.
She thought she felt the faint rumble of a chuckle between her thighs, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as he tasted her again.
The Laird of Clan Lochlann knew what he was doing, the pressure intense but not rough, measured strokes that seemed to connect all of the crackling pockets of electricity that he’d conjured within her until it was like bottled lightning in the very core of her being, ready to be unleashed.
“Yes, Hunter… yes, like that…” she moaned in ecstasy as his tongue circled her clit, corralling those sparks into a potent storm.
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had made her feel like this, so attuned to her body that it was as if he knew what she wanted before she did.
There was a good, and slightly depressing, chance that she’d never felt like this before, but that remained to be seen. They were only at the beginning.
Just then, his hand slipped between her legs, gently caressing the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs.
Her breath caught in her throat as she anticipated what was next…
and wasn’t disappointed, as his tongue glided through her slick folds, tasting her pulsing entrance for a moment, exploring her a little more intimately.
She bucked, her legs shaking, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she arched her back further, as if her body couldn’t take so much stimulation at once.
A moment later, his tongue found her swollen, eager clit again, tasting her in a long, lazy stroke while he slid his fingers inside her.
“Yes… Oh my God, yes!” she panted, writhing, her eyes closing as her body welcomed the sensation.
It wasn’t exactly what her body was screaming for, but she didn’t think that was a wise idea. This was… safer, though not by much. It would surely muddy the waters, but she didn’t want to think about that now, not when she was soaring toward the best orgasm of her life.
His fingers curled, seeking out the sensitive nerves within her while his tongue tended to those without, and as his fingers slid back and forth in a sort of slow, stroking thrust, she almost unraveled.
Laird Lochlann really knew what he was doing.
“Oh God… oh, yes… yes…” she urged through frantic breaths as his tongue and his touch conspired, firing off fresh bolts of electricity in perfect synchronicity that fizzed and thrummed in her veins and along her nerves, each rush threatening to smash that bottled lightning and send her hurtling toward the bliss of her climax.
He seemed to know it too, but he didn’t fall into the trap of changing anything he was doing. Instead, he just intensified it, rolling his tongue over her throbbing clit, adding pressure to each slow thrust of his fingers, stoking her up and up and up…
Pleasure hit her like a tornado, sweeping through her like nothing she’d ever felt, so powerful she couldn’t remember to breathe. Her hands clenched into tight fists as her back bowed off the body-warmed stone, her head pounding with the rush of ecstasy.
Her legs trembled violently, a choice expletive lodged in her throat, her lungs on fire, while every muscle in her body tensed as if to withstand the glorious flood of euphoria, to keep her anchored to reality instead of spinning her off toward perpetual paradise.
“Oh, Hunter,” she cried out as his tongue slowed ever so slightly, clearly knowing that her clit had just become hypersensitive.
Bliss coursed back and forth along her nerves, a blinding explosion of pleasure that she relished with every fiber of her being as she submitted to the feeling entirely.
She writhed and thrashed and moaned and called out Hunter’s name as the wave of it crested through her, wondering how she stood a chance of resisting him, resisting more, after this.
But the feeling began to ebb, the powerful storm of pleasure passing slowly, until all that remained was a warm sensation from head to toe, and the faint tingling pulse of residual bliss.
Her body relaxed back onto the stone edge of the pool, where she lay with a smile on her face and caught her breath, her hand draped over her heart, feeling its rapid beat.
A soft gasp slipped past her lips as Hunter withdrew his fingers and rolled his tongue one last time over her clit, savoring her, before he turned his head and kissed the inside of her thighs.
From there, he kissed upward, over the swell of her hips, along the flat of her stomach, rising out of the pool with every press of his lips.
She hadn’t forgotten his state of undress, and she thought about what she’d felt in the stairwell as he moved over her, kissing the curves and contours of her body.
Would it be such a terrible idea?
He seemed to answer the question for her as he suddenly twisted his body and ended up on the ledge, where he’d discarded his belted plaid. Before she could sneak a peek, he’d wrapped it around his waist, his skin glistening with rivulets of water that raced one another down his back and arms.
She doubted she’d ever seen a more breathtaking sight than him sitting there, broad-shouldered and powerful, haloed by the silvery moonlight.
“Your scars,” she said quietly, noticing them for the first time as she propped herself up on her elbows.
He didn’t turn but mustered a gruff laugh. “Aye, I have me fair share.”
They made jarring patterns across his back, faint slashes that went against the grain of his muscle.
A few more marked his arms, though there was a particularly nasty one on his waist, where it looked as if a sword must’ve gone right through him.
Indeed, if she were to see the front of him, Nancy was certain she’d find a matching scar.
I’m definitely not in New Jersey anymore.