Chapter 32
Hesitant footsteps in the hallway outside his chambers alerted him to her arrival. His bride’s arrival.
I kent ye’d come, lass.
As the night had worn on, Hunter had still wondered if she would disappear, traveling back to her world before he could stop her. Yet, something inside him had told him that she was still in the castle, still in his time, still choosing to remain for whatever might happen.
He walked quietly to the door and opened it, not giving her the chance to knock.
Nancy blinked up at him in surprise, her lips parting, though he was the one who felt the urge to gasp. He didn’t, but the feeling of awe lingered as his gaze roved over the beautiful, ethereal majesty of her.
She wore a gown of silver silk, delicately embroidered with subtle, swirling patterns that caught the low light, reminding him of the starlight at the top of Castle Culloch’s tallest tower. Her hair was loose, falling in lustrous waves past her shoulders.
It would have been perfect, if not for that strange pendant at her throat.
“We’ve done it now,” she said, her voice thick.
“Done what?” he asked, offering his hand.
She took it gingerly, allowing him to lead her into his chambers. “As I told you before, it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding day. Can’t help feeling that we probably should have erred on the side of caution, considering.”
“I daenae believe in all that.” He walked her to the windows, where hazy moonlight filtered in, adding a sort of aura to the silk of her gown. “I believe in meself and me sword, and in the fact that ye’ll come to me when I call for ye.”
He moved behind her, sweeping aside her tresses, lowering his head to press a light kiss to her bare shoulder.
“I almost didn’t,” she whispered, tilting her head to give him better access.
“Are ye afraid?” He kissed the sensitive spot at the nape of her neck.
“Of you?” She paused. “No. Of tomorrow, definitely.”
He smiled against her skin. “Lucky for ye, I keep me promises.” His hands smoothed down the hard lines of her stays and came to rest on her hips. “Let’s see if we cannae clear yer head of everythin’ but now. As if there isnae a tomorrow.”
“I… I’d like that,” she murmured as one of his hands slid down the side of her thigh, the other gliding across the front of her bodice and up toward her breasts.
It was all well and good, trying to tease and tempt her, telling himself that he would take it slow. But she was bewitching, intoxicating, and he didn’t know if his discipline would hold out.
He’d been imagining this since the moment he had leaned over her in the interrogation chamber.
He’d dreamed of it, tortured himself with it whenever he looked at her across the dining table, forced down glasses of whiskey to stop himself from thinking about it, and with tomorrow’s outcome uncertain, he knew he’d never feel more alive than he was about to.
Ye woke somethin’ in me that I didnae think I possessed, he wanted to tell her. Ye already made me feel alive again, when I feared I’d lost me soul on the battlefields.
He kissed along the curve of her neck, his heart pounding as he felt her tremble against him. Her hand reached back to map the hard lines of his muscled thighs, gripping his flesh as if to anchor herself.
“Och, lass,” he growled, pressing his loins against her, letting her feel the effect she had on him.
No woman had ever had such power over him before. He just needed to imagine kissing her, and his loins would ache. Right now, it wasn’t just an ache, but a torment that only sinking deep inside her would quell.
Sneakily, her hand moved toward his rock-hard length, running her palm along him through his plaid. A soft gasp escaped her throat, a sound of pleasant surprise.
“Make me forget tomorrow. Make me choose to stay,” she whispered.
That unraveled him.
In one swift motion, he turned her around and cupped her face, his mouth finding hers in an urgent kiss. She didn’t hesitate to respond, kissing him back with equal fervor, her arms looping around his neck as she pressed herself into him, like she couldn’t get close enough.
Pushing her against the window, his hands tore at her dress, peeling apart the bodice and pulling the sleeves down her slender arms. He was mostly careful not to damage it, but as their kiss deepened, their breaths ragged, their tongues dancing together, he needed her out of that dress as soon as possible.
Dispensing with a sea of petticoats, underskirts, overskirts, and a shift, she stood before him in nothing but her stays and those unusual undergarments that he’d so appreciated before.
He stepped back for a moment to admire her, a pleased smile curving his lips.
“It would have been easier if you’d told me to come in fewer clothes,” she said with a grin, her eyes gleaming with a hunger that fed his own.
“Easier, aye, but I wanted to see me bride,” he purred. He moved back toward her, leaning in to whisper close to her ear, “See all of me bride, bit by bit, until there’s nothin’ between us.”
With deft hands, he reached behind her, and as he dipped his head to kiss her again, savoring the eager graze of her mouth, he unfastened the knot at the base of her stays. Tugging on the laces until they were loose enough, he pulled the undergarment up and over her head.
Their kiss paused for no more than a few seconds, but as they came back together, fervent and fierce, it was as if they hadn’t kissed in weeks, needing more of one another.
As if to prove the point, Nancy’s hands went to the belt at his waist, unfastening it with ease. As the heavy plaid dropped to the floor, she grasped the hem of his shirt and lifted it over his head, before tossing it away.
Breathless, she put her hands on his chest as if to hold him back… and took a moment for her own private admiration.
“Are ye havin’ second thoughts?” he asked thickly.
If she said she was, it would surely kill him.
But she raised her gaze and shook her head with a smile. “Not in the slightest.”
With a sigh of relief, he pulled her back into his arms, her skin so soft and hot against his, and kissed her as if they were already married, as if they had an entire life ahead of them, filled with the sort of passion and magic that most people could only dream about.
Nancy clung to Hunter, savoring every second of his kiss, his embrace, the feel of his bare skin against hers.
It was almost overwhelming, emotion rising in her like a tide, for in his kiss, in the safety of his arms, she realized she had found something that hadn’t existed in a long time: home.
If there was no danger coming for him tomorrow, she knew now that there would be no question in her mind of whether she should stay or leave. This wasn’t something a person could easily give up, just as it wasn’t something a person could easily stand to lose.
It’s like I’ve always known you. The pendant at her throat tingled in something like agreement. It’s like I lost you before, somewhere along the way, and now I’ve found you again… and everything is right with the world.
She kissed him harder, struggling to remember to take a breath. And as he kissed her back in kind, his strong arms lifted her off the floor, and her legs instinctively wrapped around his hips.
His kiss never faltering, he carried her to the bed as if she weighed nothing at all, and carefully lay her down on soft blankets. There, she relished in the weight of him on top of her, and the teasing push of his cock, still held back from breaching her by the fabric of her panties.
“Oh God!” she gasped, her hips tilting to meet that delicious pressure.
With a smile, Hunter moved away from her lips, leaving a trail of searing kisses along her jaw and down the column of her throat. Slow and sensual, blissfully agonizing in its intensity.
A moment later, as he kissed his way down her chest, she held her breath when his mouth closed over her erect nipple. His tongue flicked against it, and her hands smoothed over the broad muscles of his back, her fingernails drawing faint tracks across his skin.
“Yes… Oh… oh, yes!” she moaned as he sucked, her fingernails sinking into his flesh, her pleasure heightened by the low growl that rumbled in his chest.
Slowly, he continued downward, leaving no inch of skin unkissed or untasted. As he kissed over the swell of her hip and down her thigh, she was already on the edge of exploding.
He hooked his thumbs under the band of her panties and eased them down, taking his sweet time to kiss his way back up the length of her legs, making her wait.
It didn’t matter how much she moaned or writhed. He was the one in control, raising the anticipation to unknown heights, until she was about ready to beg for more of him.
So, when he slid his tongue over her clit, it was as if an entire fireworks display had detonated at once, her body ablaze with a rush of pure ecstasy. Not an orgasm yet, but the promise of the most earth-shattering bliss to come, more intense than anything she’d yet experienced.
“Fuck… yes… God, yes!” she cried out as his tongue tasted her again, his fingertips sliding through her slick folds.
With the next stroke of his tongue, he slid two fingers inside her, taunting her as she thought of his long, hard cock, so thick she was a little concerned that she might struggle to take all of him.
Maybe it was the thought of him inside her, maybe it was the skillful caress of his tongue, maybe it was the talented pulse of his fingers that knew exactly where to touch, but at that moment, the rising wave of explosive bliss broke, cresting through her in a torrent so powerful that all she could do was grasp fistfuls of the blankets and cry out his name.
“Yes, Hunter… Oh… Oh, yes!” she all but screamed, her entire body seized by pleasure, her lungs forgetting to breathe, her heart pounding so hard that she could feel it in every cell of her being.