Chapter 26
Rose stood in the study for a moment longer before Dominik insisted to Fiona and the servants that they needed a moment of privacy in their chambers.
She was hardly aware of moving through the halls, of stepping along the familiar stonework, and climbing the winding stairs to the second floor.
She could scarcely notice that they found Dominik’s bedchambers and stepped inside, her husband bolting the door behind them.
What she was acutely aware of was the fact that the English officials were gone, and they had very nearly taken her husband from her.
She stared wide-eyed at the floor as Dominik guided her to a chair. He had a similar small table in his room, a similar hearth, if much bigger than her own, and a similar bed, if also much larger and with a canopy and four posts.
“Are ye all right, lass?” Dominik’s voice shook her out of her jumbled thoughts.
“Yes, thank you. I am fine. I…They had brought a document of promise. They were intent on taking me—”
“Aye, lass, they were. But they dinnae get the chance. Yer keen eye picked out the issues with the document. Ye…Ye were a sight, Rose. I’ve seen supposedly bolder men crumble under the pressure of like situations.”
Rose looked properly at her husband for the first time since they entered the room.
They were inside Dominik’s bed chambers.
This was the first time she’d seen them, and her heart hammered against her ribcage.
His brow was furrowed as he stared down at her, standing right at her feet as he held her hand.
Those green, green eyes, flaring brighter than the leaves after a rainstorm.
“Kiss me.” She didn’t blink, holding Dominik’s stare as she squeezed his fingers. “Claim me. I…I need to feel you. Here and now.”
He looked at her with shock painted over his expression, but it melted away in moments. A face of almost relief, overwhelmed by the presence of desire and so much stronger than the caution and care they had been taking up until this point, met her then, and Rose stood from the chair.
They had been playful before. They had been acting on duty before. But now, as Rose thrust herself into Dominik’s arms, and he yanked her against him tight, it was none of those things. It was passion, raw desire, and the desperate need to know that the other person was not gone.
For they had very nearly lost one another, and Rose knew more than ever how much that would have crushed her.
Dominik kissed her with a frenzy, a claiming motion that took all she was as he spun them around and practically leaped onto the bed with her. Rose wanted that, needed it, her entire body humming with urgency and demand. Without thinking, she reached for his shirt, untying the laces at his throat.
Rose wasn’t sure when he had taken off his outer layer. Dominik only wore his shirt and kilt now, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care that this was so different or that she had initiated it. She didn’t care that the calm propriety of a marriage couple’s intercourse was not taking place right now.
All she cared about was feeling Dominik, touching her, claiming her, within her. In every way, she simply longed to be united with him and enjoy that moment for as long as the stars would let them.
With the laces to his shirt undone, Dominik leaned back, kneeling with his legs between her on the bed.
He hoisted his shirt over his head, throwing it behind him.
Rose marveled at the chiseled muscles of his frame, littered with the scars of battle and a life of hard work.
She dragged her fingers down his chest, moving through the soft curls of hair.
“Ye remain far too dressed, lass.”
Dominik pulled away her shawl, flinging it somewhere, and then moved quickly through the motions of ridding her of anything that might stand between them. In an impressive flash, her husband had her down to her shift, leaving her stays and outer skirt somewhere she didn’t know.
In the only moment of slowness, Dominik reached for the bottom of her shift, crawling his fingers up the sides of her legs as he gathered the fabric.
It bunched at her hips and then her ribs until her husband was pulling the long, thin garment over her head.
Rose lay then utterly naked before him, and she felt the heat funnel into her cheeks and core.
“Heavens, Rose, ye are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on.”
She grinned, pulling Dominik down to her so that she could kiss him, relishing in the way he groaned against her lips.
With her eyes closed, Rose could feel Dominik reaching for the top of his kilt, fingers moving deftly as he unfastened the thing and let it tumble to the floor with the rest of their clothes.
He was before her now as naked as she was, and the sight of him so bare and proud made her pulse flutter in her neck, the need for him reaching epic, dizzying heights.
Dominik grinned at her, that roguish smirk of his, and then he took her breast in his grip, squeezing gently as he brought his mouth down to her nipple.
“Och, lass,” he murmured against the pert bud, “I should never tire of the sight of ye, or the taste.”
His tongue danced around her skin, making her nipple ache for how erect it was.
His manhood smoothed against her thigh as he pressed into her, and Rose tangled her fingers in his dark hair.
Arching against him as he lavished her other breast with the same attention, Rose found herself brave, reaching between them to take him in her grip.
“Rose,” Dominik grunted, his eyes squeezed tight with his brows down over them, “och, lass, ye’ll be the death of me.”
Giving into dark instincts she didn’t know she had, Rose stroked him, feeling the velvety skin moving beneath her palm. It felt powerful and wild to be taking hold of him like this, and the look of painful joy on his face was perhaps the most perfect sight she had seen in her life.
Coming up higher on his knees, Dominik dragged his hand down from her breast, letting her nipple pop out from under his thumb in an exaggerated motion. His fingers wormed down her stomach until they reached her mound, slipping down between her thighs and touching her as he had before.
They both moaned low, moving with each other as they took this moment to enjoy the touch and feel of the other as if their lives might depend on it.
Dominik knew precisely how to wind her up like a top about to release, and she held him so tightly, her up and down movements growing frantic and quick.
“I will feel ye like this, lass. I will feel that squeeze of ye before I sink myself deep within yer clutch.”
“Dominik!” Rose arched against him, unable to keep her hold of his length for the sensations barreling through her.
In moments, she was right up to that invisible edge, soaring over it as her husband’s touch ignited her nerves. It was quick and sharp, and seconds after its finish, Dominik kissed her, holding her arms to either side of her head as he positioned his steel at her entrance.
Was it even possible to take him after that?
She was already humming beneath her skin, that sensitive part of her feeling so exposed and tingly.
But in truth, she wanted more of him. That touch had been incredible, but it was not enough.
Rose needed to feel the warmth of her husband within her, driving home the claim he’d staked so furiously on her heart.
Dominik’s hand swept over the side of her face, his other still holding her wrists as her arms sat above her head. His thumb moved back and forth, his lips coming down on hers, and then he sheathed himself inside her up to the hilt.
Rose stretched around him, but it was easier this time.
Her body took his in stride, almost as if they were made for each other.
The intensity was still there, but she didn’t feel nearly as much of the burn as she had that first time.
It was a blessing, truly, and Rose chewed on her lip when Dominik drew back, his eyes closing as he pressed as deep as he could, holding it there for a moment.
They were one like this, and she could see reflected in her husband’s expression the feeling of euphoria that consumed her.
Utterly together like this, with the pressure of need so firm in her womb, Rose marveled at the pleasure Dominik could bring her.
And in fact, she knew that she was delivering that same bliss to him.
Heart soaring to the clouds, Rose circled her hips, making Dominik’s length brush against every nerve of her inner space, adding increasing fuel to the fire that burned within her once more.
It appeared that not only could Rose find that release again, but it would be all the more potent for having done it once already.
“Sweet lass,” Dominik whispered, swinging his head forward to meet her eyes with his, dark and consuming. “Ye must be an angel for I have found a taste of the divine here with ye.”
Rose’s cheeks blushed furiously, heat swelling underneath her exposed skin. She kept rocking her hips, looking for more sensation, more of Dominik, more, more, more.
Groaning low, her husband planted a hand near her hip, still gripping her wrists tightly with the other.
As he did, Dominik began to retreat, sliding himself from her.
Just as he reached his tip, he thrust back intense and purposefully.
Rose cried out for pleasure, her eyes rolling closed as she sought to mirror Dominik’s pace.
For every move, every touch and welcome intrusion, every caress or kiss or comfort Dominik bestowed on her, Rose felt her soul crack open. The exquisite pleasure was so much, her everything in the moment, and she never wished to be parted from Dominik as the officials had threatened.
That thought struck her as she looked up into her magnificent husband’s green eyes, that dazzling color that put emerald and lush landscapes to shame.
Rose would not be parted from Dominik if she had any say in the matter, and that was just the thing.
This false claim of an arrangement with Ambrose had nearly torn them apart.
In fact, it still could. The officials needed to believe her testimony. They just had to.
Need surged through her, Rose’s legs wrapping around Dominik’s hips.
Closer, so much closer. She needed him in every way, every cell and fiber of her being.
After all these days and nights together, after everything that they had been through, Dominik held ownership over her heart.
She had fallen in love with him, and there was no denying it now.
It had begun with desire and a desperation for connection, but as Dominik slid his length in and out of her, taking her body to new heights, it had become making love.
“Dominik…” she whimpered, unsure what she was pleading for.
“Me bonny Rose.” He grunted as he shoved in, Rose instinctively squeezing her legs as he did so that they remained so furiously intertwined as his rhythm increased. “Och, bloody hell, lass. Nae a thing on this earth could feel as marvelous as ye do.”
“I need it, Dominik. I need that release. I need it from you. Please.”
Her words were breathy and punctuated by the jostling that bounced her on the bed, Dominik’s stroke was powerful and reaching to the very core of her. And her husband responded. He listened, he gave as much as he took, and the world dropped away.
Nothing mattered but the moment, the feelings, and the pleasure the pair magicked up together.
So much was waiting for them beyond the locked door to Dominik’s chamber, but it would be there come morning.
This, this right here between the two of them, was sacred, and they would live in the joy for as long as they could.
Dominik’s steely length swelled inside her, that thickening she’d felt previously.
He surged against her walls, his thrust hard and quick and pointed.
Rose’s nerves went wild, flaring like shooting stars as the sensations reached the heavens.
She tumbled into the black between the constellations, pleasure making her flutter as she grew ever slicker.
Together as one, they raced off toward the climax, flung into the next world by the sheer power of their release. As it crescendoed, Dominik pulled her arms around his neck, shoving a hand under her back and getting her up so that she sat in his lap, his erection spearing into her all the more.
“Ahh!” she cried out, her head tossed back.
Dominik growled in her ear, nibbling at the soft skin just beneath it.
He rocked his hips upward, a final jerk of movement as warmth gushed into her.
He had delivered precisely what she’d asked of him, his release, his seed delivered deep into her, where the heat of their connection tunneled into her heart.
She loved this man, and that truth took up the gaps between her cells. Dominik was her husband through circumstance and desperation, but he had become her lover, her confidant, through hours of connection and conversation. Rose would keep that bond locked tightly in her heart for all her days.
No matter how fate challenged them going forward, she would nurture this truth.