Chapter Eight
Violet awoke in heaven. A soft mattress cradled her body. Warmth cocooned her. A sense of well-being sang in her heart. It had been so long since she’d felt something so wonderful, she almost didn’t recognize it.
It took a minute to center herself, to remember who and where she was.
Memories of the previous night flooded her and with it came a scorching heat. It crawled up her neck in a prickling tide.
Oh. Had she done that?
Had she splayed herself on the carpet before Ewan’s fire and begged him to take her?
She had.
And heavens, it had been marvelous.
She should probably feel the thorns of shame stabbing at her conscience, but she did not. For years she’d dreamed of that boy, that kiss.
If she would give herself to a man, she couldn’t imagine a better choice. And after her experience with Craig, after the horror of nearly having her innocence ripped from her—by a man who revolted her—she could feel no regrets at giving it to Ewan.
She nestled back against him and he tightened his embrace, mumbling something in his sleep. Her bottom nudged the crux of his thighs, the thick wedge rising there. Desire—and a touch of mischief—flickered through her. She undulated her hips, just a bit, and the wedge twitched.
A sense of power, elation danced in her veins.
He wanted her.
Even in his sleep, he wanted her.
Gently, she turned in his arms and laid her head on the pillow so she could gaze at his handsome face.
She loved every line. Yes, he was sometimes surly and often mulish.
He could bellow and yell and glower like the dickens.
And he was a brigand. He’d locked her in the dungeon and treated her like a servant.
She didn’t care.
But she should care.
One day this would all be over. Kaitlin would relent and return, or Ned and Malcolm, or Edward, would find her. One day she would return to her family.
They would pressure her to wed. Some prancing lord.
A man like Ewan was not in her future. He couldn’t be.
Unless she walked away from her family—and she simply could not—she would, at some point, have to say goodbye to him. To this.
Her heart ached at the thought but she couldn’t see any way it could be different. The world was what it was. Ladies of the haute ton did not wed Scottish criminals.
He snuffled and grumbled. His brow lowered in his sleep like a petulant boy’s. Her heart skittered, melted. Unable to resist, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his bristly chin. Then laved him. Made her way along the underside of his jaw to his neck.
The skin there was fragrant, infused with his scent, his essence.
When he had nested in the crook of her neck last night, she’d been stunned by the pleasure his working lips evoked. She’d never known those spots to be so sensitive. She wondered if he would feel the same wonderment, the same bliss if she nuzzled him there—
He stiffened. Sucked in a great breath and let it out in a groan.
Violet smiled to herself and doubled her efforts. He did like it.
And he was awake.
She let her hand drift over his chest, playing with the line of his scar, making her way to his nipple. She scraped it with a nail. He flinched but didn’t pull away. So she did it again.
“Violet.” A harsh rasp.
She ignored him, let her kisses trail down over the wiry hairs on his chest. And she captured the nipple with her lips. And sucked. His muscles locked. Every fiber of his being hummed. A groan wrenched from his throat.
Oh. She liked this. She enjoyed plying him with pleasure. Teasing his passion.
He did not allow her to tease him for long.
When her questing touch drifted to that fascinating spike, when she fisted his length and stroked, marveling at how it could be hard and oh so soft at the same time, he caught her wrist in a gentle cuff.
“Darling,” he murmured. “Much more of that will unman me.”
She laughed up into his eyes. “I’d like to unman you.”
“I’m sure you would. However...” He tipped her onto her back and levered over her, wedging himself between her thighs. He raised up onto his knees, spreading her legs farther. “I have a need for my spear and would prefer it unbroken.”
She hissed in a breath as he entered her. As delicious as it had been last night, this morning it was better. Last night there had been a sting before the pleasure. Now there was only delight.
He went slowly, filling her with an unrelenting advance, then he eased out, leaving a void. She tried to be patient, really she did. But when he didn’t fill her again as quickly as she would have liked, she planted her feet on the bed and thrust up at him.
He chuckled. “Greedy girl.”
“I am,” she said on a sigh. “I am greedy.”
He gave her what she wanted, hard and deep.
He nudged at some arcane magic deep within her, a place that made her nerve endings explode, made her shatter into a thousand glittering fragments.
And then he did it again. And again, making her mindless, thoughtless, helpless.
Lost to anything and everything but the exhilaration pounding in her blood.
He captured a nipple with his lips, as he had the night before. And sucked. Shards of agony, an exquisite twinge, shot through her.
“Yes, oh yes.” She held his head just so, commanding him. When he tried to move away, to find the other breast, she tightened her fingers.
His murmur rumbled through her and she realized she’d been clutching at him below as well, in a mad attempt to hold him in, in her, forever.
She forced her muscles to release and was rewarded by another magnificent thrust and another.
And then she stopped counting. His movements became quicker, harder.
He pounded into her in fast, frantic thrusts, creating ripple upon ripple of pleasure in her womb.
They expanded, like ripples in a pond, to engulf her.
He stared down at her as he moved, his lips slightly parted, his eyes glazed.
Wonderment scored every line of his face.
As he neared his crisis, as the vein in his neck became pronounced, and his face turned red as he forgot to breathe, and a sheen of sweat arose on his skin, she clutched him again. This time deliberately. Timed her internal flutters in concert with his maddened plunges.
His nostrils flared. Words, garbled, incomprehensible mutterings, spilled from his lips.
His muscles tightened. He battered her with a series of excruciatingly perfect lunges. One. Then another. And yet another. Each one wild enough, raw enough, fierce enough to send her tumbling over the edge as well.
He collapsed on top of her, gasping, covering her with a dizzying weight. His body possessed her. His scent surrounded her. His essence infused her.
She hated when he rolled away, though he took her with him, positioning her on the hard pillow of his chest.
He captured her head and tugged it down to his. Sealed her mouth with a long, wet kiss. By the time it was over, she was giddy. And her arousal was stirring again.
“Ah, Violet.” His lips moved to her temple. “That was wonderful.”
Contentment coiled through her. Satisfaction that she, in her innocence, had been able to please him.
He’d been someone special to her, her whole life.
And now she was special to him.
He thumbed her bruise. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
She smiled. Yes, her jaw still ached but the rest of her body ached more and overrode the pain. And the ache of her body was a pleasant one. “No, Ewan.”
He blew out a laugh. “Because I canna seem to control myself when I’m with you.”
“I don’t mind.” She pressed a kiss on his scratchy beard, right on the spot that had started all this.
He drew her into his arms and cradled her. She nestled her nose in the crook of his neck and drew in his scent. It filled her. Delighted her.
“Doona moan like that or I’ll be hard and ready again.”
“Was I moaning?”
“You were.” He kissed her brow. “I could stay like this all day.”
“Me too.” She cuddled closer. She could have. All day. Forever.
But a scratch at the door intruded on the welling peace.
Ewan growled low in his throat, muttering a curse she didn’t think she’d ever heard before.
He set her gently to the side and wrapped a blanket around his lean hips.
She watched him storm to the door, enjoying the sight of his broad, naked back with all those undulating muscles. The scars now had a new meaning.
He’d earned them—some of them at any rate—for her.
He opened the door a crack and snapped, “What is it?”
Violet didn’t hear the murmured response but she recognized Pip’s voice. Whatever the boy said annoyed Ewan. He grunted and slammed the door. He dropped the blanket and started hunting about for his braes. “Colin’s here,” he said.
She sat up, not bothering to cover herself. Why should she? He’d seen it all, tasted it all, by now. “Who’s Colin?”
“My lieutenant. My second-in-command. I have to meet with him.” He pulled on his shirt and turned toward the bed as he worked the buttons.
He glanced up and his gaze stalled on her breasts.
His fingers froze. His throat worked. He tipped his head to the side and shot her a boyish grin. “You do tempt a man, Violet Wyeth.”
Heat scudded through her. A blush crept up her cheeks.
Not because she was shy but because the look he sent her lit a fire in her belly.
She slipped from the bed and made her way to the window, made it a point to swish her hips as she walked.
She put her hands over her head and stretched, making sure the view he got was alluring.
“Far be it from me to keep you from work.” She shot a mischievous grin over her shoulder.
He reversed his motion and yanked the shirt off.
“To hell with work,” he muttered. “Colin can wait.”
Colin Blackthorne was waiting, albeit impatiently, in his office when Ewan finally emerged from his solar. But then Colin had never been a patient man.