Chapter 16 #2
‘How did my lips feel?’ Jed growled, sliding further forward until she could feel the hard press of his knees.
He was still wearing his trousers, but hers were bare and suddenly she wished she could feel his skin.
The pink nighty had slid further up her thighs when she sat, and she could see goosebumps rising on her flesh and wondered if Jed had the same.
‘How did they feel, Mairi?’ he repeated, his voice deeper – like dark chocolate topped with whipped cream.
All that pleasure and indulgence, just waiting for her to take a bite.
She closed her eyes. What did he want to hear? ‘I… I can’t remember,’ she whispered. She cleared her throat. ‘Do you want to remind me?’
When she opened them again, Jed was staring at her and she couldn’t read his expression. He was either going to run again or stay and kiss her, but at this moment she wasn’t sure which way he’d go. Wind battered the windows as the storm raged, but neither of them reacted.
‘That wouldn’t be a good idea,’ he said hoarsely, and he began to shift away, clearly intent on ending the conversation. She grabbed his wrist and held on, trying to tug him back to where he’d been. Physically and emotionally. She couldn’t bear for him to retreat. Not again.
‘What if it was?’ she whispered, wondering where all this bravery had come from.
It was either being back at the lodge in the warm embrace of Jed’s aunt and the guests, the swigs of whisky or perhaps just the frustration of waiting for him for so long.
Now she’d seen a glimpse of his true feelings – of his confusion – she wasn’t ready to forget about it. ‘Don’t you want to know?’
She stared into his eyes, let her gaze drop to his mouth. It was full and proud and so beautiful people often commented on it on his social media pages. Jed looked embarrassed but didn’t try to pull away again.
‘Know what?’ he asked, after a few beats of silence, his arm still tense under hers.
‘If it’s the same.’ She swallowed, shifting further forward. ‘The chemistry,’ she added feeling tingles of heat shoot through her limbs.
He ground his jaw, and she could tell he was tempted. ‘I…’
She didn’t wait. She was fed up with waiting for Jed Murray to do the right thing. To see her in the hospital, to come looking for her when she’d fled to Edinburgh, to tell Quinn and his aunt Effie they were married. Or to simply show her that he needed her in his life.
If she wanted something, then Mairi knew it was past time she reached out and grabbed it, stopped sitting idly by waiting for Jed to come to her. She’d been doing that for too many months already. Maybe – aside from her trip to Las Vegas – she’d been doing it her whole life?
So Mairi slid her hands upwards until they cupped Jed’s jaw. Felt his sharp peppery intake of breath. Then shifted forward until her knees were inside his. It was a chaste position, until she bumped each of her legs outwards against the inside of his thighs.
Jed looked down and she heard him sigh – a deep, soulful sound that told of wavering resolve and hesitation.
Before he could move again or decide this wasn’t a good idea, her mouth was on his.
Her kiss was tentative at first – a soft slide that had her insides trembling because she didn’t want to get this wrong.
She’d been waiting eleven long months to touch him again and she didn’t want to mess this up.
He remained frozen. Didn’t react as Mairi dabbed slow kisses across his mouth. Relishing the slow slide of her tongue as it drifted across his skin, as she reminded herself of how he tasted: of outdoors and the heady rush of excitement, of limitless potential and the unknown.
She could feel her pulse hammering – from a combination of anticipation and fear. But underneath that a storm was brewing – beginning between her legs and lapping outwards, drenching her with need.
She moved her hands, letting herself explore.
It had been too long since she’d touched him, but she’d dreamed about it.
Traced every angle of his body in her dreams. There was the familiar rounded strength of his biceps, the tense muscles in his forearms with the light dusting of hair she’d teased with her fingertips in the dark.
Mairi didn’t open her eyes. She wanted to remain in her own world, sealed off from doubts or worries that Jed was going to pull back again.
She could feel the tautness in his arms, knew without looking that he was clenching and unclenching his hands as she explored.
But he didn’t pull away, didn’t try to stop her. Perhaps he couldn’t fight this either?
Jed had always taken the lead in the bedroom in the past and Mairi had let him.
But now she gloried in the control she suddenly had, in the power flooding through her.
This was everything she’d been working towards.
Jed’s body was shuddering as she massaged her hands back up to his shoulders and then dropped them again so she was tracing his torso.
As she did, his lips finally began to move – as if he couldn’t hold back anymore.
Suddenly it wasn’t just her kissing him, he was kissing her too, deepening the bond, his hands cupping her face as he tipped her head so he could take the kiss to a new – more sensual – level.
And suddenly she wasn’t close enough. She wanted to slide inside him. She stood, without breaking the connection and on impulse climbed onto his lap straddling his thighs so they were still facing, so she could feel the warm heat of him between her legs.
She heard him groan, gave him an answering one of her own. His hands dropped from her jawline, and he began to explore her collarbone, gently stroking her skin before pushing the cardigan from her arms and tugging it off.
She should have been cold, the storm was still raging and the fire in the grate beside them had gone out, but she was so hot she felt like she might explode.
She shifted and writhed in his lap, heat burning at her core.
All she wanted was to get closer to Jed, for him to do the same.
They hadn’t been together like this for so long, it was all she could think about.
His mouth, his heat, the raw taste of him – making him hers again.
And it was clear that Jed felt the same powerful pull because he was dragging her closer, wrapping his arms around her as their kiss grew more frenzied.
He pressed his hands into her hips and began to push the nightdress up and she freed her arms so she could tug at his jumper, suddenly determined to rip it off.
That was when she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat and they both shot backwards, lips and bodies tingling as they stared at each other with wild eyes.
‘Well,’ Greer said, sounding shocked as Bear and Midnight both woke and began to growl.
‘When I came down to see if I could make some hot chocolate in the kitchen, I wasn’t expecting to walk into a…
’ She puffed out a short breath that told of shock and disgust. ‘An orgy. I’m really not sure what to make of it. ’
Mairi immediately hopped off Jed’s lap and began to adjust her nightdress. Her lips were burning and her core was throbbing. She grabbed the cardigan from the floor and tugged it on, pulling it tight around her body as her cheeks flamed.
‘We were—’ She gulped as her brain scrambled for an explanation and came up with nothing.
‘Why don’t I make you that hot drink?’ Jed asked quietly, and when Mairi looked up, he was facing the older woman, his expression blank. ‘I think Mairi was just about to go to bed.’ He glanced at her, making her insides churn. ‘Alone.’
How did he do it, go from all that passion to nothing?
‘Sounds like an excellent idea. Perhaps you should have a cold shower before you do, dear,’ Greer said with feeling, before she pulled a notepad from her dressing-gown pocket and wandered out of the sitting room in the direction of the kitchen.
‘I’m assuming you’re coming, lad?’ she shouted after another beat.
Jed glanced at Mairi, his forehead creasing. ‘I don’t know what just happened,’ he said, his voice gravelly. ‘But I think we might have just made a mistake.’
With that, he turned and followed Greer into the hallway, leaving Mairi wondering what had gone wrong.
Would Greer use this situation to damage Holly Berry Lodge? And was the kiss with Jed the start of something, or the beginning of the end…