Chapter Twenty-Four #3
“Aye, I would, if it meant returning to the family coffers what must be paid for the loss of the cargo. But it willna matter, Lottie. Nothing will matter.”
“Why no’?”
He stroked her hair. “Because if you are gone, I truly will have lost everything that matters.” He lowered his head to kiss her before Lottie could speak.
She wanted to argue, but something exploded in her chest when his lips touched hers.
She realized she desperately needed to be held by him, to be touched, and filled.
She needed to feel desired and wanted. She needed to feel his strength surround her and buoy her before she faced her punishment, and she responded with ferocity to that kiss that startled even her.
Aulay picked her up and twirled her around, pushing her up against one of the four posters of the bed. He smelled spicy and woodsy, his body hard planes and firm angles beneath her roaming hands, his scent of sea and woods. He was an elixir of lust.
He dug his fingers into the meat of her hips as he tangled his tongue with hers.
It seemed as if a fire had flared beneath them and the flames were licking them from all sides.
Aulay yanked the hem of her petticoat up and slid his hand between her legs.
Lottie groaned with pleasure and grabbed his head between her hands to stop the kiss so that she might lean her head against the post and give in to the erotic sensation of his hand on her flesh.
Aulay picked her up with one arm around her waist and moved her to the bed. He fell with her onto its top and began to move over her body, his hands trailing his mouth.
Wildly pleasurable sensations glittered and spun through her veins. Lottie welcomed the weight of his body on hers, every stroke of his hands, every touch of his mouth.
He suddenly pushed up. “Take it off,” he said breathlessly as he quickly began to disrobe himself.
Lottie slid off the bed and undid the laces of her gown.
Aulay’s frantic motions slowed, and he fell back against the bedpost, watching her intently, his gaze following her every movement, tracing over every bit of her bare skin as she revealed it to him.
When she had removed everything and stood before him completely nude, Aulay held out his hand to her.
It seemed so civilized after the heathen side of them had been writhing on that bed.
But she slipped her hand into his and met his warm, dark gaze as he pulled her to the bed.
He buried his face between her breasts, took one in his mouth, then stood up and dropped his plaid.
He was the most magnificent specimen of a man Lottie could possibly imagine, and she was savagely aroused.
He reached for her, his fingers gliding over her skin, burying his face in her neck as he slid one arm behind her back and lifted her up so that he could move between her thighs.
Lottie raked her fingers down his back to his hips, sinking her fingers into his flesh as he slid into her.
She groaned like a wild animal as he began to move in her, then was quickly panting with the pleasure that was mounting in her.
He kept his gaze locked on hers, his eyes the color of a blue-green flame, wild and intense and filled with molten desire.
His need sizzled through the tips of his fingers and his mouth on her skin; she could feel his gaze burn a path across her body, could feel the connection between them growing tauter. The climax they shared was as powerful as it was profound, both of them crying out with it.
This was what love was supposed to be. This was the way love was supposed to feel. And as Aulay collapsed beside her, she stroked his hair and said, “Tha gaol agam ort, Aulay. I love you, I do.”
He gathered her in his arms, hugged her tightly to him, and whispered into her hair, “And I love you, Lottie Livingstone.”
His admission spiraled down and around her heart and left Lottie breathless. She kissed his face, his ear, his lips. It had all been worth it, it had, to hear him say those words to her. No matter what else, those few words, his esteem, this look in his eye, had made it all worth it.
But as the heat began to ebb from their bodies, her euphoria began to ebb, too. Something about this extraordinary afternoon began to feel final. It was as if the promise of what could have been between them had sunk off the coast of Scotland, and this afternoon was the last bit of it to sink.
Aulay must have been thinking the same. He traced a circle around her bare breast and said, “I want you to escape.”
She surely hadn’t heard him correctly. “Pardon?”
“I canna save you, lass, no’ this time. God knows I would if I could, but there are too many others affected, too many who have lost as much or more than I.” He put his finger under her chin and turned her head to his. “It is out of my hands, aye? You must run. You must.”
She sat up and stared down at him in disbelief. “I’m no coward, Aulay Mackenzie! I’ll no’ run!”
He had the audacity to smile at her declaration.
“Aye, lass, I know better than anyone that you are no coward.” He took her face between his hands.
“You owe me at least this, Lottie, aye? I’ve tried to despise you, God knows that I have, but I canna do it.
I canna fault you any longer. It’s madness, but I can only admire you and love you, and hopefully send you to safety. You owe me this.”
“You donna think clearly!” she cried. “We canna escape—every Mackenzie of Balhaire knows who we are and from where we hail. What do you think, we’ll get on another ship and sail back to Denmark? No! We’ll return to Lismore and sooner or later, they’ll come for us, they will.”
“Lottie, heed me—”
She pushed his hand away. “No.” She couldn’t run.
She’d done something awful and now she would stand up to what she did, especially knowing that running would only delay the inevitable and make it worse for all of her clan.
She could see the pain in Aulay’s eyes, could feel his despair.
She pushed him onto his back and straddled him, then leaned over him, her hair falling around them and curtaining off the world.
“No more talk. We’ve no’ much time, aye? ”
He put his hands on her breasts. “Diah, woman, do you ever abide what a man tells you to do, then?”
“That depends on what he bids me do,” she said saucily, and silenced him with a kiss.