Chapter 21 #2
She stepped nearer and leaned her body close to his, pressing her bare stomach against his hardness. She felt the bonds of his restraint break as if a physical thing.
“Christ, I warned you….” he growled.
Before Ella could even draw her next breath she found herself atop the pile of discarded clothing, cradled in Ceann’s arms as he kissed her with such intensity and need that for a moment she could not breathe.
But as he moved to kiss her neck, her jaw, her ear, her desire grew to rival his own.
When he took her breast into his mouth, sucking hungrily, she sobbed and twined her fingers in his hair.
She had waited so long for this moment. She writhed against him, trying to press closer, to feel every inch of his warm naked skin against hers.
God, she was in heaven. His hands were everywhere at once, his lips hot on her flesh, on her mouth, overwhelming her until she arched her hips against him in a silent demand.
Then she felt him shift, felt the tip of him press against her opening.
There would be no return from this moment.
Her head fell back and she waited, looking up to see the moon above them, its pale light reflecting softly off of Ceann’s face as he looked down at her face.
She knew there would be pain, the first time, but she didn’t care.
She would endure any amount of pain to have Ceann this close to her.
To have him at all. The moment seemed to hang suspended in time between them, waiting… waiting… for everything to change.
Ceann couldn’t stand it any longer, he had to be inside her, now, or he would certainly die of it.
He had given her the opportunity to stop him, even knowing that she wouldn’t have been able to, not now, not anymore.
It had gone too far. He could no more keep himself from taking her than he could refuse his next breath.
He held himself there, every muscle tense, trembling, fighting to hold back.
When she looked into his eyes and lifted her hips against his, his control finally shattered.
“I’m sorry… I can’t wait…”
He moaned low and harsh and thrust into her, hard.
The pleasure that he felt as her body yielded to him was so intense that it was almost unbearable, but then an awareness slowly penetrated his lust-crazed mind.
Her body had clenched briefly with pain.
He had felt something break… He looked down at her, incredulous.
He was the first; she had been a virgin, after all.
Bloody, bloody, bloody hell! God, what had he done?
But he was lost now, it felt too good. His body was not going to listen to his protests any longer.
Heaven. He had to move… had to. Christ, I can’t control it. I don’t want to.
“I’m sorry”, he mumbled against her hair, and thrust deeper.
“No, not sorry…” she told him. But he was already in the grip of passion again, frenzied, thrusting hard and fast, even as her hips rose to meet him.
There was pain, yes, but the pain was overwhelmed by all of the other sensations coursing through her body.
The weight of him covering her, the musky smell of his skin and sweat, the friction of his hard body against hers, the incredible fullness of him stretching her where they were joined.
She writhed against him, her breath coming in little gasps and sighs.
Nothing else on earth could bring such perfect ecstasy as this…
she felt… completed; whole like she had never felt before, as if there had always been a piece missing and she hadn’t even known it was gone until now.
When he rose up on his hands and threw his head back with a soul-searing groan, she could feel the firmly leashed power of his muscles flexing against her.
Then his whole body tensed. She held onto him tightly until he began to shudder.
At last he made a sound like a soft sob and collapsed onto her, his face buried in her neck.
After a long moment, he gathered her in his arms and rolled to the side so she wouldn’t be crushed.
His hands caressed her body, and he kissed her tenderly, slowly.
Then he dropped his forehead to hers and gave a sigh of utter defeat.
“You didn’t tell me. You should have told me”, he said.
“Should have told you what?” She leaned closer to place a gentle kiss on his lips.
“That you were still a maid. I didn’t know. I… I wasn’t gentle. I would have been gentle.” He could not say for sure whether that was the truth.
“I didn’t want gentle. There’s time for gentle later. It was perfect, Ceann, amazing.” Her hands slid over his body, reveling in the feel of him that he had denied her for so long.
Ceann closed his eyes. Her touch on his skin was pure bliss, yet he was more deeply troubled than he had ever been.
He should not have taken her innocence, not when he couldn’t even offer her marriage.
No, wouldn’t. And yet, he had just had the most earth-shattering experience of his life.
The pleasure had been so great, and not just the pleasure of his body, but deeper still.
Devastating pleasure, that had reached his very soul, he was sure of it.
He had been with many women, but nothing had ever come close to this, he had never come so hard, never wanted to stay in a woman’s arms forever, afterward.
Never been so completely out of control.
The intensity of what he had felt was almost frightening, and yet he wanted nothing more than to feel it again.
And to run from it before it could consume him.
Her hands were still roaming over his body, touching, caressing.
Then she lowered her lips to kiss the warm skin of his chest. He sucked in a ragged breath, but then he looked down, and the moonlight showed the dark smears of blood against the white of her thigh.
Virgin’s blood. He had taken what did not belong to him, what should have belonged to her husband.
“I am sorry”, he said again, softly, tracing the smear lightly with his finger. And he was. In his all-consuming need for her, he hadn’t even taken the time for her pleasure. It was the least he could have done. He had been completely lost in a primitive drive to mate, to claim, to possess.
“Why are you sorry?”
He raised a hand to caress her cheek. “This can’t be, between you and me… it can’t be.” It ripped his heart out to say those words.
“Why, Ceann?” she asked in a whisper.
“I made a vow. When I found out… I made a vow. I won’t marry. I won’t bring another the sorrow I’ve had to bear.” He turned away from her to stare at the sky, as if all had been said with those few words.
Stubborn man. “Who did you vow this to?”
“Myself.”
“Ah. Well, then it’s a vow that will be easy enough to break, should you want to.” She drew her hand over his chest, lazily caressing him, running her thumb over his nipple.
His breath quickened. “I won’t. I’ve… made up my mind. A long time ago. Nothing has changed.”
But she had felt the power she held over him. It would not take her long to learn to wield it like the finest sword. She wanted to stay with him, care for him… love him. He would be hers, even if she had to tame him first, gentle the fierce warrior to her touch. The image made her smile.
“I don’t care about your vow, Ceann. I only want you. Take me, claim me, make me yours in truth. If it’s children you’re worried about, we can adopt as many as you’d like as our own…”
He drew in a long breath, but then shook his head. “No. I… No.”
She drew her thigh slowly up the length of his leg, and leaned closer to place little kisses just below his ear, while her hand slid lower across his stomach until her fingers grazed the tip of him. He was already hard again.
“Then make love to me, one more time… one last time, if that’s all you’ll give me.”
He groaned as his most primitive instincts fought with his conscious, tearing him apart.
Her touch felt so good on his bare skin, soothing him, arousing him.
When her hand closed around him, instinct won, and he was again mindless with desire for her.
He covered her mouth with his, as hungry for her as if it had been a year, instead of minutes, since he had taken her last. But this time he forced himself to hold back.
The least he could do after taking her maidenhead was to show her how a man could use his body to bring pleasure to a woman.
In truth, the very thought of pleasuring Ella made him crave her with an even greater intensity than before.
He caressed and teased her with his hands and mouth until she panted and writhed beneath him.
This would be the last time he ever took her, and he at least wanted to leave her with memories of pleasure, not of pain.
He wanted to scream with the intensity of it all, he wanted to take her again and again until the emotions and the desire swirling inside of him finally subsided.
He had never dreamed that such as this existed.