Chapter 17 Tierney
“The blankets are clean.” Ramsay stood and began removing his supplies from the bed. “You can get under it. I’ll take one of the bunks.”
A few minutes later, I’d kicked off my boots and gotten under the blanket.
It might have been clean, but it smelled a little damp, like it had been changed a good few weeks before.
I curled into a ball on my side and squeezed my eyes closed, trying not to think about how freaking cold it was now that the storm was raging around us.
“It’s blowin’ a hooley out there,” Ramsay muttered, moving around the room.
“What does that mean?”
“Windy,” he replied succinctly. “Will I turn off the lamp?”
My eyes flew open. “No! I mean … please don’t.”
He didn’t respond to that, but he also didn’t turn off the lamp. I closed my eyes and heard creaking as Ramsay got into the lower bunk bed.
I tried to sleep, but my feet were like ice, and I couldn’t rid myself of the chill. Shivering, I curled tighter into a ball, pulling the blanket up around my ears. My teeth chittered.
“You all right over there, Silver?”
I jolted at Ramsay’s question; I thought he’d be long asleep. “I … I c-can’t g-get warm.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Do you want me to sleep in there with you? For body heat?”
The funny thing is, if any other guy had offered to do that, I would have known they were using the situation as an excuse to get in bed with me. Not Ramsay McRae.
I knew he genuinely was only offering his body heat.
“Yes,” I bit out. Pride be damned. I was freezing.
Turning around, I watched him as he unfolded his large body from the small bunk bed and got up. He didn’t hesitate or overthink things. Ramsay pulled back the blanket and slid into the bed.
“I’m going to hug you,” I warned him as he settled down next to me.
His chuckle was almost enough to warm me as he raised his arm in invitation and I moved into him. He hissed. “Your nose is like ice, woman,” he complained as I nuzzled my cold face into his throat.
My arms wrapped around his strong torso and I sank fully into his hard body as his arms pulled me tight.
Safe.
That was the word that clanged through my mind.
For the first time since my parents died, I felt safe.
Emotion clogged my throat and I swallowed hard, trying to focus on Ramsay’s heat and not on my emotional reaction to him.
“You’re so warm,” I whispered, lifting my head from his throat to look at him.
He peered down at me in the dim light of the solar lamp.
“I’ve always run a wee bit hotter than normal,” he murmured.
I grinned. “You are very hot.”
Ramsay’s lips twitched. “Are you going to use this situation as an excuse to flirt with me, Silver?”
“Are you really opposed to it?” I teased.
“Go to sleep,” he ordered instead.
“I will …” I held my breath, my heart suddenly pounding in my ears as bravery took over me. “If you tell me you’re not attracted to me too.”
Considering I was totally opening myself up to painful rejection, I stiffened with anticipation in his arms.
Ramsay searched my face, his hold on me tightening ever so slightly. “I can’t tell you that.”
I sucked in a breath, shivering with aroused triumph.
My gaze dropped to his mouth, surrounded by that trim beard. Slowly, slowly enough to give him time to object, I moved my head toward his. My breathing shallowed as the storm raging outside fell away and it was only me and Ramsay McRae.
A man I’d wanted to kiss from almost the moment we’d met.
The space between us disappeared and finally, eventually, my lips touched his. Just a tingling, tentative brush of mouth against mouth. His beard tickled my chin. I shivered again but not with the cold as I pulled back ever so slightly to look into his eyes.
He stared back.
Not objecting.
Waiting.
I held his gaze as I brushed my lips over his again.
His hands flattened against my lower back, fingertips putting a little pressure on me.
Not pushing me away.
He watched me with that intense stare as I whispered my lips over his again and arousal flushed through me, tingles of need exploding between my thighs.
From a barely there kiss.
My breathing turned jagged, and he pressed me closer.
This time when I brushed my mouth over his, I let my tongue touch his lips.
Suddenly I was on my back, his weight over me as he slammed his mouth over mine.
His tongue pushed into my mouth, licking mine in a kiss that had gone from barely there to full-on erotic. Ramsay McRae kissed me like he wanted to fuck me.
I groaned, my fingers sliding into his hair to pull him deeper, to kiss him back as thoroughly as he kissed me. My thighs parted, inviting him between them.
The hard heat of his arousal pushed against me, and I moaned as a flood of wet dampened my underwear. I’d never been this turned on in my life.
Ramsay ripped his mouth from mine, his breathing ragged as he gaped at me, shocked.
“Don’t stop.”
“Too complicated,” he muttered, even as he glowered at my swollen mouth like he wanted to taste me again.
“I don’t want complicated either,” I said. “I … I want … an escape.”
“You promise?” He searched my eyes. “You promise you understand what this is? And what it isn’t?”
“I do.” My chest heaved with excitement. “Please.”
Ramsay bowed his head, taking a deep, ragged breath. “Not here.”
No!
“Ramsay …”
He lifted his head. “I’m not fucking you in this bed.”
Frustration ripped through me. “Then you’re going to have to bear witness to me getting myself off because I’m about to explode over here.”
I was just as surprised as he was by my forthright words.
His lips curled at the corners. “I think I can help you out with that.”
Shivering with want, I let out a sigh of relief as he tugged at the button on my jeans. My hips undulated into him as he pulled down the zipper and my belly rippled with anticipation at the feel of those calloused fingertips on my skin.
My hands curled into his shirt, tightening around the fabric as he dove beneath my underwear and hit wet.
Ramsay grunted, tensing against me. “You’re fucking soaked, woman.”
“Mmm.” I arched my hips eagerly.
“From a kiss?” He pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth as his fingers found my swollen clit.
“I want you,” I had no shame in admitting.
His groan filled my ears a second before it rumbled down my throat as he crushed his mouth over mine. He kissed me like it would be the last time. Thoroughly, hungrily. Fucking me with his mouth as his thumb rubbed over the slickened bundle of nerves between my legs.
The scent, feel, and sound of him overwhelmed my senses, and it didn’t take long for the tension coiling inside me to build toward its breaking point.
I broke our kiss to pant, “I’m going to come.”
“I want to feel it,” he purred as he traveled downward to push inside me. His fingers were so thick, I could only imagine what his cock would feel like.
The very thought sent me over the edge and my orgasm ripped through me, my inner muscles clenching and unclenching around him as he finger-fucked me.
“Silver,” Ramsay growled against my lips, murmuring my nickname over and over as he thrust in and out while I continued to shudder around them.
Eventually when my body stopped shaking from my climax, he gently removed his hand from my underwear. I reached for him through his jeans, his arousal straining his zipper. But he covered my hands.
“Not here.” He pulled me into his arms, settling my leg over his hip so we were as close as two people could get without him being inside me.
His hard-on pushed between my legs, renewing those tingles of lust. At my confusion, he tipped my chin to hold my gaze.
“I can wait. When we get back to Glenvulin, I will feel that tight pussy of yours come around my cock. But for now, sleep.”
I flushed at his blunt dirty talk, my body deciding for me that I liked it. “You’re hard,” I whispered the obvious.
“It’ll settle eventually. Sleep.” He pressed my head to his chest, and I snuggled against him, arching closer.
He grunted but said no more.
Within seconds, I was asleep in his arms.