Chapter Twenty #2
Hard, heavy breathing filled her own nostrils, slid over her cheeks, and tickled her ear.
Lisle couldn’t stand another moment of it.
She pushed at him, and pushed hard, until he moved, giving her room to find the stupid ties of his collar, so she could find the buttons of his coat, then his vest, and then, she was facing the overly starched, double-thick placket that the English put on their men’s dress shirts.
She tore her head away to give vent to the cry, and he had to chase her back down, so the last of it finished in the caverns of his own mouth.
Fingers shoved at the dress, making a ripping sound, until he could hold her bosom in each hand, squeezing gently.
His actions made her hands that much more clumsy, her fingers that much more sensitive to everything, even the hard, slick surface of his buttons…
the tiny, minute stitches of each button hole.
Langston was sliding his hands down her ribcage, and the dress was parting for his exploration, although it wasn’t doing it willingly.
They both heard ripping and tearing, and then she didn’t hear a thing past the drumbeat of heart that filled her left palm, and then her right.
He had a chest made for running her hands over, glorying in each lump, each section, each bump of muscle that flinched away from and then pulsed into being again as if for her delectation and adoration.
And then her hands were against his belt, and beneath the waistband of his slacks, and sliding all about and around and finding nothing that felt like a button entry.
Lisle pulled her mouth away to let that anger out, too, but he wasn’t allowing it.
She hadn’t a gasp of air away from him before he had her lips again.
Then he was parting them, and he was flicking his tongue, and with each touch, her entire body was pulsing and sliding and moving.
The feel of the heated, male, naked flesh of his chest against her own nakedness was enough to make her cry again.
This one didn’t make sound, and had to contain itself as a moan of resonance that swelled through where she was smashed against his chest. It sounded an awful lot like his groan, too.
Lisle tried to get to him again, but this time she started with his belt buckle. That wasn’t as unfamiliar as his English trousers. The clasp gave, falling onto her belly with a thump of cool-feeling metal, and then she squirmed in a sideways roll, in order to make it slide off.
Langston’s hands had reached her waist, and he was pushing the waistband of her wire-stiffened petticoat apart, pulling out more of the laboriously crafted stitches.
Lisle was helping him by undulating her body against him; going upward, then back down; arching away from him, then against him… upward, back downward. Upward…
It was definitely a groan that came out of him then, and he moved from her kiss to give it sound as the slip ripped free.
Then he was helping her, lifting himself into a push-up with one arm, so he could grab her hand and move it to the fastening of his own attire.
He let her go the moment she reached the buttons, and then lowered himself, although this time he wasn’t putting his weight on her like before.
He was in a slant, on his knees, with one of them splitting her legs apart.
The blue dress was a froth of material all about his waist, hiding the mass of him, the shape of him, the vision of him.
She pulled in breath after breath as she looked down.
Then she was shoving her own dress away, and over the side, where it puddled somewhere on the floorboard, held to her only as a ribbon of material about her waist.
The trouser fastening was on the side, and there were seven buttons. They weren’t moving easily, and she had to yank at the last two to make them give up their command of the holes.
“Oh God. Oh! Sweet…sweet, Lisle.” He was murmuring the words in her hair as she got his pants undone, and then he was helping her by slithering himself out of them.
That was putting his weight and depth and the heat of him against her, and keeping her from seeing what she was determined to see at the same time.
Lisle pushed at him when he had the pants down to his knees, but he wasn’t budging.
So she used her hands; roaming them about his back, all over the large, funnel shape of him, until she reached what was probably the waist of men’s English underdrawers.
The sound she made was ground through her gritted teeth, and this time it was one of anger.
No Scotsman ever wore so much. She knew that from her brothers.
She was pounding and hitting at him until the slight sound of soft laughter stopped her.
Lisle looked up into such a tender expression that everything on her felt frozen in space and time and intellect for one tiny, infinitesimal moment.
I love you. He mouthed it, and her eyes flew wide…
wider. Then he had her mouth again. It was as if he was punishing her for being able to see what he’d just said as he shoved at her with his face, scratching her chin with the slight growth of whisker on his jaw, and sending a feeling of power to every pore.
Heat flowed into being; moist heat. And the fire, kindled at her core, was a driving force, fueled with anger and sensation and lust and passion.
Lisle bucked her hips against his, against the thing of power, rigidity, and strength that he was denying her, and then she was moving her hands to the front of him.
Drawers had openings. They had to. They just had to.
Then she had him in her hands—both hands—and was absorbing the shock and amazement. That wasn’t a far cry from his reaction as everything on him went still and straight and taut.
“Oh…my God!”
The cry came from the depth of him, and then he was pushing her petticoat to the side, lifting himself to run his hands along her thighs; learning them, defining them, preparing them.
Lisle wasn’t still. She was lunging and kicking at him.
He caught both legs effortlessly and then he was between them, and putting such a torment of pain and fire against her that her heart stalled in place and she forgot to breathe.
“Oh…dear God…you’re a virgin.” He lifted his head, his eyes wide, his hair ruffled about him like he’d just shaken himself like a dog might, and surprise evident everywhere.
“Aye,” she replied.
Then she had to pull at the surprise and pain as he pushed again at her, frightening and hurting and making her lash out and kick, and this time it was to get away.
“Oh nae, you doona’.” He used the muscles so evident all along him to hold her in place, his hands pinioning her like bands of iron, and it was so he could shove himself even farther into her.
Lisle screamed. He was impaling her…hurting and paining, and doing a hundred other horrible things to her.
“Stop! Doona! Stop.” Her words dribbled to a whisper, and her head moved side to side, and it didn’t stop him a bit. It only seemed to inflame him.
He was making little grunt sounds as he continued shoving into her; low-in-the-throat kind of sounds; and then he slowed in a slide of movement, flexed himself to another of her moans, and stilled.
“Lisle?” His whisper didn’t match the man of torture who was between her legs, but Lisle wasn’t listening. She was still moving her head from side to side in denial.
“Lisle…love?” He whispered it again, only this time he added the false word he used. She swung upward at him, and managed to connect with his jaw, to the detriment of her own hand.
That had him leaning forward, those eyes so close to hers she could see each and every eyelash, and he was looking deeper into her than anyone had a right to.
“Doona’ speak so to me!”
“Why not?” he asked softly, blowing the words across her nose and cheek as he pulled himself a little of the way out of her.
“Because you hurt me,” she replied before she could stop the words she’d rather die than admit.
“I dinna’ do it on purpose,” he replied, using his voice as his newest drug.
“You do everything on purpose,” she whispered to that.
He chuckled, and her lower body lunged at how that felt. “Well, maybe I did intend to hurt this time, but only because of your maidenhood, love. I promise. It does na’ pain again. Ever. I promise.”
He pushed himself again, sliding back to where her body had to absorb the pain, or do something to stop it.
“Then cease hurting me!” Lisle couldn’t stay the tears, and he kissed at each one, and that sent the emotion straight to her heart, where it hurt almost as badly as where he’d joined them.
“Oh, love…so innocent. So precious. So pure.” He finished the words to her ears and went onto his arms, like he was going to do push-ups, and he just stayed that way, looking down at her, and there wasn’t any emotion showing anywhere on him.
“Put your legs about me. It will na’ hurt as much that way.”
“Nae,” she replied, but tried anyway. The act of lifting anything was making everything worse.
“Then, hold to me. Stay with me, love.”
“Where else…am I going to go?” she asked.
The grunt of amusement went directly through him and from there, into her. Lisle held onto the shock of how that felt, and then he was moving again.
Torrents of rain felt like they were lashing her, stealing her breath and making her struggle for each one. Then, it was fire doing the same thing. Flames licked at her ankles, her legs, her thighs, her core….
Then it really was clouds, and they were thick and full of destructive force, and always there was Langston…
moving, thrusting, pushing; willing himself into her.
He was making certain she knew she’d never, ever be free.
And there was lightning, sparking so swiftly into her she had trouble gathering her breath, and then she had to struggle for the next one, and the next, and hold to the man who was keeping the drumbeat of rhythm thumping in her ears, in her eyes, and in her very soul.
Langston cried aloud, almost like a man in torment, and then he was shuddering and shaking and quivering, and sounding very much like he was crying.
Lisle held onto him, as he dropped onto her, then rolled to one side, so he could tumble off the cushion, the momentum taking her with him.
While it was a soft landing atop him, in the depths of the coach where their feet should be, she didn’t think he had the same luxury, since his head hit something, and then his heels hit on the other side.
“Oh. Dearest. Sweet. Heaven,” he said finally, each word making her rise and fall with how he used a full breath for it.
“Is it this way every time?” Lisle asked, although the words were slurred, since she had her lips against his throat.
“What way?” he asked.
“Are you denying it?”
He must have known she was about to lift her head in order to see him while he spoke, because a hand immediately cupped her head, keeping her right where she was, atop him.
“I’m denying nothing. I merely ask what you mean.”
“When you’re in love…is it different?”
“Who said anything about love?” he asked.
Lisle gasped. He felt it. He couldn’t help but feel it. “You did,” she replied finally.
“I did?” He really was as surprised as it sounded, unless he’d found a way to control his own heartbeat. It wasn’t in any rhythm. It was in a distinct pounding that had quickened, stopped for a beat, and then restarted.
“Aye.” Lisle moved her free hand, rubbing it along his side, and wiping at what had to be sweat as she went. Then, she moved her hand back down, then back up, feeling every ridge and bump and muscle as she went.
“Are you trying to start something again?” he asked.
“Is it working?” she replied.
He sighed, and she rose and fell with it. “Better than you think.”
“Oh good. I think you’ll have to give this hand to me, Langston, my dear. I definitely know what wanton is, and I know how to use it.”
He sucked in breath on that one and held it, keeping her nearly level with the bottom of their satin seats, before he exhaled.
“I am defeated, Mistress Monteith. I shall have to forfeit. I hope you’ll accept it with the proper gallantry.”
“I know,” she said. She slid her hand back down him.
“Knowledge is very dangerous.”
“I know.”
“I want to trust you. You have nae idea how much I want to.”
“I know,” she said, yet again, using a soothing voice, as well as another stroke along his side.
He had very interesting ridges and bumps all along him, especially when she got near his hips and ran a hand along his upper thigh.
That had muscles bunching beneath her fingertips that were definitely interesting.
“Lives are at stake here.”
“I know that as well,” she replied, and started the return journey up his side, around the line of muscle at his waist, over his ribs, along ridges of sinew…his upper arms…
“And we still have to get to our chambers.”
Her hand stopped.