CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I pray thee continue, Laoghaire.”
Although Galen had yet to recover from their impassioned mating—his chest still rising and falling like a pair of bellows—he was nonetheless curious to know his wife’s mind.
Propping herself on an elbow, Laoghaire turned to him and said, “I didn’t know ’twould be so wonderful. While I was afraid at first, I experienced much pleasure at yer hands, Galen.”
Upon hearing her call him by name, he smiled.
“Do I amuse ye, husband?”
“Nay, you do not. I simply like the sound of my name upon your lips. Your sweet, lush, beautiful lips,” he added, staring intently at her mouth.
Almost immediately, Galen’s thoughts turned randy.
All too easily, he conjured an image of that luscious mouth caressing his body before closing around his manhood.
And though it was merely a fantasy held in the mind’s eye, his cock began to restlessly stir.
Laoghaire had responded so ardently to their lovemaking, giving herself to him so completely, that he found himself already craving more, wanting to again feel the liquid fire of her woman’s body as she spasmed around him.
Christ God. When she reached her apex, she actually screamed his name, a sound sweeter than any minstrel’s melody.
“Had I not been so prideful on our wedding night, we could have—”
Laoghaire put a hand to his mouth, silencing him. “’Tis better this way. We were strangers on our wedding night. And now we are not. Which is why I can now take pleasure in the marriage bed.”
Surprised by her candor, Galen slowly drew a finger along the curve of her bare breast. When he circled her nipple, the rosy-hued areola puckered around the hardened knot.
Laoghaire quickly responded to the gentle caress, her lips parting on a soft whimper.
Passion is the key to taming her, Galen realized, elated that he’d finally found a way to control his wild Highland bride.
Sliding his hand to the outer curve of Laoghaire’s hip, Galen palmed a snowy-white buttock. With a wolfish grin he pulled Laoghaire toward him and let her feel his arousal as he pressed himself against her belly.
Playfully pushing on his chest, his lady wife urged him onto his back.
Smiling winsomely, she sprawled her upper body across his torso.
Her long tresses blazed all about them, a shimmering flame to ward off the gloomy rain that was visible beyond the grotto.
Wrapping a length of those coppery tresses in his hand, Galen rubbed the silky strands across his cheek.
She is right. ’Tis better that we waited. Now she is soft and willing, her passion freely given.
And yet, even though they’d partaken of that most intimate of acts, his beautiful Celtic wife was still a tantalizing mystery, one which he was determined to decipher.
With that thought in mind, Galen reached up to finger the blue stone that Laoghaire wore around her neck on a thin chain. “Why are you wearing this?” Strangely fashioned, the stone had a hole in the center of it. “It looks to be some sort of pagan charm.”
Laoghaire’s playful expression instantly vanished. “’Tis a gloine nan Druidh,” she informed him, somewhat defensively.
“A gloine nan Druidh,” he repeated, wondering at the sudden change in her demeanor. “I do not know what this means.”
“It means Druid’s glass. ’Twas a gift from Laoghaire Odhar Fiosaiche.”
“Ah, yes,” he remarked, well recalling the name, having first heard it on the memorable occasion of their wedding banquet. “He was the Druid sorcerer who brought you into this world.”
“He was not a sorcerer!” Laoghaire exclaimed, as she pried the stone from his fingers. “He was—”
“A seer,” Galen said over the top of her objection. “And, yes, I know there is a difference.”
Laoghaire clutched the blue stone in her balled fist. “Then, ye don’t mind if I wear it?”
“It matters naught to me,” he said with a careless shrug.
Although the strangely-fashioned charm obviously held some importance to her, he considered it a harmless trinket.
“But if I were you, I would make certain our flabby-jowled priest doesn’t catch sight of your Druid’s glass.
The Church frowns on both sorcerer and seer alike. ”
“And what would the priest say if he discovered that we consummated our marriage in a place once sacred to the ancient pagans?” Laoghaire inquired with a teasing lilt in her voice.
Galen spared a quick glance at the mysterious symbols that covered the walls of the grotto. “I shudder to think.”
“Aye, I would have ye shudder . . . just as ye did when ye filled me with yer seed.”
Those highly charged words, and the erotic image they evoked, made Galen go taut and hard, filling him with manly satisfaction. His lady wife made no secret that she wanted him to once again mate with her.
Yea, I will rut on her. Rut on her until we are both rendered senseless.
Suddenly ravenous for her, the blood thundering in his veins, Galen wanted nothing more than to bury himself in Laoghaire’s warm, willing body.
Making love to her had been akin to riding through a wild storm at full gallop, and he was now ready for a second charge.
Acting on that impulse, he began to massage Laoghaire’s breasts, entranced by the stark contrast of his bronzed hands against her pale skin.
When a nipple slipped between his fingers, Galen clamped his lips around it and nudged the hardened knot with his tongue.
Moaning softly, Laoghaire clutched hold of his shoulder.
Galen wedged his other hand between her legs and slipped his middle finger into her chasm. After plunging her several times, he removed his finger and carefully examined the residue that coated it.
I want to worship at her woman’s nave, which smells not of incense and beeswax candles, but of my must, my tangy seed.
“Yea, Laoghaire, you are wet and warm and ready for me.”
That was all the warning Galen gave before he took hold of Laoghaire by the hips and hoisted her on the top of him.
Almost immediately her eyes went round with surprise. “We cannot mate with me astride ye like this.”
“We can if you get onto your knees and ride my rod as you would a horse,” he told her.
Still gripping her by the hips, Galen urged Laoghaire to raise her buttocks.
Once she had complied, he took hold of her right hand and wrapped it around his erection.
At seeing her skittish expression, he said in a reassuring voice, “Take as much as you can and ride as fast or slow as you please.”
Peering downward, Laoghaire stared at his woefully engorged organ.
Several moments passed in charged silence before she began to lower herself onto it.
Slowly, inch by inch, she sank, Galen mesmerized by the evocative sight of his blood-darkened cock disappearing into her narrow aperture.
Once he reached full penetration, they both went very still.
A shuddered breath passed through Galen’s lips, and though tempted to arch his hips he refrained from doing so. He’d given Laoghaire the reins and what followed next would be at her command.
Her movements tentative, Laoghaire braced her hands on his chest and lifted herself upward, her inner muscles clinging to him as she did so.
Then, shoving her hips back down, her bottom slapped against his thighs.
Galen groaned from the pleasure of it, while lady wife proceeded to ride him hard, her initial hesitation quickly giving way to a wanton’s passion.
Just then, a thunderclap boomed in the near distance, the ground beneath Galen quaking in its wake.
As though driven by the fury of the storm, Laoghaire moved at an even faster pace.
With her red hair flowing down her back and her breasts proudly thrust outward, she was a Celtic goddess come to life.
Finagling a hand between their two bodies, Galen sought out the hidden nubbin buried in the damp folds of her cleft. Finding it, he began to stroke the sensitive bud with his thumb.
Suddenly arching her neck, Laoghaire cried out his name as she reached her climax.
No sooner did he feel her muscles ripple around him than his seed shot into her with a forceful burst, the pleasure so intense that he groaned aloud in ecstasy.
Although the storm continued to rage outside the grotto, in that attenuated moment Galen’s world suddenly contracted, encapsulating only the two of them.
Nothing else matters save for her, he acknowledged, having experienced something both heady and achingly ephemeral during his orgasm. Something he’d never felt with another woman. And while he could not put a name to it, what he felt had been singularly unique.
With a mewling whimper, Laoghaire fell forward. They then clung to one another, passion transmuted into an overwhelming desire to simply hold each other in a lovers’ embrace.
Wrapped in Galen’s arms, her head pillowed against his chest, Laoghaire slowly awakened. As she did so, she felt the repetitive thump of his heart beating beneath her cheek.
Thoroughly content, she raised a hand and sifted her fingers through Galen’s thick locks of raven black hair, careful not to disturb his slumber.
She had no idea as to the time of day. While the rain had ceased, the sun was blotted by a gloomy mist. Moreover, there was a distinct chill in the air, the fire little more than glowing embers.
Turning her head slightly, she peered at Galen, her gaze lingering on the pulse throbbing at the base of his strong throat.
Although fast asleep, he had a protective arm slung around her midsection and a leg wedged between her thighs.
Curious, Laoghaire reached down and felt the wet stickiness that had seeped from her body while she slept.