Chapter Nine #7
“Aye. A message I had no need to receive. Why would I stray from you?” he whispered, pushing back the fabric to reveal my breasts fully.
“Why would I stray from this?” His breath fractured into uneven rasps.
“You have no idea what you do to me, lass. I am consumed, in fact, by my desire to prove myself to you. ’Tis all I care to do.
You have recited my speech back to me, but you forgot the most important part.
Remember this—that I would hope, more now than ever before, that you might learn to trust me.
” He bent over me, taking a nipple into his mouth, sucking strongly and grazing the sensitive flesh with his teeth, inciting a wash of feeling so intense I moaned aloud.
Despite my body’s wild response to him, which it seemed I could do nothing to tone down, my anger still clung to my earlier suspicions.
But his words, his mouth and his earnest promises began to allay my resentment, smoothing it.
I remembered that part of his speech, aye.
I would hope that you might trust me, eventually.
I am confident that I can win your invitation.
I felt in that moment that I could trust him.
That he didn’t want to stray from me. That he wouldn’t force me, but inspire me.
It was an unspeakable relief to me not to feel threatened by him, and I could acknowledge that it was, in the wake of my abusive upbringing, a new sentiment: the absence of danger.
I realized that he had known this about me.
It was clever of him, to make his oath and to allow me time to adjust to him.
His plan was working. This knowledge lit an unexpected little blaze of curiosity in me.
I did believe him. And I felt desperately inclined to invite him, despite my better judgment.
Oddly, I felt the urge to test him in some way; in what way, I wasn’t entirely sure.
His mouth released my swollen nipple, but he continued to lick at it, to tease my aching flesh with his tongue.
He moved lazily to my other breast, feasting on me as if I were a lavish buffet.
I arched to him, offering myself to his hunger.
Plumping my breast with his hand, he eased the tip into the greedy heat of his mouth.
I moaned again, his name. I twirled my fingers through his thick hair, holding his head as I writhed beneath him.
He chuckled at my feverish reaction, moving his mouth up to kiss my neck, biting gently. “Does this mean my wife is no longer angry at me?” he mused. “Nor terrified of me?”
At that, I couldn’t suppress a light smile. Aye, for now. All hesitations had been dulled by the billowing urges of my body under his expert advances.
“Or is this your way of escaping my wrath?” he said, his tone still gentle, teasing. His fingers glided and explored. His face was above mine, and his expression was serious and intent despite his playful tone.
“Which wrath?” I asked quietly. “Are you angry because I could not get my clan members to do as you asked?”
“Aye,” he said. “Very angry indeed.”
“‘Very angry indeed,’” I mimicked in a hushed whisper, my heart beating in an up-tempo.
“How shall I teach you that you no longer need to fear anyone?” he said. “Not them. Not me. I do think you’re learning, lass. Already you’re gaining confidence.”
Aye. Here, with him, I could push all the treachery and abuse at the hands of my father and his henchmen out of my mind.
In Kade’s presence, I felt safer and more daring than I had in a very long time.
I grasped a handful of his hair, tugging gently, pulling him closer, so our lips were almost touching. But he held himself in place.
“I did make a promise to you, wife,” he said quietly.
“It may very well kill me to keep my word, aye, and I’ll soon retreat to the loch to have an exceedingly cold swim.
” He gave me a wry smile. “But, alas, my word is my law. It seems I have a growing list of reasons to prove to you that I am trustworthy, and honorable,” he said, repeating the word with emphasis, echoing my earlier reservations.
He sat up, still astride me. His roughened fingers idly wandered the low line of my dress where the buttons were still fastened, touching the skin of my stomach.
Shamelessly, I wished he would rip the buttons open.
I wished he would run his hands lower, and lower still.
Curse his word and his law. I reached up to finger one of the leather straps that crisscrossed his chest, tracing the outline of a leather pouch that carried a sharpened circular blade.
The fire he had introduced within me was now having its way with me, and quite insistently.
I let my fingers trace lower, to the bone-handled knife that hung at his hip, fingering the smooth, worn surface lightly in swirling circles.
Kade watched me do this. And in this relaxed, aroused state of mind, he looked more handsome than I’d ever seen him.
In a daring move, I drew the heavy knife from its scabbard and held it up, where it caught the light with dramatic effect. Without design, I was issuing him an unspoken invitation. To shred my clothing, as he had done before.
He contemplated his knife with cool regard. With careful force, he took the knife from my hands and placed it with the other weapons he had laid to the side.
Kade placed his hands on either side of me, supporting himself with his arms as he laid his body over mine, barely touching me.
He was covered in blood and dirt, but I barely noticed; I, too, was dirtied, my dress muddied and my skin covered with a damp mist. His hair fell in a thick, satiny curtain around our faces.
The scent of him was as I remembered it from our very first encounter in the secret garden: spiced and sensual, unruly with undiluted masculinity.
I weaved my fingers into his hair, pulling him to me.
Reaching up to tentatively touch my mouth to his, I kissed him softly, delicately tasting his lips with my tongue.
He let out a low oath, as though surprised by the intensity of his own reaction, and he returned the kiss, so tender and sweet I felt I was melting from the inside out.
This big, rugged warrior had the most wicked, inviting mouth.
His tongue played my own, searching and tasting.
His lips nipped and ate at mine with such beguiling, captivating allure that I succumbed entirely to his unyielding demand, opening to him, wanting anything of him he would give.
He deepened the kiss, and I could not help responding to the potent coercion of his tongue, which flicked bolts of flowering warmth to the sensitive tips of my breasts and lower, to the smoldering fire at the innermost points of my body.
My body felt alive and hungry. For him and only him.
As Kade kissed me, he increased the pressure and the measured pace of the profound contact between our pressed-together bodies, where the hardness of him rubbed between my legs.
Already, I could feel the assuaging effects of his kisses.
My body was softening and moistening to cradle the rigidity of him in an astoundingly intimate way.
I felt open and flushed. And the sensations that leaped through my being every time he rocked himself against my most sensitive place were relentless, searing me with pleasure.
His body was so hard, so big. So persuasive.
Yet so gentle. So sensitive to my hesitations that he swept them aside entirely.
With each roll of movement, the delicate trigger where he pressed against me spiked with decadent sensuality, gaining momentum.
With divine deliberation, he continued this delicious torture, until the melting rush rose to such heights I felt as though I was about to float off an invisible ledge.
And I wanted to reach this exquisite precipice as I’d never wanted anything in my life.
I moaned into his mouth, arching into him, rocking my body against his in a dueling rhythm.
He drew my tongue into his mouth, pinching my nipple between two fingers and driving against me all at once.
And there it was. The overload of feeling held for a white-hot moment, riding an excruciating swell.
And then, the severe pleasure erupted in a violent surge of ecstasy so extreme that I might have blacked out for a moment, or drifted on a cloud of manic pleasure.
The innermost muscles of my core clenched in rolling, sultry bursts that found me crying out with each one.
I was a quivering mess, my hands coiled in his hair and his shirt, my body convulsing with rapture.
He continued to kiss me and rock himself against me, coaxing the waves further while he absorbed the sounds I made, until finally I grew limp with the extent of my own release.
After a time, Kade straightened his arms slightly, raising himself off me, holding himself above me.
The expression on his face was a mixture of smug amusement and mild agitation.
His face was flushed as though from strenuous activity, and his pale irises had been all but consumed by the inner blackness, making his eyes unusually dark.
“Responsive is hardly an apt description of my lovely wife,” he said blithely.
“Oh, that I could spend the evening eliciting a dozen more responses from you. But I’m afraid we’ve other matters to attend to first.”