Chapter 22
22
I f Neil didn’t stop looking at her every few moments, she was certain that she would go insane. One course started to blend into the other as her hunger for food was rapidly turning into a hunger for something else entirely.
She clenched her thighs together, trying to forget the feel of his length pressed against her sex because she was supposed to still be cross with him. He hadn’t apologized, he hadn’t explained, and he seemed to have absolutely no intention of doing either. All the more reason to stay angry with him.
And yet…
His hand fell to his lap, sliding under the table until he could graze the outside of her thigh, and she nearly choked on the wine she was sipping. It took her a full moment to swat his hand away, and the cocky bastard actually had the nerve to laugh at her.
She was about to slap his thigh for good measure when he leaned in, his breath warm against her ear as he spoke, “Our carriage… in ten minutes.”
It was as if her mind had suddenly gone blank and she was no longer able to think or process information. Her mouth was uncomfortably dry as she asked, “What does that mean?”
Neil smirked and finished off his whiskey. “Have ye forgotten me rule already, wife of mine?”
Damn her for blushing. She wanted to hide her face away so that he wouldn’t know how quickly his words affected her, but it was useless. She could try and deny it, hide it all she liked, but the damage was already done.
He pushed away from the table and muttered something to Arthur that she couldn’t hear before excusing himself.
Ceana could no longer see the room around her. The dull roar of conversation and the clinking of cutlery faded away into nothing. All she could focus on was counting down the minutes in her head. Ten minutes, he said.
She was a fool for feeling excited.
She ought to make him wait, or she should just not go at all. But that would be more of a punishment for herself at this rate than it would be for him, and she knew it. She had no reason to be so excited when he was likely just going to get her all worked up and then leave her high and dry.
And yet the minute her ten-minute count was up, she pushed away from the table and headed out of the hall. She didn’t care who saw her or how rude they must have thought she was. She practically ran toward the line of carriages and only stopped when she knew that her footsteps would be heard. She had enough self-respect not to seem too eager. At least, she was trying not to.
She lifted her hand to knock on the carriage door, and felt foolish. Why would she knock on her own carriage?
But before she could open the door, Neil did it for her. He looked… disheveled. His shirt was untucked, the strings loosened as he sat there, watching her expectantly. Her heart started thundering in her chest as she climbed inside and closed the door behind her. Words hung on the tip of her tongue, but before she could utter a single one, Neil pounced.
His large hands cupped her face, his thumbs brushing over her temples before he kissed her. It wasn’t the explorative kiss they had shared before in the forest. This was something else—something more . This was hunger and need and everything that he didn’t seem capable of saying with his words but he absolutely said with his lips.
Damn her, but she melted at his touch.
Neil moved her too easily, his hands dropping to her waist and pulling her close, lifting her onto his lap so that she had no choice but to straddle him. Not that she was complaining. His arms banded around her, pulling her tightly against his muscular chest until she was breathless.
Under her, she could feel him ready and hard, pressing up into her in a way that sent a hot thrill straight to her core.
“I’m tired of this game,” he breathed into her skin, his lips trailing down to her jawline and then her neck.
She couldn’t even summon the will to fight him or argue or play hard to get. She tilted her head to give him better access—let him take what he wanted because it was what she wanted, too.
“I’m goin’ to show ye who ye belong to.”
Ceana nodded, her hands roaming over his shoulders and sliding into his hair, encouraging the exploration of his lips. She wished there were far fewer layers between them. The carriage felt insufferably hot. All she wanted was for him to make good on his promise. But she wanted all of him. In this way, certainly, but in all the other ways as well.
The thought hit her hard as his teeth grazed the junction where her shoulder met her neck. She did want him. She wanted everything he could give.
“Show me,” she breathed.
She wanted nothing more than to give herself to him, her body and heart. But there was still a barrier between them far thicker than the layers of her dress and his kilt.
“I want to belong to ye, husband, but it’s ye who doesnae trust me.”
Neil pulled away from her, and she instantly mourned the loss of his lips. For a moment, an emotion she couldn’t place flickered in his eyes, but it was gone just as quickly.
He masked it with a sly smirk and laughed humorlessly. “I dinnae need to trust ye to do this,” he murmured, pulling her to his mouth, his tongue running over the seam of her lips. She was more than ready to open for him, but he spoke again. “Or this…”
One of his hands moved down to her leg, then slid over her stockings and her bare thighs. He squeezed her flesh and pulled her down further, her thighs parting as he pushed her skirts up and out of the way. Only his kilt remained between them now.
Ceana rolled her hips forward experimentally, wanting to know what it felt like, loving the look of pure bliss on his face and the sound of his low groan.
“I trust ye, nay matter what ye say,” she said. She kissed him as his hand slid up to the junction between her thighs, his fingers teasing her folds. “And I want ye now.”
It was a whole new world. So much more intense than the stories she had heard from her friends and the things she had reluctantly learned from her mother over the years. His hard length pressed insistently against her core, giving her something to rock against as his free hand found her hip, encouraging her to get closer, to ride him.
It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t close enough.
Neil twisted his hand, his fingers teasing the wet lips of her sex before parting them. He slid one finger inside her, pumping slowly in and out. This time was even more intense because now she knew what to expect. And she wanted it. Urgently. Her grip on his shoulders tightened, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe as arousal curled lower in her belly. She couldn’t stop moving.
Slowly, he slid a second finger inside her, and the stretch was nothing short of delicious. Though, if she had to guess from the bulge beneath his kilt, two fingers weren’t going to be enough to ready her for his manhood—and she didn’t care.
His thumb brushed against the swollen bundle of nerves that caused her hips to buck forward. His name hung on the tip of her tongue, but she had to bite her bottom lip to keep from making noise.
“Dinnae do that. I want to hear ye,” Neil groaned into her neck, tracing the tendon with his tongue all the way up to her jawline, seeming to savor the taste of her.
Ceana didn’t know if she could do what he was asking of her. She felt lewd, but with the way he was attempting to slide a third finger inside her, she wasn’t going to be able to control herself any longer.
Her head fell back, and a loud moan escaped her throat. With one hand, she reached down between them and started to pull his kilt up and out of the way. She shuddered as the warmth of his thighs seeped into her and his hard length brushed against her sex, inches away from where she wanted it most.
“So impatient,” Neil said in a husky voice.
Ceana smiled, knowing that she was beyond ready. “I’ve waited long enough.”
The shift was sudden. One moment his fingers were inside her, and the next his thick manhood was sliding into her. She felt the stretch, and the movement of her hips slowed down to almost nothing as he filled her as if she was made for him and him alone. She felt a small discomfort, but then he was seated inside her to the hilt.
They were one. Something in her chest swelled, emotion threatening to overwhelm her as his hand moved to her hips.
The steady sway of the carriage as they moved was enough to be her undoing. Pleasure burst inside her with every rock. Neil’s hands tightened on her hips, holding her in place as he started to move slowly beneath her. When she could breathe again, she started to roll her hips to match his pace. If it weren’t for his hands guiding her, she might have melted.
This was what she had been missing all this time? Never again. She could do this forever.
“Oh, Neil— oh!” she gasped as they found a rhythm, rocking as one. She cupped the back of his neck, using it to keep herself upright.
Neil lowered his hand between them, the tips of his fingers drawing tight circles around her swollen nub until she started seeing stars.
“Let me hear ye. Ye feel so perfect around me,” he groaned.
There was something magical about knowing that she would be the only person to ever see this vulnerable side of him, and she loved it.
She tried to show it as much as she could as she righted herself and kissed him with everything she had, pouring her soul into his lips as she climbed closer and closer to her peak, the pleasure inside her reaching unspeakable heights that she had never been able to push herself to before.
“Neil— oh! ” she cried, the sound strangled as her climax ripped through her.
Neil thrust harder and faster into her, his breath coming in short bursts as her walls rippled around him. She felt him climax, warm and deep inside her, as she tried her best to keep rocking her hips despite her growing exhaustion.
Neil rested his forehead against hers and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. So tender that her heart could have shattered as he pulled out of her and turned her sideways on his lap so that he could cradle her to his chest.